Reggie Virgil's 3-TD day comes with a twist in Texas Tech football win over UCF
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Reggie Virgil played quarterback in high school, but to hear him tell it, not with great distinction. It’s hard to play it with great distinction with limited chances.
Virgil’s been one of the top receivers for the Texas Tech football team this season, and he showed on Saturday, Nov. 15, he can do more than catch passes. The senior wideout scored three touchdowns, two on the first two rushes of his four-year college career. It helped Texas Tech rout Central Florida 48-9 in the regular-season home finale at Jones AT&T Stadium.
He and his old coach at Mount Dora (Fla.) Christian Academy will have something to talk about.
“I was a quarterback. He never played me that much,” Virgil said, “but I laugh all the time and tell him, ‘I play for the number-six team in the country right now, and you wouldn’t play me.’ I know he’s excited. He’s probably going to laugh about it.”
Virgil had 107 yards on 7 touches for the Red Raiders (10-1, 7-1 in the Big 12), who have the seventh season of double-digit wins in the program’s history. He scored on runs of 5 and 30 yards.
The first, on a sweep around right end, increased the Red Raiders’ lead to 21-0 on the first play of the second quarter. The next came on an end around that made it 28-2 at 3:49 before halftime. Virgil dodged a defender who penetrated all the way back to the 40-yard line before he got to the edge and picked up the needed blocking. Then he skipped into the end zone the last five yards.
“Every time we run the reverse in practice,” Tech coach Joey McGuire said, “I always say, ‘Could we please get that off the call sheet — meaning, call it. Can we please call it? I’ve been on (offensive coordinator) Mack (Leftwich) the last couple of weeks about let’s get it off the call sheet.
“Whenever (Virgil) scored, (Leftwich) turned around to me and he started yelling … ‘I got it off the call sheet.’ So we’ve had that in (the playbook). It just hadn’t come up. We do have some really good stuff in that we just haven’t got to yet.”
Through 11 games, Caleb Douglas leads Tech receivers with 48 catches for 696 yards and 5 touchdowns. Virgil’s production Saturday gave him 45 catches, a career high, for 561 yards and 6 TDs. Coy Eakin has 41 receptions for 532 yards and 4 TDs.
In a victory the week before against Brigham Young, Tech receivers dropped two passes in the end zone. Converting red-zone chances with touchdowns has been a point of concern for several weeks.
On Saturday, Tech scored five touchdowns on its first seven series.
“I thought we executed at a really high level and playmakers made plays,” McGuire said. “In practice, they spend a lot of time on their own. They spend a lot of time on the JUGS machine. They’re really hard on themselves. I was happy with those guys.”
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Reggie Virgil’s 3-TD day comes with a twist in Texas Tech football win
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