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The specialists are the guys that put the foot in football. They start the game, determine field position, usually end up being the leading scorers in programs, and often determine whether a team wins or loses one score games. Tech has been lucky in the Specialists department, and this season stays that way.

No One Really Notices Until

This might be the annual lecture on a unit inside of every locker room that just might possess the most important positions on the field in tight games. We’d need to get some AI to find or generate the statistics, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see that a great number of peer matchups are determined by a team’s kicking game. Regardless of the coaching changes, the Specialists can end up being the difference between winning and losing in football.

The three listed positions; Place Kicker (or just Kicker), Punter, and Long Snapper end up being the stealth scoring combination that can make that difference a positive impulse on a team. In the past Virginia Tech has been blessed to find some excellent kicking/punting talent reaching back into the 1990’s with Shane Graham.

This season, the room had a mild shake-up after graduations had the punter and kickoff specialist kicker graduate (Nick Veltsistas and Kyle Lowe). Consequently, this season the scramble to replace, especially the starting punter position, became a priority. Interestingly enough, the Kicker position has a brother-to-brother conveyor happening with Freshman Will Love joining his brother John on the roster to vie for a future starting place kicker role.

It’s a short and important list so let’s look at who might start and how things might be a bit different.

The Biggest Change is in Coaching

The big change this season, besides the head coaching position is a complete revamping of the coaching and assistant positions for the Special Teams. In past years Special Teams became sort of an inconsistent bumpy ride. There were some excellent Specialists, but that is only part of the perspective of Special Teams. The Coach in charge needs to be able to coordinate with the other coaches from the other squads that fill out the ranks of the coverage and blocking units for each type of formation. James Shibest was the last really successful coach in the Beamerball tradition. This season the HC James Franklin has added two formal assistant positions to Special Teams.

Leading the new bigger Special Teams room is Coach Doug Shearer who comes to the team from UConn. You can look at his experience summary, here: Doug Shearer – Virginia Tech Athletics. It’s important to note that throughout his coaching career Shearer has shown up at various levels of coaching in a solid list of bowl games in which he was an assistant or graduate assistant (11 out of 12 seasons). It will be interesting to see if Shearer can get Virginia Tech back to where it was a decade ago, on Special Teams play.

This time around it looks like the Hokies will have dedicated coaching assistants to help Coach Shearer with Pat Shepard and Greg Wood. Wood gets his Hokie coaching start facing off against his old coaching assignment at VMI.

Hokie Nation hopes that the “Beamer Ball” description comes back to Virginia Tech as the primary program behind the name, instead of South Carolina.

Place Kicking Duties

Many teams sport a spotty kicking game. Kickers are good for a PAT and a Field Goal from inside the 30-yard line (sometimes the ball even needs to be closer for a reliable shot). Not many teams are fielding a kicker who has a near automatic reliability rating inside the 35, and has regularly hit long range shots, even up to 60 yards (at the Duke’s Mayo Bowl for the 2024 season).

John Love (John Love – 2026 Football Roster – Virginia Tech Athletics) is all of those things. It’s earned him another “C” for his jersey, even with the new coaching staff. Last season was a bit on the disadvantageous side for Love. His attempt to hit ratio waned a bit, but at the extended ranges that most of those tries were, it’s not surprising. Love will undoubtedly be the starting Field Goal and PAT kicker for the team.

In past seasons, the prior coaching staffs have chosen to field an extra kicker as a “Kickoff Specialist” currently the NCAA is still employing the old-fashioned kickoff with the two touchback modifications; (a fair catch inside the 25 gets the ball placed at the 25 and a touchback is also placed at the 25).

There aren’t any direct indications that the backup kickers, will be moved into the Kickoff Specialist position, but we might see something interesting happen, instead. The Punter could end up being the Kickoff Specialist, too. Let’s get back to the primary kicking duties, though.

John Love’s upper-class backup is Aiden Daugherty. The team has added two Freshmen to the squad, Cole Byrd and John Love’s brother Will Love. None of the backups have real collegiate level game experience, so they might get some looks at less pressure filled opportunities. With the new coaching staff, it is going to be interesting to see just what happens and how the squad is configured for Game Days.

Punting Duties

As we noted above, there might be a new wrinkle in the punting duties for the Hokies. We know, unless the team goes to a backup quarterback, that besides punting duties the Punter usually is the Holder for field goal/PAT formations. This season, the probable starting Punter is Marshall transfer redshirt Junior Nathan Totten.

Nathan Totten also handled kickoff duties for Marshall in 2024, so he might end up being a candidate for that position, here at Tech. But what you see in his stats from last season is a punter with a powerful leg, and excellent control. Out of 56 punts, he had 19 go over 50 yards, and 20 were dumped inside the 20-yard line. That was enough to net him a 2nd team All-Sun Belt conference placement in post season. Those numbers make Totten the probable starter at Punter for the season.

The only other punter listed on the roster is Freshman Luke Jones who is a 757 addition from First Colonial High in Virginia Beach. With only two punters on the roster for the season, one of those place kickers might actually get the kickoff duties, if the coaches decide to split the place kicking work.

The Long Snapper Role is Wrapped Up

Okay, we’ve gone over this before, but we are doing it again. You have to bend over, pass the ball from between your legs 12 to 15 yards, in a perfect spiral, and spin rate to a person who is either kneeling or standing, then jump up into blocking position to keep defenders from jumping up to make contact with the ball on place kicks, or get down field to cover the returner. And nobody much will know who you are, and as long as you are perfect the coaches will bark in someone else’s ear.

Christian Eplinghas been performing that feat for the Hokies for three full seasons. He’s fully expected to be the starter for the team, again this season. Epling is the first and critical key to every non-touchdown or safety point that the team scores (PATs, and FGs). If the Long Snapper misses or gets the smallest of things off, a punter might get off rhythm and shank a punt, or the place kicker get a ball badly put down that will cause critical points to be lost in a missed attempt. It’s a real pressure filled position and getting it right can mean the difference between winning and losing a football game.

Epling is backed up, this season by Wisconsin transfer Deed Capper who has come all the way from the upper mid-west to spend his eligibility here, at Virginia Tech of all places. It would not be surprising to see him appear in less pressure filled situations as he builds experience.

All Indications are that the #25 Award Stays

Maybe the conditions change, or the tradition includes something else, but the indications are that James Franklin has a very good relationship with Frank Beamer so the honorific will probably be carried on. The hope that Special Teams gets back to its prior stature within the program and college football is still alive. This specialist squad isn’t particularly big, and only having two punters and long-snappers is a bit on the concerning side.

We will see how the Special Teams player mix shows up on the field during both the VMI debut, and the ODU step up in pressure. Frank Beamer was famous for placing starting players into the Special Teams lineups. That practice has waned a bit over the past few seasons. It will be interesting to see if Coaches Franklin and Shearer handle that personnel configuration issue.

Next Up is the Big First Risk Analysis Chart for the Season

It’s that time of August, when we cook up the first Risk chart and floor and ceiling prediction for the first quarter, and the long-range guess for the remainder of the season. Remember we go through this every 4th game as we evaluate and adjust the risks for the next four games.

GO HOKIES!!!

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