By Jimmy Robertson
BLACKSBURG – The Virginia Tech football team returned to the practice field Sunday afternoon after taking several days off during an off week, and the Hokies began preparations for their biggest challenge of the season – a Saturday date with No. 4 Clemson.
The Hokies are in the throes of a three-game losing streak, including heartbreaking losses by three points to Liberty and by a point to Miami. A beat-up Tech squad fell 47-14 at Pittsburgh on Nov. 21, so the off weekend came at a good time.
Tech coach Justin Fuente allowed the players to take Thursday, Friday and Saturday off to celebrate Thanksgiving at their homes, if they so chose. He required them to return to Blacksburg on Saturday evening in keeping with the program's timeline for COVID-19 testing. He said at his weekly news conference with the media Monday that his team had a "great" practice Sunday.
"Obviously I felt that was more important than anything else we could do," Fuente said of the time off. "We set pretty simple goals for last week on Tuesday and Wednesday – to get older guys feeling better and younger guys a little bit of work. Then on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, I wanted guys refreshed.
"We had a great workout yesterday, so if that's any indication, I think our guys feel much better. I thought it [take some time off] was the most important thing we could do in the bye week. Certainly, we need practice and we need to improve and all those sorts of things, but you get to the point where the law of diminishing returns comes into effect. That's [the time off] exactly what we needed both mentally and physically. It's not just nine games in a row. And not to keep harping on this, but the mental strain of everything that is going on through this has been pretty difficult. I think our guys needed a little breath of fresh air and a chance to catch their breath for a couple of days."
GAMEDAY INFORMATION
Saturday, Dec. 5 – 7:30 p.m.
Lane Stadium; Blacksburg, Va.
vs. No. 4 Clemson (8-1, 7-1)
Head Coach: Dabo Swinney (11th season)
Record at school: 138-31; Career: 138-31 (11th season)
Series: Tech trails 12-22-1 Last: Sept. 30, 2017 (L, 17-31)
Live Stats: CLICK HERE
Broadcast: ABC
Radio: Virginia Tech Sports Properties
Play-by-Play: Jon Laaser
Analyst: Mike Burnop
Sideline: Wes McElroy
Virginia Tech Game Notes: CLICK HERE
Tech needed that rest and will need to be at its best Saturday when the Tigers roll into town. Clemson destroyed Pittsburgh 52-17 this past Saturday.
Here are some other takeaways from Fuente's news conference:
• Fuente opened his news conference by revealing that quarterback Quincy Patterson II and receiver Darryle Simmons had decided to transfer because both wanted to pursue opportunities for more playing time elsewhere. Patterson played in 13 games at Tech, including three this season, and he completed 22 of 52 passes for 359 yards and four touchdowns in his career. According to Fuente, he and Patterson met several times before Patterson came to his decision.
"I just want to publicly thank Quincy for his time here," Fuente said. "Just a fantastic young man. Played a vital role on our football team. Quincy knows how I feel about him and his folks, and we stand ready to help him in any way we can moving forward. I'm sure when the news hits, his phone will blow up with a lot of people trying to find out about him and our phones will be blowing up, too. We'll have nothing but great things to say about him moving forward. I look forward to watching him play and getting on the field on a more consistent basis."
• Fuente said that Patterson unfortunately had suffered a badly bruised thumb in Tech's loss at Pittsburgh and probably wouldn't have been available to play the rest of this season. Yet the quarterback position received some good news with Braxton Burmeister's recent return to the field. Burmeister suffered three broken toes in a practice a couple of weeks ago, and while he never missed a practice, he was limited. Now, he'll be Hendon Hooker's backup, with Knox Kadum as the No. 3 quarterback.
"Braxton's been feeling good for over a week now," Fuente said. "I feel good about him."
• Fuente and the staff spent the early part of last week going through every one of the Hokies' football games this season and evaluating both schemes and personnel, and the coaches hope that the Hokies can improve their conversion rate on third downs in these final two regular-season games. Tech is converting at a 35.5% clip on third downs, which ranks 14th in the ACC, and the Hokies too often find themselves in third-and-long situations.
"I like philosophically how we're trying to handle those things," Fuente said. "We need to do a better job of cutting those down, either through scheme or better execution, to get into a little bit more manageable situation, and that was certainly one of the things we worked on during our couple of days of practice last week."
• Fuente and the staff hope to see more production from several players over the course of these final two regular-season games and Fuente was asked specifically which players. The coach singled out receiver Changa Hodge and tailback Raheem Blackshear as two players with the ability to do more, but also two who have been hurt by the pandemic. Hodge arrived on campus in August after transferring from Villanova and then missed time while going through protocols, so he wasn't able to get the reps and one-on-one instruction needed to master the offense during that time, and because of COVID-19 and Khalil Herbert's start, Fuente has played Blackshear at multiple positions to create added depth.
"Changa Hodge has been hurt the most by this," Fuente said. "The way the schedule fell, the time that he missed in fall camp, the way we played game after game after game – I hope that we can continue to bring him along. I've said that for many weeks now. We just haven't been able to. It's just been one week after another of just playing, and he's kind of been drinking water through a firehose.
"I think Raheem Blackshear has been hurt by it, too. He's worked so much at running back, and then Khalil goes off and has such a productive, particularly early, part of the season. Then Khalil is out and so on and so forth. So getting Raheem and Changa, and I'm sure there are some others that I'm missing, but those two have been hurt the most by the circumstances through their development of being versatile and picking up what's been going on and helping this team more on the stat sheet than they are currently. They're currently helping this football team, but I think we'd all like to get those guys helping us more on the stat sheet."