How Ethan Grunkemeyer Stacks Up Against ACC Quarterbacks Through Three Weeks

Eight yards is the difference between Ethan Grunkemeyer and Darian Mensah three weeks into the season.

Mensah, the Miami quarterback at the center of the early Heisman Trophy talk, has thrown for 873 yards. Grunkemeyer has 865 for Virginia Tech. The number that matters more is 22. That's how many more passes Grunkemeyer needed to get there.

That split says a lot about where the Hokies' new starter sits in the ACC. He isn't Mensah, who is completing passes at a rate nobody in the country can touch. He isn't pushing the ball downfield the way SMU's Kevin Jennings does. What the junior has been through a 3-0 nonconference run under head coach James Franklin is accurate, efficient, and so far impossible to pick off.

That's been enough to move him up quickly in quarterback rankings. Two days before the Hokies played at Maryland, CFB HQ On SI ranked Grunkemeyer eighth among ACC quarterbacks. By Tuesday, Bleacher Report had him 17th in its national top 20, one of three ACC quarterbacks on the list, with Mensah (first) and Louisville's Lincoln Kienholz (eighth).

Three games, no picks

Grunkemeyer has completed 79 of 101 passes (78.2 percent) for 865 yards, seven touchdowns and no interceptions, and he's run for two scores.

He went 17 of 20 for 224 yards and two touchdowns in just over a half as Virginia Tech beat VMI 73-3 on Sept. 5. A week later, he completed 31 of 42 passes for 327 yards and two touchdowns and ran for another in a 44-21 win over Old Dominion. The 31 completions tied for the third most in program history, three shy of the record Don Strock set against Houston in 1972.

Then he did it again. At Maryland, Grunkemeyer went 31 of 39 for 314 yards, threw three touchdown passes, and ran for 18 yards for a fourth score, all in the first half, as the Hokies won 35-26. The win snapped Maryland's 20-game winning streak against nonconference opponents, the longest in the FBS.

Measuring up

Mensah is in a tier of his own. The Duke transfer has completed 71 of 79 passes, an FBS-best 89.9 percent, for 873 yards and 11 touchdowns without an interception. Along the way, he set an ACC record with 35 straight completions.

Jennings has more yards than anyone in this group and a turnover problem to go with them. The SMU veteran is 64 of 87 (73.6 percent) for 989 yards, nine touchdowns, and four interceptions after leading the ACC with 13 picks last season.

Kienholz, the Ohio State transfer, has thrown for 816 yards and six touchdowns, run for four more, and hasn't turned it over. He's done it against No. 9 Ole Miss and No. 16 SMU, which gives his line more weight than anyone else's here.

Put Grunkemeyer next to them, and he lands in the middle of the pack. He's more accurate than Jennings and hasn't given the ball away. He has more passing yards than Kienholz. And he has thrown 22 more passes than Mensah without an interception.

Where the gap is

Grunkemeyer is averaging 8.6 yards per attempt. Mensah is at 11.1 and Jennings is at 11.4.

That's the difference between a quarterback taking what the defense gives him and one taking the top off it. Most of his 327 yards against Old Dominion came on short and intermediate throws. Against VMI, he missed an open Que'Sean Brown on two deep shots before halftime. Tight end Luke Reynolds, his teammate for two seasons at Penn State, has caught four of his seven touchdown passes.

The flip side is ball security. Grunkemeyer closed last season at Penn State with six touchdowns and no interceptions over his final four games, and he hasn't thrown one since last November.

Virginia Tech opens ACC play at Boston College at noon Saturday on ACC Network. The Eagles are 2-1 but had to hold off FCS Maine late in a 22-16 win last week. Then comes Pittsburgh, a 3-0 team whose defense has held UCF and Syracuse to 20 combined points.

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