Center was poised to be the most fascinating position battle this offseason for Virginia Tech's offensive line given the presence of only a pair of promising redshirt freshman in returner Tommy Ricard and WVU transfer Kyle Altuner. To the surprise of many, Altuner appeared to take full control of the starting center job and seemed at minimum worth penciling into that spot for the opening week of the season.
Since then, Tommy Ricard has continued to fight for the center job and was even receiving some first team reps during the first portion of fall camp that the media was allowed to see just over a week ago.
Altuner still remains the clear frontrunner for the Hokies' starting center job even as Ricard has shown that this battle isn't fully over just yet. One of the biggest reasons for that is the maturity, leadership, and mentality that Altuner has shown this offseason as noted by offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery.
"Kyle's got just some natural leadership ability about him. He is young, but if you saw him walk in the room and you started talking to him, you would think he's an old guy. Very, very serious about football. He's in there studying, getting into his playbook, understanding fronts and what we want to do with them. He plays very aggressively. That's what you need, a guy with confidence that demands the respect as he's up at the line doing some things," Montgomery said.
When OL coach Matt Moore was at West Virginia with Altuner as a true freshman last season, he knew immediately that Altuner could be a really good football player similar to another center of his who he put in the NFL.
