What a difference a year makes. At this time last season, the Virginia Tech football team was sitting at the top of one of the list of returning productions for the 2024 season. It was easy to see why with all the retainment the Hokies had. This year, they are going through the opposite.
Virginia Tech has had a huge turnover not only with their roster because of the transfer portal and players out of eligibility going off to the NFL Draft, but also with their coaching staff. Gone are both coordinators and their offensive line coach. The good news is that quarterbacks Kyron Drones and Pop Watson are both back for 2025.
Virginia Tech drops in returning production rankings from one year ago
Not surprisingly, the Hokies fell dramatically in Bill Connelly’s returning production stats for 2025 at ESPN. Virginia Tech is ranked 77th out of 136 FBS schools in terms of returning production, falling more than halfway down the list in 365 days.
It is not a surprising sight, however, there could be some bright lights at the end of the tunnel. Aside from bringing back their QBs, the Hokies have a young receiving core that could greatly benefit from new offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery.
His ability to have success with QBs during his time at Baylor with the same skill set as Drones will pay dividends. Sometimes returning younger players with not a lot of experience at some positions is good and that may be the case with the Hokies wide receiving room. According to Mongomery, there are a lot of players ready to make an impression not only in spring practices next month, but also in camp over the summer ahead of the 2025 season.
"They're wanting to prove themselves,'' said Montgomery. "Obviously, we had some really good players on this offense last year that had a lot of experience, quality snaps, been in big games. But I think we've got some guys in that room that have some experience. We got some older guys that are gonna have to step up. But I think we got some young guys that are hungry to prove what they can do in this offense and for this university."
With the amount of talent lost after last season at the wide receiver position and the young players hungry to take advantage of the opportunity in front of them, this could be an area that the Hokies improve on next fall. Don’t take the numbers for what their worth in February as things could easily change in the fall.