Virginia Tech Defensive End Ratings In The Pro Football Focus Era

Virginia Tech
Amare Barno led the ACC in tackles for loss. (Virginia Tech sports photography)

Our position-by-position look at Virginia Tech’s PFF grades through the years was cut off abruptly by the start of spring practice, but today we’ll pick back up with a look at the grades of the defensive ends throughout the years.

PFF grades go back to 2014, and our list includes the top 20 player grades since that year at a minimum of 100 snaps in a season.

YearPlayerGrade
2020Emmanuel Belmar77.8
2017Trevon Hill76.1
2018Trevon Hill75.0
2016Ken Ekanem71.6
2015Dadi Nicolas69.9
2019Emmanuel Belmar69.6
2019TyJuan Garbutt69.5
2014Dadi Nicolas67.8
2020Amare Barno67.2
2014Ken Ekanem67.0
2018Houshun Gaines66.0
2020Justus Reed65.9
2015Ken Ekanem65.3
2019Eli Adams64.7
2017Houshun Gaines64.4
2018TyJuan Garbutt63.5
2016Trevon Hill63.3
2016Vinny Mihota61.3
2017Emmanuel Belmar60.8
2018Emmanuel Belmar60.5
2017Vinny Mihota60.5

Historically Virginia Tech has been known as a school that gets excellent production from defensive ends at the college level, and to this day the Hokies have ends who make plenty of plays in the backfield.  However, overall those grades are simply solid rather than good, great or spectacular.

A Virginia Tech defensive end has recorded a grade of 70+ just four times since 2014, but even that small number comes with an asterisk.  Emmanuel Belmar in 2020 and Trevon Hill in 2018 played a limited number of snaps (fewer than 200) for various reasons, and we have no way of knowing whether their grades would have maintained that high level the entire season.  That applies to Belmar in particular, who had never graded out above a 70 in any of his previous seasons in Blacksburg.

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