After almost an hour delay due to the now infamous skydiving accident on the HokieVision scoreboard, the James Franklin era of Virginia Tech football kicked off under a beautiful Blacksburg spring sky. The stadium, packed on the west, north, and south sides while filled halfway up on the east side, enjoyed an interesting day of football, with the White team controlling most of the final three quarters en route to a victory. The plan for TKP's spring game coverage is this initial review and immediate reactions, and then using some footage to dive into greater detail in a future column.
Two-Deep Notebook
The Maroon team was composed of most of the players I would consider to be the first team. Their starting offensive lineup consisted of:
- Lucas Austin at left tackle (note that Oklahoma transfer Logan Howland and last year's starter Johnny Garrett did not play)
- Layth Ghannam at left guard
- Kyle Altuner at center
- Penn State transfer Michael Troutman was at right guard (I expect Garrett to start here if he doesn't end up being the left tackle.)
- Montavious Cunningham at right tackle, where he should have been two seasons ago.
- Ethan Grunkemeyer was the starting Maroon quarterback and played the first half. He was replaced by true freshman Troy Huhn in the second half.
- Jeffrey Overton was the starting running back.
- Luke Reynolds and Harrison Saint Germain were in two tight end sets frequently.
- Que'sean Brown and Ayden Greene were the receivers. When Saint Germain was replaced with a slot, the first slot was Takye Heath. Jeff Exinor came in late and made some nice catches working with Huhn.
Defensively, the Maroon team lined up like this:
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