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Inside Hokie Sports
Tech’s offense put up big
numbers this past fall,
but coordinator Brad
Cornelsen finds himself
in a similar situation as
last spring—searching
for a quarterback and
developing players at
the positions where the
Hokies lost starters
by
Jimmy Robertson
’s
offense set school
single-season records for total yards, passing yards, completions,
touchdown passes and points this past fall under coordinator Brad
Cornelsen. Much of that could be attributed to quarterback Jerod Evans,
who broke the school’s single-season records for passing touchdowns,
total touchdowns, passing offense and total offense.
Evans decided to forgo his senior season and make himself available
for the NFL Draft, along with receivers Isaiah Ford and Bucky
Hodges—the two main recipients of Evans’ passes. In all, Tech’s offense
lost six starters. So Cornelsen and the rest of Tech’s staff go into this
spring practice looking to develop replacements to bolster a unit that
ranked a respectable 33rd nationally in scoring offense (35.0 ppg) and
39th nationally in total offense (444.9 ypg) in 2016.
Cornelsen sat down and answered questions about last season, specific
players and what he hopes the Hokies can accomplish this spring.
Q: When you look back at last season, how would you
assess the unit’s play?
BC:
“The funny thing is I felt worse after we won the first game than
after we lost the second game. The second game, we beat ourselves
with turnovers, but we played harder, made some plays and won some
matchups. After the first game, I wasn’t sure. After that Tennessee game,
everyone knew that, if we could clean those mistakes up, we’d have a
chance to make plays against anyone we played. It’s weird how that
worked, but our guys made improvements. We continued to get better
and better, and that’s always the key.