Hokies' Open Practice Reveals Rapid Pace, Injuries and A Glimpse at the Future

With just four days until Justin Fuente's first spring game in Blacksburg, the new head Hokie invited any interested students and the media to Tech's Tuesday evening practice. The open portion of practice was brief — about 35 to 40 minutes in all — but that didn't stop at least 1,000 students from taking Fuente up on his offer.

The obvious takeaway from the Hokies' open portion of practice was the tempo. It's been discussed ad nauseum all spring, a topic consistently brought up in nearly every interview. But it's no joke.

The Hokies ran several different types of drills, some full-team, some pass skeleton, but there was one constant — everything moved quickly. Time between plays was scarce, and at one point defensive coordinator Bud Foster let the chain gang hear it after the offense was forced to delay their snap.

But while a ramped up tempo shouldn't have surprised many seated in Lane Stadium, the abundance of green and blue jerseys on the field certainly did. In all, nearly 20 players were dressed in green or blue, perhaps proof that Justin Fuente wasn't kidding when he said the Hokies weren't prepared to field two full teams at Saturday's spring game.

This isn't meant to be an exhaustive list of injured players from Tuesday's practice, but here's a quick shot at it: Cam Phillips (sprained ankle), Vinny Mihota (right foot in a boot), Yosh Nijman, Isaiah Ford, Brandon Facyson, Steve Sobczak, Raymon Minor, D'Andre Plantin, and Braxton Pfaff.

At quarterback, both Jerod Evans and Brenden Motley continued to take first team reps. Evans looked elusive on multiple designed quarterback runs while Motley was fairly quiet throughout the brief open practice. Neither signal-caller seemed to stand out over the other, but Josh Jackson and Dwayne Lawson each had their fair share of struggles working with the second team.

At tailback, Sam Rogers and Deshawn McClease appeared to receive the lion's share of the first team reps while returning starter Travon McMillian seemed to rotate back and forth between the first and second team. However, McMillian did break off what would have been a long touchdown run on the final play of one practice period.

With Ford and Phillips each sidelined, playing time with the first team at wide receiver was up for the taking. C.J. Carroll, Devin Wilson, Divine Deablo and Bucky Hodges all got significant time with the ones, and each hauled in at least one nice grab.

Wilson, in particular, made a highlight reel catch along the West Sideline for a 20 to 30-yard gain. Earlier in the day, Carroll raved about the natural athleticism of Wilson.

"He's been making plays," said Carroll. "He's raw, definitely, but he definitely has a future. You can see it. I don't know if you guys saw that catch he had on Twitter that was surfacing everywhere, but that's not the only play he's made. He had a touchdown in the scrimmage I think on Saturday."

Jaylen Bradshaw worked mostly with the second team, but the redshirt freshman from Oscar Smith drew gasps from much of the West Stands after unleashing a vicious spin move following a five-yard out from quarterback Jack Click.

Up front, new offensive line coach Vance Vice continues to use Parker Osterloh at right tackle alongside the four returning starters from last fall (Conte, Gallo, Teller, and McLaughlin).

From a more general perspective, the Hokies' offense seemed to feature a definite spike in the use of speed options and a broader wide receiver screen playbook with a variety of counters that caught Foster's defense off guard once or twice.

Lastly, I didn't notice this from my seat just a few rows up in the East Stands, but Wyatt Teller was doing Wyatt Teller things.

I nominate we run the ball right off Teller's butt every play this season. Absolute domination. #Hokies pic.twitter.com/mgK4mSOIjD— THE KEY PLAY (@thekeyplay) April 20, 2016

Wiles Hunting Depth on the DL

Charley Wiles made his spring debut at Tuesday afternoon's media availability, and the Hokies' longtime defensive line coach seemed enthusiastic as ever entering yet another season roaming the sidelines in Blacksburg.

But even with the abundance of change taking place around him in the Merryman Center, Wiles doesn't have much time to focus on anything but getting his young defensive linemen ready to contribute this fall.

"It's been fun watching these guys come along," said Wiles. "It's inconsistent, really, in a word right now. But you see some growth and improvement and you see flashes of playmaking ability. Just a little up-and-down. We need more work. Obviously you can't get it done in 15 days. But we're a lot further along right now than we were."

With Seth Dooley sidelined for the spring and Mihota dealing with an apparent foot injury, redshirt freshman Houshun Gaines spent most of Tuesday's practice working opposite of Ken Ekanem on the Hokies' first team defensive line. Gaines said he benefited greatly from his redshirt season, taking advantage of time off to get bigger, faster and stronger in the weight room. But aside from his physical growth, Gaines spent a valuable year learning from the sage wisdom of Ekanem.

"Ken, he's been mentoring me since day one," said Gaines. "Ken does a double-hand swipe that I like that I've been trying to get down...He's been trying to teach me, but he does it so fast, you've gotta run it back over and over on film to see it. I'm like, 'How did you do that?' I'll get it eventually."

Wiles also sounded impressed with the progress of redshirt freshman Trevon Hill, another highly-rated defensive end prospect who has been working alongside Gaines on the second team for the majority of the spring.

"I never coached the kid before really because he was hurt. He got to doing some things with us toward the very end of the year, but just very little," said Wiles. "He's a really athletic guy...Has some playmaking skills. He can turn a play for you. But he'll go the wrong way too and bust an assignment in a second. That's the part we've gotta get cleaned up. Him and Gaines, both."

But unlike defensive end, Wiles is blessed with an embarrassment of riches at the defensive tackle position. Senior Woody Baron has been the bell cow for the Hokies thus far, but Wiles promises the competition on the interior will remain intense into fall camp.

"I think that thing's wide open," said Wiles. "Woody is really kind of the guy right now to separate himself. I think other than that, I think we've got a wide open competition on who will start in the other spot. And then how we're gonna substitute. But we're gonna play all them guys. We're gonna play a two-deep for sure. It's been a very healthy competition."

Additional Quotes From Tuesday Afternoon

Justin Fuente

OPENING STATEMENT:

"Thank you all for coming out. We're looking forward to today. Obviously this is our last week of spring practice. Today should be a fun day. Weather's obviously fantastic outside and we're happy to have whatever students want to come out. We want to encourage them to come out and obviously you all for the last about 40 minutes of practice. Basically the way we've got it designed is we'll kinda do the first hour or so, kind of the mundane individual drills and that sort of stuff that to most people is probably not all that interesting. And then we kinda saved the good part, the crossover stuff, for the end. John Laaser will be down there trying his best to explain what we're doing in each drill, but we'll have a little bit of situational work, we'll do some skele(ton drills) and some one-on-ones and do a little bit of red zone work and that sort of stuff. We should get a good taste of some crossover as we have kind of our last padded practice. On Thursday, we'll go just helmets. Kind of introduce our pregame routine a little bit as we prepare for the spring game on Saturday which by all accounts should be another great event. The best I can tell the weather's supposed to be really good. We're looking forward to having our fans in town and some of the former players and all the things that go with a great spring game. People usually ask what you want to get out of the spring game. I want our guys to play in front of people. Obviously, you all know it will probably be a little bit of a base...Obviously put some good-on-good out there and go scrimmage. We'll protect the quarterbacks. We'll have some controlled kicking game."

ON HOW HE WILL SPLIT THE QB REPS ON SATURDAY:

"I don't know, to be honest with you. I know how we're gonna split them up today. But I don't know what we'll do on Saturday."

ON HOW HE WILL SPLIT THE QB REPS ON TUESDAY:

"Well, we'll have pretty even reps just like we've been doing with the ones. And then those other three guys will continue to get quality reps with the twos."

ON YOUNG STANDOUTS THIS SPRING:

"I like the way Peoples has gone about his spring. He's played with great effort. We've moved him around all over the place. He's done a great job with special teams and on the offensive side of the ball. Some of our older players have had great springs, almost all of them. The 10 or 11 seniors we've got out there have done really, really well. I like what some of our younger guys that played a little bit last year in the secondary but are still young as far as the roster's concerned, from Mook to Adonis, the way they've played in the spring. Stroman's another one of those guys that's had a really productive spring in the back end. Both of the Edmunds boys have done really well and made big strides. We've got some good work."

ON IF HE'S HAPPY WITH THE HOKIES' PROGRESS:

"I'm happy with the progress we've made. We still have a lot of work. We have three more practices to continue to improve. I'm looking forward to taking another step forward in the next three. Then entering finals and like I said the summertime will be crucial to this team. We'll have to have a great summer both in the classroom and in our workouts...We're headed in the right direction."

ON IF ONE AREA NEEDS MORE WORK:

"You could always use more time in everything you're doing. Whether you're working on blitzing or working on running the ball in the inside or whatever it is. But we'll take stock in all of that after we're done and go back and look through it...Sometimes it's a little bit hard to see when you're right in the middle of it. You've gotta get it finished, kind of take a step back and look through it to get a true evaluation of where you're at. But the thing that I do like is the way the kids have gone about it, jumped in with both feet with eyes wide open and ears open to listen and try to learn the way we want things done."

ON MOTLEY AND HIS IMPROVEMENT:

"I don't know how much he's improved. I didn't judge him before we got here. I just saw him this spring. I think he's well-respected on this team. He's a good worker, certainly a good kid, a guy that we really like in the quarterback battle."

ON IF HE LIKES THE SPRING GAME IN PLACE OF A TEAM'S 15TH PRACTICE:

"Well it's the same old deal and this is just the way it is. It doesn't bother me. But regardless of media access throughout the spring, there are always wild conclusions that are drawn from one practice in the spring game. So-and-so's good, so-and-so's not good. All the coaches are going through that right now. That's just the way it goes. It doesn't bother me any. We understand that moving forward. I like it. I wish we really could play a true game...but it's no big deal...We'll continue to put our best foot forward. Do I like it? Yeah, I like going out there and competing and playing against each other. Obviously it's scaled down and restrained in terms of what we do on both sides of the ball, but I still think they're a good thing."

ON IF DIVINE DEABLO CAN CONTRIBUTE THIS FALL:

"We only played two last year. So we'll see as we move forward."

ON THE KEY TO LEARNING HIS OFFENSE:

"The key to learning it? Being a good listener, taking good notes, it's probably the same as any class they take. Spending just extra time, being diligent, taking pride in your work. Probably not a lot different than any math class or english class they may take across campus. Taking great pride in doing things the right way."

ON GETTING A BASE 5 ON THE OFFENSIVE LINE:

"We don't really subscribe to the whole you gotta have five starters that walk arm-and-arm across campus everyday and eat lunch together. That's not really how it works. I like that we have some good competition there. We want to continue to create that with those guys knowing that they've gotta perform on a consistent basis. Developing the mentality of the entire room I think is what coach Vice does a fantastic job of while still fostering competition and also camaraderie amongst the entire group."

ON IF HE'S SPOKEN WITH PAXTON LYNCH:

"Sure, absolutely. We talk on a fairly regular basis. I gave him my critique of his trip with Gruden (on ESPN), not that he needed critiquing but I gave it to him anyway. I saw he signed with Nike. I talked to him just a little while ago, just congratulating him, all that kind of stuff. But no great insight. It's much more just a supportive role and letting him know how proud of I am of him. Not to lose sight of the reason he's in the situation he's in, and it's because of how hard he's worked and what type of man he is. We stay in contact quite a bit."

ON LYNCH'S FEELINGS ABOUT GRUDEN'S "QB CAMP":

"He loved it. He said he had a great time. He really did. Just several hours of pure football. He said coach Gruden was great, passionate just like he is on television."

ON BEING READY TO NAME A QUARTERBACK BY END OF SPRING:

"We still have three practices, but I can't see, right now we're certainly not ready to do that."

Vance Vice

ON PARKER OSTERLOH:

"I have been very pleased, very surprised with him. I've played him in four different places already this spring. He shows up to work every day. Since we started, he's lost 17 pounds (down to 329). And he needed to. He can lose some more. He's worked his tail off. He should have a vital role in what we do."

ON OFFENSIVE LINE MENTALITY:

"Offensive line is a special position. You need five guys. They don't necessarily have to be best friends, like you alluded to, but they better trust each other. It is a foxhole mentality."

ON IMPRESSIONS OF ENTIRE GROUP:

"The one thing about this group is they all work and that gives them all a chance...The overall work ethic of the entire group has been very impressive. They come to work every day. I've been in situations where you've got that one guy that you always have to wait on finish running, there's not that guy in this group. And because of their work ethic, I've been, I don't want to say satisfied, I've been OK with how they're working right now. I'm never satisfied though."

ON INJURIES ALONG THE OFFENSIVE LINE:

"There's some guys that have got casts on right now. They're not gonna play (in the spring game). I guess y'all show up to the game you'll find out."

Charley Wiles

ON CONCERNS WITH MIHOTA ON THE EDGE:

"Well you don't wanna get in a race with a fast quarterback. There's not too many, the way these athletic quarterbacks are, I'm not sure there's too many ends out there...you've gotta have some help from the secondary with those guys. But Vinny's had a good spring. We know his strengths and weaknesses. He's had a good spring."

ON TIM SETTLE:

"A lot better. A lot better. Obviously he's still a work in progress, but Tim is really chomping at it. He's done well. He scrimmaged about the best he's scrimmaged probably last Saturday. (He) stayed the course and he's coming in there pretty good."

ON RICKY WALKER:

"Ricky had a good spring. Didn't scrimmage particularly well Saturday. I mean, he was OK...but overall body of work's been pretty good."

ON THE REDSHIRT YEAR HELPING RICKY:

"Well, Ricky was already a mature guy. I think he's hungry...Anytime you get those guys a year older, they're just gonna be a little bit more seasoned, a little bit more mature and a little bit more experienced. I think it's good for everybody to be honest with you to go through that."

ON HARRY LEWIS:

"Harry hasn't gotten as many reps as I would have liked to have gotten Harry. His natural hand down is a right-handed stance. We've played him out of the left-handed just because we don't have that many guys that can play out of a left-handed stance. But Harry's shown some improvement. He has. I wish there was more reps to get him right now, but we've been pouring all the reps into Tim and Ricky and Nigel and Woody right now. I think Harry's time is coming right now."

ON DARIUS FULLWOOD:

"Darius Fullwood's a good prospect. He's just learning how to play hard, learning how to do it all the time. You explain to the guys that you're gonna play them and it's an up-and-down performance. You really want to know what you're getting when you put them in the game. So right now, I think Darius is a good prospect too. Haven't talked about him a lot, but he needs to close that gap a little bit."

ON SETH DOOLEY COMING BACK:

"I'd like to see what Seth's all about. He's got work to do too to beat out the guys that went through spring. I know he'll be hungry. He's been watching video. He's in there with us...We don't have anybody coming in that I feel like, Jimmie's here already, he's a little ways away, so it's gonna be that same group. We've just gotta get them consistent."

ON PLAYING FOUR OR FIVE GUYS AT END THIS FALL:

"It's hard to play five guys just because you can't get them all work and get them prepared. We're gonna play our two-deep, though."

ON HIS PERSONAL ADJUSTMENT THIS SPRING:

"It's different, for sure. I'm really enjoying it, though. It's very competitive. Obviously the practice tempo is faster. I like how we compete. I like how we put our kids in a lot of situations. It's been very, as a word, just really competitive. Putting kids and getting them stressed and where they're tired and have to perform when they're tired, it's really been cool. I've enjoyed the whole process."

Steven Peoples

ON HIS ROLE:

"I did some tailback stuff at first, but now I'm starting to work a little bit at fullback. It's kind of like a tight end/fullback."

Houshun Gaines

ON PLAYING TIME BEING AVAILABLE AT END:

"It's exciting. I just try to focus on getting better every day. Helping out the team in any way I can. If I can get in and make plays early, I'll definitely take advantage of the opportunity."

ON WHERE HE CAN IMPROVE:

"I feel like I need to get better as a complete player. Just try to get better in all aspects of the game. As far as they go, just getting off the ball, my football IQ, things of that nature."

C.J. Carroll

ON MODELING HIS GAME AFTER ANY NFL PLAYERS:

"Wes Welker is the obvious one. Last year, everyone called me Edelman, for obvious reasons. I do look up to Edelman a lot and I kind of modeled my game after him. Him and Cole Beasley."

ON INTENSE COMPETITION AT WR:

"It's been competitive. We're all competing. We're all just trying to get better. Taking little steps. I don't know if it's more of a competition (as much of) just trying to get on the field and show the coaches what we can do every day."

ON TEMPO THIS SPRING:

"Practice is fast. Tempo is fast. Sometimes, I'm not gonna lie, you need to tap (your helmet) and say, 'Give me a sub or something.' We're definitely gonna need more than two, three receivers to play. Whoever that may be, I don't know. Hopefully I can contribute there."

ON HEARING ALL THE TALK ABOUT ONLY PLAYING TWO RECEIVERS:

"We hear it. We definitely hear it. We have control of it really. It's something we need to take personally and say, 'Alright, enough of this talk, let's go out and do it. Let's make it happen.'"

ON MEMPHIS PLAYING WALK-ONS AT WIDE RECEIVER:

"That was one of the first things coach Fuente said to me when I met with him. He said, 'We played four, five walk-on receivers.' So it doesn't matter what you are, scholarship, non-scholarship, if you're the best player, you're gonna play. Definitely gives me a little bit of motivation."

ON WHO WON THE MONDAY NIGHT TEAM BOWLING OUTING:

"Joey Slye took home that crown. I definitely wasn't the best bowler. I think I bowled a 90 or something like that...It was really fun. Got pizza, gave out some prizes for the winners."

Xavier Burke

ON DIFFERENT ROLE THIS SEASON:

"It's not really much of a big difference this year...I think my role this year is just try to be the best that I can be either blocking, catching or running routes."

ON CHANGES TO HIS BODY TO ADJUST TO THIS OFFENSE:

"Yeah, I did. I lost 25 pounds (from 283 to 258), believe it or not. It's helped me out a whole lot. The process, the new coaches, it's really helped out a whole lot."

ON IDEAL PLAYING WEIGHT:

"255 would be a pretty good weight."

ON REDSHIRTING HIS FIRST YEAR:

"To be honest, I probably wasn't gonna play as a true freshman. I don't think I was really ready. They don't think I was ready. I was used basically for special teams, and I was kind of glad that I redshirted."

Tremaine Edmunds

ON HIS BROTHER TREY LEAVING FOR MARYLAND:

"I kept the conversations down to a minimum because I knew it was a lot on his plate to handle. I'm sure he wanted to stay here, but at the end of the day, that was his choice and not mine. Of course it hurt me, because I'd like to play with both my brothers here. But at the same time, just wish him the best."

ON HOW TREY IS DOING AT MARYLAND:

"Things are going good for him. I talked to him after their spring game they had this past Saturday, he said everything was going well. He's just ready for the season to get started now."

ON HOW PLAYING LAST YEAR WILL HELP HIM THIS YEAR:

"It definitely helped me out a lot. Being able to get a start at the early start of my career definitely helped me out a lot. Experience is the number one teacher."

ON PLAYING WITH BOTH TREY AND TERRELL LAST YEAR:

"I was excited. That went down in history. Just glad I was able to be a part of it. Sucks that this year I won't be with both of them, but I'm still with one of them so I'm just gonna cherish that opportunity to the fullest."

ON THE BEST FOOTBALL PLAYER IN THE FAMILY:

"Definitely myself (laughs)."

ON IF FOSTER HAS COACHED HIM DIFFERENTLY NOW THAT HE'S A STARTER:

"No sir, he doesn't. Coach Foster, he's true to his word. He pushed me every day just like last year...He just wants to see the best out of all of us."