As the week winds to a close and my Friday afternoon flight from Roanoke to Lincoln (not direct, but a pretty sweet deal nonetheless) approaches, I’ll go ahead and empty my notebook here. It’s been a terrific Thursday of television: “The Office” season premiere (I won’t spoil it for those who missed) and Oregon State trying to upset No. 1 Southern California. Plus, I had to follow Cubs-Mets and Pirates-Brewers online—two fantastic games, though I was bummed to see Milwaukee win.

Anyway, on to some Stephan Virgil stuff, leftovers from my feature earlier this week ...

First some stuff from defensive backs coach Torrian Gray, who said he has has been surprised at the speed of Virgil’s progress ...

- He said he was convinced Virgil was capable of being a starter early in preaseason camp, when “he broke on a play that we talked about doing, but nobody’s physically done it yet – Macho [Harris], Brandon [Flowers]—since I’ve been here.“ Virgil broke on a slant pass and ran it back for a touchdown. “I was like, ‘Whoa, he’s really taken up from where he left off,‘“ Gray said.

- Whenever Gray ran into Virgil during the offseason and during spring ball, when Virgil missed most practices to work on academics, Virgil told his coach that he had been studying his playbook and knew all the formations. “Even though he wasn’t able to practice all those practices, he already went through it so many times mentally—as far as his coverages, his adjustments, his assignments—that even though he had limited chances, he had already played it and went through it,“ Gray said. “Now he was able to be a lot more productive and let his athletic ability come out. He wasn’t out there, lining up, thinking, ‘Oh shoot, what should I do? What’s my alignment?‘ He was just ready to go play. I think him telling me that showed me that he was really serious about taking his game to the level he needed to be to be a starter.“

And now some stuff from Virgil ...

- He entered spring ball as Harris’ backup at the boundary corner position but ended up winning the field corner job over Rashad Carmichael and Cris Hill, who is now Virgil’s backup. Virgil had played boundary corner for his entire college career before the spring.

- On Harris and Flowers: “I took a lot from those guys,“ Virgil said. “Everybody’s got their pot of soup they’re gonna cook. I had to put a little bit in of what Macho was doing. I had to put a little bit of what Brandon Flowers was doing in there. I had to put a little bit of what I wanted to do in there and just mix it all up. So that’s what I did. Put it in my own pot of soup and just stirred it up, and out comes the result.“

- Virgil now knows his playbook so well that when another defensive back messes up with a formation in a meeting, Virgil can correct him. It wasn’t always like this. Last year, when Gray put formations on the board in the position meeting room, “I would be up there stuck,“ Virgil said.

- Virgil visualized his formations and assignments wherever he went over the summer, including during a family reunion. He was sitting across the table from his cousin, Don Marshall, who played receiver at Division III Delaware Valley College in Pennsylvania. As they ate, Virgil and Marshall started talking about football. Then Virgil began thinking how, if he was defending Marshall on the field, he would “jam the hell out of him.“

Posted by Darryl Slater in • College Sports • Virginia Tech
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