Part 1: The 2022 Virginia Tech Defense
I don’t think I came up with a projected starter list the way I did the defense, so let’s just look at this potentially young offense by position grouping:
Virginia Tech Offensive Line
Tech’s big uglies struggled this season. There’s a meme that got started somewhere that you can blame it on a switch from the FuFense running zone all the time to a coaching group that only wants to run gap stuff, but as I’ve said before, that’s completely wrong. The Hokies have run a mix of gap and zone for umpteen years now, so did Joe Rudolph’s teams at Wisconsin, and Tech’s favorite play this year—Split Zone—has also been a Hokie favorite at least since Fuente’s first year.
My best guess is that technique changes, predictability, capped talent levels, problems elsewhere in the offense, fatigue, and accumulating injuries (the Hokie starters stayed on the field, but there’s no doubt they were banged up) all played a role in things. That’s a messy, grab-bag answer, but disasters generally have multiple points of failure. (More on this to come.) The poor Hokie blockers couldn’t even point to consistent improvement. Sure, the run-blocking got better towards the end of the season, but the pass-protection fell behind.
I thought Kaden Moore was the unit’s steady-Eddie, which is probably a nice way of saying I didn’t notice him much one way or the other. Silas Dzansi out there on the edge always looked like he was a half-inch away from getting beat, but he held out until late in the year. Johnny Jordan would’ve had a nice season if the Hokies had only played even fronts. Jesse Hanson’s PFF grades were okay, but to me he never looked that great in games. Parker Clements seemed to come on late, so that’s some good news for next year.
And speaking of next year, so far the Hokies have stayed pat regarding the transfer portal. That makes some sense, since Tech has a lot of young and athletic guys stocked up. If the coaching staff trusts these guys—a big “if”—I could see the Hokies rolling into next year with a lot of fresh faces starting. We saw a few of them this year in limited action. Xavier Chaplin mowed some Liberty defenders over, with only the one very noticeable gaffe in protection. Braelin Moore probably would’ve helped the team if he got more snaps, but I think a decision to preserve his shirt kept him on the bench. While we didn’t see him at center, Jack Hollifield got a pile of special teams reps (112 to be exact). Last, a shoutout goes to Bob Schick, who is neither young nor athletic in comparison to his classmates, yet at least provides serviceable depth. Barring portal hijinks, I’d expect this lineup in next season’s opener:
LT: Xavier Chaplin
LG: Jesse Hanson OR Braelin Moore
C: Jack Hollifield
RG: Kaden Moore
RT: Parker Clements
Like I said a few weeks back, I’m worried about not having seen Hollifield snap in games. That probably worries me more than starting someone as inexperienced as Chaplin; the Hokies spend so much time in the gun, they’re protected a little bit from screw-ups at the LT spot, though the same gun snaps are more likely to cause big damage if they’re awry, as opposed to bobbled under-center snaps.
Schick should continue to get reps, and I’m still hoping Johnny
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