Virginia Tech's depleted roster fought well, but a disaster of an offensive line combined with inconsistency on defense and at quarterback doomed the Hokies to a 24-10 defeat to Minnesota in the Duke's Mayo Bowl. This was an offensive mess in general because of the offensive line issues, but there were some promising parts as well.
So with in that mind, here are my offensive takeaways from Virginia Tech's 24-10 loss to Minnesota.
Matt Moore Has Lots of Work Ahead With the Offensive Line
Let's be honest, this was an absolutely horrendous performance from a depleted offensive line without three of five starters. The fact that VT was even able to do anything productive in a sustained manner on offense in this game was a minor miracle with what Tech got from their offensive line against a good Minnesota defense.
Pop Watson and Collin Schlee were under pressure on 13 of their 26 dropbacks according to PFF, with a few of those coming on simple four-man or less rushes rather than blitzes. Tech also struggled to run the ball for many stretches of this game, averaging only 4.6 yards per carry on 25 non-sack carries, with that dropping to 2.8 yards per carry if you exclude Keylen Adams' 47-yard play on a reverse.
When Watson did have time in this game, he was pretty good throwing the football, going 7-10 for 67 yards albeit with one interception. Tech also had 61 yards rushing after contact with only four of those coming via Adams' 47-yard reverse. That basically means that of the 67 non-sack rushing yards (excluding Adams' reverse), VT had 57 of those yards come after contact.
Tech's play at tackle was suboptimal as Parker Clements was quite bad in this game, as was Johnny Garrett who both allowed three pressures on the night while Brody Meadows allowed two himself. Garrett and Meadows have shown plenty of potential, but their struggles in their first career starts were a little discouraging and disappointing to say the least. Meadows did grade out the best at least at a 65.5 per PFF, while Bob Schick had the best pass blocking grade at 86.5, but his overall grade was a 64.1.
Additionally, it wasn't ideal that Tech felt more comfortable going with walk-on Caleb Nitta at center rather than freshman Tommy Ricard along with turning to Tyler Smedley, a walk-on in the portal, to sub in at times at guard. That's not a great sign in regards to the progress of some young offensive linemen's development given the options available, though there are a couple banged up guys like Layth Ghannam who were wisely held out.
