Today’s article isn’t going to be a detailed breakdown of the game. I haven’t had a chance to watch any of it. I had a friend in town that I hadn’t seen in several years, and thanks to all the accidents on I-81 North on Sunday, my trip to the Roanoke airport turned into a Sunday afternoon excursion through the backwoods. I haven’t had a chance to do much of anything, but I do want to address several topics: attrition and its impact on the Hokies, Devon Hunter’s status, and Virginia Tech’s trick play for a touchdown that was called back.

Attrition: It’s Catching Up To The Hokies

First of all, thanks to TSL poster st_andrew for planting this idea in my head with this post. He’s absolutely right. At one point, we thought this was going to be one of Virginia Tech’s best defenses ever.

As has been well documented, Virginia Tech has suffered a ton of losses on defense since last season, due to injury, early NFL declarations, and off-the-field shenanigans. At the end of last season, Tech’s 2018 projected two-deep on the defensive side of the ball looked something like this…

DE: Trevon Hill (r-Jr.), Emmanuel Belmar (r-So.)
DT: Ricky Walker (r-Sr.), Jarrod Hewitt (r-So.)
DT: Tim Settle (r-Jr.), Xavier Burke (r-Jr.)
DE: Vinny Mihota (r-Sr.), Houshun Gaines (r-Jr.)
Mike: Rayshard Ashby (So.), Dax Hollifield (Fr.)
Backer: Tremaine Edmunds (Sr.), Dylan Rivers (So.)
Whip: Mook Reynolds (Sr.), Khalil Ladler (r-So.)
CB: Adonis Alexander (Sr.), Caleb Farley (r-Fr.)
CB: Jeremy Webb (Jr.), Bryce Watts (So.)
FS: Terrell Edmunds (r-Sr.), Divine Deablo (r-So.)
ROV: Reggie Floyd (Jr.), Devon Hunter (So.)

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