Virginia Tech Spring Game Review: The Offense

Virginia Tech
There was plenty of spread option and RPO-type calls in the Virginia Tech spring game. (Jon Fleming)

I focused on the offense when I gave my anticipatory thoughts on this year’s Virginia Tech Spring Game. Now that it’s time for a dissection. Let’s see how my predictions fared, and figure out if any of my questions were answered.

Spread-Option Ball

Last week, I anticipated the Hokies would lean on an option-heavy zone-running game paired with a passing game that made things easy for the QB by giving him lots of single-read throws, thanks to roll-outs, RPOs, and packaged calls. I’d say we got that.

If I’m being generous, I’d say about ten of the first twenty-five plays were traditional drop-back/play-action passes or traditional non-option runs. The other fifteen plays were option runs/passes, roll-outs, screens, etc. When the Hokies did break out the more conventional plays, it was in short- or long-yardage spots; when the Hokies weren’t constrained by down and distance, they were almost exclusively running a stereotypical spread-option playbook. Put another way, if the White offense hadn’t struggled so mightily early on, I’d bet the play selection would’ve been even more skewed towards spread-option stuff.

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