There's no sugarcoating it, this was one of the worst offensive performances for Virginia Tech in a long time. While the Hokies did get away with it in the first half, the Hokies' defense wasn't able to pull off the Herculean effort to win this game on their own, with No. 23 Clemson cruising to victory in the end.
Virginia Tech lost to No. 23 Clemson 24-14 to fall to 5-5 on the season including 3-3 in ACC play while the Tigers improve to 7-2 on the season including 6-1 in the ACC. While the margin may have been 10, this game was never that close with the Hokies being fortunate that they had a
This was a disastrous offensive performance from start to finish for the Hokies, who averaged a terrible 3.9 yards per play in this game. Tech also had a pair of turnovers while being completely unable to run the football, averaging a meager 1.9 yards per carry against a Clemson run defense that was allowing 4.6 yards per carry entering this game and was without two defensive line starters in DE Peter Woods and DT DeMonte Capehart.
Tech couldn't create any sort of rushing attack that worked in this game outside of a couple Kyron Drones' keeps on options. Tech was clearly hesitant to feed Bhayshul Tuten who couldn't get anything going when he did get touches and then left with an injury during the second half. Kyron Drones also wasn't 100% and also got pulled for Collin Schlee during the fourth quarter as VT was searching for answers.
If Tuten wasn't healthy enough to trust him with a good volume, then there's no reason to play stupid games and use him primarily as a decoy. If he is healthy, it is absurd to not get him a designed touch on the opening two drives and only five on the night, one of which was an emergency dump-off.
The same can be said about Drones, with it being fair to wonder if the Hokies would have been better off with a healthier Collin Schlee. Of course, many of Schlee's snaps came in garbage time scenarios and while he made some nice throws, he also had some bad decisions including one that led to an interception.
Tech's defense was strong in the first half, bending at times but never breaking as they held Clemson without any points in the opening 30 minutes, the fifth-straight game where they've held a team without a touchdown in the first half.
Clemson adjusted in the second half, leaning more on their rushing attack to open up the passing game and thriving with two touchdown drives to open the second half while the Hokies had -7 yards on the two drives they had in that same time period.
The VT defense did hold Clemson to 4.7 yards per play, but Phil Mafah was able to churn out 4.9 yards per carry while running for 128 yards on the night. They did hold Cade Klubnik to only 16-34 but he turned that into 211 yards, three touchdowns, and one interception.
Tech had six penalties for 45 yards in this game which included ill-timed penalties that stalled out offensive drives and cost the Hokies great field position after an unsportsmanlike conduct against Clemson, costing VT about 25 yards of field position.
If there was a positive, it is the special teams that generated the only points of the first half via a Keyshawn Burgos blocked field goal that Quentin Reddish returned 77 yards for a touchdowns.
Kyron Drones finished this game 9-20 for 115 yards and one interception plus 13 rushing yards while Collin Schlee went 7-17 for 73 yards with a touchdown and an interception plus 28 rushing yards. Da'Quan Felton led the Hokies with six catches for 68 yards while Ayden Greene had two catches for 19 yards and a touchdown, with no other Hokies having either 40+ total yards of offense or a touchdown.
Keonta Jenkins had a strong performance with seven tackles including three for loss with one sack plus one QB hurry and two pass breakups. Antwaun Powell-Ryland had three tackles including two for loss with one sack and two QB hurries while Mose Phillips led VT with nine tackles plus a QB hurry. Jaylen Jones had three tackles plus an interception and a pass breakup while Mose Phillips led VT with nine tackles plus a pass breakup.
There was also a scary moment during the fourth quarter where freshman LB Gabriel Williams went down with an injury that required him to be on a backboard and transferred to a local hospital via ambulance from the field. We have not received an update on Williams' injury at this time.
Virginia Tech is now 5-5 and has fallen well below reasonable expectations for a team that was in the top 5 in returning production after finishing last season 6-3 over the final nine games and has All-American caliber playmakers with RB Bhayshul Tuten and DE Antwaun Powell-Ryland. They were well outclassed in this game despite the fact that the talent gap did not seem nearly that big on paper.
This team still hasn't beat a team that wasn't better than mediocre/middling, with Georgia Tech this year and Boston College last year likely being Pry's best victories. He also only has one ranked win though that ranked win came against a Tulane team in the Military Bowl that had lots of opt outs after Willie Fritz's departure for Houston.
What's clear is that as of now, Brent Pry and his staff do not have what it takes to maximize the talent they have and get the Hokies past being a middling ACC program. That is absolutely unacceptable for one of the ACC's top four brands which should be contending often for the ACC.
Two games remain now, but Pry has to do some introspection and find where the weaknesses are in his program and where they are not, and make changes. Make the wrong decisions and we'll be talking about a coaching change likely in 2025.
Changes are a must in my view for Virginia Tech Football after this season, but Brent Pry is the head coach and should be the one making or not making those changes. If whatever he decides doesn't work out, then he is the one to be held accountable in 2025.
In the meantime, questions about Whit Babcock's future will certainly be raised. While he's done a good job overall as an athletic director, he has already missed on one football hire and it's looking more and more like he may have missed on his second hire. Regardless of some of the historic success that Virginia Tech has seen, it's rare that an athletic director gets the chance to make a third football hire when he missed on the first two and while that probably isn't fair given how small of a job that actually is, it's probably the coming reality.
For now though, the frustration is coming from all sides including internally with Brent Pry admitting himself that they've missed the standard for Virginia Tech, but now have to focus on trying to finish this season out well rather than letting it spiral further.
"The goal here at Virginia Tech is always going to be to get to the championship game. We've clearly fallen short, but there's a lot of things our group can be proud of. We talk about finishing. We need to be better there and we have a great opportunity to do that. We have an open date to clean things up and get healthy. We have two good opponents left. Let's get to postseason play and continue to try to be the team we know we can be," Pry said.
If the Hokies can finally find that team, they should get to 7-5 but if not, it could be dicey getting to a bowl game, something that was simply unimaginable even just a couple weeks ago.
