When Virginia Tech signed three tight ends in their 2017 Class, it was hard imagining all three of them staying at TE, especially Lecitus Smith. While Smith had some potential at TE, his size and tape suggested that his best spot would be as an offensive guard.
https://twitter.com/VT_Football/status/901152657406078976
Virginia Tech announced that six players had changed numbers including Smith to 54, a number usually worn by linemen, raising speculation of a position change.
While this type of speculation is usually completely baseless, it's not in this case.
According to a source, Lecitus Smith has moved from tight end to the offensive line, working primarily at left guard. This position move shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone as he has the size and frame to play guard while his best skill in high school was as a blocker.
Smith came in to VT with the size to easily transition to OG at 276 pounds and has the frame to get up to 300 pounds in a year or two especially if he redshirts this year which seems quite likely at this point.
Lecitus Smith showed in high school that he has the potential to be a very good guard as he showed he could be a very good run blocker with great footwork along with being quite effective pulling on some plays to be a lead blocker. While Smith could have been used similar to how Colt Pettit was used late last season, offensive guard makes a lot more sense for Smith.
This move also makes sense with the Hokies having only two true freshman offensive linemen arriving this summer compared to 3 tight ends, something that is less than ideal in terms of numbers due to the obvious fact that 5 offensive line and 1 tight end start.
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