Virginia Tech has spent the first two weeks looking exactly like a team that can overwhelm people when everything is rolling and still leave a few real questions hanging in the air.
The Hokies are 2-0 for the first time since 2021, and the 73-3 win over VMI was the program’s largest margin of victory in 104 years. They’ve piled up 117 points, yet against the only FBS opponent on the schedule so far, they’ve managed just 89 rushing yards.
That split tells the story as cleanly as anything. There’s plenty of firepower.
There are also things that still need to be proven.
Saturday night in College Park is where the noise stops and the answers start. Maryland is 2-0 as well, and Virginia Tech opened as a slight favorite. A win would match last season’s total and give the Hokies their first nonconference Power Four victory since 2017.
What stands out first on this offense is how much the ball has funneled to tight end Benji Gosnell Reynolds. He leads the team with 158 receiving yards and three touchdowns, and his 13 catches are tied with Que’Sean Brown for the team high.
Against Old Dominion, he posted career bests with eight catches for 108 yards and two scores. No Virginia Tech tight end had topped 100 yards since James Mitchell in 2020.
The usage says as much as the stat line. On fourth-and-2 from the Old Dominion 10, with Virginia Tech up 17, Franklin kept the offense on the field and Ethan Grunkemeyer threw to Reynolds in the flat.
Offensive coordinator Ty Howle has even lined Reynolds up in the Wildcat at the goal line, sending a direct snap to a Penn State transfer in his first season here. That play lost two yards, but it showed the level of trust the staff has in him.
The ground game, meanwhile, has not come close to matching the passing production. Virginia Tech has 42 carries for 89 yards, a 2.1-yard average. Marcellous Hawkins Jr. and Jeffrey Overton Jr. combined for 25 carries and 90 yards, and Overton, who ran for 104 yards on nine carries a week earlier, never broke a run longer than eight against Old Dominion.
The line gets a piece of help back Saturday, though. Right guard Montavious Cunningham will be available after his fourth-quarter ejection for appearing to throw a punch.
Even with him back, the challenge is obvious: this group has to move a Big Ten front after failing to move a Sun Belt one. And Old Dominion wasn’t some flimsy defense coasting through the afternoon; the Monarchs won 10 games and a bowl game last season.
If the offense has been uneven, the defense has been ruthless.
Virginia Tech has 12 sacks and 32 tackles for loss through two games, both FBS bests. That’s a massive jump from last season, when the Hokies ranked 110th nationally in sacks and tied for 108th in tackles for loss. The 18 tackles for loss against VMI were the most in a Hokies game since at least 1987.
Old Dominion got a taste of the pressure too. The Monarchs allowed seven sacks, four fumbles and a Tyson Flowers scoop-and-score, and they converted just 4 of 13 on third down.
Mylachi Williams has three sacks and six tackles for loss, while Cortez Harris also has three sacks. Both followed Franklin from Penn State, and so did the man now running the defense, eventually.
Pry was fired as Virginia Tech’s head coach last September, and one of those three losses came at home to this same Old Dominion team, 45-26. Franklin hired him back in February.
“I think Coach Pry is the best defensive coordinator in college football,” Franklin said.
Virginia Tech’s quarterback play has been sharp, too. Through two games, he is 48 of 62 for 551 yards, four passing touchdowns, one rushing score and no interceptions, which adds up to a 77.4% completion percentage.
His 31 completions against Old Dominion tied for the third-most in school history, three behind Don Strock’s 34 in 1972. The 327 passing yards were the first 300-yard game of his career and the most by a Hokie since Ryan Willis threw for 344 at Boston College in 2019.
He completed passes to 11 different receivers.
John Love has been steady as well. He is 4-for-4 on field goals and has never missed an extra point in college. His 27 points in two games moved him into sixth on Virginia Tech’s all-time scoring list.
Special teams has already delivered a few big moments. Tech blocked two VMI punts and turned one into a touchdown after recovering it in the end zone. Against Old Dominion, Brown caught a punt at his own 20 and returned it 79 yards before being brought down at the 1.
The Hokies have punted only three times all season, and all three ended up inside the 20. That’s a tiny sample, but it fits a team that scored on its first six possessions against VMI and its first five against Old Dominion.
Maryland is not likely to make that easy. Virginia Tech has shown enough through two blowouts at home to hint at what this roster can do when nobody pushes back. Saturday will show what happens when it does.
In Other News...
Virginia Tech Brings Back A Familiar ACC Rival In 2027
The ACCs 2027 football schedule release gave Virginia Tech a fresh look at the road ahead, and it comes with a familiar twist. After years of conference realignment and shifting divisions, the Hokies will once again see former Coastal Division rivals on the slate, a reminder of how much the leagues old neighborhood still shapes the new setup.
Virginia Techs conference lineup, along with its nonconference dates, fits the ACCs broader scheduling principles, including protected rivalries and Power Four nonconference games. The leagues athletic directors approved the 2027 slate during recent meetings, but more sweeping scheduling conversations remain on hold for now as the ACC waits for clarity on College Football Playoff expansion. [Read more 🡒]
Virginia Tech Is 2-0 But One Doubt Still Follows The Hokies
The ACC spent Week 2 looking much deeper than a one-team league, and Virginia Tech was right in the middle of that conversation after moving to 2-0. The league posted a 12-1 mark for the week and even went 4-1 against other Power conferences, which only sharpened the focus on where the Hokies stand as the schedule gets tougher and the weekly rankings start to settle.
Virginia Tech has done enough early to keep itself in the mix, but the real question hanging over Blacksburg is whether the Hokies have already answered their biggest concern or simply delayed it. With Boston College, Syracuse, Georgia Tech and the rest of the ACC also making noise, this is the point where early wins start to matter less than how a team handles the next layer of pressure. [Read more 🡒]
Virginia Tech's Fast Start Now Faces Its First Real Test
Virginia Tech has spent the first two weeks looking like a team that can dictate games on both sides of the ball, with a defense that has piled up tackles for loss and sacks at a national-best pace while helping push the Hokies to a 2-0 start. Grant Wells has given the offense enough stability, Jalen Williams has been part of the pressure that has set the tone up front, and Dalton Keene has been one of the more reliable options as the Hokies settle in around him.
Maryland now brings a different kind of challenge, and it arrives at a good time for a team trying to find out how real this opening burst is. The Hokies have reason to trust their special teams and the line play in front of Wells, but this is the sort of nonconference game that tends to show where the cracks are, and Virginia Tech is about to learn whether its fast start can hold up when the opponent forces a longer, tougher night. [Read more 🡒]