The Virginia Tech football program is on fire ahead of the 2024 college football season. Head coach Brent Pry has landed a blue-chip freshman class for the second straight year, but Pry's biggest impact has come through the NCAA transfer portal.
Nearly every transfer the Hokies signed last offseason made a big impact in 2023. Amazingly, with the help of Virginia Tech's NIL package, Prye convinced all of Virginia Tech's top players to return in 2024. No other ACC team has as many returning starters on both offense and defense as the Hokies.
One of the players who transferred out of 2023 and is back in 2024 is quarterback Kyron Draughns. The Baylor University transfer took over as the starting quarterback early last season and the team's offense took off in leaps and bounds. Draughns' presence opened up running lanes for Beischl-Teutten, and his big arm worked in the passing game with wide receivers Quan Felton and Jaylin Lane. Tech won five of its final seven games last season.
Heading into the new season, some have Virginia Tech in their preseason Top 25 list. Is that a bit presumptuous? No. It's hard not to like a team that played well in the second half of the season and has everyone back.
Speaking of the quarterback position, how are the Draughns rated nationally?
ESPN recently ranked 134 potential FBS starting quarterbacks on a 20-point scale, with Draughns at tier 5.
Mertz, King, Draughn and Bowman seem like obvious choices, as they all had some success in their first year at their new schools and should be well positioned to take another step up in year two, despite having pretty clear areas in which they need to improve.
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Virginia Tech's Drones looks like a budding star based on how the Hokies finished the 2023 season, but it's worth noting that his rise also came with a fairly light schedule. And when the going got tough, he struggled. In three games against top-40 players in efficiency, he posted a combined QBR of 46.4, completed 55.1% of his passes, and threw 5.1 yards per pass with three touchdowns and two interceptions. Virginia Tech lost all three games.
Can you imagine how much fun it would be to play the new NCAA Football game with the Hokies, drones and all their weapons?
