After a virtuoso offensive performance against Boston College, the Hokies entered homecoming weekend with an opportunity to post their first three-game winning streak of Brent Pry' tenure. Georgia Tech was shorthanded, with starting quarterback Haynes King and leading tackler Kyle Efford both out with injuries. After appearing to take a big step forward last week, the Virginia Tech offensive line seemed to completely forget the basic fundamentals of zone blocking — taking poor angles and struggling against the Yellow Jackets' speed on the edge. Fortunately, the Hokies defense, often stretched to the absolute breaking point in the red zone, made timely big play after big play to turn over the struggling Georgia Tech offense.
The STARS shine on defense
While Virginia Tech's gap fits were not perfect, the dominant play of their defensive tackles and the cleaner fits by the linebackers allowed the defense to make key stops. Keonta Jenkins had a monster game, in large part because his teammates did their jobs to spill the ball to him.
On this early 3rd-and-6 inside the red zone, Georgia Tech ran a delayed power with RG Keylan Rutledge (No. 77) and TE Jackson Hawes (No. 85) pulling around the field-side edge. Anticipating man-to-man (Cover 0), both Chase Lane (No. 7) and Malik Rutherford (No. 8) aligned very wide to the field-side in the hope that Jenkins would flex out, leaving the Hokies outmanned with a high safety. Instead, Jaylen Jones (No. 15) flexed out to cover Rutherford man-to-man, freeing Jenkins to stay in the box.
At the snap, defensive end Cole Nelson (No. 17) crashed to the inside, effectively spilling Rutledge's block. The MIKE, Jaden Keller (No. 24), stepped in to fill the gap left by Nelson. With Jenkins as the unblocked hat, Keller attacked the pulling Hawes inside shoulder, forcing running back Jamal Haynes (No. 11) to bounce outside. This dumped the back right into Jenkins' lap. He made a solid tackle with help from Keller, who after fitting his gap shed his block to assist. This was beautiful complimentary football. The Hokies made the stop and held Georgia Tech to a field goal.
Jenkins benefited from the same kind of effort on a critical fourth down in the fourth quarter.
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