Brent Pry lays out Virginia Tech’s plan for spring game format

As Virginia Tech readies for its spring game, head coach Brent Pry has made some interesting comments. He shed light on his team’s approach for the annual game, which he will host as normal this season despite other programs shifting gears.

Pry broke down what things will look like. In short: pretty much the same as always.

“Yeah, it’ll be similar to last year,” Pry said. “I want the first half to function as much like a game as we can. I think it’s really good experience for our guys. And then second half it’s a little bit about getting what we need to get in and get done and getting out of there injury free. So we’ll see.”

There is one factor still that could impact the spring game plans. Injuries.

Virginia Tech appears to be riding the line where a few more injuries could seriously alter plans. And there have been some in recent days.

“We had a minor injury today. We’ll see if that particular individual can play in the game or not,” Pry said. “So there may be some things we’ve got to jockey around based on who’s available. We’ve got a couple of guys that are hanging in the balance if they can play or not, and that’s going to affect how many snaps we can get. But we’ve still got a pretty good practice Thursday. We’re in pads and it’s a full work day, so we’ve got to come out of that thing healthy and then see what our roster looks like Friday morning.”

As for the notion of altering the spring game entirely over concerns of tampering, Pry mostly downplayed that as a concern. Virginia Tech’s game won’t be televised, for one.

“I don’t think we need to alter it,” Pry said. “That’s one of the reasons, to me it’s not televised. Are we going to go online, somebody enters the portal? Are we going to go look at their spring game if it was televised? Yeah, we probably would take a peek at it, see how they performed. It was our choice not to be on TV. But you know, you can’t control who’s sitting in the stands and getting an eyeball. But we’ll keep it pretty vanilla like we always do.”

That’s not to say the spring game isn’t important. Pry still has plenty that he wants to get out of the afternoon.

He explained what he’s looking for. Bottom line: Virginia Tech will operate as normal when it comes to the game.

“It’s about seeing kids run around, play fast. It’s the last evaluation piece for a significant group of guys,” Pry said. “The guys that are pretty far down the road, they’re not going to play a lot of snaps in this thing. From an injury prevention and just the guys that need to work will get to work.

“So it’s not about scheme, it’s about evaluating, getting them a little better, having another chance to be in this stadium. And the atmosphere for our fanbase, to come into town and there’s softball, there’s baseball, there’s remembrance run, there’s the spring game, there’s so many good things going on. I love that. These weekends have been really special.”