Virginia Tech’s embarrassing weekend came with a rather substantial personnel loss.
This past Saturday, starting quarterback Josh Jackson went down with a lower-leg injury in then-No. 13 Tech’s historic loss to Old Dominion; it was the Conference USA program’s first-ever win over a Power Five school after nine straight such losses over the last decade.
Monday, the Hokies’ worst fears were realized as Justin Fuente confirmed that Jackson suffered a fractured left fibula during the game and will be sidelined indefinitely. The signal-caller is set to undergo surgery on Tuesday to repair the damage.
.@CoachFuente confirms that Josh Jackson has a fractured left fibula. He will have surgery tomorrow. Timetable TBD.#Hokies 🦃
— Virginia Tech Football (@HokiesFB) September 24, 2018
This season prior to the injury, Jackson completed a little over 62 percent of his 58 passes for 575 yards, five touchdowns and an interception. His 170.3 pass efficiency rating is currently 18th nationally and second among ACC quarterbacks (Boston College’s Anthony Brown, 175.5).
With Jackson sidelined for the foreseeable future, the keys to Tech’s offense will be handed off to Ryan Willis. The Kansas transfer had to sit out the 2017 season to satisfy NCAA transfer rules, and has attempted 25 passes for the Hokies this season. In that limited action thus far, he has thrown for 195 yards and a touchdown.
The good news is that Willis isn’t exactly new to the starting game at the collegiate level.
Willis started two games during the 2016 season; after throwing three interceptions in each of those mid-October starts, Willis was benched and never played another down for the Jayhawks. In his first season in Lawrence in 2015, Willis set a KU freshman record by throwing for 1,719 yards and nine touchdowns as part of his eight starts.
“I feel badly for Josh,” Fuente said in comments distributed by the school earlier today. “He’s a competitive, tough young man. He just kind of got landed on wrong on the play, but know he’ll come back better than ever.
“We turn to Ryan Willis and he performed pretty well last week when he went in there. He’s competitive and he’s been training and working for this opportunity and it’s up to everyone else to step up their game as well and help him out and support him.”