Earlier this month, Virginia Tech defensive backs coach Torrian Gray talked about the two players who will contend to be the starting field cornerback next season: sophomore Cris Hill, of Highland Springs High, and true freshman Jayron Hosley.

“I’m hoping I can trust one of them at some point, to the point where: OK, this is my guy,” Gray said.

That point is now. With senior cornerback Stephan Virgil being ruled ineligible for the Dec. 31 Chick-fil-A Bowl against Tennessee, Hill and Hosley will contend to replace Virgil at field corner – as they will do again during spring practices.

I detailed Hill and Hosley’s inexperience in the previous post, so you know what the numbers – starts, snaps played, etc. – say about them.

Here is what their coaches say …

Tech defensive coordinator Bud Foster said Hosley “is gonna be a dynamic football player. This year was a growing-up period. You’d like to have redshirted him.”

But that plan went out the window during the season opener against Alabama in the Georgia Dome, which, strangely enough, is also the site of the Chick-fil-A Bowl. After redshirt freshman tailback Ryan Williams fumbled away his first punt return, Hosley took over that job and held it for the rest of the season.

Gray knows Hosley well. Not only does he coach him every day, he also helped recruit him out of Atlantic High in Delray Beach, Fla., the alma mater of former Tech corner Brandon Flowers and former wide receiver David Clowney. Hosley was a last-minute and much-celebrated addition to Tech’s 2009 class – something of a surprise for the Hokies’ coaches.

“As Jayron being a freshman, do I like him?” Gray said. “I like his ability. I like his upside. I don’t like him playing like a freshman, being a freshman. But I think this year, him listening to meetings, him going through the stuff, he’ll be much further ahead along in the spring and know what it’s all about. And I think that’s gonna help him for next year.

Gray said Hill “has got to come along and develop a consistency where I can trust Cris.”

Remember that in last season’s Orange Bowl, Tech had to debut three new starters, including two redshirt freshman, because of an academic suspension and two injuries.

Jaymes Brooks started at right guard after senior left guard Nick Marshman was ruled academically ineligible and the regular right guard, Sergio Render, slid over to take his place. Barquell Rivers started at inside linebacker because senior Brett Warren sat out with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his knee.

Junior Nekos Brown also started at defensive end in place of sophomore Jason Worilds (shoulder), though Brown was considerably more experienced than Brooks or Rivers.
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Some more thoughts from Foster and Gray on the future of the secondary …

** Tech has to replace senior free safety Kam Chancellor. The candidates are sophomore Eddie Whitley and redshirting freshman Antone Exum, of Deep Run. The free safety is an important position because he is responsible for making pre-snap coverage adjustments. He is, in essence, the quarterback of the defense.

Because of this, Foster said, “Could our rover make the calls? Yeah. Probably so.”

Said Gray: “Exum has big-time ability, off-the-charts ability. Eddie has the intangibles. Eddie has the focus, whereas Exum is kind of young and all over the place. If you can put them both together, you’d have Kam Chancellor, kind of, in a way. Between two of them, I think we’ll be able to have a good free safety position.”

So could they end up splitting time?

“They’ll determine that,” Gray said. “The way I would see it at any of my positions, if there’s two guys that you trust and they’re both deserving to play, I wouldn’t mind doing that because it keeps everybody involved, but you trust both of them.”

** Lorenzo Williams played on special teams last season as a true freshman but missed the last six games because of a torn ACL and couldn’t redshirt. The coaches decided to redshirt him this season. Next year, he will move from free safety to whip linebacker or rover.

“Wherever we need to fill in, and just see where we can get him on the field the best,” Gray said.

Tech will lose its top two whips, Cody Grimm and Cam Martin, and rover Dorian Porch, who has shared time with junior Davon Morgan (Varina). Two current redshirt freshmen should compete for time at whip: Alonzo Tweedy (Hermitage) and Jeron Gouveia-Winslow. Current junior Zach Luckett, a special-teams standout, would have been in the mix, but he tore his ACL and medial collateral ligament in the regular-season finale at Virginia and will miss spring practices.

** As for Virgil, he actually had arthroscopic surgery on his injured left knee after the Virginia game. Gray mentioned this in a conversation earlier this month—well before the announcement about Virgil missing the bowl came out last night—about whether he was worried the knee injury hurting Virgil’s NFL draft status.

“I’m not worried because he was able to come back and he started practicing at the end [of the season],” Gray said. “Now, this scope is supposed to help it, I assume. He’s starting to get closer to 100 percent.”

Even if Virgil does get back to 100 percent by next spring’s NFL combine – presuming he gets invited – the fact that he wasn’t eligible for the final game of his college career probably won’t help him.

What the coaches think about Cris Hill and Jayron Hosley, who will compete to replace Stephan Virgil.