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

inside.hokiesports.com 21 The world, from your doorstep —with eight non-stop destinations and more than four hundred only a connection away. Begin your journey from the convenience of Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport. To learn more, visit FLYROA.COM. F L Y F R O M H O M E . there. With that, some young guys at tackle are going to have to come on for us. You get [Yosuah] Nijman back, but you’ve got some really talented, young outside guys in T.J. Jackson, Silas Dzansi and Tyrell Smith—he’s a junior now. It’s time. He’s been here. He’s been through the offseasons, and he knows what to do. He’s one of those guys that’s going to have step up for us. “I think it’s one of those healthy competitive situations up front this spring and going into fall camp. We have a number of guys with the ability to go be a good player. It’s going to be how many young, inexperienced guys can grow up, and how many guys that haven’t figured it out have the light bulb come on. That will determine if we’re really good and really deep, or being average and hanging on by a strand if injuries occur. But I think it’s an exciting group.” Q: Who are some younger players whom you’re anxious to see this spring? BC: “I think the guys that you haven’t got to see play in a game yet. For me, that would be the two other quarterbacks. That would be Hazelton. That would be Terius Wheatley, who has really shown big strides on and off the field. He’s starting to grow up. His body is changing, and he’s in shape. Caleb Steward is an early graduate freshman, and Drake. Up front, it’s Silas Dzansi, it’s Lecitus Smith, it’s T.J. Jackson, it’s Aiden Brown—those young guys that have the ability. You know they have the ability, but didn’t play last fall. They didn’t play or didn’t have a big role. Those are the ones that I want to see.” Q: Where do you hope this offense will be at the end of 15 spring practices? BC: “I feel like we’re still so young and inexperienced. I don’t see us at the end of spring saying, ‘Here’s our 11 starters, and it’s set in stone. Here is exactly what we’re going to be and here are our best guys.’ I think it’s going to be a spring and a summer and a fall camp until we really know about these guys and what we’re going to be the best at. There is a lot of development that needs to be done. “I hope, at the end of the spring, that these young guys that we’re excited about, that we’re still excited about them. I hope they’re still developing and that they’re coachable and they’re working hard. I hope we’re seeing movement in the right direction. “We know some will take big strides, and some will take small strides, but just as a group, with the inexperience and new blood we’ll have at all positions, I hope we’re excited about the intangibles of that group, of the toughness and the effort level and the willingness to learn. I hope we have a bunch of guys that want to be good players and our team-first guys. If we can pull that out of them and continue to get that type of attitude and effort out of them, we’ll be just fine in the end.” Eric Kumah showed flashes of greatness this past season, and the coaching staff wants to see more of that in spring practice.