Virginia Tech had every opportunity to beat Pitt Friday night. The Hokies outgained the Panthers by more than 200 yards, Ethan Grunkemeyer threw for 434 yards and Virginia Tech had a chance to win the game with a field goal on the final play.
Instead, Pitt left Blacksburg with a 35-33 win and Virginia Tech left with its first loss of the James Franklin era. That’s college football.Now we find out how this team responds.
Virginia Tech at California
Saturday, October 10 — 3:30 PM ET
Databricks Field at California Memorial Stadium — Berkeley, CA
TV: ACC Network
Records: Virginia Tech 4-1 (1-1 ACC), California 2-3 (1-1 ACC)
Betting Line: Virginia Tech roughly -9.5 | O/U 53.5
This is Virginia Tech’s longest regular-season trip of the year and Cal’s Homecoming weekend. It’s also exactly the kind of game Virginia Tech has spent the last decade finding increasingly creative ways to lose.
Cross-country flight. Noon Pacific kickoff. Weird stadium. Opponent on a losing streak. Virginia Tech coming off an emotional Friday night loss. Wonderful. The difference is Virginia Tech should be considerably better than Cal.
Moving On From Pitt
There are two ways to look at what happened Friday night. The first is that Virginia Tech lost at home, turned the ball over, gave up 35 points and wasted an opportunity to start 5-0.
The other is that Virginia Tech produced 578 yards of offense against an undefeated Pitt team, Grunkemeyer threw for 434 yards and three touchdowns, and the Hokies were one kick away from winning despite making enough mistakes to lose approximately four different football games.
Virginia Tech is averaging 41.2 points and 469.8 yards per game through five games. Grunkemeyer has completed roughly 74% of his passes for 1,446 yards, 11 touchdowns and two interceptions. The Hokies are averaging more than 314 passing yards per game.
The Pitt game actually reinforced that more than anything. After struggling to throw the football in a monsoon at Boston College, Grunkemeyer immediately responded with the best statistical passing performance of his Virginia Tech career.
The problem was everything around it. Turnovers. Defensive breakdowns. Missed opportunities. A missed field goal. Virginia Tech doesn’t need to dramatically change what it is doing offensively. It needs to stop helping the other team.
Meet the Golden Bears
Cal is 2-3, and things are not going particularly well in Berkeley. The Bears opened the season with a 45-24 loss to UCLA, rebounded by beating Syracuse and Wagner, then lost 24-10 to Clemson before falling 39-31 at UNLV last weekend. That’s two straight losses and 63 points allowed over those two games.
Cal is averaging 27 points per game while allowing 26.6. The Bears are throwing for roughly 301 yards per game but rushing for only 95 yards per game, one of the worst marks in the country.
Cal has been pretty good defending the pass on a down-to-down basis but has been terrible against explosive plays and vulnerable against the run. Opponents are averaging more than five yards per rushing attempt.
That should get Jeffrey Overton’s attention.
This is also a Cal team that committed 16 penalties against UNLV. Sixteen.
Virginia Tech has certainly demonstrated an ability to make life unnecessarily difficult for itself, but Cal appears willing to participate in that competition.
Who Is Playing Quarterback for Cal?
This is the biggest question entering Saturday.
Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele left the UNLV game late in the second quarter after taking a hard hit and hitting his head on the turf. He was medically cleared to return, but Cal head coach Tosh Lupoi kept him out as a precaution.
Before leaving, Sagapolutele was 19-of-27 for 195 yards and a touchdown. Backup Jackson Brousseau came in and was actually pretty good. He completed 19-of-32 passes for 200 yards and two touchdowns as Cal rallied from a 24-7 halftime deficit. So Virginia Tech has to prepare for both.
Sagapolutele has thrown for 1,180 yards, eight touchdowns and five interceptions this season. He’s talented and capable of creating explosive plays — his 91-yard touchdown pass to Taimane Purcell against UNLV was the second-longest pass play in Cal history.
But he has also been inconsistent. That’s where Virginia Tech needs to take advantage. The Hokies have struggled at times with explosive passing plays and coverage breakdowns. We saw it against Maryland. We saw it again against Pitt.
Cal’s inability to consistently run the football should allow Virginia Tech to make whichever quarterback starts prove he can sustain drives through the air. Don’t give up the 70-yard touchdown. Make Cal go 12 plays. Eventually, this offense tends to make a mistake.
Feed Jeffrey Overton
Cal is allowing 187 rushing yards per game and more than five yards per carry. Virginia Tech has Jeffrey Overton.
Overton has 455 rushing yards this season while averaging 5.9 yards per carry. We already watched him completely take over the Boston College game with 209 yards and the 76-yard touchdown that rescued Virginia Tech in the fourth quarter.
Pitt did a much better job preventing Virginia Tech from controlling the game on the ground. Cal isn’t Pitt. Virginia Tech should make the Bears prove they can stop Overton before asking Grunkemeyer to throw the football 40 times again.
That doesn’t mean being conservative.It means forcing Cal to devote resources to stopping Overton, then letting Grunkemeyer attack a secondary that suddenly has to worry about Luke Reynolds, Que’Sean Brown and Ayden Greene in space.
Virginia Tech has enough offensive weapons that Cal shouldn’t be able to take everything away. Make them pick their poison.
Ethan Grunkemeyer Should Have Opportunities
Grunkemeyer now has 1,446 passing yards through five games. Virginia Tech has spent years begging for a functional passing game. Now the Hokies have a quarterback completing approximately three-quarters of his passes while averaging nearly 290 passing yards per game. Against Pitt, he threw for 434.
There were mistakes — including two interceptions — but the larger takeaway should be pretty obvious. Virginia Tech can throw the football. Luke Reynolds continues to be one of the most important pieces of the offense with 37 catches for 373 yards and four touchdowns. Que’Sean Brown, Ayden Greene and Overton give Grunkemeyer multiple other options.
Cal’s pass defense has produced good efficiency numbers, so I don’t expect another effortless 400-yard performance. But if the Bears have to bring an extra defender into the box to stop Overton, Virginia Tech should get favorable matchups outside.
The Cross-Country Factor
Here’s the part that makes me nervous. Virginia Tech is traveling approximately 2,500 miles across three time zones to play a 12:30 PM local kickoff.
Virginia Tech also played Friday night, which gives the Hokies an extra day to prepare, but this is still the furthest they will travel during the regular season.
Virginia Tech has already gone to Maryland and Boston College and won. The Hokies have demonstrated that they can function away from Lane Stadium.
Cal, meanwhile, has lost three of five games and is 1-2 at home. If Virginia Tech wants to be taken seriously as an ACC contender, the travel excuse doesn’t work here.
SP+ Likes Virginia Tech
This is one of the more interesting parts of the matchup. Virginia Tech is currently around No. 28 nationally in SP+, while Cal has fallen into the 80s.
An SP+-based projection makes Virginia Tech approximately a 12.5-point favorite even after accounting for Cal’s home-field advantage, with roughly a 78% win probability.
That’s a pretty significant gap. For comparison, SP+ viewed the Pitt game as essentially a toss-up. This one isn’t. The model sees Virginia Tech as substantially better offensively, better defensively and slightly better on special teams. Obviously models don’t have to sit on an airplane for five hours. But analytically, Virginia Tech should win this football game.
Betting Analysis
The betting market isn’t quite as bullish on Virginia Tech as SP+. Virginia Tech opened around a 10.5-point favorite at some sportsbooks, with the line settling around Tech -9.5 at several books as of Tuesday morning. The total is around 53.5.
Cal struggles to run the football. Virginia Tech should be able to run the football. The Hokies have a significant offensive advantage and Cal is coming off consecutive losses in which it allowed 24 and 39 points.
The obvious concern is the travel. But over four quarters, I think Virginia Tech’s offense creates too many problems.
Three Keys to the Game
1. Run the football
This doesn’t need to be complicated. Cal has struggled against the run. Virginia Tech has Jeffrey Overton. Give him the football. If Cal commits extra defenders to stopping him, let Grunkemeyer punish them.
2. Eliminate the stupid mistakes
Virginia Tech was good enough to beat Pitt. Virginia Tech also did enough stupid things to lose to Pitt. Both can be true.
Turnovers, coverage busts and special-teams mistakes turn games you should win comfortably into fourth-quarter coin flips. Don’t give Cal free possessions and don’t give up cheap touchdowns.
3. Start fast
The easiest way to eliminate the weirdness of a cross-country road game is to immediately make it a football game. Score early. Force a three-and-out. Get Overton going. Don’t let Cal hang around for two hours.
The Pick
I don’t think Cal is terrible. Sagapolutele is talented if he plays. Brousseau showed against UNLV that he can move the offense. Cal has enough skill talent to create some explosive plays, and traveling across the country is always going to add some uncertainty.
But Virginia Tech is better. More importantly, I think the Pitt loss actually gives us another reason to believe that.
Virginia Tech played poorly in several important areas Friday night and still put up 578 yards against an undefeated Power 4 opponent. Grunkemeyer threw for 434 yards. The Hokies had the ball with an opportunity to win the game at the end.
That isn’t the Virginia Tech team we’ve been watching for the last several years. Now comes the next step. Good teams lose games. Good teams don’t allow one loss to become two.
I think Virginia Tech establishes Overton early, Grunkemeyer hits enough explosive plays to push the game into the 30s and the defense forces Cal into a couple of mistakes.
It might be uncomfortable for a quarter. Maybe even a half. Then the talent difference takes over.
Virginia Tech 38, California 24
Hokies bounce back and move to 5-1.
