Athlon has published their first Way Too Early Top 25 for 2019. VT is sitting at number 21.
21. Virginia Tech
Injuries and youth on the depth chart dropped Virginia Tech to 6-7 this season, but the outlook is bright for coach Justin Fuente's team. The Hokies return two capable quarterbacks in Ryan Willis and Josh Jackson, along with a promising group of pass catchers, including receiver Damon Hazelton (51 catches for 802 yards and eight scores). Leading rusher Steven Peoples (786 yards) departs, but Deshawn McClease and Jalen Holston combined for over 700 yards this season. In addition to settling the quarterback battle, Fuente's top priority on offense will be sorting out a line that loses guards Kyle Chung and Braxton Pfaff and tackle Yosuah Nijman. Bud Foster's defense had an uncharacteristic 2018 season. Virginia Tech allowed 31 points and more than 200 rushing yards a game as well as 6.4 yards a play. However, the news isn't all bad for Foster. The Hokies return nearly everyone on this side of the ball, with linemen Ricky Walker and Vinny Mihota the biggest departures. With better health and development out of the young talent, it would be a major surprise if Virginia Tech once again ranks near the bottom of the ACC on defense. The Hokies won't have to play Clemson in crossover action within the ACC but catch Miami, Virginia and Notre Dame away from Blacksburg.
Make of that what you will.
Edit:
SB Nation puts us at 17 in their first 2019 top 25
Here's your Top 25 for next CFB season!1 Clemson2 Bama3 OSU4 UGA5 LSU6 Michigan7 Oklahoma8 Texas9 Florida10 Washington11 Texas A&M12 Oregon13 Auburn14 PSU15 WSU16 Syracuse17 VT18 UCF19 UK20 Utah21 Miss St22 Where Jalen Hurts is23 Northwestern24 USC25 Neb— SB Nation (@SBNation) January 8, 2019
Comments
Can we just start a season completely out of all these way too early - preseason top 25s
We did for several years in a row during the Beamer twilight years.
And I disliked that far more than being in them.
I'd rather take all those 7-6 seasons we started out and stayed out than starting in the top 25 and ending outside the top 25.
I will print that and make a fine paper airplane to be thrown at next year's home opener.
Write "21" on each wing
That is outrageous haha
Way too early indeed
Over a season too early. Pretty sure this was intended for the 2020 season.
WOOOOOOOO! WE COMIN FOR THAT NATTY NEXT YEAR. AMIRITE?
no
"No" anagrams to "On"
Is it time for a 2019 Hype Train photoshop??
Key images will include:
Choo Choo MF!
FTFH
And honestly, that doesn't feel too farfetched. We only have 6 seniors on the roster, and I don't believe there is a single underclassman who would be considered in the draft, so as long as all of the transfers are limited to people buried on the depth chart (which so far has been the case) and we can prevent last season's offseason attrition we should be right back in the thick of Coastal contention, as long as we can get a couple of our incoming recruits ready to play in the front seven from day one. Literally every position other than D-line and O-line should be better next year than they were this year, so the key will be limiting the setbacks in those two spots.
I'm less worried about OLine, more experience would be good but Darrisaw, Danzi, Hoyt plus the tons of young talent makes me think there will be some growing pains but I have been more concerned over the line many many more times in the past.
Good...
I know people are going to lose it and scream 'How dare they! 21 is criminally underrated', but I like when people overlook us....
/s
Clever. Really expected this to go plaid.
Must say, a little disappointed the crowd hasn't given it its due reward.
Bonco has done way more with way less up in C'ville. They will be a tough team next year despite some key losses on offense.
That's basically a Top 40 with the 15 other teams to watch. And we play #11 ND and UVA.
Sounds like 11-1 to me.....
I feel that just as the pre-2018 optimism among a lot of VT fans was unwarranted (we literally had no returning established stars, and question marks all over the field), I also believe the post-2018/pre-2019 pessimism is just as misplaced.
First of all, in 2019 we have some stud starters returning, along with basically the rest of the whole roster. And while 6 wins is obviously disappointing, a 2- to 3-win improvement is not unrealistic and would certainly put us in the mix for the Coastal title.
I think a low- to mid-20s ranking is about right.
I agree we have some studs on O, but our issue in 2018 was on the defensive side of the ball. I see two players returning that you could potentially classify as a stud. It will take quite a lot for that to change in 2019
You're totally right, the defense isn't going to go from terrible to great (or even good) most likely in one year. I'm just thinking that if we can improve from 97th to, say 45th, that's gotta be worth a couple of wins.
I'm hopeful that having 8 or 9 2nd-year starters will help us eliminate most of the glaring weaknesses we had in 2018.
I think the defensive backs and linebackers collectively take a huge step forward next year. The talent is there, just not the experience. Defensive line, arguably the most important position on defense, I'd rather not talk about.
We were two excellent bounces on fumbles away from being 3-8 in the regular season. While some of the pessimism is too much, I dont think a preseason top 25 ranking is really realistic.
We were also a couple of flipped plays away from 8-5 ... replacing the Cincinnati and BC losses. With the whole roster coming back after that campaign, top 25 wouldn't be unreasonable right?
It was a weird season.
There was little pre-2018 optimism. Most comments were in the vein of expecting defensive struggles with the hope of an improved JJ behind center making the offense be able to carry the team. Most preseason predictions were in the range of an 8 win season. Go back in time and warn everyone that we would lose JJ in our third game of the season, and I think most people would have whittled a win or two off their prediction.
Beating FSU and our defense looking competent while doing it made swallowing the truth about this year's team that much harder to swallow.
I guess I was watching the wrong team, I missed all the "studs" we had on the field this year outside of one beast LB who did not come on strong until the last few games...
Farley got a lot better as the season went on, he just isn't a great tackler. I'd imagine most corners aren't great at tackling as freshmen. Hewitt looked solid, but he was banged up a lot. Deablo is elite when he's healthy (which is admittedly not often). Gaines looks like a future NFLer if he can come back from the torn ACL. We were actually pretty good on the DLine over the last 3 games, won at the point of attack a lot. The issue was not filling gaps, that's a mental problem not physical.
From a physical standpoint this team looks like they can become a great defense, I have no doubt about that. Their issues were tackling and positioning, the latter is 100% fixable through coaching, the former I just hope an offseason of development can improve.
Such a key point. Farley's pass break-up technique is REALLY good. He almost never gets flagged for PI. A lot of people try to blame his hesitance with tackling on not being tough but I think it has more to do with his head tying up his body with respect to when to launch and not completely miss the guy he is going for. This will get better with coaching and experience.
Don't you think tackling will improve with positioning? Football is truly a game of inches and on a lot of plays our young guys were in the backfield missing tackles. That's what better than not event getting into the backfield on mission tackles.
I strongly disagree that Farley improved. He can't tackle is not aggressive in run defense and gets beat consistently in the passing game. I'm not convinced he will be a better cornrback in the future. However I will add that the coaching of the DBs may be falling short lending to his and the rest of the secondary's issues this year.
He gets beat on miscommunications or jumping routes, those are things that players who have never played corner before will generally learn over time.
Let's get Bama on the schedule to replace ECU
This is funny, because that really happened in 2013!
I don't care what our ranking is.
Our schedule is softer than the most expensive down pillow money could buy. There's absolutely no excuse for this team to win any fewer than 10 games in 2019.
2 FCS teams, ODU and ND OOC. VT, with only halfway competent coaching, should do, at worst, 3-1 through those four.
GT, UNC and Miami will be breaking in new coaches. A properly coached VT team should win all of those. Miami on the road might be the toughest of those three but if nothing else VT has done relatively well outside of Lane. That should get us to 6-1
Wake Forest and Duke should never be problematic for a good coach with the resources VT has. 8-1
Uva, Pitt and BC will be our toughest conference games. But with our returning talent and experience there really isn't any reason we can't win at least two of these games. We get Pitt at home, which helps, and playing Uva in Charlottesville has traditionally been a de facto home game for us anyway. This VT team shouldn't lose to Uva even if they are improved. I hate playing a tough BC team in sleepy Chestnut Hill and that's the game I'd expect us to lose from the trio. But honestly, if our coaches are half as good as people think they are we should win 2/3 at worst. 10-2
I know that it seems ridiculous to expect 10 wins after a losing season but our schedule is laughable and if these coaches are as good as we want them to be they shouldn't have any issues winning 10 games with these opponents.
I saw 10 wins and was like no way. I read your points and can see where you can see that happening. I feel that we drop 2 more of those games and finish 8-4. Not sure which 2, but sure enough they will be ones that we should win.
I want to believe that it will be drastically better than this year but not sure about that yet. The bowl game showed that we still have a long way to go on defense before we return to what Hokie nation is used to seeing. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to watch these kids grow and get better but I know it ain't going to be great for my heart.
For the record I don't see it happening. I just don't believe our coaches are good enough to get those 10 wins. I think this coaching staff is prone to screwing the pooch at least twice a year against teams they should beat. I hope I'm wrong and as far as I'm concerned this is Fuente's last chance to win me over.
VT SHOULD be expected to win 10 games. That's the expectation Beamer built. And with this schedule it's damn near a given for a competent coaching staff.
2019 is the real litmus test IMO. VT wants to field a team that can compete for ACC Championships and playoff berths. If these coaches are going to get us there then they ought to be good enough to get 10 wins out of the players we have against the competition we'll face.
I'm not convinced they'll be able to. But if they do, then I'll begin to believe that we have the right staff to get us to the level the fans expect.
For me the jury is out on Fuente and his staff. After three years I'm not encouraged by what I've seen, particularly offensively. But if they can field a legitimate top 25 offense and get 10 wins that'll turn me into a believer. Otherwise, you'll have a real tough time convincing me that this is the right staff to get us ACC Champs and playoff appearances.
I agree that 10 wins is the watermark for VT football. I won't ever be one of those fans that demand a conference or national championship every year, but given the resources that VT allots to football and the division we are in, 10 wins is the expectation. That leaves room for 2 losses each year, so I am not demanding perfection, but I expect to get to 10 wins. I won't call for a coach to be fired after a couple 9 win seasons, but I would consider those to be underperformance.
Our schedule next year is awful, but honestly it was awful this year as well. Maybe in the preseason getting FSU as a crossover seemed to make it more difficult, but we were in a division where a 7-5 team played in the CCG..
Overall I agree with your assessment on paper, but the fact that we almost didn't make a bowl against a pretty similarly bad schedule is giving me pause on the 10-2 hope.
^ a sad truth
Which is exactly why people are calling for Fuente to be fired. Or to make staff changes. We really should have been much better this year than we were considering how mediocre the competition was. I don't usually agree with dcwilson and I detest his writing style but he's right that we shouldn't have struggled with GT or Miami or Pitt. That's coaching.
I'm not hoping for 10 wins. Or expecting it. In fact, I think we'll likely go 7-5 or 8-4.
But my point is that the softness of the schedule coupled with the experience we have returning along with the, albeit limited, talent would be plenty for a playoff caliber staff to achieve 10 wins. The expectation in Blacksburg is to reach the playoff at least some of the time. If we really believe this is the staff to get us there then they should be able to win 10 games against some of the worst teams in the P5 and a super cupcake non conference slate. I don't think they're good enough but I'm willing to give them 2019 to prove me wrong.
But when they fail to achieve my certainly attainable goal of 10 wins, which I think likely, you can count on me to be calling loudly for Fuente to be shown the door.
If they surprise me and win 10 or more I'll change my tune with renewed faith in this staff. Until then I remain skeptical.
Those people are insane
Even the naysayers on TKP aren't saying that.
Personally I think some of the caveats stated for him to keep his job are so lofty that I don't know why you'd even bother seeing how next year plays out.
Like 10 wins.
10 wins is difficult. Maybe we should have appreciated the 10 wins previously.
Yes, 10 wins is difficult. Most of the time. Next year, however, it's easily attainable for VT. Our schedule is a joke. I wouldn't be shocked if at least one G5 team has a tougher schedule. The ACC coastal is bad and it's going to be even worse next year. ND will likely be the only ranked team we play.
VT returns a vast majority of the team from 2018 and with that experience and some of the talent sprinkled in I really believe the top half of coaches in P5 could manage 9-10 wins with our roster and schedule. If our coaches can't do it then they probably aren't good enough to achieve the goals a lot of fans expect, such as ACC championship appearances and, with some luck, the occasional playoff berth.
You think it's lofty because 10 is a big number. On the surface you're not wrong. But when you actually look at the schedule we have it turns out that 10 wins is a pretty reasonable expectation for this team.
Not sure why everyone keeps saying our schedule is a joke when all our swing games are on the road. That's quintessential "challenging schedule" for me.
Maybe people aren't appreciating that Wake was better than FSU last year and will be better next year.
But setting the bar at 10 wins next year is just setting up disappointment IMO. 10 is our ceiling.
Wake won't be better. They're only real playmaker on offense is gone and graduate over half of their defense.
The kid from Highland Springs is gone? I thought he was a Soph
Redshirt sophomore
Wut? I don't read anything dcwilson says, but "we shouldn't have struggled" with three teams better than us? What now?
HOAT mentioned it in another thread, but the schedule should help the team continue to get better. With the softer schedule, there might be more room for error and growth. Sure, we need to see 9-10 wins next season with that schedule. But what that does is likely match us up against Clemson in the ACCCG and then against a strong P5 team in a bowl game.
Those two games should be the telling sign of where we are by years end.
My man. Couldn't agree more. Next time I see you I'll be sure to bring some high quality H2O
Isn't Athlon known for pulling hot takes out of their ass?
I thought that was where all hot takes came from. Isn't that what makes them so hawt?
If this is a ranking of where we'll end next season, I don't think it's too far off. To start the season it is very ambitious. Depending on what've ACC game moves up, we'll have a good run of games at the start to see if our problems have been fixed.
With a 2019 DT depth chart of Jerrod Hewitt and ????????????, I'm not predicting anything close to being ranked 21st. DT is a "playmaking" spot in Bud's defense, not just a gap filler. Some JUCO players and RS sophomores that haven't lit the world on fire is legitimate cause for concern. I guess you can get some snaps out of Xavier Burke, but point stands. I would feel much better if we redshirted 2 DT studs that people are whispering about, but nope. If there were kids that could contribute at DT they would have been on the field after the GT game. The situation at DE is only slightly better unfortunately. There you have Belmar that has produced and perhaps House Gaines gets back at some point. Garbut has at least played and Proctor still very "raw" in this scheme. Those are the big concerns. the offense will be better or hopefully more consistent in the second half of games. Still questions in the secondary and at RB. So yeah, not a top 25 team in my eyes.
Well the good news is that there is 8 months between now and the next season for "raw" players to study up on the playbook and push the plates (iron and dinner) and become the players this team needs. A year on the field should have been good for enough mistakes that guys should be able to focus their efforts on deficiencies rather than an entire system.
EDIT: I know the DT position will still be a problem since the bodies for next year weren't here this year, but I would hope the rest of the defense makes a leap forward and I am only concerned about DT next year.
*Cue certain people jumping on DC's very valid points that they probably deep down agree with in the first place*
I don't think you're going to see that on this post, as he's finally come around to what everyone else has been saying for a while now.
We all have concerns about next year's defense.
We did this year but then we looked too good against FSU.
It really screwed up expectations
This is true.
I was at that game, and thoroughly enjoyed that euphoria, while it lasted.
Counterpoint: Everyone else is finally coming around to what he's been saying for a while now.
DC's always had concerns about the defense; that's been pretty well documented, LOL.
Somebody needs to send DC a profile pic and he needs to upload it. He's got a lot to say, he pays $ for TKP...but there's still just that default picture. Doesn't seem right.
I vote for a mug of Paul Johnson
Counter-counter point.
It's fairly-well documented that EVERYONE had concerns about this year's defense. Nobody "came around" to agreeing with DC; our concerns were well-founded, and the defense was much worse than most of us thought. If anyone thought Foster could pull that out, it was just because he always had before, not because he appeared to have the right toolset.
It's not so difficult to criticize everything, and if you do, I suppose you can claim a "victory" when your team sucks, but it's a rather empty one, isn't it?
Help find a positive thing that DC Wilson has said consistently, and let's see if we can all come around to agreeing with him on that. But good luck with that. I don't wish to seem unduly harsh, but as one of my friends used to say, it's a lot easier to criticize than to synthesize.
Believe it or not, it's possible for DC to say reasonable things like this post, but also to have said more emotional and unreasonable things in the past.
Weakness at half of one third of a defensive unit is not usually enough to sink a Foster defense.
The defensive line is definitely a major concern. However, if they can just fit gaps and the linebackers and secondary improve, there should be notable leaps forward in the overall defensive efficiency. If we can bend but not break, that will be a big difference. Many of the huge busted plays were not directly attributed to the line this year. Low end top 25 team seems to be realistic to me, even if it is somewhat inflated by what should be a weak schedule.
We are 10th in Basketball right now
Let's talk about the possibility for positives for next year instead of Monday morning QB saying the coaches who won 10 and 9 games the last 2 years aren't capable of 10 wins based on 1 season with 6 seniors.
What could happen that could make us better?
1) Improved QB play - I believe this has a solid chance of happening simply due to the fact we will have 3-4 guys with experience, talent or both who want to be better. 2020 is the year this could really be good, but I believe next year will be a step up no matter who the starter is with the possibility of a BIg step up
2) Improved Erasers on D - the defense will still have some holes next year, but a few key guys could erase some is the issues with the keys being Rover, Backer and Crawford at D tackle. Crawford could be really good in this scheme if healthy and he works hard. Our LB play is still young, but has plenty of talented bodies with a huge chance to improve. Rover was disappointing this year and a step forward here is likely with some seniority and other talented players to push Reggie to improve or lose his spot. These positions could significantly reduce the big running plays the plegged us this year.
3) Devon Hunter - much has been made that he hasn't made the impact desired yet. I would say give the guy a chance to develop. He is still one of the best athletes on the team, a hard-worker who just needs time to "get it" and he will contribute as he has 3 years of eligibility left. Three folks. His stepping forward will creat excitement no matter where it is - I believe he will find his confidence and the talent will start to materialize.
4) WR's - we are pretty good now with a chance to move to much better next year and only have 1 senior (Kumah) then. This is the best WR class since Ford and Phillips incoming and we have several players Turner, Kumah, Grims, Hazelton who will all improve and have star potential. Don't sleep on Mitchell as he will spread out wide next year.
5) Older players - player development is key. Some get better and some get worse. In today's world you can get for most kids who stick it out they get better each year or they don't play/quit. Sometimes kids will surprise you and go from not good to good to great (see Greg Stroman). Leadership will be found in these situations. My predictions are Dax, Watts, John Harris, Tre Turner, D. Ellis and Nathan Proctor all become much better players and maybe a budding star sprinkled in there.