Daily Discussion # 5: Would The Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up

Virginia Tech is holding an open scrimmage to the public today inside Lane at 3:15 pm. This scrimmage will go a long way to deciding who's going to play and who's not, especially among the 2nd and 3rd string guys.

So before this scrimmage starts, let's take a look at where some of the more heated position battles are occurring this preseason.

Field Corner

Field Corner is the name of the second cornerback in Bud Foster's Inverse 4-3 defense and is one of the more important parts of the defense. In Foster's scheme the safety and rover are responsible for covering the wide receivers on the intermediate routes and the corners drop deep to cover anything down field.

With Virgil moving to Boundry CB to replace Macho Harris, the Hokies are scrambling to find the next in-line at cornerback. It appears that Junior Rashad Carmichael is going to win the starting job but he is being pushed by sophomores Cris Hill and Eddie Whitley. Whitley is a Brandon Flowers clone and it appears that he will spend this season backing up Virgil at the Boundary CB position.

Defensive Tackle

The top three tackles are set: Graves, Thompson, and Taylor. However, the final spot in the two-deep is up for grabs between Sophomore Kwamaine Battle and Freshman Antoine Hopkins. Battle does have the extra year of experience on his side but Hopkins has a lot of promise and upside. This will be one battle (no pun intended) to keep an eye on.

Quarterback

Tyrod is the starter, nobody is questioning that but with Logan Thomas now listed as co-number two on the depth chart, the battle between him and JuJu should be fun to watch.

Logan has a good scrimmage last week where he went 5-15 for 150 yards and a touchdown. Now it'll be JuJu's turn to make a splash and impress the coaches. If you're going to the scrimmage today, I wouldn't expect to see too much of Tyrod (he'll be in a yellow no-contact jersey) but I would expect to see a lot of the two guys I just mentioned.

Rover

Davon Morgan started the first four games of last season but then went down with an ACL injury against Nebraska. Dorion Porch took over and hasn't relinquished the starting job since. Morgan is a steady player but Porch is the 5th year rising senior and will be tough to beat out. One scenario that could happen here is for Morgan to redshirt this fall and let Porch play almost every snap there this fall. That would give Morgan two more years to start and mature into a future NFL caliber player.

Running Back

Hard to leave this off the list with Evans out for the year. I would expect to see all three running backs receive a workload today as the coaches are looking to decide on a starter for the Alabama game within the next week or so. If nothing else, fans will have their first chance to see freshman sensation David Wilson in action this afternoon.