Welcome to TOTS Tuesday. No, not that TOTS, but if you’re in Blacksburg I encourage you to visit Top of The Stairs for your favorite beverage. Today, we’re focused on three offensive thought starters (TOTS) for the Virginia Tech offense in their week 7 matchup against the Miami Hurricanes. Virginia Tech is now 2-4 with a 1-2 record in the ACC. In their week 6 game against Pitt, the Hokies showed life offensively, but slipped on the defensive side of the ball. Here are three offensive thought starters as the Virginia Tech Hokies get set to take on Miami.
More Dae’Quan Wright in the Virginia Tech Offense
Dae’Quan Wright has emerged as one of the Virginia Tech offense’s best players in limited action this season. The Perry, Georgia product is a 6’4″ 236 pound true freshman, who can flat out ball. Take a look at some of his high school highlights below. He looks like a man among boys out there or a MAN CHILD as BallsohardFam so delicately put it.
As discussed in Monday’s write-up, Wright played 15 snaps. He hauled in 5 catches for 47 yards. In total, Wright has played in two games with 36 snaps total, with 30 coming on passing downs. Those two games happen to be the last two the Hokies played. Although his snap total is low, he is rated as one of the best offensive players on the field when he’s playing.
Is he a tight end? The staff is using him more as a hybrid at the moment, and he hasn’t been used in any pass blocking situations. That is likely why Wright hasn’t been inserted as the starting tight end.
Nick Gallo has had his struggles at times this season, but he’s a good pass blocker and is second on the team in receptions with 19. No matter what position he’s playing, Virginia Tech coaches need to figure out how to get Wright on the field more. He looks like a future star for this Virginia Tech offense.
Adding Thunder to Lightning in the Virginia Tech Offense
Keshawn King is lighting in a bottle. He’s been the biggest home run threat of any one on the offense all season. King has run the ball 43 times for 257 yards. That’s a six yard per carry average. He’s also added in 11 catches for 89 yards and a touchdown. But he’s been the only hope in the run game.
Now that Malachi Thomas is back after missing the first five weeks of the season, Virginia Tech’s offense began taking shape last weekend. The Hokies didn’t have a dominate rushing performance, but it was their best of the season. Thomas had 15 carries for 84 yards and touchdown. He looks as if he’ll be the work horse back of the offense and seems to be the best threat running between the tackles.
His usage last season is hard to make sense of. When utilized as the primary back he really shined. He played in 10 games, but had more than 10 carries in only three games. In those games, he had 59 carries for 324 yards and three touchdowns. That amounted to a 5.5 yards per carry average. Volume, which seems to be the case with most running backs, is what he needs to get going.
He is now at the top of the depth chart as lead back of the offense. I expect to see King utilized in certain sets and likely as the third down back. No matter how’s he used, it’s clear that he and King have a chance to become an electric one-two punch.
Depth is the Offensive Line’s Biggest issue
Joe Rudolph is a well-decorated and respected offensive line coach. This offensive line group was supposed to be a project this season, and it is. It’s easy to say that the offensive line is struggling. It is struggling. It is the Virginia Tech offense’s biggest weakness right now and it’s not close. However, there is no positional group that has less depth, experienced or not, than the offensive line.
The chart below shows snap counts of the offensive lineman returning from 2021 with at least 200 snaps. The only starter missing from the chart below is Jesse Hanson. As you can see, the number of snaps varied quite a bit in 2021. Johnny Jordan was not a full time starter. Silas Dzansi battled injury. Parker Clements was a second-teamer and used in certain sets. Kaden Moore, a true sophomore, was the only full-time starter returning to this group, and you can see that in his snap count total.
Former Hokies Football offensive line coach Vance Vice used a mixture of guys and rarely had the same look series-to-series. Vice also had the luxury of depth. Rudolph doesn’t have that luxury as shown above in the snap count total. Jordan has already supassed his snap count total in 2021, and there have only been six games. Outside of the starting five, only two other Virginia Tech offensive lineman have taken a snap this year. True freshman Braelin Moore has taken 36 snaps and red-shirt sophomore Bob Shick with 25 snaps.
Offensive Line Youth and the impact on the Virginia Tech Offense
Overall, the offensive line room is extremely young. Clements, who has struggled this year, is still only a redshirt sophomore in his first full season as a starter. There are going to be growing pains and that’s what this group is going through now. Below shows how these players are grading out per Pro Football Focus in both run blocking and pass blocking.
Moore and Dzansi have both improved as pass blockers. However, every single offensive lineman has regressed as a run blocker, per PFF. These guys are taking almost every snap with a new offensive scheme. We shouldn’t be shocked to see this. Rudolph will have this group running like a fine tuned machine for Hokies football in a year or two, but growing pains are all part of the process.
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