With Virginia Tech on a bye week, some of the focus has shifted to the recoveries of multiple injured players including starting safety Jalen Stroman and backup RB PJ Prioleau.
Let's start with Stroman who according to Brent Pry, likely will not be back this season.
"That's a long shot that he'll be back (this season)," Pry said. "He may get cleared down the stretch, but they still don't know if that'll happen. But if he did, it's 'what kind of place can we get him to to be ready to play effectively for us'."
This is disappointing news for the Hokies to not have their best safety on paper entering the season available. It comes after Stroman missed multiple games last season and has dealt with injury issues throughout much of his career in Blacksburg.
Because Stroman has played in fewer than four games and has not used his redshirt previously, he should be able to use this as a redshirt and therefore be eligible to return to Virginia Tech next season. It remains to be seen if Stroman will do that, a decision that likely won’t come till December.
For now, this means that Jaylen Jones will continue to start alongside Mose Phillips with Quentin Reddish as the backup and Mansoor Delane having the versatility to shift to safety at times as well. Something to note is that Reddish’s defensive reps have increased in recent weeks with 58 defensive snaps over the past two games.
As Reddish gains more experience, it’ll be interesting to see if he can close the gap to Jones and possibly claim a starting job by the end of the season.
Meanwhile, Pry had this to say about the status of PJ Prioleau.
"He's gonna be out significant time," Pry said. "Very disappointing for him, for us. He's a great teammate. He's earned every opportunity. We were excited for what he could do in the back half of the season, so that's a disappointing loss because of how much he has invested in this thing, but also from a production standpoint for us."
This is obviously a disappointing loss given the flashes of potential that Prioleau has shown a running back. That will likely mean reps for Malachi Thomas after Prioleau had been chipping into some of Prioleau's backup reps to some extent.
Prioleau also had been working on kickoffs and while Bhayshul Tuten can be an option to return kicks, Pry did mention Thomas Williams first before bringing up Tuten and Malachi Thomas. Part of what may lead to Williams over Tuten is in part because of the wear and tear that Tuten has taken this season and the massive value Tuten brings to the offense compared to any other option on their respective side of the ball.
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