Roth Report: April 2025

New leaders emerging on retooled roster and coaching staff.

Four months might seem like a long time to prepare for a football game – or the start of a new season, but for Virginia Tech coach Brent Pry and his team, there won’t be very many off-days between now and the season opener against South Carolina at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium on August 31.

Tech just completed its fourth spring under Pry with a new-look roster and staff. The 15 practices amounted to as much as a ‘get to know ya’ period as anything else.

Pry, choosing his words carefully, summed up the spring as “rough in some places, but definitely improving all the time. I think we had a productive spring. I’d call it that.”

While perhaps lacking the overall star power of his 2024 team, Pry insists his program overall – from its roster to its coaching staff – is in the best place it’s been since he arrived in Blacksburg.

“We’ve got better depth,” Pry told me. “I think we’re finally at a place where we’ve got a combination of the high school players we’ve recruited and the transfers we’ve brought in, particularly in the secondary and the offensive line. We’ve just got more depth. Guys who can help us on special teams and guys who can step up when there’s an injury.”

Kryon Drones and Pop Watson, Tech’s top two QBs, were injured late in the spring, and both were held out of last Saturday’s game. Drones, who will be QB1 when camp opens in August, underwent a medical procedure and watched the game on a scooter. Watson suffered a soft-tissue injury and watched the game as well.

“Ironically, both Kyron and Pop had their best couple of days prior to their injuries,” Pry said. “Pop had a really good finish. It's unfortunate he couldn't go.”

Cause for alarm? Not really. Drones was a true stud in the off-season workouts, dominating the Hokies’ hunger games and looking like a true leader. He’s a solid QB1 for the Hokies.

Watson has some work to do. “From Pop, we’re looking for consistency. He’s played very well at times in games, and he’s played very well at times in practice and in scrimmages. We’re looking for a more mature approach and consistent level of play from him,” Pry said. “I think both QBs got a lot out of the spring. You know, they’ve got a long way to go still offensively. But I think the two guys, they did pretty good.”

OFFENSIVE LINE, DEFENSIVE FRONT DUO, SECONDARY ARE BRIGHT SPOTS
Pry’s biggest smile came when talking about the revamped offensive line under first-year OL coach Matt Moore. The veteran assistant joined Pry’s staff after six years at West Virginia, where he was assistant head coach and co-offensive coordinator.

“I think I’ve seen big improvement (in our offensive line play),” Pry said.
“We’re athletic. Guys are coming together. That first five is playing pretty well. Communicating well. We’ve got a sixth, a seventh, and an eighth that have experience. They’re pushing for time. Coach (Matt) Moore has done a good job with them.”

Tech’s defense dominated the spring game despite playing basic coverages. There were no blitzes or stunts. No disguised coverages. But if you watched closely, you did notice players lining up in some new positions.

“We want to be more multiple. That was the plan, Pry told me. “We want to do more from more looks. Get into some things up front, and I think we’ve established that this spring. The guys have a good concept of it, and we’ve got a pretty good plan mapped out as to what we want to look like.”

Two players who really emerged this spring were junior defensive linemen Kelvin Gilliam from Richmond and Kemari Copeland from Virginia Beach. 

“Those two guys, number one, work very well together,” Pry told me. “KG is just a veteran guy. He’s captain material who played a ton last year for us. Copeland, we know, was an explosive player. He’s very quick off the ball. He’s very strong. Good redirection. The combination of those two guys was good. It was good work for our offensive line all spring.”

The Hokies lost two All-ACC defensive linemen from last year’s roster (Antoine Powell-Ryland and Aneas Peebles), but overall, the Hokies feel confident in their returning group.

The most notable change on the defense is likely the back end.

“The entire secondary stands out,” Pry said. “We’ve been thin for a couple different reasons the last few years in the secondary. It hurt us on teams, it’s hurt us with the nickel package, and it just hasn’t been what we needed it to be. We helped ourselves by developing some high school guys, and we’ve helped ourselves in the portal. So, we have better depth, particularly at safety. I’m excited about several guys there. Not just Quentin Reddish, but Isaiah Cash, Sherrod Covell, Braylon Johnson, Tyson Flower, Knahlij Harrell—there’s just a bunch of guys playing some in there. So, it’s a good group. There’s a lot of depth. They push each other. They work well together. Really good communication. And a couple of them have really, really high football IQs.

PRY HIGH ON TEAM’S DEPTH AND CHEMISTRY
Despite losing some key players to the transfer portal and 17 others who participated in the team’s NFL Pro Day, Pry is high on the overall talent level in his program.

“We’ve recruited the high school ranks really hard the last few years,” Pry told me.   “We haven’t retained all those guys, but a high percentage of them. I’m excited about that. They’ve got the voice. It’s their team. The Caleb Woodsons and Ayden Greenes and Johnny Garrett.”

Greene had a tremendous spring game, throwing a touchdown to fellow Tennessee native Cameron Seldon and catching a TD pass as well.

 “He won our MVP offensively,” Pry said of Greene. “He's been that way just about every practice. When the offense needed a play in the red zone or in one-on-ones or in the scrimmage, he's made big plays all spring. He's very confident. He's got great control of his body and really good ball skills. I'm pleased with the spring he had.”

Greene’s work this past few months caught the eye of Hokies’ long-time radio analyst Mike Burnop as well.

“I thought Ayden Greene had a great spring, just watching him out there develop, catch the ball on a more consistent basis than he did last year,” Burnop said on this week’s edition of Level Seven. “Clearly that room lost a lot of talent, and he's a guy that's going to have to step up and play and be a leader.”

Who else impressed Mike this spring?

“Thomas Williams, we called his name a bunch this past Saturday in the spring game for the multiple things that he can do as a cornerback, defensive back, and returner,” Mike said. “He was involved in many plays, and I’m happy to see him continue to develop and be that leader too.”

 The transfer portal is open right now, and the Hokies have already lost a couple of players, including QB Davi Belfort, who was battling Watson for the No. 2 QB spot.

“Coach mentioned to us in the meeting we had with him before the spring game that he might be looking for another cornerback, because you can never have enough of those,” Burnop said. “I'm thinking that, plus I'd go get another quarterback just to be safe in that regard.”

The new coordinators seem confident they can make an impact this fall. But there will be an adjustment period, which makes this summer critical for the returning players.

“It happened to me when I was here playing; you change coordinators and all the terminology changes,” Burnop said.  “It takes a while to pick all that stuff up, which I think is part of the reason maybe the offense struggled a little bit. But again, being vanilla (in the spring game) and not wanting to show much, they probably don't have 25 percent of the offense that they're going to show against South Carolina in August.”

“So, it's going to be fun to watch and see how they develop and how they come along and how the system gets more and more implemented day by day.”

Four months might seem like a long time, but in the words of the Beach Boys, "It won’t be long till summer time is through.”