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2020-21 Football Roster Breakdown: The State of Virginia Tech's Defensive Line

Virginia Tech's defensive line continues to search for quality depth heading into the 2020-21 season

Stephen Newman

With Bud Foster no longer on the sidelines and Charley Wiles off to N.C. State, the Virginia Tech defensive line is undergoing a bit of an overhaul. The Hokies added a key pass rusher to their core rotation up front, landed a few notable high school recruits, and obviously revamped the coaching staff. Progress has been made, but is that enough to make the unit noticeably better?

New Coaches

Bill Teerlinck: He was once on the same staff as Justin Fuente at Illinois State, but that was almost 15 years ago. Since then, the son of recently-deceased, legendary D-line coach John Teerlinck has accrued considerable professional service time. He spent five years as an understudy to his father in Indianapolis while likely soon to be Hall of Famers Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis were both on the roster. 

Additionally, Teerlinck is coming off a three-year tenure as the defensive line coach with the Buffalo Bills, who had one of the best defenses in the NFL for much of the time he was there – partially due to the productivity of former Hokies linebacker Tremaine Edmunds.

Expect some of his in game tendencies – what types of players to feature, how to scheme rushes, and substitution patterns – to follow him from Buffalo to Blacksburg. He’s a fairly significant departure from Wiles.

Darryl Tapp: The 35-year-old Portsmouth, Virginia native has never coached before – aside from being a quality control assistant – but he’s a Hokie legend and had a 12-year pro career. His name alone carries weight, but he also has a toolbox of wisdom as a player to draw from.

He’s not a finished product as a coach, but he doesn’t have to be – Teerlinck holds the official title anyway.

Their additions should bring credibility to the defensive line room, and they could also inject some NFL tendencies into Tech’s defense.

Top Defensive Ends

Justus Reed: This unit starts with the Youngstown State graduate transfer. It’s always dangerous to expect production from a lower level of competition to directly translate to the next level. None the less, Reed brings a lot to the table that the Hokies need. 

Even ignoring stat lines, he does appear to have more upside as a pass rusher than their in-house options – an area that has admittedly plagued Tech for awhile, particularly at defensive end.

The more intriguing element might actually be Reed’s size though. He’s 6-foot-3, 270 pounds, which is a substantial deviation from what the Hokies typically look for on the edge. It’s a direction they’re trending towards to some degree, but Reed is as far in that direction as they can possibly go. He’s the definition of a strong-side defensive end, and there’s a chance that he becomes more than an edge defender.

Emmanuel Belmar: The longest-tenured Hokie up front is no longer going to be the featured pass rusher. In fact, he’s more likely to be a backup despite being a senior. His 245-pound frame isn’t big enough to man the strong side of the defense anymore, and he doesn’t appear to have the explosiveness and makeup speed to provide a starting-caliber impact on the weak side.

What role he plays is somewhat to be determined, but Belmar will still see the field plenty. It’s not the situation he would prefer, but he’s started 24 games and only has 10.5 tackles for loss to show for it. Still, fewer reps could boost his motor when he is on the field.

TyJuan Garbutt: He’ll lose some playing time as well, but Garbutt can be labeled as the likely “winner” in this discussion. The Hokies will still want to see him be more disruptive but that should – in theory – happen with a better rusher on the other end of the field that will draw some extra attention.

Garbutt and Belmar likely will split time. Their snap counts might not be overwhelmingly different, but the 6-foot-1, 238-pound junior likely plays in base packages the majority of the time.

Jaylen Griffin: Listing a fourth player here almost feels generous, but Griffin feels like a “pick to click”. He’s the only player out of the rest of the group to have made much of an impact (2.5 sacks in limited reps) in 2019, and shifting to a bigger alignment should help an edge defender who weighs 260 pounds.

Top Defensive Tackles

Jarrod Hewitt: The nose tackle can be highlighted first, even though he’s probably not the best player along the interior. Hewitt’s production seemed to come in chunks, but 2019 was the best season he’s had thus far. He registered four sacks, 6.5 tackles for loss, and 33 tackles which is essentially what you look for from a nose tackle. The only knock on Hewitt is his consistency.

One of the reasons Hewitt is the leader in this hierarchy is that as a nose tackle, he’s generally the player who will line up closest to the center. In a 4-3 defense, the difference between where the nose tackle and off-tackle align is minor (if there even is a difference). However, with a bigger defensive end (Reed) on one side, the Hokies may opt to run some three-man fronts. That would presumably require more of Hewitt as a clogger in the middle, but maybe that challenge would be good for him.

DaShawn Crawford: He’s almost the exact same size as Hewitt, but the Hokies like to give Crawford slightly more freedom which is why he isn’t the nose. His statistics don’t necessarily back it up, but Crawford is more disruptive to offenses than Hewitt. Crawford was recently named fourth-team preseason All-Conference by Athlon Sports, and Pro Football Focus rates him as the fourth-best returning ACC defensive tackle.

Crawford could theoretically slide inside to a nose tackle alignment at times. He might have to because turning to a three-man front would mean the Hokies would be playing one fewer defensive lineman. Crawford is a better player than Hewitt, but again, that’s just a theory.

Norell Pollard: Whereas the starters are both seniors, Pollard is only a true sophomore who deserves almost as much attention. He notched three sacks and four tackles for loss as a backup in 2019 and was named second-team All-Freshman nationally by Pro Football Focus.

Regardless of whether the Hokies run a three or four-man front, Pollard is in line for more snaps. He’s an ideal “three-tech” (along the outside shoulder of a guard) who can shoot gaps and get to the quarterback.

Potential Contributors

Eli Adams: Believe it or not Adams started twice in 2019 as a redshirt freshman and played in all 13 games, neither of which Griffin did. The downside was that he wasn’t as productive and his playing time diminished as the season progressed. He’s also only 5-foot-11 and 240 pounds which seems more like the size of a linebacker than a defensive end. He’ll still see the field this season, but the addition of Reed hurt him.

Mario Kendricks: The biggest reason why Kendricks falls into this category is that Pollard (the other second-string tackle) looked noticeably better, which could mean Kendricks’ job is up for grabs. Even so he played in all 13 games last year and recorded four tackles for loss. At 293 pounds, he’s in line to be Hewitt’s backup.

Jaden Cunningham: Things get tricky here. Cunningham played in two games and redshirted in 2019, so there’s not a lot of film on him – aside from at Hutchinson Community College. The Hokies are hoping that things click for him in his second year in the program, because his 6-foot-2, 306-pound frame is appealing.

Josh Fuga: This is pretty much the same situation as Cunningham except Fuga is younger and didn’t go to community college. As a 3-star from Freedom High School in Woodbridge, VA, Fuga only got onto the field in one game in 2019. But like Cunningham, he’s 6-foot-2 and 308 pounds, so he has some potential as a nose tackle.

True Freshmen

3-star Derrell Bailey Jr. has already enrolled while Alec Bryant, Robert Wooten, and Justin Beadles have each signed a letter of intent. Assuming the latter trio stick to those commitments, they’re the more intriguing players, particularly Bryant and Wooten – two of the participants in the #TX2VT movement.

All four players are defensive ends which is a position that will lose two of its top three players after this season with no obvious replacements. There might not be a lot of room for them as true freshmen, but some of their names should be heard regularly in the future.

Reserves: Zion Debose, Nigel Simmons, Maxx Philpott

Debose is the standout of the group, but the progress he made in 2018 was erased last season, during which he didn’t play. As a redshirt junior it’s safe to say the clock is ticking. As for Simmons and Philpott, their names likely won’t be heard.

Overall Outlook

This isn’t one of the Hokies’ stronger position groups. There’s a lot of unknown about this unit, from the capabilities of new players to the coaching staff and scheme. There could be more creative looks up front and the potential insertion of Bryant and Wooten makes the future appear to be brighter than the recent past, but those things might not translate to production in 2020.

Even so, it would be difficult for the defensive line to be worse than it was in 2019. The entire two-deep from last year is back, and the Hokies have made seemingly positive personnel additions. Time will tell whether that’s enough to take the units to new heights this season.

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Stephen Newman
STEPHEN NEWMAN

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