Marshall provides an unknown challenge for Virginia Tech

When the Virginia Tech football team’s defense lines up across from Marshall late Saturday afternoon, the returning players will do so with a lot of new faces. There is a good reason for that as the Thundering Hurd and head coach Charles Huff have gone through a massive overhaul with their offense and this will present a new challenge.

Marshall opened the season with a 45-3 win over Stony Brook and in the big picture, no matter how much Brent Pry and his staff dive into the game film from that game, they’re not going to see much that will help them this Saturday. That hasn’t stopped them from preparing using what they could from last weekend and game films from last season with a lot of the players at their prior schools.

Virginia Tech facing tough challenge against Marshall

You would expect the Virginia Tech defense to bounce back this week after a rather concerning effort against Vanderbilt where quarterback Diego Pavia could not be contained enough by the Hokies. 

"Yeah. I think we broke down both quarterbacks,'' said Pry. We looked at their, you know, their film. They both played a couple of games at the prior institution. We looked at those. We looked at what they did in this game against Stony Brook. It was a little bit different with each guy, but there was a lot of similarities as well. So, I think you gotta study them independently, and that's what we've done. They're both pretty talented guys."

Who starts under center for the Thundering Hurd remains to be seen as Stone Earle starts against the Seawolves, before Braylon Braxton and Cole Pennington also saw action. You might be thinking that name sounds familiar and it should as he is the son of former NFL QB Chad.

"Welcome to portal football,'' joked coach JC Price.

The Hokies will be ready for just about anything this Saturday as Marshall is coming in an unknown to Tech and sometimes that could be a good thing or a bad thing.