Virginia Tech Football: 4 Things the Hokies Need to Improve Before Georgia Tech

For the second time this season, the Virginia Tech Hokies went into the state of North Carolina with a lackluster effort and escaped with a less than impressive victory. Much like the East Carolina game on September 10th, the Hokies' win against Duke had Tech fans sweating up until the final kneel downs.

The offense sputtered it's way to a mere fourteen points despite gaining 444 yards and possessing the ball for 32:30. Thankfully for Frank Beamer and the Hokies, the defense made some key plays at some clutch moments and allowed Tech to survive a mediocre performance.

Luckily for Virginia Tech, they will enjoy a bye this week before travelling to Atlanta to take on the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in a Thursday night prime time game. Paul Johnson's squad is fresh off an embarrassment of then-Top Five Clemson and is sure to give the Hokies their best shot after losing a heart breaker last year in Blacksburg.

If Virginia Tech wants to stay on top of the ACC Coastal Division and keep any hope of a BCS bowl alive, they will need to show a lot of improvement over the bye week, specifically in these four areas.

1. Punting

Normally special teams would never make it to the top of a list of things that need improvement, especially given Frank Beamer's history, but the punting this season has been that bad. As bad as the punting was on Saturday against Duke, the fact that the Blue Devils were still limited to just 10 points speaks volumes to the job Bud Foster did.

Michael Branthover, the true freshman who has stepped in to replace the ineffective Scott Demler, has shown flashes of brilliance but needs to show a lot more consistency if the Hokies want to have any chance of winning the field position battle against Georgia Tech.

Branthover punted six times on Saturday, all in the second half. Branthover's best punt of the day came from inside his own end zone when he launched a 75 yard bomb that really helped bail Tech out of some bad field position. However, his other five punts were either shanked for mediocre distance, kicked into the end zone or hit way too low, allowing wide open return lanes for the Blue Devils.

Most Hokie fans have also probably noticed that Branthover stands only 12 yards behind the snapper as opposed to the standard 15. While Branthover's release is very fast, he is still vulnerable to a block and nearly had one blocked Saturday despite a soft rush.

2. Red Zone Efficiency

The Hokie offense, although often criticized, did a very good job moving the ball against Duke on Saturday. Tech's first four possessions all moved deep into Blue Devil territory including two touchdown drives of 85 and 90 yards. However, the other two drives ended in interceptions, both picked off in the end zone.

The first pick was a miscommunication between quarterback Logan Thomas and receiver Marcus Davis where Thomas threw the ball to a spot he expected Davis to be. Instead, the ball went straight to a Blue Devil. The second interception was an under-thrown ball that Thomas expected Randall Dunn to catch over his man in single coverage, but the defender made a great play.

Making matters worse, backup kicker Tyler Weiss missed a 29-yard field goal attempt in place of starter Cody Journell.

Virginia Tech can not afford to leave that many points on the field against an explosive offense like Georgia Tech's. Luckily for the Hokies, Duke was unable to make Tech pay for their miscues. Against the Yellow Jackets, Tech might not get so lucky.

3. Coaching

Duke head coach David Cutcliffe has Blue Devil fans very excited about the program's future, and with good reason. Cutcliffe and the Duke staff out-coached Frank Beamer and company on Saturday.

The area where this was most apparent was the effort on the field. You could tell just by watching the game that Duke had come ready to play whereas Tech seemed to just run through the motions at times. This can be partially credited to the "trap game" mentality and one would only hope the team would have no trouble getting up for Georgia Tech, but the staff is ultimately responsible for lack of effort.

The most questionable decision, perhaps, came after what appeared to be Logan Thomas' third interception of the day. On third-and-long from the Hokies' 36 yard line, Thomas scrambled and threw a deep ball down the sideline that got caught by a Duke defender near the sideline inside the 20 and was ruled an interception.

As Duke's offense prepared to snap the ball, Beamer inexplicably challenged the play. After review, the interception was reversed and Tech had to punt from the previous spot. When the interception nets nearly 50 yards on third down, how much do you really have to gain with such an inconsistent punting game? Duke profited nearly 30 yards in field position from this coaching blunder.

While effort should not be an issue against Georgia Tech, the Hokie coaching staff has a lot of preparation ahead of them if they hope to remain undefeated on the road. The Hokies committed nine penalties Saturday and played an overall sloppy game. These miscues can be fixed, fortunately, and it all starts at the top.

4. Tackling

To be fair, this label does not include the entire defense and as a whole, Bud Foster's stop unit played a good game, helping the Hokies escape despite the offense's second half struggles. However, there were some key missed tackles that a team with more talent than Duke might have capitalized on.

Kyle Fuller was one Hokie that had very little trouble tackling on Saturday. He had eight tackles including two for a loss and a sack. He also made the key stop in the fourth quarter on fourth-and-short deep in Hokies' territory when he knocked the intended receiver down at the line of scrimmage then tackled quarterback Sean Renfree shy of the first down.

The rest of the Hokie secondary, however, was not so sharp. Safety Antone Exum missed a couple tackles badly and cornerback Jayron Hosley struggled mightily, save one key pass break up, in his first game returning from injury.

Duke only rushed for a hundred yards on the day but many of those yards came after contact as ball carriers made their way through a number of arm tackles.

This week in practice, Bud Foster might want to use the extra five days to get some hitting in because against an option attack like Georgia Tech's, one missed tackle can be the difference between a rush for no gain and an 80 yard touchdown run.