By THOMAS HOWLETT
Patriot Publishing
After dropping Sunday’s Aflac Kickoff in the “Beamer Brawl” against South Carolina, the Hokies turn their focus to the Vanderbilt Commodores who they will face in Blacksburg for the home opener.
It was a close 24-11 loss Sunday afternoon in Atlanta, but the Gamecocks were able to pull away late. South Carolina scored on the first possession of the game with La’Norris Sellers punching it in the endzone from 15 yards out.
Neither team did much offensively for the rest of the first half as entering the locker room the score was 10-8.
After the initial touchdown drive, South Carolina was stifled by the Virginia Tech defense. The Hokies had chance after chance given to them by their stellar defense, but kept coming up empty.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was an 80-yard punt return touchdown for USC’s Vicari Swain. A very poetic moment as special teams was the bread and butter of Frank Beamer, the legendary Virginia Tech head coach and father of South Carolina’s head coach Shane Beamer.
The Gamecocks added one more touchdown to the board on a 64-yard bomb from LaNorris Sellers to Nyck Harbor.
Defensively excluding the opening drive and the big touchdown at the end, the Hokies looked extremely sound. “I think we got a good group and we had a good plan. Certainly things we got to do better,” said Virginia Tech head coach Brent Pry. “For the most part, I think it showed a foundation there with a new defense and a new structure and who we can be.”
Offensively the Hokies outgained the Gamecocks, but struggled to finish drives whether it was bad passing decisions, bad drops, or untimely penalties. The inconsistencies of the offense was alarming although it was the first game with offensive coordinator Phillip Montgomery.
When it came to the mental mistakes the offense made Coach Ory said, “the positive is there’s
things we can clean up in week one. There was plenty of good things, but man, against a good team like South Carolina, we can’t make the number of mistakes we made.”
Unfortunately for the Hokies, the next opponent isn’t much easier as Virginia Tech hosts the Vanderbilt Commodores, who defeated them last year 34-27 in Nashville.
Vanderbilt is still led by the larger than life quarterback Diego Pavia who led the Commodores to one of their best seasons in years. While on paper Vanderbilt only went 7-6 for the first time in over a decade the Commodores were competitive against every opponent on the schedule.
Last week Vanderbilt stomped FCS Charleston Southern 45-3 to open their season. Pavia threw for 275 yards and 3 TDs while also rushing for 44 yards on eight carries.
Stopping Pavia will be the key for the Hokie defense this upcoming week. Coach Pry stated Tuesday, “Diego Pavia obviously one of the best quarterbacks in the country in my opinion. We saw it firsthand. He took down number one Alabama last year, had a great year. He looks even better to me right now.”
While it will be fun to watch Pavia against this defense, the key matchup of the game is Kyron Drones against the Vanderbilt defense. Drones had a rough evening in Atlanta going 15/35 for 221 yards while tossing two interceptions.
It will be important to get Drones firing on all cylinders because there were glimpses of how dynamic his receiving core is.
Another key to beating Vanderbilt will be establishing the run game. Marcellous Hawkins led the team with 58 yards on the ground with Jeremiah Coney and P.J. Prioleau added 16 yards apiece. Not the worst rushing stats ever, but when the passing game fails to fill the void the lack thereof can loom large.
A night game in Lane Stadium is a tough environment for the Commodores, but Vanderbilt did find some success on the road last year going 2-3.
It will be an interesting game to say the least, and it will show what this team has taken away from the week one loss. The game will begin at 7:30pm on ACC Network.
