Share This Post
Virginia Tech held their first scrimmage of fall camp on Sunday when the younger players got to show off and make a case for playing time this year. After watching the video on Hokiesports, it’s clear that Josh Stanford and possibly Charley Meyer will play this year at the wide receiver position. That’s a little surprising since Joel Caleb was the highest touted recruit at that position in the 2012 class.
Of course, Caleb needs to go through an adjustment period at the position since he hasn’t played wide receiver before. So, a redshirt year for him may be in his best interest if the NFL is his ultimate goal. Stanford has really blossomed into the best wide receiver prospect the Hokies have right now. If the coaches had to make a decision today, I think Stanford would at least dress and travel with the team.
On a sadder note, we learned yesterday at redshirt sophomore Nick Acree tore his ACL for the 2nd time in three years. This is a tough blow for him since the proverbial light was beginning to flicker on for Acree at left tackle. That will leave the Hokies with one less reserve linemen going into the season.
As for our punting competition, it’s going to be interesting to see who Frank Beamer goes with at punter. A.J. Hughes, Hunter Windmuller, and Michael Branthover have all punted the ball well so far this pre-season. It may come down to who has the best scrimmage on Saturday. At kicker, Cody Journell and Brooks Abbott appear to be the top two. I think Beamer would prefer to redshirt Abbott if possible. Lastly, Ethan Keyserling and Michael Branthover have been auditioning for kickoff duties. However, this is a little less crucial this year with the ball being moved back to the 35 yard line.
Lastly, I've been asked for a list of players who will be redshirting this season. Those decision won't be made officially until after next week but as of now, here's my best guess.
2012 Recruits Who Will Redshirt
Brooks Abbott, Dewayne Alford, Augie Conte, Ken Ekanem, Der'Woun Greene, Mark Irick, Dakota Jackson, Connor Jessop, Jarontay Jones, Austin Jones, Greg Jones, Chris Mangus, Dahman McKinnon, Brenden Motley, Alston Smith, Zach Snell, Adam Taraschke, Devin Vandyke, Malcolm Westbrook, Jack Willenbrock, Nigel Williams,
2012 Recruits Still Fighting For Playing Time
Joel Caleb, Deon Clarke, Trey Edmunds, A.J. Hughes, Charley Meyer, Josh Stanford, Hunter Windmuller
2012 Recruits Who Will Play
J.C. Coleman, Donaldven Manning, Donovan Riley, Davion Tookes
Alright here are some tweets from the past few days.
Follow us on our Social Media Sites
Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS Feed and never miss another! Or sign up to get exclusive VirginiaTechFan.com Sports Analysis delivered straight to your inbox!
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Good read about the SEC’s apparent domination of College Football.
http://www.thepostgame.com/commentary/201208/better-without-em-northern-manifesto-southern-secession-chuck-thompson-sec-bcs
I wonder if this could be used to keep Kyle Fuller and Logan Thomas here for another year (so we can beat Alabama!)
We need OFFENSIVE TACKLES to beat Alabama.
Well… there’s not much you can do about that right now. I think Acree should be able to work his way back by the spring. We’ll have Mark Shuman at left tackle, Augie Conte backing him up but the right tackle is just a mystery. Jake Goins could be a factor there but he’ll need a tremendous off-season. Laurence Gibson can play tackle but last I heard he struggled to shuffle his feet. Benedict played OT in high school but you’ll have some concerns about his knee if you put him out there. Obviously, Adam Taraschke may be a factor but it depends on how he develops this year.
Even if we pull off a miracle on the recruiting trail and get Dorian Johnson, I don’t know if I would want him to start at OT. He would be a true freshmen. So, just not much you can do except hope some of our current guys step up.
That article was complete bunk. You can make statistics say anything you want, and that was readily apparent here. If you want to show that the SEC teams are overrated, then you need to show that they are losing to teams ranked below them (and use end of the year rankings… who cares what they were ranked at the time, yet that’s usually what people use, which boggles the mind). When the Chick-fil-A bowl, for example, is matching up the 5th best team from the SEC against the 2nd best team from the ACC, it’s not exactly earth shattering if the SEC gets a loss.
who has donovan riley, davion tookes, and jarontay jones looked in camp?
Riley is our backup CB right now and he reminds me a little bit of Kyle Fuller. He could potentially play every position in the secondary. He’ll be very good for us over the next four years. Tookes has been slowed by a tweaked hammy but hopefully he can make it back for one of our next 2 scrimmages. Jones looks good but he needs to clean up some technique stuff. He’ll redshirt this year.
As I mentioned before Teller wants to play with Fuller and Fisher, 247 sports is reporting that he is a strong Tech lean. What turned him around.
Maybe he realized that UVA does not win all that much, has mediocre facilities, worse fans, zero gameday atmosphere, and too much douchebaggery.
Or maybe he just wants to play for a defense that is about to go beast mode for the next several years.
I’ll go with too much douchebaggery. All the other items are correct as well, but the douchebaggery levels really are astounding.
Dorian Johnson has eliminated the Hokies. Between Pitt and OSU now.
no, he didn’t. That article was based on something the author took completely out of context. DJ was asked who was his top choice, and he replied with Pitt and tOSU. This means that they are his 1a and 1b right now, not that VT has been eliminated. As of yesterday he was still trying to plan a visit to VT.
Yeah I agree hope Teller finally realized Tech is the best choice for him, if we land him our D-line will be nasty now its time for the coaches to really step it up with recruiting the o-line. Has anyone heard a time frame on when Teller might commit to a school, 247 article said he wants to decide soon hope all this stuff on Teller is true.
Hopefully we can at least get him to take an official to us. It seems odd that he would open his recruitment back up and then eliminate a team that quickly. Hopefully it’s just speculation and he comes and has a great visit so we can get into contention for him. He could be a 3-4 year starter for us.
Just my opinion, but I think Davion Tookes and Joshua Stanford should be switched in your “who will play catagories”. I think there’s no doubt Stanford will play and Tookes will only play if he gets healthy quick and Manning/Riley underperform.
I actually wrote this before I heard about Tookes so I agree with you. That hammy is looking like it could cause him to miss a little bit of time. Nothing serious but those things can linger. And Stanford seems to be doing some special things in practice. He’ll definitely play.
On twitter, jc coleman said honey badger is trying to play at tech and is visitin tech tomo. Is that true and what are ur thoughts?
He’s probably looking to see which d1 schools will give him a shot.
But I would still love to have him, (assuming he at least tones down his smoking).
Yea… that’s not happening. I think JC posted that as more of a joke than factual info.
I’m not surprised Charley Meyer is doing well.
Consider 3 results from the 2011 Virginia Elite VTO Combine.
The players were measured in height, weight, 40 time, shuttle, vertical, and 185lb. bench reps.
74, 202, 4.52, 4.50, 30, 15.
74, 209, 4.53, 4.70, 31, 13.
74, 201, 4.71, 4.69, 30, 10.
It’s,
Meyer
Smith
Caleb