Virginia Tech Football: Pry knows Hokies need to improve in one area

Training camp for the Virginia Tech football team is quickly coming to an end and the 2023 season is right around the corner. There have been a lot of things that the Hokies and coach Brent Pry are looking to improve on in 2023 and one thing that is necessary for them to be better at has been a focus of camp.

Virginia Tech’s defense needs to focus on creating more turnovers in 2023

In the overall picture, there were a lot of reasons for the disappointing 3-8 campaign in 2022 in  Blacksburg. The offense struggled, and the defense failed to get stops when needed, but the defense also failed to force many turnovers.

Just how bad was the defense in forcing turnovers last season? Bad. They forced just nine takeaways, five fumbles, and four interceptions in 11 games. Only Lousiana-Monroe forced fewer turnovers than the Hokies. It was the lowest amount of takeaways in 37 years for Tech, which was something they prided themselves on under former defensive coordinator Bud Foster.

Not creating and taking advantage of turnovers is big in football. Last season, they lacked the big plays on defense and that was just one of the reasons they lacked comeback wins and only finished with three. That’s not going to get you many wins in the Atlantic Coast Conference, as they managed just one against Boston College.

Pry came to Tech from Penn State where he was the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach under James Franklin. The Nittany Lions are always Big Ten contenders and they have one of the top defenses in the country each season, so Pry’s experience is on that side of the ball and you can bet that there was a lot of time focusing on creating turnovers this season for the Hokies.

There are going to be some new faces in the secondary and at linebacker for Tech this season and Pry is hoping new faces will create new results in terms of turnovers. If the Hokies are going to win more than three games in 2023, they will need to force more than 10 turnovers.