BLACKSBURG, Va. – In just for short days, the Virginia Tech Hokies will take the field for the first time for the 2023 season against Old Dominion. 66,000 Virginia Tech fans may still be left with a bad taste in their mouth from the last time the Hokies had played the Monarchs, but head coach Brent Pry says from a competitive aspect, they’ve taken everything they could out of camp, and he expects these guys to come out and show what they’re made of.
“For me, I just want to see results I wanna see all the work, all the sacrifice and investment that the staff and these players have made in this off-season come to fruition,” Pry said.
Something different you may see on offense, is more of an investment in the run game.
We have a healthy running back room, improved skill set in the running back room,” Pry added. “I think we’re much further along playing together as a front five with our offensive line, and I think we spent more time, we invested in it more.”
And while a lot of the defense is young, specifically on the secondary, head coach Brent Pry says they’re still mature, mostly due to the fact that a lot of them came from very successful high school programs.
“So the maturity was already set and ingrained in them in the programs that they came from,” senior cornerback Derrick Canteen said. “To bring them along into a college, the maturity of taking care of your body, going to class, things like that, it was kind of easy and now they’re just eager to get better every day.”
The Hokies do have a little bit of an insider this year. They have Ali Jennings, who is one of the best wide receivers ever to play at ODU last season, now playing for the Hokies. I asked him if he had any insider information that may not show up on tape, he said there’s nothing really like that however, he does know these players tendencies and he hopes he can help his guys now on Virginia Tech kind of see that as well.
Virginia Tech and ODU will be facing off at 8 PM here in Lane Stadium on Saturday to open the 2023 season.