Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 10 No. 4 | March 2018

inside.hokiesports.com 17 The Virginia Tech Tommy Bahama Collection A V A I L A B L E O N L I N E A T | www. t ommybahama . c om guy we were hoping to get a great evaluation on, but he’s not going to participate [because of an injury]. We’ve got another kid, J’Bril Glaze [another freshman], and we’ll see where he fits, but Xavier Burke and Darius Fullwood are the next guys because of their age and maturity, and you hope both of those guys step up. They need to.” Q: Walker gets a lot of attention—and deservedly so—but is this the year that Trevon Hill really breaks out? He actually tied for the team lead in sacks in 2017. BF: “I hope so. We need to develop that guy. We need a guy that gets 10, 12, 15 sacks, and we need to do it on the other side, too. Trevon is the one guy that has consistently put pressure on the quarterback. We need to get that other spot doing that. I think House Gaines does some things extremely well. He loves the game, and he likes to compete. I’d love for him to get a little bit bigger. Those two guys will be our lead guys. I like their abilities. I’m hoping Trevon can get 10-12 sacks, and House got better. I’d love for us to have two bookends, so that the offensive tackles are shivering in their cleats when you’re lining up.” Q: You lacked depth at spots on the defensive line, but you elected to redshirt five defensive linemen. Whom can fans expect to emerge out of that group? BF: “Well, I’m excited about our ends. Between Nate Proctor, Tyjuan Garbutt and Zion DuBose, those guys, to me … I’m excited about them. It’s unfortunate that Porcher is out. I know he wants to play end, but he may get bigger and be a better fit inside, especially with his athleticism. We’ll see where J’Bril ends up, but all those ends are bigger and stronger. I think the lower half of Zion’s body gives him the potential to get bigger, and he could be a guy that plays a little inside [at tackle] and a little outside [at end]. “But with Zion, Tyjuan and Nate, and you throw Eli Adams [a freshman who enrolled in January] in the mix, that gives you four young ends that are going to continue to work to go along with a couple of guys that are playmakers for us in Trevon and House. It’ll be interesting to see. I like those young kids. Zion and Tyjuan were two guys that stuck out during middle drills and some of our team stuff that we did during our bowl preparations when we had some extra time. They played on the other side of the line of scrimmage and played fast, so we’ll see.” Q: Where would you hope to see this defense by the end of spring practice? What do you hope to get accomplished? BF: “It’s not a whole lot different than every year, but we are younger at a lot more spots. I think we’ve got 60-65 guys on this team that are freshmen or sophomores, and it’s real, especially on defense. They’ve got to learn their position, they’ve got to understand their position and the expectation within their position, and then they’ve got to understand how that fits within the defense. Then they need to work every day and grow every day, and hopefully, we’ll get better every day. This will be a group—and it’s no different every year—when you have 15 practices and you’re finished with the spring game, you’d like to start over again, but you can’t. “Hopefully, these guys will get enough instilled in them as far as what their position demands and what our defense demands and the game demands through spring practice that it will carry over through summer workouts and doing the 7-on-7’s [passing drills] and that type of thing. That’s where they can take what they’ve learned into the summer and improve. The linebackers, for example, they can go out and do the fundamental stuff, except for tackling, without pads. That’s what we’ve had before, with the leadership of guys like Andrew Motuapuaka or Greg Stroman or Terrell Edmunds or Ricky Walker. Those were guys that would take these young guys out and work them a little bit and get better. “I’m hoping all of these guys will learn their positions and understand the expectations and how that fits into the scheme and get to the point where their mind is not tying up their feet and then go play.”