Matt Fortuna, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

Hokies search for offensive answers

Shane Beamer walked into the door of his home at 2:45 a.m. Friday. He was up in time to drop his daughter off at school before getting to the office by 9. By lunchtime, he was through with film of Virginia Tech's 21-16 loss at Pitt from the previous night. It was on to Miami, on to another Thursday night ACC game, a schedule quirk that broke somewhat favorably for the Hokies, especially as the Hurricanes come off a bye week.

As for what awaits the Virginia Tech running backs coach in the lead-up to this game, well, that's where the breaks end. The Hokies have been down three running backs --- Trey Edmunds, Shai McKenzie and Marshawn Williams -- and have little experience around them. They mustered just 26 yards on the ground in the loss to the Panthers, putting plenty of pressure on quarterback Michael Brewer to deliver.

Problem is, of course, that most of the guys Brewer is throwing to are not as well-versed in the team's offensive lexicon as the staff would like them to be. And Brewer, of course, arrived just this past summer from Texas Tech, so his veteran presence can only go so far.

"I can't recall, not just at the running back position, but any position that I've been around. To lose your top three guys in the first six games of the season, that's tough," Beamer said. "It makes it tough when you feel like a guy's getting a feel for it and then gets hurt."

Williams could provide some reinforcements Thursday, as he is expected back after missing two games with a right ankle sprain. He remains the team's leading rusher with 337 yards. McKenzie, the man right behind him with 269 yards, suffered a season-ending ACL tear in his right knee in a Sept. 27 win, this after suffering an injury in the same knee last year as a prep senior. Edmunds, the leading rusher last year (675), broke his clavicle in the same game Williams went down in after battling back from his recovery from a leg fracture last season.

The elder statesmen of the trio as a sophomore, Edmunds will not be back for another month. Joel Caleb and J.C. Coleman were the go-to guys entering the Pitt game. They never gained much traction last Thursday but remain confident that they can turn things around.

"I think we had self-inflicted mistakes that hurt us a lot," Caleb said. "I feel like a lot of those thing we can correct, a few of them have been hurting us the last couple of weeks, just with like false-start penalties and things like that. So they're things that we can correct, and we've just got to go to work and fix them and go in the right direction."

The offense looked sharp in a Week 2 upset at Ohio State, with Brewer hitting seven different targets and looking like he would shake the unit out of the rut that played a large part in limiting Virginia Tech to just 15 total wins over the last two seasons.

Fast-forward to last Thursday, and Cam Phillips hauled in the Hokies' only touchdown, meaning 17 of the team's 23 touchdowns this season have come from freshmen. The starting receiver opposite him, Isaiah Ford, is also a freshman, while Virginia Tech's top two tight ends are Ryan Malleck, who missed all of last season with a shoulder injury, and Bucky Hodges, who is a redshirt freshman.

The offensive line has not been immune to change, either, as Wyatt Teller will get his first start at left guard Thursday and David Wang will shift to center in place of Caleb Ferris, adjustments that were made during the loss to the Panthers.

The future may be promising, but the present, at times, can be maddening.

"For all these guys, everything that you do as an offense, it's new to them," said Beamer, also the program's associate head coach. "It might be something that we did last year, that some guys have some familiarity with. For example, we put in something this week: Offensively, just a play that we had done last year. Well, it's the first time for the majority of our offensive guys to hear it -- Michael Brewer, all these guys. So you've got to be careful as far as what you're doing offensively from a scheme standpoint, it is a lot of new faces.

"And then when you add injuries it makes it tough, but at the same time we're over halfway done with season, we're almost into November. In our mind these young guys aren't freshmen anymore. They've played almost a full season of college football now and we've got to take another step."

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