Virginia Tech scored on the first drive of the James Franklin era, blocked a punt on VMI’s first possession, and scored one snap later. Five and a half minutes in, it was 14-0.
The Hokies won 73-3 on Saturday, their first 70-point game since a 77-27 win over Akron in 1995. VMI finished with 83 total yards. Virginia Tech had 619 and punted once.
1. Grunkemeyer found his guy on the first snap
The first throw of the Franklin era went to Que’Sean Brown for five yards. The Duke transfer finished with 109 receiving yards, including an untouched 51-yard slant he took to the house late in the first half.
Ethan Grunkemeyer went 17-of-20 for 224 yards and two scores before handing off to Bryce Baker in the third quarter. The completion rate is the eye-catcher. What’s more interesting is how fast he’s found somebody he trusts. Grunkemeyer missed two deep shots at Brown before halftime, one wide, one overthrown on a rep where Brown had beaten his man clean. He kept going back anyway.
Eleven Hokies caught passes, so this isn’t a one-read offense. But a quarterback and a receiver who arrived in the same transfer cycle don’t usually look this synced in September. VMI’s secondary can’t tell anyone whether it holds up against real coverage. That’s the question worth carrying into Old Dominion.
2. Hawkins and Overton are a genuine 1-2 punch
Fourth-and-1 at his own 49, first drive of his tenure, and Franklin sent the offense back out. Marcellous Hawkins Jr. got the yard. One snap later, Jeffrey Overton Jr. took his first handoff of the season, 50 yards to the house, barely touched.
That’s the partnership in one series. Overton finished with 104 yards on nine carries and two touchdowns, with nobody laying a hand on him for either. Hawkins had 69 rushing yards on 12 touches and scored three times. Between them: 173 yards and five touchdowns.
Overton’s 50-yarder was a career-long, 12 yards better than the run against Miami that had been his only touchdown as a Hokie. He missed the first eight games of 2025 with an injury and finished that season with 146 rushing yards.
Franklin went for it on fourth down from his own side of the field on the first possession of his tenure. After tonight, he will be more than comfortable making that call again.
No. 3. The triple option never got off the ground.
VMI ran the ball 43 times. It lost four yards doing so.
A week earlier, the Keydets rushed for 229 yards at Idaho State. Then they came to Lane Stadium and ran into Brent Pry. This was his first game back on this sideline since Sept. 14, 2025, when Virginia Tech fired him three games into his fourth season as head coach, and his first assignment in the job that made him worth hiring here was a triple option, the most tedious offense in football to prepare for and the easiest to look foolish against.
Nobody looked foolish. Quarterback Chandler Wilson lost a yard on the game’s opening snap when the exchange got away from him, and Cortez Harris ended the drive with a sack. Quentin Reddish opened the second half with a tackle for loss. Five sacks, 18 tackles for loss, 84 total yards allowed.
The one thing that worked for VMI happened before the ball moved. Virginia Tech jumped offsides three times in the first half, and one handed the Keydets a first down on a snap where Wilson had already been dropped behind the line. Discipline is the whole test against this offense. That’s the part Pry will be annoyed about Sunday morning. Everything else held.
The Hokies were supposed to win this one, and they won it by ten touchdowns. What they showed on top of that was a quarterback who already has a favorite target, two backs who don’t take anything off the offense when they swap, and a defense that took apart the one thing it spent the offseason preparing for. Old Dominion is next. Maryland is two weeks after that. Those games will tell us more.
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