Caught with left guard Nick Marshman during Tuesday’s interview session to get an update on how Virginia Tech performed against twists last Saturday. As you might recall, we made a big fuss about twists in this space, because they baffled Tech’s offensive line in the first two games. Line coach Curt Newsome spent a lot of time last week working on fixing this issue. (For those who don’t recall, a twist is when defensive linemen crisscross while rushing, rather than rushing at the offensive linemen directly in front of them.)

Here’s what Marshman had to say about twists and how the Hokies handled them ...

“We did better. We worked all week on them. We actually tried looking for twists when they weren’t even twisting. You can see on film, [left tackle] Ed [Wang] and I are both looking for a twist, our heads are on a swivel. Newsome said it’s better [that] you’re looking for them than not looking for them at all. It’s something we’ve got to do again this week, make sure we’re good on twists.“

“Georgia Tech used them a lot. They saw that we couldn’t pick up the twist, so they were definitely trying to twist more. It’s something we were ready for, something we expected them to do.“

- Marshman said he graded 81 percent for the second consecutive week. But after the Furman game, he asked Newsome to take him off the chain gang—an honor a lineman receives when he grades at least 80 percent while playing at least 20 plays. Marshman felt like he didn’t play well enough to be on the chain gang. This time, Marshman decided to remain on the chain gang. “I felt a lot better after watching the film about how I played than I did the week before,“ he said.

- Marshman talked briefly about pass blocking and how the linemen don’t usually know what kind of route (deep, short, etc.) they’re blocking for. They just block until the whistle blows. “There are certain routes that we know it’s going deep,“ he said. “For the most part, we have no idea what the routes are, what they’re running, whether they’re running 15-yard outs, 10-yard outs, hitches, whatever. We just hear the protection and that’s what we go with. And the receivers listen for what they’re supposed to listen for.“

Posted by Darryl Slater in • College Sports • Virginia Tech
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