Virginia Tech went into Saturday’s game against Pitt 1-1 in the ACC. They left Acrisure Stadium 1-2 in the ACC, losing to Pitt 45-29. The Hokies came off of their two worst performances of the season against West Virginia and North Carolina. Looking at Saturday’s box score, you may say that Virginia Tech’s Football team had their worst performance against the run all season.
Statistically, you’d be right. The Hokies gave up 326 rushing yards on 43 attempts. Israel Abanikanda set a school record with 320 yards on the ground and 6 touchdowns. That yard total broke Tony Dorsett’s mark of 303 yards against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in 1975. It always hurts to have records set against you, especially ones that are almost 50 years old.
Breaking Down the Hokie’s Rushing Performance
So, how is it possible to say that this wasn’t Virginia Tech’s worst performance against the run all season? What if I told it was their best? Per Pro Football Focus, Virginia Tech’s rushing defense graded out at 86.3, their highest mark since beating Boston College in week two. In fact, it was Virginia Tech’s second-best grade defensively all season.
How is this possible? Grading a defense and comparing statistics don’t always matchup, and this serves as exhibit A. PFF grades are a result of each play but doesn’t focus on the result of the play. For example, if Grant Wells were to throw the ball straight to a defender and the defender fumbled the ball and Kaleb Smith caught it, Wells would still receive a negative grade for that throw. Same is true for the rushing defense.
There is reasoning to show why the Hokies struggled against the run. Where the Hokies failed against Pitt shows up in the PFF grades in two categories.
Poor Tackling and Limited Pass Rush
Virginia Tech received their two lowest grades of the season in these categories, resulting in the big numbers on the stat sheet. The Hokies missed eight tackles against the run, and 11 overall. The defense only notched nine hurries, one sack by Jayden McDonald and one hurry from CJ McCray.
If you consider the PFF grading scale, anything below a 49.9 grade is considered poor. The Hokies had four players with a tackling grade lower than 49.9: Jaylen Griffin (46.9), Brion Murray (33.5), Jalen Stroman (29.7), and Cole Nelson (28.9). All four of those players had at least 30 snaps, three of which went for 50+ snaps on the day. But, it wasn’t all bad. The majority of the defense ranked in the above average to high quality groupings, with Nasir Peoples, J.R. Walker, and Jayden McDonald earning high quality tackling grades.
Highest Graded Defender
Overall, the highest graded defender was Keonta Jenkins. Jenkins graded out at 87.5 overall, and had an elite grade of 92 in pass coverage against receivers. The three best players against the rush per PFF, were Josh Fuga, Norell Pollard and Dax Hollified. TyJuan Garbutt was injured and did not travel with the team. He has been of the Hokies best pass rushers on the season. Garbutt has eight hurries, seven hits on the quarterback and two sacks through week 6. It’s unknown yet if he’ll be ready to go for the Miami game on October 15th.
Offensive Performance on the PFF Grading Scale
If you take away the Wofford game, this was Virginia Tech’s best offensive performance of the season. They racked up 403 total yards. That’s only the second time going above 300 this season against an FBS opponent.
Grant Wells had his highest QBR Rating of the season at 67.8. The only other game he has been close to that number came against Wofford (66). So that’s a big leap forward, considering his QBR rating was 31.8 against West Virginia and 39.7 against North Carolina.
Saturday marked the first game quarterbacks coach Brad Glenn sat in the booth with offensive coordinator Tyler Bowen. We don’t kno how involved Glenn was in play-calling, but his presence appeared to pay off. The question is will Wells can continue to improve, especially in a must win scenario against Miami this week.
Just like statistics, PFF grades don’t always matchup with QBR rating as shown below. Outside of the Wofford game, this was Wells best overall offensive performance. If you want to know how QBR is calculated, click this link. Wells is still trending well under where he was at while at Marshall. However, last weeks’ performance against Pitt was a step forward.
Highest Rated Offensive Players
Virginia Tech’s highest rated offensive player was Kaleb Smith who had 152 yards receiving. This was Smith’s first ever 100 yard game, earning a 83.6 grade from PFF, his highest mark of the season.
Freshman tight end Dae’Quan Wright had 15 snaps, grading out as the second highest rated offensive player (82.9). Wright had 5 catches for 47 yards and looks to be the best tight end option for the Hokies. Nick Gallo, the Hokies starting tight end, had 66 snaps on the day. Gallo graded out as the Hokies worst offensive player with a grade of 38.6.
Rushing Offense
Against Pitt, Virginia Tech graded out at 75.2 overall per PFF. That is by far their highest grade of the season. The Hokies had 126 yards on 30 carries. Malachi Thomas made his season debut. Thomas led the team in rushing with 15 carries for 84 yards and a touchdown. He also out-snapped Keshawn King 59-17. King only had five snaps on rushing downs, and carried the ball five times for 26 yards.
However, it wasn’t all good for the rushing offense. In fact, this was the offensive lines second worst run blocking performance all season, grading out at 42.9. Parker Clements had the worst performance overall. Clements graded out at 41.7 against the run and 49.5 overall, classifying as as a poor performance per PFF. Johnny Jordan had the best performance overall with a 68.5 grade, and a grade of 86.2 against the pass. Kaden Moore and Braelin Moore also received high quality grades for pass blocking.
Having a good performance on the ground with such a poor performance from a run blocking standpoint, should give you hope for what this ground unit can become.
Penalties Continue to Hurt the Hokies
Unfortunately for the Hokies, penalties continue to derail much of their progress. A fourth-and-one situation with a shot at a FG, turned into fourth-and-eleven after back-to-back false start and delay of game penalties. The Hokies had to punt.
That wasn’t the only time a penalty cost the team points. Parker Clements had a 15-yard facemask penalty right before half when the ball was at the Pitt 23. The next play, Wells gets sacked, and the Hokies punt the ball away. At the very least, they should have had an attempted field goal.
In all, Virginia Tech had eight penalties for 74 yards, that likely resulted in multiple points coming off the board.
In Summary
Going forward, you hope to see Virginia Tech’s win total start to improve. However, Virginia Tech does seem to be improving in certain areas of the offense and defense. There are a few areas that continue to hold this team back: run blocking, inconsistent tackling, and penalties. Tackling wise, they are firmly in the average category, which you’ll take at this point.
From a run blocking standpoint, they are firmly in the below average category. An improvement here, and there’s a chance we see a very different looking offense. There’s no guarantee that’s going to happen, but things seem to be trending in the right direction.
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