Wallace Wade Stadium’s hardly a Terrordome, and once the Hokies fell behind Duke 14-0 last weekend, Ali Jennings noticed the maroon-and-orange-clad fans along the Virginia Tech sideline were pretty quiet, needing something to cheer about.
The senior wideout provided a spark. Late in the first quarter, quarterback Collin Schlee stepped up in the pocket and found a wide-open Jennings streaking on a crossing pattern 20 yards down the field without a defender around him.
Jennings did the rest, securing the catch, juking a Duke defender to the inside around the 20-yard line, darting between three defensive backs (thanks to a nice block from fellow wideout Da’Quan Felton) and dragging one final Blue Devil the final five yards into the end zone for a 65-yard touchdown, Tech’s longest play of the year through the air.
“Once I made that play, you could hear our sideline, our fans just go berserk,” said Jennings, who cathartically fired the ball into the air after crossing the goal line. “And I feel like that gave us some juice to keep fighting.”
It’s been a long time coming for Jennings, who caught six passes for 158 yards in the game, showing the full range of his talents in dicing up the Duke secondary.
HAVE YOURSELF A NIGHT ALI ?@RJXIII had 6 receptions tonight for 158 YDs and a score to average 26.3 yards per receptions to nearly double his season total@HokiesFB | @hokiesports | #Hokies | @drpepper pic.twitter.com/lWrL3OHBjN
— ACC Digital Network (@theACCDN) November 24, 2024
“I think he’s kind of finally back healthy,” Hokies head coach Brent Pry said. “He’s had some consecutive weeks of good practices. I think these last couple of games we’ve seen Ali for who he is and who he can be.”
Jennings was brought in to be a No. 1 receiver for the Hokies when he transferred from Old Dominion ahead of the 2023 season, but lower-body injuries have limited his effectiveness.
He suffered a season-ending ankle injury in Week 2 last year against Purdue in what was supposed to be his NFL audition year. After taking a redshirt, he returned, showing out in the opener against Vanderbilt with two catches for 91 yards, including a 62-yard touchdown that provided a spark in a second-half comeback.
Primed for a return trip to ODU the following week, however, he hurt his hamstring early in the game, a nagging injury that kept him out for weeks and limited his effectiveness beyond that. Jennings didn’t get more than 20 snaps again until Stanford and didn’t get a target until Boston College, though he still didn’t have a reception.
“It’s been tough. Frustrating,” Jennings said. “Kind of getting in my own head just because I know the player I am, and it was a reason that they recruited me to help the team win. The opportunities have been slim for me. It’s been tough, a tough road for me, kind of like thinking about my future and stuff like that.”
Coaches liked his approach, though, calling his work over the last month some of the best practice weeks he’s had in Blacksburg.
“He shows up to work every day,” offensive coordinator Tyler Bowen said. “There’s going to be targets in the game that when you game plan them, they’re going to go to certain players on the field. Those are the primaries, but ultimately, the defense decides where the ball goes, and then the decision-maker decides where it goes after that. …
“They’re a group that understands that, ‘Hey, I might not get it one game but I’m going to get my shot, and when I do, I have to take advantage of it.’”
After tweeting “#FreeZero” before the Syracuse game, Jennings got back in the stats column, snagging a diving 12-yard touchdown pass on an RPO with a defender draped all over him. He had two catches in the Clemson loss but still only went into the Duke game with seven receptions for 164 yards on the season.
The unexpected quarterback switch when Schlee got injured and Pop Watson went into the game might have helped his resurgence.
Jennings hasn’t started since the hamstring injury, getting a lot of work with the second team. His quarterback for a lot of that time? Watson, who’d increased his workload for about a month with that group with Kyron Drones on the mend and Schlee getting first-team reps.
“It was like me and Pop show with the twos,” Jennings said. “It was funny because I said something to him about that while we were on the sideline, like, ‘That’s our chemistry that we built during camp and stuff like that.’ We have a great connection.”
It showed. Watson’s first career completion was on a ball he zipped into zone coverage across the middle to Jennings on third-and-13 for 17 yards. A few plays later, the two connected on a 27-yard catch, when the wideout caught a quick slant, hit the brakes and spun back to the outside, showing he’d shaken off the hamstring injury that slowed him for two months. By the end of the game, Watson had hit Jennings five times for 93 yards.
Jennings’ total of 158 yards was the fourth time he’d gone over 150 in his career but was by far his best game as a Hokie. It stands as the 11th-most receiving yards by a Tech receiver going back to 1987 and was the most by a wideout since Tre Turner’s 187-yard day at Georgia Tech in 2021.
Jennings nearly doubled his receiving total on the year against Duke and, despite missing so much time, took the team lead with three touchdown receptions.
“Honestly, I know I’m not the only receiver on my team anymore, so I know not every play is coming to me,” Jennings said. “[I’m] just grinding harder and trying to take advantage of the opportunities when they do come and try to be the best I can.”
Saturday will mark Jennings’ last game in Blacksburg, a rocky and occasionally interrupted two-year run that hasn’t followed the script but still could have a happy ending — for both the Hokies and the wideout.
“[We’ll] leave it all on the field,” Jennings said. “We have nothing left to lose. We’ve been through the hardest part of the season so far, and there’s been a lot of downs for us. And the only way we can go is up.”