Virginia Tech Football Recruiting and Scrimmage Notes

Starting with recruiting, we’re a day late (sorry) but four-star defensive lineman Wyatt Teller ended up committing to Virginia Tech over in-state rival UVA.  This is a pretty big upset as far as recruiting goes, but it’s a huge win for Virginia Tech football. Teller, the 75th ranked player in the nation according to Rivals.com, marks Virginia Tech’s third top-100 defensive recruit for the 2013 class (depending on which scouting site you use and trust).

Teller’s commitment gives Virginia Tech their 17th commitment of the 2013 class, and the 11th commitment from the state of Virginia.  We still don’t know how much of a factor Kendall Fuller ended up being in Teller’s recruitment, but hats off to Bud Foster and Torian Gray for stealing a great recruit out from under Virginia Tech’s biggest rival.

As for the scrimmage today, you can find the full stats here.

I’ll summarize my thoughts quickly:

• Logan Thomas was hit and miss today throwing the ball, and wasn’t utilized too much running the ball.  Thomas showed an improvement in his downfield accuracy, especially noticeable when he hit Corey Fuller for a 30-yard touchdown floated into the back corner of the endzone.  He also made some bad reads/throws, one of which should have been an easy interception that hit Kyle Fuller right in the chest.  Luckily for Thomas, Fuller dropped that possible interception.  Thomas was used in a few zone-reads, a couple of which he kept the ball himself.  It was less north-south running like we saw last season, but more misdirection/counter in nature.
• The first team offense as a whole is definitely ahead of schedule.  The offensive line handled themselves very well outside of a few pass protection situations.  The tempo is much faster than last season, and pure no-huddle was used at times today.  It kept the defense on it’s toes, and really did look pretty effective at times.  Michael Holmes looked very solid today.  There wasn’t anything too flashy from him, but he was running hard today.  His vision looked pretty good and he had some pretty good runs early in the scrimmage.  J.C. Coleman had probably the highlight of the day when he busted a 52-yard run against the first team defense (with the second team offense).  He caused a couple of missed tackles, and you can tell that he is able to do things now that he couldn’t have done in the spring thanks to his added weight.  He looked really good today.
• Wide receiver depth might not be that big of a concern after all.  Kevin Asante was a star today making plays with both the first and second team offenses.  He could definitely work his way up the depth chart as the season goes on.  We didn’t see much out of Joel Caleb today, which was a disappointment.  Corey Fuller looked good today too, as well as Joshua Stanford.  I really like some of these young receivers.
• The first team defense came out really flat today overall.  Gayle wasn’t playing along the defensive line today, but the rest of the line didn’t look as dominant as it certainly has the potential to be.  Bruce Taylor had an interception today playing at the backer position, and his leg looked fine today.  Exum struggled early on today getting beat a couple of times, but really improved as the scrimmage went on.  His day was highlighted by knocking the ball out of the air in the back corner of the endzone on what would have been a touchdown otherwise.  Kyle Fuller played really well today outside of getting beat deep once by Marcus Davis, but even then Fuller made the play to knock the ball away.
• The Hokies might have found their punter finally in A.J. Hughes. Hughes averaged almost 54 yards per punt, as opposed to Windmuller’s 25 yards per punt.  If Hughes plays well in the second open scrimmage, he might be the guy for the job this season.  As for the kicking battle, we didn’t learn much today.  Journell went 2/3, missing a 40-yard kick, Abbott went 1/2, with his miss coming off a Kyle Fuller block.  Branthover made his only kick of the day, a 30-yard field goal.

All in all, today was pretty good as far as scrimmages go.  The offense looks good; the defense will be fine if they can get some intensity in them; and the special teams shouldn’t be nearly as horrid as last season.  That’s something I think we can all get behind.