Five Areas Virginia Tech Needs to Improve Ahead of Week Two Game vs Vanderbilt

The first and most obvious area of improvement for the Hokies is in the red zone. In the first half, the Hokies' offense got into the red zone twice and were only able to come away with three points. On the first drive, Kyron Drones tried to make a hero play on third down and was intercepted. Then, they connected on a 48-yard pass to set them up at the 11-yard line before completely stalling out and settling for a field goal. They'd only get within the South Carolina 25 one more time all game, and after two rushes and an incomplete pass, they kicked another field goal from the 22-yard line.

If they want to win games in the ACC, they'll need to be much better at capping off drives with six instead of three.

Short To Intermediate Passing Game

One area Virginia Tech does not need to improve is in their deep passing attack. They connected on passes of 25, 28, 32, 36 and 48 yards in this game. That's 169 of their 221 passing yards (76.4%). What they need to get better at is their short to intermediate passing game.

When throwing between 10-19 yards downfield, Kyron Drones was 0-for-4 with zero drops. He was better in the short game (1-10 yards downfield), going 10-for-15 for 130 yards, but 81 of those yards came after the catch.

Hitting on deep balls is always nice, but it's not something you want to rely on consistently. Drones and Co. will need to be much better in the short to intermediate passing game if they want to improve.

Pass Blocking

Sunday's game was a complete letdown for Tech's offensive line, who was missing Brody Meadows. They only gave up one sack, but that was almost completely due to Drones using his feet and escaping the pocket. Drones dropped back 38 times in this game and was under pressure 17 times (44.7%). That stat looks even worse when you consider the fact that South Carolina blitzed just nine times in this game.

When Drones was pressured, he was 3-for-15 with 48 passing yards and one interception. He was running for his life back there, so it's no wonder he struggled in the short to intermediate passing game.

South Carolina's defensive line is one of the best Tech will face all year. Drones better be thankful they don't play Clemson this year, because that game would be ugly.

Run Blocking

The Hokies' offensive line also needs to be much better in the run game than they were against South Carolina. As a team, the Hokies rushed for 115 yards on 37 carries (3.1 yards per carry) and only had two rushes go for more than 10 yards. The running backs weren't great, but a lot of this load falls on the offensive line.

South Carolina had 17 players record at least one snap as a run blocker. One of their top-11 blockers was an offensive lineman (Johnny Garrett). The rest of the starters ranked 11th, 14th, 15th and 16th. Matt Moore's unit has a lot of work to do between now and the start of ACC play.

First Down Offense

It seems like I'm hating on the offense, but it's because the defense played so well that I couldn't think of any area they drastically needed to improve upon. Offensively, though, they were not good and have a lot of things to clean up.

The fifth and final area they need to improve is on first down. I went back and looked at every first down play they ran, and they had four first down plays that picked up 10 or more yards. Drones were 5-for-11 for 77 yards on first downs, but when you consider that 68 of those 77 yards came on two plays, it looks a lot worse. In the run game, they weren't much better, rushing for 44 yards on 16 carries (2.75 average) on first down.

Staying ahead of the sticks is incredibly important for an offense. When you can't get three or more yards on first downs, you see what can happen.

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