Virginia Tech's defensive line lost another starter when it announced defensive tackle Woody Baron (ankle) would miss the North Carolina game. In August Baron's status was uncertain due to extended recovery from offseason right ankle surgery. At that time, there was a possibility Baron might redshirt. Instead he has played in all five games and made two starts. Against Georgia Tech he started in place of stud tackle Corey Marshall. Against Western Michigan he started in place of d-tackle Luther Luther Maddy. Maddy underwent surgery on Sept. 23 to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee.
True freshman Ricky Walker is the No. 3 tackle, behind Corey Marshall and Nigel Williams. It's unclear who Charley Wiles' fourth d-tackle might be. True freshman Vinny Mihota is out with ankle injury of his own. That leaves Steve Sobczak, another true freshman or defensive end Dewayne Alford, who took reps at tackle during Georgia Tech week, as the likely options.
Wiles favors rotating his defensive tackles, especially against an uptempo team like North Carolina. Given the grave lack of depth at d-tackle, it has become even more important for Virginia Tech to sustain drives that end in points to ensure the d-line gets an adequate blow.
Comments
Hopefully the new found emphasis on the running game trickles over to this week, because we will certainly need it to keep our defense on the bench for a breather. And the issue of Brewer taking care of the football becomes absolutely paramount now with the lack of depth at tackle (it was already pretty close to that anyway).
Ah crap.
Calling all 2015 recruits! Playing time available.
CC: Josh Sweat, Darvin Taylor, etc.
Darvin Taylor committed to FSU, believe you mean Settle?
Him as well, I actually meant Jalen Dalton. ALL OF THE DLs.
Have there been any reports on Maddys progress?
heard from a very good source that he is going to need a couple more procedures on his knee due to some existing issues. he's likely done for the year and they're going to pursue an additional year for him.
Could Wade Hansen play if needed? I know he's #2 RT right now, but couldn't he also play DT since he worked there in the Spring?
I wouldn't bet on it. Depth at offensive tackle is just as bad as d-tackle. Frank Beamer mentioned wanting to get Hansen in the game more on offense. Also, if he wasn't a good fit at d-tackle before, he won't be now.
Woody is out, but I feel sad.
Cognitive dissonance.
All we can do now is hope, but our lack of depth was always there, just waiting to bite us.
We all knew it could come to this.
Get well soon Woody. And next man up, here is your shot.
GoshDarnit.
When's the trade deadline? Any free agent tackles out there?
Ha, my mind went to the transfer window. Is it too late for Skip Hopkins to come back to Blacksburg on an emergency loan?
Life is never good with a broken Woody.
Get well soon, Woody. Pretty soon we're going to have to put a tackling dummy out there.
so how have Williams and Walker been playing? is UNC's o-line especially formidable?
Their O-line lost a lot of guys and should be a point of weakness. That's probably the only real silver lining.
Real talk, what is Carolina's strength? Their whole defense is laughable, their o-line blows, they have a pretty average QB and I haven't heard any news on the next Gio Bernard at RB or anything either. Like seriously, I haven't done much homework on them as you can tell, but what do they have that set them up to be preseason ranked? Obviously no one could predict their D to be this awful, but still
Williams is a pretty good QB, they have some really solid receivers, and also have arguably the best returner in the nation in Ryan Switzer. They can definitely score, but like you said they have a pretty mediocre OL which greatly hurts their running game. Their defense is pretty dang bad and we should put points on the board. All in all, we should win this game if we don't turn the ball over and limit the explosive plays when their on offense.
Maybe the best WRs we see this year. ECU and Miami are close.
Elijah Hood is only a tr-Fr but he's the real deal. He is the next Bernard. But their OL is a mess right now.
And how many QBs will we see better than Williams? Carden, certainly. Boone at Duke? Maybe. He's a lot better passer than Barnett but not as good of a runner.
Agreed with Hood, dude is going to be a monster.
UNC's strength is the Hokies' inconsistent play.
Good one
I feel like Marquise Williams is a little overhyped tho. For as bad as he looked when we played OSU, J.T. Barrett is already a better QB in my opinion than Williams. He's not particularly quick, nor is he particularly comfortable in the pocket. But with that being said, I guess he is probably the best QB we'll face the rest of the season, unless by God's grace we make it the ACC Championship. In which case Jameis, Watson for Clemson or even the kid for NC State (longshot they make it, captain obvious here) are all better QBs right now than Williams. That kid from Miami gets better every week tho. Thanks for the thoughts everybody, looking forward and have a good feeling about Saturday. If there's one thing Frank doesn't do, it's go down 0-2 in conference play
Wyatt Teller on both sides of the ball?
Supported in full. Release the Teller!
I was wondering if Wang could go both ways.
You are asking for a friend I assume?
Sounds like he's asking for two friends.
This isn't Hokiesmatch.com
Or theswapkeyplay.com
That's at the bottom of the forum once you get to 500 legs.
Wait until you guys see what you get at 15,000.
Man its gonna take me forever to find out...
Apparently one main trick to accumulating legs is to embed gif's.
Admittedly that's how I got most of my pile. But you can only use the same gif but so many times... Well, besides this one:
^ Leg-o-matic
I have no idea what the breakdown is for mine, but I'd suspect I have more from memes (many of which were about Mike London and UVA) than recycling GIFs, though I've had my fair share of those.
GuitarMan you always seem to have the perfect gif/meme lined up too. I wish I was half as quick witted
I'm simply saying there is a reason GuitarMan has a wealth of kings when it comes to turkey legs and I am usually impressed with his posts (but have a leg anyway)
It was mainly a play on "half as quick witted", coupled with "you ain't first, you're last."
I really need to see Talladega Nights... Have another leg!
Everyone should see Talladega Nights. At least fifty times.
19 legs for what you described as recycled isn't too shabby
Its the Fuller effect. Its some mysterious combination of science and magic that I couldn't even begin to describe
I think most of mine come from horse jokes. The sure as hell don't come from constructive football-related comments.
I remember one of your first posts had about 20 equine-related puns in it, and it got like +40 or something, which to that point, was the highest net vote I had ever seen.
Ah, yes, I remember that one
Man, they say an elephant never forgets...
Guess you've got a long time to think about such things while on that treadmill.
Ha. It looks like Kyle Fuller is high-fiving the ref there. I never noticed it before, good find! Leg for you, sir!
.
.
.
(do I really need to /sarc?)
Dang it, I was saving this one to try and get back to 400 legs. Leg for you good sir.
You now only need 14996 legs. You'll be fat and happy by then. Go man, go!
Oh boy oh boy oh boy...
Too soon
I'm glad that ended, was worried where it might go...
Wang is gonna be too busy catching goal line touchdowns and punting the ball into next week to worry about defense
Cant deny Wang punting PussyTouchdowns.
Dude I wouldn't even care if he got ejected from the game LOL, I would love to see that. That article had me rolling when I read that part
...or are you saying that a Wang = a Woody?
Not all the time.
Hybrid 4 DE set Foster experimented with?
If I've learned anything about VT Football, it's that TEs can fill any position along either line.
And play qb.....oh I had to do it even though I hate the LT tight end garbage.
3 man front.
I fully support this idea. Just forward me the UPS tracking number for the 300+ lb nose tackle that you are shipping to Blacksburg today.
We could use a few Hopkins on the team right now.
And Lewises. And all come from the same geographic area.
Please, please, please no more injuries on either line
Didn't we see Dadi lined up as a DT some last week?
Doubt it, if he's playing anywhere other than DE it would be at Backer.
Ricky played well against WMU. Good to get some fire on him his first year.
We get Fullwood one week and lose our Woody the next.
Bravo, sir. You win the thread.
Fortunately our Wang is healthy...
What are the chances that the coaches move Teller back to DT until we get some folks healthily? I know he hasn'played on that side of ball since high school but a 5 star guy out of high school should be s natural on the DL.
I would say Zero.
One, he wasn't a 5*. Two, the recruiting services vs VT coaches? The VT coaches moved him quickly to OL...which do you think knows how Teller fits as a DL? Three, Teller himself said this week that he didn't have the speed for defense. Four, the OL is no deeper than the DL, so you'd just be robbing Peter to pay Paul.
So....Sam Rogers at DT?
I like the way you think.
Unless we're talking quality of movies, that is.
"Sources" tell me that Bud Foster is going to suit up and fill that gap....
What was the name of the Greek guy that had to roll the boulder up the mountain just to have it roll back down again?
Sisyphus, who I believe is credited by historians as the first Hokie fan.
We just need a body to put out there. Teller is a massive human and yes, right now he plays O-line, but if it comes to it I say we just put him out there (not as a starter, only if we suffer a few more injuries).
Gerald McCoy Tampa Bay Defensive Tackle $12,732,253
Ndamukong Suh Detroit Defensive Tackle $12,550,000
Haloti Ngata Baltimore Defensive Tackle $8,500,000
That's some serious NFL contract coin tied up in bodies. Not trying to be a smartass (I'm born that way) but DTackle is hard to replace. The whole battle on every defensive snap starts with the tackle position.
I wasn't saying the position is worthless. I was saying that Teller played D Line in high school and when he first got here and isn't someone who is easily pushed around. I was just bringing it up as an option. Honnestly, I think its a better option than burning a red shirt or putting someone out there who weighs 220.
Sam Rogers could step in, but probably that's against NCAA rules to only have one defensive lineman and seven guys behind him.
Go Hokies!
Do you have to be human to play? Because our dog, Beamer, would make a fine DT. Don't let that sweet expression fool you. Beamer's a little undersize, but he's strong, he's fast, and like all Walker coon hounds, he'll really get after ya. Oh, and he doesn't know he's a dog, so please don't tell him.
My how quickly things change when the injury bug bites. Any idea how ready Sobczak is at this point? I was thinking they were trying to redshirt him this year, and he was behind His Massaponax teammate Mihota (also injured).