Virginia Tech got the kind of win that can make a coach feel two things at once: satisfied with the result and irritated by the details.
The Hokies rolled past Old Dominion 44-21 on Saturday at Lane Stadium, moving to 2-0 for the first time since 2021. The final score looked comfortable, and in a lot of ways the performance was better than that margin. But the afternoon also came with enough sloppiness that head coach James Franklin spent much of his postgame session talking about composure rather than celebrating.
The biggest edge came from a defense that turned disruptive football into a rout. Virginia Tech finished with seven sacks, 14 tackles for loss, four forced fumbles, and three recoveries, which helped produce 14 points off turnovers.
Defensive end Mylachi Williams led the charge with two sacks and two forced fumbles, while Cortez Harris added two sacks of his own. Old Dominion managed only 4 of 13 on third down.
Franklin credited the work being done up front.
"Our whole thing with [defensive coordinator Brent Pry and defensive line coach Sean Spencer] and our time together has been about being disruptive and getting people off schedule," Franklin said.
That kind of pressure wrecked the Monarchs’ rhythm and also helped make the night feel like a response game for Pry, who was fired a day after Old Dominion came into this stadium last September and won 45-26. Franklin brought him back in February as defensive coordinator, and Saturday’s performance was a loud answer.
Offensively, Virginia Tech had a passing game that finally found real air. Grunkemeyer threw for 327 yards and two touchdowns without an interception, giving him the first 300-yard game of his career and the most by a Virginia Tech quarterback since Ryan Willis had 344 at Boston College in 2019.
Both scoring throws went to Reynolds, who finished with eight catches for 108 yards. That made him the first Hokies tight end to top 100 receiving yards since James Mitchell at North Carolina in 2020.
The bigger of those two touchdowns came on a fourth-down decision that said plenty about Franklin’s mindset. With Virginia Tech up 17 and facing 4th-and-2 at the Old Dominion 10, he kept the offense on the field.
Grunkemeyer found Reynolds in the flat, and Reynolds beat a defender to the pylon. It was the Hokies’ second fourth-down conversion on that drive.
Still, the run game never really got rolling. Virginia Tech ran it 42 times and gained only 89 yards.
Marcellous Hawkins Jr. and Jeffrey Overton Jr. combined for 25 carries and 90 yards, but once Hawkins’ 20-yard touchdown run in the first quarter is removed, that becomes 24 carries for 70 yards. Overton, who had gone for 104 yards on nine carries against VMI a week earlier, carried 14 times for 47 yards and never broke off a run longer than eight.
That came against a defense that had already allowed 126 rushing yards to Norfolk State in Week 1.
The red zone was another mixed bag. After Que'Sean Brown’s 79-yard punt return down the left sideline set Virginia Tech up at the 1, the Hokies got nothing close to easy. Overton lost a yard, Reynolds lost two on a Wildcat snap, and an incompletion followed, leaving Tech to settle for a field goal from John Love four plays later.
Brown’s return was a perfect snapshot of the day. He fielded the punt at his own 20 in the second quarter, raced to the sideline, and nearly took it the distance before being dragged down at the 1. Four plays later, Love put through a 22-yard field goal.
The game also got chippier than Franklin wanted. Right guard Montavious Cunningham was ejected in the fourth quarter after appearing to throw a punch in a scrum, and the penalty could carry into next week’s road trip to Maryland. Franklin said he had already warned Cunningham once.
"He lost his composure at that moment, and we call them selfish penalties," Franklin said. "The thing that bothers me the most is we had addressed it earlier in the game, and then it happened again."
Franklin said Cunningham later stood before the team and apologized, but that doesn’t make the situation easier for a line that already struggled to move defenders and may now be without its starting right guard when Virginia Tech heads to College Park.
The Hokies will play Malik Washington and the Maryland Terrapins next Saturday at 7:30 p.m. If they win, they’ll match last season’s total victories and pick up their first nonconference Power Four win since 2017.
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Virginia Tech Faces Its First Real James Franklin Test At Maryland
Virginia Tech heads into next Saturday nights road trip to Maryland with a little more momentum than it had a few weeks ago, thanks to a 2-0 start under James Franklin and a solid win over Old Dominion. The Hokies are carrying the usual early-season optimism, but this one comes with a bit more weight, since its the first real chance to see how Franklins team handles a tricky away setting against a power-conference opponent. FanDuel Sportsbook has Virginia Tech favored by 3.5 points, and the matchup is set for FS1 or Fox Sports.
Franklin had reason to feel good about what he saw from the defense against Old Dominion, especially from the starters, who helped set the tone with disruptive play up front. Now the challenge shifts to proving that edge travels, because Maryland offers a different sort of stress test and a road game can expose the small issues that dont always show up at home. For a Hokies team trying to build something early, this feels like the kind of game that can say a lot without fully revealing everything. [Read more 🡒]
Virginia Techs Fast Start Faces Its First Real Test
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The next stretch is where that early confidence gets put under a brighter spotlight. Maryland is coming up as a far more revealing measuring stick, and Virginia Techs defense and special teams will need to keep carrying their share while the offense deals with an offensive line that has already had to work through injuries and ejections. The Hokies have started well, but the bigger question now is how much of that fast start holds up once the schedule stops being so forgiving. [Read more 🡒]
Virginia Tech Faces Its First Real Test With Plenty To Prove
Saturday night brings Virginia Tech its first real measuring stick of the season, and the setting is as firm as it gets for an early nonconference game. The Hokies head into an out-of-conference P4 matchup at Maryland with both teams still unbeaten at 2-0, which makes this more than just a September tune-up and gives the winner an early boost in the bigger picture. Virginia Tech has leaned on quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer to get here, while Maryland has its own answer in Malik Washington, setting up a game that should tell a lot about where each program really stands.
The market has treated it like a tight one from the start, with Virginia Tech opening as a slight favorite and the total sitting in a range that suggests points should be available on both sides. ESPN Analytics gives the Hokies a 58.3% chance to win, but that edge is hardly the kind that settles anything before kickoff. For Virginia Tech, the real question is whether this is a team ready to turn an encouraging start into a statement, or one that still has plenty to prove when the level of competition rises. [Read more 🡒]