Virginia Tech Football: 5 things we learned from win over Syracuse

Coming out of the bye week, the Virginia Tech football team picked up where they left off before their break, dominating an ACC opponent at Lane Stadium. Like Pittsburgh and Wake Forest before them, Syracuse learned quickly how tough it is to go into Blacksburg in the last month.

It was another dominating performance on both sides of the ball. Heck, even the special teams played a huge role. Every button that head coach Brent Pry, offensive coordinator Tyler Bowen, and defensive coordinator Chris Marve pushed worked and worked out well.

The win brings the Hokies back to 4-4 and keeps their hopes to become bowl-eligible alive with four games remaining. Three of those four games will be on the road, but the schedule is doable. The first game is arguably the toughest, next weekend at Louisville. The other road games are Boston College and Virginia, sandwiched around a home game with North Carolina State.

With that said, here are five things we learned about Virginia Tech from their 38-10 victory over the Orange Thursday night.

Virginia Tech’s offensive line is getting better each week

Talk about flicking a switch. Through the first four games, the offensive line struggled in the running game and struggled to keep pressure off of their quarterbacks. Since ACC play began, it’s been a different-looking group.

That continued against Syracuse as the holes that were opened for Bhayshul Tuten and Malachi Thomas were huge and let’s not forget quarterback Kyron Drones running the ball and had time to stay in the pocket to throw the ball downfield. This unit has been staying healthy and getting better each week.

Bhayshul Tute and Malachi Thomas turning into good Power 5 running backs

For the third time in the last four weeks, the Hokies had success running the ball. A lot of that had to do with the offensive line, but it was total domination on the ground in terms of yardage between the two teams.

Virginia Tech finished the game with 318 yards on the ground as a team compared to zero for Syracuse. Total domination on the ground. Tuten rushed for 118 yards, Thomas rushed for 87, and Drones for 56. Tuten had a second-quarter touchdown for a 30-3 lead.

https://twitter.com/HokiesFB/status/1717709603943612696

Tuten got his yards between tackle and to the outside. On the final play of the first quarter, he picked up 10 yards for a first down, was injured, and did not play the rest of the drive in the second quarter, but he did return later in the quarter to find the end zone.

Thomas did a nice job of giving Tuten a break and did a nice job of hitting the holes hard, while Drones did a good job of reading the defense and making plays with his legs. All in all, it was a great night on the ground for Virginia Tech.

Virginia Tech’s defense remains dominant at home

In reality, in the four ACC games, the Hokies have not played good in two of the 16 quarters. In the other 14, they have been good and, at Lane Stadium, they have been dominant. That continued against Syracuse.

A big reason for them not allowing any positive rushing yards was because of the eight sacks they recorded. Orange quarterback Garrett Shrader is a tough QB to bring down, but the Hokies had little problem in doing so. They even forced a safety in the third quarter.

Syracuse did not pick up a first down until the second quarter and scored their only touchdown of the game in the third quarter on a drive where they were finally able to move the ball and have success throwing it. Following that drive, the Hokies’ defense shut them down the rest of the game with relentless pressure from their defensive line.

Now they need to translate the success at home to the road against Louisville and Boston College. In their three previous road games, the defense has struggled getting off the field on third downs and giving up too many big plays. That can’t happen against the Cardinals and Eagles.

Special teams continue to be a strong point for Virginia Tech

If there has been one concern surrounding the Hokies over the last month, it’s been finishing in the red zone with touchdowns. John Love has been very good this season, but Pry would like to see more extra points from his placekicker than field goals.

Thursday night, Love successfully booted five field goals on as many attempts with his longest being a 43-yard boot. He was also perfect on all three extra points against the Orange and continues to be a pretty big difference-maker.

Punter Peter Moore was called on for three punts and he continued his strong 2023 campaign with 135 yards total on his punts with his longest being a 58-yard bomb. Kyle Lowe had nine kickoffs for the Hokies and he had eight touchbacks in the game.

Tucker Holloway entered the game averaging 15.7 yards a punt return and he wasted little time making an impact as he fielded a 55-yard punt from Syracuse and promptly returned 56 yards deep into Orange territory. He also had one kickoff return for 23 yards. He combined for 106 yards on returns in the game.

Another game with another strong night from the Virginia Tech special teams, which is turning into an underrated strength for this season.

The coaching staff was very busy during the off-week

It was clear from the start of the game that the coaching staff was very busy during the bye week. Defensively they were all over Syracuse and stopped nearly everything they tried to do. Offensively, Bowen appeared to put in a lot of long hours coming up with new looks for his unit, and boy did it pay off.

In the first quarter, the Hokies tried a halfback option and it didn’t work. If at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again and Bowen did. On their second drive, Thomas took a handoff from Drones sprinted to the right stopped, and threw a perfect pass over the defense to Da’Quan Felton for a 16-yard touchdown pass.

There were some news plays that the Hokies had yet to run this year and had a lot of misdirection and kept the Orange defense off-balance all night long. Drones, who didn’t look comfortable throwing the ball downfield early, was able to rebound and connected with Felton for a 62-yard touchdown in the second quarter. There was a lot of like in the play-calling all night long.

Now the Hokies must take the domination from the home games on the road to have success. These next two road games are going to be interesting to see how the defense plays on the road and how the offense reacts to being on the road in loud stadiums. It’s going to be a fun final four weeks in the 2023 season.