After wins over Georgia Tech and Clemson to get to 6-2 entering November, Virginia Tech came down to earth with a defensive disaster as the Hokies lost to SMU 51-28. So with that said, let's dive into four takeaways from Virginia Tech's 23-point loss in Dallas.
1. Pass Defense is a Disaster
Virginia Tech's pass defense has been a problem all season long with this matchup looking like a potential recipe for disaster.
That disaster became a reality as Kevin Jennings went 24-32 for 350 yards, four touchdowns, and one interception. That helped SMU put up 569 total yards of offense, the most that the Hokies have allowed since the 2020 loss to UNC when VT was without several defensive players due to COVID.
Even if you want to exclude the 50-yard pop pass TD that's really a glorified jet sweep, that's still 300 passing yards allowed which is the fourth VT has allowed 300+ passing yards in seven Power 4 games and the third time in the past four games. This includes a Maryland team that has a good QB in Malik Washington but also fired its coach weeks later, a Georgia Tech team that has been one of the worst in the ACC, and a Cal team that not only has been a mess this season but also had its backup quarterback facing the Hokies.
The secondary struggles also seem to be impacting Brent Pry's playcalling to an extent as he only ran blitzes on four of Kevin Jennings' 34 dropbacks according to PFF last night. That seems to be a sign of a coordinator who feels he needs to give his coverage group as much help as possible and can't afford to bring an extra guy. At some point though, you have to give the defensive line a little more help and try something to throw Jennings off, especially since he's been mistake-prone when under consistent pressure in the past, unlike last night.
One area that was specifically a killer for the Hokies was their coverage on RPOs, with slant routes being attacked again and again and again off the RPOs. What may be most concerning is James Franklin's assessment of the RPO issues after the game with Tech recognizing what SMU was doing but simply not being quick enough to execute as they needed to, especially at cornerback.
"They got a veteran quarterback who’s accurate and athletic, and they’ve got weapons on the outside and at the running back position. They were able to get the running game going. They did a really good job with coming in and cracking our safeties, and we’ve got to do a better job with crack replace. So, they crack the safety, and the safety is the fitter — the corner needs to replace. We did that, but we did not do it fast enough; we didn’t executive it enough at a high enough level, and we weren’t able to get it fixed. It kept showing up, and we weren’t able to get it fixed," Franklin said.
It's never a good sign when you recognize there's a clear issue, know what the issue is, and still are unable to find a solution. Much of that is likely the fact that Tech's cornerback room is not very good and that the coaching of that unit is subpar. Whether it's more on the coaching side or the talent remains unclear, though the coaching part definitely appears to not be living up to Franklin's expectations given his own admission of VT's failure to get it fixed.
The bad news for the Hokies is that they still have two more productive passers remaining in Stanford's Davis Warren and Miami's Darian Mensah. Stanford has been subpar overall and poor away from home but their passing attack could make what should be a rout a game where the outcome is in doubt a little longer than expected.
Meanwhile, Mensah and Miami have to be circling the VT matchup as a chance for Mensah to put up massive numbers and strengthen his case for the Heisman. Even with Malachi Toney most likely out for that game, it's hard to imagine a world where Mensah doesn't shred the VT pass defense to pieces.
At this point, it's hard to feel much optimism about VT being able to turn this around, and these secondary struggles raise some questions as to whether James Franklin will make some coaching changes among the various DBs coaches or not. Given the trajectory, it wouldn't be surprising if a change or two happens after the season.
