After taking an early look at the Virginia Tech 2021 offensive class, it’s time to do the same thing for the defensive side of the ball.

Note that seniors during the 2020 season don’t have an impact on the numbers for the 2021 class.  We only list players who are eligible to return for 2021, and for them we list their year of eligibility as it is projected to be in 2021, not 2020.

Virginia Tech is listed as having offered 251 players for the 2021 class, and that number has increased by 13 in just the last 11 days.  That includes 35 defensive ends, 14 defensive tackles, 18 linebackers, 18 cornerbacks, 18 safeties and 26 athletes (some of the athletes could be offensive recruits).  There’s no way all of those recruitments are serious, and there’s no way I can tell who the Hokies are serious about and who they are not.  These days there are too many names to keep up with for one person unless his dedicated job is to follow recruiting 100% of the time.  As a result, I’ll begin with the same qualifier that I used for the offensive article…

The names presented below are guys who I feel the coaching staff are highly serious about right now.  I’m sure there are more.  Right now we’re in the Dead Period.  The Quiet Period begins on March 1, and finally the Evaluation Period starts on April 15.  Expect more offers to be extended in the coming months, especially in the Evaluation Period between April 15 and May 31.  Tech’s board will become more obvious as time goes by, but right now it’s still too early to get a clear picture of things at most positions.

...