Virginia Tech quarterback Josh Jackson will have surgery for a broken left fibula on Tuesday, head coach Justin Fuente announced at his Monday press conference. Jackson suffered his injury in the second half of Saturday’s 49-35 loss at Old Dominion. The timetable for his return is to be determined.
Through three games, Jackson has completed 62.1% of his passes for 575 yards, with five touchdowns and one interception. He has a quarterback efficiency rating of 170.34. He also had 11 carries for 58 yards against the Monarchs before he was injured on a read option.
With Jackson out, the Hokies will turn to redshirt junior Ryan Willis. Willis went 9-of-18 for 131 yards and a touchdown in relief of Jackson on Saturday. He also had four carries for 30 yards.
Willis is the former starting quarterback at Kansas. Thrust into the starting lineup on a bad team as a true freshman, he did not put up impressive numbers. For his career, including Saturday’s game at ODU, Willis has completed 54.5% of his passes for 2,725 yards, with 12 touchdowns and 17 interceptions. However, nearly all of those numbers came as a very young player for Kansas. He’s much more prepared to face college defenses now than he was when he was 18 years old.
Redshirt freshman Hendon Hooker is expected to assume the role of backup quarterback. Hooker flashed a lot of speed during his 69-yard touchdown run against William & Mary, but he’s still a very young player who is behind the two older players in the passing game. At this point, true freshman Quincy Patterson is still expected to redshirt.
In other news, the networks have announced a six-day hold on the Virginia Tech-Notre Dame game. The game will kick off at either 3:30 or 8pm, and it will be televised by either ESPN or ABC. The announcement will come late Saturday or early Sunday.
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Hang in there JJ. Wishing you a full and speedy recovery.. You gave your best for us Hokies…
Best wishes JJ to a speedy recovery. Best wishes to his Mom and Dad as well who travel from far to root him on.
Tell me again why playing these types of games is good for Techs endgame?
Really? So if the injury was during the Wake Forest game or even Clemson, WV, Tennessee, or Alabama…..then you would feel better about it? The opponent is irrelevant. Injury can happen anytime. The bigger issue is this should not have happen to us during this game (Our QB should have been done at halftime!). Our guys (coaches included) casually walked into a 757 gunfight holding a knife and we got our butts handed to us instead of vice versa. We cant hate the game…hate the players. If we win like great programs do, we catch the attention of many top recruits in-state looking to leave the state, we earn more respect in the 757, and we leave the 757 as Supreme Leaders of the State. We stunk this one up and the fallout will impact us for 2 to 3 years if we are lucky.
HANG IN THERE JJ!
Having a surgical repair, should, speed the recovery process.
Good luck! Get well soon, thanks for all you have done for the team!
Best wishes JJ …
Bless u and your family JJ. U have always given your best to VT and we appreciate u very much. Good luck, Godspeed for a healthy recovery.
Good luck, JJ. Pulling for a speedy recovery.
espn.com is reporting it as a broken tibia.
And cbssports.com says fibula, so probably espn is misreporting/in error.
Best wishes for recovery, Mr jackson.
Article says JJs timeline TBD, but photo caption says out for the season. Which is it?
Sorry. Caption has been fixed. It should have read “COULD miss”.
God Bless JJ…All the best for a speedy and complete recovery
Best wishes for JJ’s recovery.
Looks like a six week recovery period.
Tough for JJ. Anxious to see how RW does.
Speedy recovery JJ