Virginia Tech Football: 3 major positives from Wake Forest win

For the last couple of weeks, the Virginia Tech football team had looked better in their first two ACC games against Pittsburgh and Florida State. Against the Panthers, the Hokies got a dominating performance in a 38-21 win. Against the Seminoles, Tech dug themselves a 22-0 hole after the first quarter but battled back to make it a 22-17 game in the third quarter before FSU pulled away for a 39-17 victory.

Hosting Wake Forest Saturday afternoon at Lane Stadium for Homecoming, the Hokies were looking to enter their bye week with some momentum and they got it in a commanding 30-13 victory over the Demon Deacons that was a complete team effort.

As Virginia Tech heads into a much-needed bye week, here are three major positives that they can take with them from the win over Wake Forest.

First positive: Dominating performance from the Virginia Tech defense

Through the first four weeks, the defense was suspect at best, allowing big plays and not getting off the field enough on third down. That all changed against Wake Forest. In fact, it turned out to be the best performance in the Brent Pry era.

Virginia Tech had 13 tackles for loss, seven sacks, four by Antwaun Powell-Ryland, 12 tackles, six solos from Keonta Jenkins, and nine tackles from Alan Tisdale. They forced three turnovers, two fumble recoveries, and an interception and the two fumbles turned into 14 points. They only allowed two field goals.

https://twitter.com/HokiesFB/status/1713325284424822968

Wake Forest quarterback Mitch Griffis lasted just over a quarter, and backup Michael Kern struggled and was knocked out of the game in the fourth quarter, forcing Griffis to come back in. If the defense can come out of the bye week with the same momentum, things could get interesting in terms of the Hokies becoming Bowl-eligible.