Last week, everything that could go wrong for Virginia Tech did.
The Hokies, who entered the contest as 29-point favorites, fell to previously winless Old Dominion 49-35 Saturday sending Virginia Tech from No. 13 to unranked.
To make matters worse, starting quarterback Josh Jackson will be out indefinitely after suffering a left ankle injury, and the Virginia Tech’s sack-leader, Trevon Hill, was dismissed from the program on Sunday.
The Hokies will travel to Durham this weekend to face Duke on the heels of likely the most embarrassing loss in program history. And yet, this is not a team that the Blue Devils can overlook.
“If you’re foolish enough to take Virginia Tech lightly, you probably need to be in another sport or line of business,” Duke head coach David Cutcliffe said. “This is not coach talk, it’s reality. No offense to Old Dominion, because they did an incredible job, but if they played 100 times, that only happens once. It’s an outlier.”
The Blue Devils know all too well what a humming Hokies team is capable of. Last October, Virginia Tech embarrassed Duke, securing a 24-3 victory in the rain at Lane Stadium. The Hokies’ defensive front tormented Daniel Jones, who completed just 10 of his 24 passing attempts for a paltry 84 yards, resulting in the second-worst single game passer rating of his career.
Even though only three defensive starters from a year ago remain on Virginia Tech’s roster, this is still a defense with pedigree. The Hokies finished 2017 with the fifth-best mark in points allowed per game, and defensive coordinator Bud Foster’s bunch always seems to find a way to pester opponents.
It is also conceivable that the defense’s putrid performance against Old Dominion was merely an outlier, just as Cutcliffe said. The defense looked to be the same, solid group through its first two contests, yielding a combined 20 points and 296.5 yards per game to Florida State and William & Mary.
“We know that Virginia Tech is always going to have a talented bunch,” Duke quarterback Quentin Harris said. “We definitely know they are going to show us some different looks defensively than we have seen so far.”
On the other side of the ball, uncertainty also exists. The running attack looks solid, as Steven Peoples and Deshawn McClease are a formidable duo out of the backfield, with a combined 74 carries for 442 yards and five touchdowns.
With first-team All-ACC selection Cam Phillips graduating, the receiving corps appeared to be in trouble, but Ball State transfer Damon Hazelton is stepping into the primary wide receiver role quite well, with a touchdown in every game.
The greatest question about the Virginia Tech offense regards what to expect out of Ryan Willis, Jackson’s replacement under center. Willis—who served as Kansas’ primary signal caller in 2015—entered the contest against Old Dominion early in the fourth quarter following Jackson’s injury. The 2015 Jayhawks team quarterbacked by Willis failed to win a game in 12 tries, and his track record is less than stellar—he has connected on just 54.5 percent of his passes and has more career interceptions than touchdowns.
And yet, despite evidence to the contrary, the theme of taking every aspect of the Hokies seriously prevails for the Blue Devils.
“They are not going to slow down because they lost one guy. The biggest thing for us is not buying into the fact that their best guy is out, we just have to go play football,” Duke linebacker Joe Giles-Harris said. “Guys step up every week—one guy gets hurt and then the next comes in and throws for more yards than the first guy probably could have.”
The matchup between Virginia Tech and Duke will take place Saturday at 7 p.m., preceding a bye week for the Blue Devils.
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