The Hokies' leading receiver Kaleb Smith is in the Transfer Portal
Virginia Tech's passing game was... rocky in 2022, and will likely have to start from close to scratch in 2023. VT's leading receiver, Kaleb Smith, will leave Blacksburg for the NCAA Transfer Portal.
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Smith, a fifth-year senior who chose to walk on at Virginia Tech rather than accept a scholarship slot at Wake Forest in the 2018 class, was a limited contributor early in his career, but blossomed as a redshirt junior and senior. A two-star prospect out of Louisa County High School, VT got more production than you may have ever expected for a player with that path to Blacksburg.
His 674 receiving yards and three touchdowns were each about a third of the Hokies' total passing production this Fall. For his career, he caught 74 passes for 1143 yards (15.4 per catch) and seven touchdowns. Cast as a No. 1 this year with the departure of Tre Turner, he showed a new level of explosive playmaking to his game.
However, the Hokies could never find the pieces to complement him, and that made his lack of natural athleticism a liability against the more talented secondaries on the roster. A No. 2 cast into a leading role, he'll look for greener pastures to play his Covid year and attempt to show enough to catch on in the NFL.
Unlike most of the outgoing players, Smith's is massively impactful for the Hokies. Even an imperfect leading receiver... is a guy whose production must be replaced (and the amount of production he got indicates there's not much talent on the existing roster to replace it, either). While entering the Transfer Portal is not a guarantee he's gone - players have the right to withdraw from the Portal, rather than picking a new destination - the coaching staff will have to figure out some solutions in the passing game that simply didn't avail themselves this year.
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