Virginia Tech at Boston College: VT Offense vs. BC Defense

Greg M. Cooper-USA TODAY Sports

Virginia Tech has had a great deal of trouble scoring this season. In fact, they have scored fewer than 20 points five out of eight times this season. Their lone game above 30 points was a 45-point explosion against the hapless FCS-level Western Carolina Catamounts. Against ACC competition, Virginia Tech has scored 17, 27, 19, and 10 in four conference games.

While to most teams they would be a minor offensive threat, to Boston College, nothing comes easy. North Carolina was struggling and they had a good offensive day against the Eagles, so playing a rebuilding Eagles defense might be just what they need. Don’t write off Boston College too much, however, because the Eagles have gotten orders of magnitude better at sacking the quarterback and have had their share of successes with stopping drives and holding opponents in the red zone.

Virginia Tech’s offensive weapons are few and far between. Quarterback Logan Thomas has been more liability than asset for the Hokies this season, completing just 55 percent of his passes and throwing one more pick (10) than touchdown (9). His mediocrity has not helped matters, but in many ways he’s quite lucky that the Hokies have the stellar defense that they do.

Elsewhere, the run game hasn’t been very productive, averaging just 3.3 yards per carry with Trey Edmunds leading the team with 437 yards (3.7 ypc). Logan Thomas is second with 258, so his value to the team increases somewhat with his legs.

Though technically on special teams, it’s worth a mention: veteran kicker Cody Journell has not had a great year, making just eight of his 14 field goal attempts and also missing two extra points. One of his field goal misses was inside 30 yards, another two were in the 30s, and three were in the 40s. He missed two field goals in the loss against Duke that could have made the difference. His leg would account for the relatively low red zone conversion percentage.

When the Eagles defense is on the field, watch for senior defensive linemen Kaleb Ramsey and Kasim Edebali. Each had a sack against North Carolina last week; Edebali had one tackle for a loss and Ramsey had two.

Final Evaluation
Overall, one might say that both the Hokie offense and the Eagle defense are below-average. Boston College has had at least one success this season against offensive teams that aren’t so good, with that team being Wake Forest. Villanova might be another, but that’s a difficult comparison. It would be easy to call this one a toss-up, but the Hokies have had a great deal of trouble scoring and even against this defense which has its deficiencies, one cannot imagine that Virginia Tech is going to go wild when they have the ball. Boston College slightly favored.