Virginia Tech Football: David Wilson and Hokies Roll over Thundering Herd

A day that began with Frank Beamer visiting a cemetery, ended with a Hokies victory. Virginia Tech beat the Marshall Thundering Herd on Saturday by a score of 30-10. Logan Thomas had a decent day and David Wilson returned to form, but that doesn’t mean they played a perfect football game.

The win was far from perfect. The Hokies turned the ball over late, allowed big plays and played poor special teams. Virginia Tech’s coaching staff has a lot of coachable moments to look back on this week. The win is the most important thing from Saturday, but the Hokies need to fix some things before next week’s game against Clemson.

Logan Thomas played as well as could have been expected in most aspects. He completed 22-of-33 passes for 229 yards. He also ran for eight yards and a touchdown. The one stain on the day is that Thomas threw an interception. The young quarterback made a poor read and threw to a well covered receiver. He also missed some reads and open receivers throughout the game.

Thomas was alright in the game, but the offense went through running backs David Wilson and Josh Oglesby. David Wilson ran 26 times for 132 yards and a touchdown. Oglesby was a good compliment to Wilson, running 12 times for 75 yards and two touchdowns.

The only drawback for Wilson on the day was a lost fumble in the red zone while trying to extend a play. That is compounded by the fact that he almost lost a fumble earlier in the day (also in the red zone). He was declared down on the play, but it was too close for comfort. Wilson needs to work on ball security when extending plays.

The receivers had a decent game. Danny Coale led the team with seven receptions for 107 yards. D.J. Coles had eight receptions for 66 yards. The biggest surprise from the receivers may be that Marcus Davis had no real impact on the game. He had one catch for four yards. With Jarrett Boykin out, they needed Davis to be the deep threat, but he was nowhere to be found.

While the Hokies offense was lackluster, the defense was unpredictable. They completely stopped the run, allowing only six rushing yards. They also had five sacks—the defensive problem wasn’t the front seven, the problem was the secondary.

The secondary allowed 245 yards and a touchdown. What was most surprising about the game is that it seemed that Marshall QB Rakeem Cato was picking on Jayron Hosley’s side of the field. This may be due to a poor play by Hosley early in the game when wide receiver Aaron Dobson beat Hosley on a route for a 32-yard gain. Luckily, Hosley caught up to him and forced a fumble (he also recovered it).

The secondary will be torched by Clemson next week if they play like they did against the Thundering Herd.

The offense and defense had decent days, but the special teams had a bad day. It’s hard to believe that Frank Beamer would have bad special teams, but that’s what it looks like so far this season.

Punter Scott Demler has been inconsistent this season. On Saturday, he had two punts for a total of 76 yards, but 51 yards came on one punt. Demler has only averaged 34.6 yards per punt on the season. He has been so inconsistent that wide receiver Danny Coale punted twice (62 yards, 31-yard average) on Saturday.

Place kicker Cody Journell also had a rough day. He missed one of his two field-goal attempts and had an extra point blocked. Journell has made four of his seven field-goal attempts this season. Hopefully he is just having a bad stretch of games and can turn it around. Empty possessions kill teams and that can all fall on Journell.

Virginia Tech played far from their best game on Saturday. Despite the fact that they had inconsistent play and injuries, they were still able to win by 20 points. Hopefully that bodes well for the Hokies in the future. The Hokies are 4-0 for the first time since 2006. Virginia Tech is heading into a showdown against Clemson next week in Lane Stadium.