ATLANTA — After surrendering a touchdown to No. 13 South Carolina on the season-opening drive, the Virginia Tech defense bowed up and made life difficult before the Gamecocks pulled away late.
The Hokies showed marked improvement on that front under new defensive coordinator Sam Siefkes, and with the offense barely treading water in Mercedes-Benz Stadium for much of the afternoon, the defense kept the ship afloat — until special teams sank it.
Tech never found the end zone in Sunday’s 24-11 defeat, but Siefkes & Co. kept LaNorris Sellers and a dynamic offense at bay for the majority of the afternoon.
“We mixed coverages up. We changed fronts on [Sellers],” Tech head coach Brent Pry said. “I think we had him hesitating back there a little bit. I think we had four sacks. I thought the game plan was the right one.
“I’ve got to look at the first series again. They had us yinging and yanging and we didn’t slow them down until we got the third-and-5 in the red zone. We’ve got to make a play there and force the field goal, because we were pretty good after that, with the exception of the deep ball. But I think we’ve got a good group and we had a good plan.”
After quarterback Kyron Drones threw an interception in the end zone midway through the first quarter, which the Gamecocks returned to the 2-yard line, Hokies defensive linemen Emmett Laws and Kelvin Gilliam got to Sellers for a safety — Tech’s first points of the season.
“I just got off the ball and contained,” Laws said. “You got to keep Sellers contained, and that’s the whole D-line, we were working on that all week. … I feel like I’m just getting started.”
That was the first of Tech’s four sacks on the day and set the tone. Most importantly, it provided juice to a team that lacked it otherwise.
Georgia Southern transfer Elhadj Fall continued the trend in the second quarter. He stripped Sellers for a 14-yard loss in his Hokies debut. Flying almost under the radar with the likes of Ben Bell and James Djonkam getting most of the preseason attention at defensive end, he had 2.5 sacks last season for the Eagles and showed why on that play.
“He’s really good and he made a really good move and a big play in a big ball game, and that’s what big players do,” Laws said of Fall.
Earlier in the week, defensive tackle Kelvin Gilliam emphasized the importance of caging Sellers, who had a rockstar freshman season for the Gamecocks with 674 rushing yards.
He made a few plays with his legs against the Hokies, notably gliding through the defense — and over safety Quentin Reddish — for a touchdown on South Carolina’s opening possession. He skirted past linebacker Caleb Woodson for a 13-yard gain on the second drive, too.
However, his longest carry was a 16-yarder to keep the game’s final drive alive in the fourth. After his early score, Tech eventually settled down and bottled that part of his game up. With sack yardage taken into account, he netted 25 yards on 13 attempts, an average of 1.9 yards per carry.
It marked the second time in Sellers’ young career, along with the Gamecocks’ victory over Kentucky last year, where he averaged fewer than two yards per carry and his team won. (The Wildcats sacked him four times as well.) In other instances where he was contained — against Alabama (1.2 ypc) and Illinois (1.7 ypc) — USC lost.
Between the safety, Fall’s strip sack and takedowns by two Tech tandems on the same third-quarter drive — Jaden Keller and Laws, Kemari Copeland and Ben Bell — the Hokies limited Sellers in that department, arguably taking away his greatest strength. Yet, their other two phases didn’t pick up the slack, all while the young gunslinger showed there’s more to his game than his legs.
“They were relentless in the rush,” Pry said. “They tried to cage him. He got outside of us a couple times. He broke some tackles, but I think that we were competitive enough up front that that wasn’t a huge factor in the game. We gave us a chance to win the game where we weren’t exploited there. And that’s not to take away from how good he is.”
Copeland felt like the Hokies caught South Carolina off guard with some of their stunts and alignments. Rahsul Faison’s two-yard loss in the first quarter, where Copeland teamed up with linebacker Michael Short to make the tackle, was an early example.
“The TFL I had, I slanted to like the backside A-gap,” Copeland said. “I don’t think they expected that at all.”
Those are positive early signs from a unit that lacked innovation and adjustments under their previous coordinator. After giving up the early score, Siefkes had Tech situated, and the Gamecocks’ lone success over the next seven drives was a field goal.
“Coach Siefkes, he does a real good job of letting the D-line one-on-ones,” Copeland said. “That’s one thing I can credit [to him]. When he came in for spring ball, I knew that this defense that we were playing, it would be different because they don’t know what we’re doing, honestly. We’re playing so many fronts, doing so many things. It’s hard to guess or like anticipate what we’re going to do. That’s one thing I can credit our defensive coordinator for.”
It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, though. Sellers, who finished 12-for-19 for 209 yards, iced things in the fourth by beating Tech and cornerback Caleb Brown over the top for a 64-yard strike to Nyck Harbor, showing the Hokies still have room to grow.
“Certainly, things we’ve got to do better,” Pry said, “but for the most part, I think it showed a foundation there with a new defense and new structure in who we can be.”
Love Continues To Be Steady
After a 2024 campaign where he was 16-for-18, Virginia Tech kicker John Love had a terrific start to his redshirt junior season, converting all three field goal attempts on the Mercedes-Benz turf.Love pulled the Hokies within 7-5 early in the second quarter with a 29-yard boot after the offense reached the 11-yard line — the closest it got to the end zone all day — and stalled.
Then Tech methodically moved the ball down the field over the final 3:42 of the first half, a drive that culminated with Love’s 56-yard field goal that had plenty of distance. It was the fourth of his career from 50-plus after two kicks at Miami last season in Hard Rock Stadium and a career-long 60-yarder in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl in Bank of America Stadium vs. Minnesota — all NFL environments.
The Spartanburg, S.C., native tacked on a 39-yarder in the fourth quarter, too, which was set up by a 28-yard connection from Kyron Drones to Isaiah Spencer.
Dating back to last November’s road contest at Duke, Love has made his last nine attempts and has been a model of consistency. He’s up to 11th on Tech’s all-time scoring list at 215 points and passed Kevin Jones with Sunday’s 56-yarder.
“I never want to take it for granted, but you certainly gain confidence in your place-kicker,” Pry said. “He’s done it time and time again and we’re fortunate that John is the type of kicker that he is. He’s confident. He wants the opportunities. Honestly, he kept us in the game with those field goals.”
Woodson Comes Off Bench
After his DWI last week, linebacker Caleb Woodson didn’t start for the Hokies against the Gamecocks. He sat for the first series before coming on the field for the second.
Pry said there could be further punishment for him, but that’s yet to be decided.
“There are certainly internal measures we have taken besides stripping him from being a captain and not starting him tonight,” Pry said, “but we’re going to let the university policy, the athletic department’s policy, the court system, we’re going to let that play out, so there may be things down the road that are necessary, some other measures.”
Sellers Gives Game Ball To Frank
In a video shared by ESPN, the South Carolina quarterback found Frank Beamer after the game and presented him with the game ball.LaNorris Sellers gave the game ball to Frank Beamer ? pic.twitter.com/MYLhKI3ehQ
— ESPN (@espn) August 31, 2025
Frank and Cheryl Beamer were also honored before kickoff by Gary Stokan, the CEO and president of the Peach Bowl, who presented them with a game ball signed by Shane and Pry. Frank led the invocation, too.