Instant Takeaways From Virginia Tech's 44-21 Win Over Old Dominion

The scoreboard says Virginia Tech handled this one. The box score says something more complicated.

The Hokies beat Old Dominion 44-21 on Saturday at Lane Stadium to move to 2-0, and they did it while getting outgained on a per-play basis by a Sun Belt team that came in on a seven-game winning streak. Here are three takeaways from the game.

1. Luke Reynolds had a career day.

Eight catches. 108 yards. Two touchdowns.

Put that next to what Reynolds did at Penn State, where he caught nine passes for 111 yards as a freshman and 26 for 257 last season. He topped a third of his 2025 output in one afternoon in Blacksburg.

The first touchdown came on fourth down, a play-action call from the 10 where he dove headfirst at the pylon. The second was a 16-yarder on third down, three plays after Kaleb Spencer fell on a fumble. In between, Tech lined him up in the Wildcat at the 2 and let him take the snap. It lost two yards. It also told you exactly how much this staff trusts him.

Through two games he's got 13 catches for 158 yards and three scores. James Franklin brought him down from State College and immediately made him the offense.

2. The run game gave Tech nothing.

Virginia Tech finished with 89 rushing yards on 42 attempts. That 2.1 average is unfair because sacks count as rushing attempts in college football, and Ethan Grunkemeyer lost 25 yards on three of them.

Here's the more accurate version. Marcellous Hawkins Jr. and Jeffrey Overton Jr. combined for 25 carries and 90 yards, 3.6 a pop. Take away Hawkins' 20-yard touchdown run in the first quarter, and it's 24 carries for 70 yards.

A week ago, those two went for 173 on 21 carries against VMI with five touchdowns between them. Overton had 104 on nine attempts. Saturday, he carried it 14 times, gained 47, and never broke one longer than eight yards.

The second quarter had the sequence that tells the whole story. Que'Sean Brown returned a punt 79 yards to the Old Dominion 1. Overton lost a yard. Reynolds took the Wildcat and lost two more. Grunkemeyer's third-down throw fell incomplete, and John Love came on to kick a 22-yarder. First-and-goal from the 1, and the Hokies leave with just three points.

Old Dominion gave up 126 rushing yards to Norfolk State in Week 1.

3. The takeaways came early, and then Old Dominion figured it out

Three fumble recoveries, 14 points off them, all of it before halftime.

Tyson Flowers stripped Quinn Henicle at the Old Dominion 20 and scooped it in himself. Mylachi Williams knocked a high-snap handoff loose, and Spencer recovered it. Keon Wylie had one too, though he dropped the ball before the goal line, and the Monarchs got a touchback out of what should have been seven points.

That was the whole ledger. Old Dominion didn't turn it over again, and after halftime it gained 201 yards on 30 plays, 6.7 per snap. Henicle finished 13 of 21 for 187 and added a 76-yard touchdown run in the fourth, the longest play by either team. The Monarchs went 2 for 2 on fourth down and 2 for 2 in the red zone.

The front seven never quit. Virginia Tech had seven sacks for 43 yards and 14 tackles for loss for 60, and Williams alone had 3.5 TFLs, two sacks, and two forced fumbles. Cortez Harris added two sacks for 23. Henicle's rushing line reads 16 carries for 83 yards, and 44 of those lost yards came on sacks. On his other nine carries, he gained 127 yards.

Old Dominion averaged 6.0 yards per play. Virginia Tech averaged 4.8 yards per play and won by 23. The Hokies play at Maryland next Saturday, and while the Hokies can celebrate a three-score victory, they will need to clean up some things on both sides of the ball before.

Add us as a preferred source on Google