"Virginia Tech is close to home and it'll be good for me," Winchester (Va.) James Wood kicker Andrew Lloyd said. "My brother goes to Radford and maybe I can go there and start one of these years and get a scholarship.
"I've always been going to Virginia Tech games. They always get a good turn out and are a top 25 team. I like the coaching staff too."

Lloyd chose the Hokies over numerous other walk-on opportunities partially due to his relationship with Frank Beamer and Billy Hite.

"I've gotten to talk to Coach Beamer and I plan on getting to know him better," he said. "Coach Hite is really easy to talk to. He's been there for me and has helped me.

"Both of them want me to get ready practicing my punting and getting my placekicking down to a T so I can go in for summer camp and make a difference and turn some heads."

Over the next year Tech will feature an open placekicking job this fall and a punting job next year.

"Punting may be where I can go to earn a scholarship," he said. "I'm going to try at kickoffs and placekicking too. Maybe I can do better than Cody Journell.

"I'm just looking forward to getting there in August and start college football."

Lloyd is an extremely talented kicker according to his kicking coach Fred Pinciaro. Pinciaro knows something about the position as he has worked with numerous kickers over the past 27 years including four current NFL players, Josh Brown, Neil Rackers, Shayne Graham and Connor Barth.

"I coach kickers and punters in Northern Virginia, I train and work with those guys every summer and Andrew has come with us," he said. "I saw Andrew two and a half years ago and some kids just have a natural ability to kick and Andrew has it. Andrew is an extraordinary soccer player. He was on the international team and traveled to Europe.

"I told his father when I saw him that if he makes a commitment to me, I'll take him on, which is something I don't do. Two and a half years ago we started getting Andrew to kick off the ground.

"A lot of kids in high school have to make the transition from block to the ground, Andrew already is comfortable kicking off the ground. I'll be honest with you most of that adjustment is mental. The big thing is keeping your leg speed up."

Clearly Lloyd is a talent, what makes him so special?

"He has a strong consistent leg. He is really coachable and his accuracy is good," Pinciaro said. "I work with Division III kickers and he embarrasses those kids. He has a knack for it. When we work out, we start at the 40 or 45-yard line because I want to work on leg speed. He normally kicks off at the 30 and can put it 70-yards to the goal line.

"I saw Josh, Neil and Shayne in college and they had really good mechanics. Andrew has to stick with his mechanics and he'll be excellent too. He is one of those players that come along every once in awhile. When he kicks the ball, it jumps off his foot."

Tech is looking at Lloyd possibly as a punter too. Pinciaro gave his take there as well.

"I'll be honest with you, he has natural talent with that," he said. "I haven't spent a lot of time with him there, but he averaged 41.6-yards last year. He was an all-state punter as well as first team all-district, all-region, all-metro and all-state kicker.

"I don't think coaches have realized how good of a punter he is. He can get better with instruction and is a very coachable guy. I think when he gets into a school with a good conditioning program, that school is getting a little nugget."