Duke Football: Scouting the recently unranked Virginia Tech Hokies
The next game is always the biggest and that’s very true this week for Duke Football as they will host the Virginia Tech Hokies.
It’s time to get your weekly scouting report on the upcoming Duke Football opponent and this time it’s the Virginia Tech Hokies.
The Hokies come into this game banged up as they suffered a historic loss to Old Dominion last Saturday and lost their starting quarterback due to a fractured left fibula.
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Virginia Tech was primed for a big season after their upset win in Week 1 over Florida State, which was followed up by a convincing victory over William & Mary in Week 2 before their Week 3 game against East Carolina was canceled due to Hurricane Florence.
In fact, the Hokies were ranked as high as No. 13 in the AP Top-25 Poll before dropping out of the rankings after a 49-35 loss at the hands of ODU.
Prior to his injury last week, Josh Jackson completed 36 of his 58 passes for 575 yards and five touchdown passes while only one interception.
The new Hokies starting quarterback, Ryan Willis, has seen action in two games this season for VT, against William & Mary and Old Dominion.
In those two games, Willis is 13-for-25 on his pass attempts, throwing for 195 yards and one touchdown.
Willis transferred to Virginia Tech from Kansas where he played in 16 games over two season, completing 54.6% of his passes, for 2,530 total passing yards and 11 touchdowns and 17 interceptions.
The new quarterback for the Hokies will try and lean on his two running backs, Steven Peoples and Deshawn McClease.
Peoples is the Hokies leading back who has taken the ball 39 times, rushing for 255 yards and four touchdowns, while McClease has 35 carries on the season, for 187 yards and one touchdown.
Through the air, the Hokies have depended on Damon Hazelton and Eric Kumah to be their leading wide receivers.
Hazelton has reeled in 11 passes for 283 yards and three touchdowns, while his teammate Kumah has nine receptions for 144 yards and a touchdown.
While the Hokies have strong defense, the Blue Devils will try and limit this unexperienced offense of Virginia Tech playing together for the first time all season if they want to move to 5-0.
Stay tuned to Ball Durham for more coverage of the Duke Blue Devils vs. the Virginia Tech Hokies right here on balldurham.com or on our Twitter page @Ball_Durham.