Bud Foster Addresses Hokies Defensive Woes, Seeks To Uphold Tradition

It hasn’t taken long for Virginia Tech fans to realize the rebuilding process for the Hokies’ defense can’t happen over night.

Following losses to Boise State and James Madison, the Hokies are 0-2 for the first time since 1995, and defensive miscues have been some of the most costly errors.

The story of what the Hokies’ defense has had to overcome this season is old by now—seven starting roles to fill including the spot formerly held by star linebacker Cody Grimm.

However, the majority of Tech fans shrugged off this glaring problem because defensive coordinator Bud Foster has spoiled them with top defenses year after year.

Now, after seeing the Hokies drop out of the Top 25, fans are starting to see that filling holes on defense may not be as easy as Foster has made it look in the past decade.

“This is a rebuilding year,” Foster said. “We have a bunch of young guys that haven’t played a college football snap. They still have a lot of growing to do and to experience.”

As if Tech didn’t have enough starting spots to fill, the Hokies have lost starting defensive tackle Kwamaine Battle for the season because of a left ACL tear, which he suffered during Saturday’s loss to JMU.

Redshirt sophomore Antoine Hopkins will take his place on the D-line alongside redshirt senior John Graves, and will look make sure the defense doesn’t lose a step with Battle on the sideline.

“It's tough, you know,” Graves said. “Kwamaine is a good friend of ours, and he is like a brother to me. It’s tough to see him go down and be out for the season. We are young, but Antoine Hopkins has been working really hard, and we’ve got a lot of confidence in him.”

While the defense wasn’t spectacular against Boise State, more light was shed on the problems when the Hokies lost to JMU.

The Hokies surrendered 21 points to the Dukes—the most JMU has ever scored on Tech.

The Hokies faithful watched their defense fail to stop the JMU offense in the fourth quarter when trying to get the ball back.

The Dukes ran out the final 5:30 of the game with their running attack, en route to shocking the then-No. 13 Hokies.

“To me it’s inexcusable, it really is, and we are going to get that corrected,” Foster said. “We’ve got too good a tradition here and history here.”

One of the biggest problems for the Hokies has been defending the big play.

Tech has given up a run of more than 70 yards in both games this season.

On both occasions, it absolutely killed momentum, and in JMU’s case, it awoke the opposing team’s offense, which had only generated 15 yards to that point.

Behind both of those plays are tackling issues. Several Hokies—including linebacker Bruce Taylor and corner Jayron Hosley—had opportunities to bring JMU running back Jamal Sullivan to the ground during his 77-yard touchdown scamper.

Foster changed his Monday routine this week to get his message across, electing to watch the film of Saturday’s game as a defense instead of splitting into positional groups—and to watch it at 6:45 a.m.

“When we go in there, we want to watch the bad plays and mistakes, but it’s not to embarrass anybody—it’s just to show that it isn’t the defense,” said Jeron Gouveia-Winslow, whip linebacker. “If we execute the plays and the calls, we’ll be fine and it shows on the film.”

Winslow, among others, has been disappointing in the first two starts of his career, but there are no personnel changes on the horizon for the unit.

Other than watching film as a defense, Foster will not change anything this week in practice to try and solve the issues with missed tackles.

“We go hard until we pop, but try to stay up for injury purposes,” Winslow said. “We do tackling drills every day and work on the fundamentals of tackling. The rest of it on the field is wanting it and doing it.”

Up next for the Hokies is East Carolina, a team led by quarterback Dominique Davis. While this is Davis’ first season starting for the Pirates, it is not his first time playing the Hokies—he started in the 2008 ACC Championship game as a member of the Boston College Eagles.

“You can tell he’s matured since his redshirt freshman year at Boston College. He throws the ball well. He can run. He’s a dual-threat, and he makes plays,” Graves said. “They are averaging something like 50 points a game, and I’m sure he is a big part of that.”

This article is from the Collegiate Times and the original can be found here and you can follow Nick on Twitter @Caffscorner.