Virginia Tech football opponent suffers major loss on defense ahead of 2024 season

We are four days away from the 2024 college football season kicking off with Week 0 and just over a week before nearly all teams begin their season in Week 1 on Labor Day Weekend. It has been a grueling month of August with camps during the dog days of summer and at this point coaches are hoping to get to their first game fully healthy. That is not going to be the case for Virginia Tech's Week 4 opponent who suffered a tough loss on the defensive side of the ball.

Tuesday Rutgers coach Greg Schiano announced that his star linebacker Mohamed Toure will miss the season after tearing an ACL and it is the second time in two years that he'll miss an entire season because of the same injury which occurred for him in 2022.

Toure was recently named to the Preseason Butkus Ward Watch List and is a major blow to a team that was set up to have a strong 2024 season with the retainment they had as well as one of the easier Big Ten schedules. Last season he had 92 tackles, 44 solo, and 4.5 sacks. He also had a forced fumble and interception.

Against Virginia Tech in a 35-16 Scarlet Knights victory, he had five tackles and Toure recorded eight tackles in Rutgers' Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl victory over Miami. Twice last season he finished with 11 tackles in games against Maryland and Iowa.

Rutgers has some time to work on his replacement as the Scarlet Knights face a rather easy first three weeks of the season with home games against Howard and Akron before a bye week on Sept. 14 before their first true road game at Virginia Tech on Sept. 21.

Last season the Hokies suffered a loss at the end of camp when tight end Nick Gallo suffered a season-ending injury ahead of their opener against Old Dominion.