The latest Hokiesports.com Depth Chart not only features Brendan Motley as the new number one quarterback, but also features a couple of other interesting changes.
1) David Wang is listed as healthy, but Caleb Farris has replaced him as the starting center. Wyatt Teller is at left guard and Augie Conte is at right guard. Brent Benedict has fallen to 3rd team left guard. He struggled mightily against Corey Marshall in the scrimmage Saturday. The twos feature Wang at center, with Mark Shuman and Parker Osterloh at tackle with Alston Smith and Braxton Pffaf at guard.
Benedict's demotion is surprising given his history with Searels, but we have often discussed how Searels wants to put together a group that can get push up front. The grouping of McLaughlin, Teller, Farris, Conte, and Gibson is a lean, athletic group that has good feet in space, but the interior is significantly stronger at the point of attack. While Wang excelled blocking laterally, he sometimes struggled with big nose tackles. Farris is a little stronger at the point of attack.
Watch out for the match up of Teller vs Marshall when the 1's go against the 1's in this weekend's scrimmage and in the spring game. If Teller performs well, I expect that the group we see now will be the starting front five come fall camp baring injury.
2) Jerome Wright is no longer listed at fullback. Instead he is listed in a four man pack for 3rd string tailback. Other than Williams, in very limited film clips Joel Caleb has looked like the most impressive tailback in camp. Still, Williams has been very good, and most of his work has come against the #1 defense with the #2 OL. I am not sure how Williams has performed in pass protection, but I would think that if the coaches had to get 20 carries from a back to win a football game, Williams has to get those touches out of the healthy options.
3) Donovan Riley is having another impressive spring. He is listed as the #1 field corner. It is critical that the Hokies have a minimum of three quality corners so Coach Gray can keep Chuck Clark focused at becoming the next VT free safety. It also allows VT to keep Dietrick Bonner deep instead of grinding him up against slot receivers.
4) Trimble and DiNardo are listed as co-#1's at whip. Vandyke is listed as full contact.
Comments
Vinny Mihota was bumped up to Co-No. 2 nose tackle with Wade Hansen. I believe Vinny was third string on the last depth chart.
the depth chart needs versioning with meaningful commit messages
I was thinking the exact same thing. Could do an awesome visualization of how it's changed over spring / August / the season. Given the fact HokieSports.com still can't stream video for more than 2 seconds without buffering, and doesn't have a responsive mobile site, I don't think it's happening.
Michael Branthover had been listed as the starter at kicker, but he apparently is now hurt. The transfer from Richmond, Remington Hinshaw has jumped from 3rd team to starter, with Eric Kristensen remaining as the 2nd team option.
If I had to bet, I'd say none of those guys will win the job in the fall. Keep an eye out for the Blacksburg kid (his name is Carson). Kid beat out Santamaria in a head-to-head competition, but for some reason the Hokies didn't offer. At any rate, I wouldn't put much stock in the kicking competition this spring.
Just saw Benedict on campus like 10 minutes ago and he had his ankle taped up and was walking with a slight limp. Not saying that's why he's 3rd string but just FYI.
More changes - with Malleck and Cline in blue, Redman is now the #1 TE, with Hodges listed as #2, Jackson and Willenbrock at #3
What's going on with RVD? Is he still trying to get his "sea legs" together?
From Bitter's live chat today re RVD...
He's still in blue, so there's only so much he can do at practice. When VT goes 11-on-11, he doesn't participate. So that second-team designation is probably a function of that. He still goes first in the individual drills with the whip LBs, so I'd imagine once he's fully healthy, it's his job to lose.
Wow! Juice as a Co #3 Tailback. After all the discussion here I did not see that coming. This may be telling us something about his pass blocking and ability to absorb the playbook that we don't see at scrimmages (closed practices work). Kids got some homework to do to move up the depth chart...
Perhaps they are trying to keep him hungry. The way the coaches are talking about him, I don't see how he won't have some sort of role on this team.
I wouldn't read too much into that. Realistically, he would only be #2 or co-#2 at best. It's certainly not a surprise that JC is #1 with Edmunds out and while the #2 spot is in the air, Caleb has showed decently at RB and has had more time to pick up the subtleties of the position.
What did you expect? him to be #1? he still is a freshmen even though he looks beastly doesn't do any good to put him ahead of guys that have been here and done a whole season or two. The kid will get plenty of snaps this year im sure, no worries. It's not like he was a 5* recruit, he just has had a much bigger impact than expected so its weird to see him at 3
Hats off to Teller and Conte pushing each other in the gym during the 'off' season.
It looks like it's paying off for them.
definitely excited about the prospect of having these two monsters starting.