At first glance, Cody Grimm and Jeron Gouveia-Winslow seem to have a lot in common.

Both have been, or are, whip outside linebackers on Virginia Tech’s football team – Grimm as a senior starter last season, Gouveia-Winslow as a sophomore who this spring currently sits first on the depth chart in the competition to replace Grimm.

Both aren’t exactly physically imposing. Grimm played at 5-11 and 205 pounds. Gouveia-Winslow is listed at 6-2 and 210, though he isn’t as fast as Grimm, having run the 40-yard dash in 4.7 seconds during Tech’s offseason testing. Of course, the 40 isn’t gospel for determining whether a guy will be a good football player, but still …

Both are from Northern Virginia – Grimm out of Oakton High in Vienna, Gouveia-Winslow out of Stone Bridge in Ashburn. And both lived there because their fathers played for the Washington Redskins during the team’s glory years that predated its more recent incompetence – Russ Grimm as an offensive guard from 1981-91, Kurt Gouveia as a middle linebacker from 1987-94.

Yet Gouveia-Winslow didn’t have the same football-immersion upbringing as Grimm did. Grimm was 4 when his dad retired from playing, but he was able to sit in on meetings when Russ later became an assistant coach. Gouveia-Winslow was also 4 when Kurt stopped playing for the Redskins and 9 when he last played in the NFL, in 1999.

But Gouveia-Winslow’s parents divorced when he was about 5, he said, and he didn’t talk much with his father when he was growing up. Kurt headed to the Philadelphia Eagles in 1995, then spent the next three seasons with the San Diego Chargers before returning to the Redskins for his final season. Now, on Gouveia-Winslow’s biography page on the Tech sports Web site, he is listed as the son of Tommy and Loree Winslow.

“I just started a relationship back up with my dad last year,” Gouveia-Winslow said. “It’s slow, but it’s definitely closer than it’s ever been before.”

Kurt is living in North Carolina, trying to find a coaching job, Jeron said. Father and son speak on the phone once a week, and Jeron said Kurt has given him “tons of advice” as he tries to become a starter on one of the nation’s most traditionally successful college football defenses.

Unlike Russ and Cody Grimm, Kurt played a similar position to Jeron. Much of Kurt’s advice as focused on trying to predict what type of play the offense will use – run or pass – based on down and distance, time left in the game and more intricate things like watching how the tackles block.

Gouveia-Winslow was a safety in high school and played rover at Tech – the Hokies’ version of strong safety – until last spring. His position coach, Jim Cavanaugh, said he has done well so far this spring and knows the position better than any other whip on the team. It helps that he got some experience last fall, especially in practice, when injury-plagued backup Cam Martin sat out some drills.

Still, replacing Grimm will not be easy, and you can read more in tomorrow’s print edition about the competition this spring for his spot – between Gouveia-Winslow and the two sophomores who are currently behind him, but not by much, on the depth chart: Alonzo Tweedy, of Hermitage High, and Lorenzo Williams.

Cavanaugh said Grimm last fall might have had the best season of any whip he coached since he came to Tech in 1996. That’s saying something, because Cavanaugh mentored some fine whips – guys like James Anderson, Cory Bird, Kevin McCadam, Pierson Prioleau and Brandon Semones. “That position has been a productive position for us,” said defensive coordinator Bud Foster.

But Cavanaugh has no plans to adjust or simplify it for his three sophomores. “We have a saying: They’re gonna come up to us. We’re not gonna go down to them,” he said. “That’s why I have a whistle and a hat. It’s my job to coach them up.”

So has he been blowing his whistle more this spring?

“I’m yelling a little bit more,” he said. “I’m not a big whistle guy. That’s just a saying.”