For the past three seasons, Virginia Tech has had the luxury of outstanding quarterback play.  Tyrod Taylor and Logan Thomas have been very good for the Hokies, and they deserve a lot of credit.  However, another guy deserves plenty of credit as well, and up to this point he hasn’t gotten much: Mike O’Cain.

This article isn’t about playcalling, so I don’t want to read any “yeah, but he should have done this or that on first downs” comments.  This article is about pure coaching and player development.  In my mind, no other position on the team has been developed more than Tech’s quarterbacks over the past three years.

O’Cain came to Virginia Tech following the 2005 season, and unfortunately for him, he arrived at the exact same time Tech’s offensive line talent was falling off the cliff.  His first few years on the job, the Hokies either had a young pocket passer behind a bad offensive line, all freshmen receivers, or some type of combination of the above.

It wasn’t until 2009 that the offensive talent across all positions was back up to par.  That’s when the Tech passing game started heating up, and O’Cain’s quarterbacks have pretty much been lights out ever since.

Those are pretty impressive numbers.  Quarterback is the most important position in football.  No player can lose you a game faster than a quarterback, and no player can win one faster than a quarterback.  Of the 11 #1 overall picks since the 2000 NFL Draft, nine of them have been quarterbacks.  Quarterbacks are expected to go #1 and #2

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