Five days after beating Florida State, the Hokies opened their home schedule with a 62-17 victory over William & Mary. It’s easy to put things in cruise control against an FCS opponent on a short week, but I was impressed with what Virginia Tech did yesterday. They looked crisp offensively, and outside of one big play, the starting defense was dominant again.

I was expecting a dominant defense against a William & Mary offense that isn’t very good. However, I wasn’t expecting such a sharp performance from the offense against a Tribe defense that is good for the FCS level, and which featured a lot of players with starting experience. However, the only unit that could stop the Tech offense in the first half was itself. Deshawn McClease’s fumble on the first drive of the game was the only drive in the first half in which the Hokies didn’t score.

It was more of the same in the second half, even with so many backups in the game. Tech milked the clock over the final 30 minutes, which “limited” them to 586 total yards, but they scored on every possession of the second half as well, with the exception of the final drive when they ran out the clock. It’s conceivable that if McClease didn’t fumble, Tech would have scored every single time they tried to do so. In fact, they never punted. That’s as efficient as you can get.

Today’s article will focus on Virginia Tech’s offensive line, the true freshmen who played against William & Mary, and a few other small notes.

...