Most of the names that will fill Virginia Tech football’s 2026 stat sheet were wearing other uniforms last fall. James Franklin rebuilt this roster through the portal in a matter of weeks, which means projecting statistical leaders is less about what happened in Blacksburg and more about what these players did somewhere else. Here is a breakdown on who should lead the Hokies in each major statistical category.

Passing yards and passing touchdowns: Ethan Grunkemeyer

No other quarterback on the roster has taken a college snap, so the depth chart writes itself at the top. What makes Grunkemeyer more than a default pick is the 1,339 yards he threw for across seven Penn State starts, plus the head start he has on the offense after following coordinator Ty Howle to Blacksburg. He spent last year learning this scheme while everyone else is starting from zero. As long as he stays healthy, Grunkemeyer is the easy pick for these categories.

Rushing yards and rushing touchdowns: Marcellous Hawkins

Few backs produced in tougher conditions in 2025. Hawkins gained 749 yards on 6.3 per carry, drew an 84.6 Pro Football Focus grade, highest on the roster, and racked up 562 yards after contact, doing it against fronts that loaded the box because Virginia Tech gave them no reason not to. A passing game with some teeth should only loosen things up, and Jeffrey Overton Jr. figures to handle a meaningful share of carries without threatening the bulk of the workload.

The touchdown lead comes with a wrinkle worth pausing on. Hawkins reached the end zone just once on the ground all season, while quarterback Kyron Drones piled up nine rushing scores. Drones is gone, off to the NFL with the Green Bay Packers, which leaves that production up for grabs and the lead back in line to claim it. Overton, who broke a 38-yard touchdown run against Miami in November, is the back most likely to chip into the total.

Receiving yards: Que’Sean Brown

The most accomplished pass catcher in the room arrived from Durham. Brown posted 846 yards at Duke last season and 1,291 across his past two years, headlined by a 178-yard, two-touchdown showing in the Sun Bowl. Projected as the primary slot, he occupies the spot where targets concentrate in a timing-based passing game. Greene offers continuity and a higher floor, but Brown’s track record points to the bigger ceiling.

Receiving touchdowns: Luke Reynolds

Zero touchdowns at Penn State last year. That’s the case against Reynolds. The case for him is everything else: a five-star pedigree, a 6-foot-4, 250-pound frame built for red-zone mismatches, and a Howle offense with a track record of feeding the tight end near the goal line. The spring game gave a glimpse of what Virginia Tech’s offense will look like, with ght ends outgaining receivers 205 yards to 157 on Virginia Tech’s 428 total receiving yards. Reynolds led every target on the field, catching all five passes thrown his way for a game-high 69 yards.

Tackles and tackles for loss: Kaleb Spencer

With Caleb Woodson off to Alabama and Jaden Keller out of eligibility, the top of the linebacker room emptied out, and Spencer is what’s left standing. The Miami transfer quietly led the 2025 team in tackles with 67 while starting five games and playing all 12, and he’s logged more than 500 snaps in Blacksburg. He also led the team in tackles for loss, at 9.0, and as the every-down mike, he’s built to live in the backfield again. Sophomore Noah Chambers, who posted 44 tackles as a true freshman, is the closest thing to a challenger, while Kemari Copeland and any of the new edge rushers who pop could chip into the loss column. For now, the proven leader keeps both.

Sacks: Kemari Copeland

Copeland led the Hokies in sacks last season, and the tape backs up the kind of explosive athlete he is. He owns Virginia Tech’s all-time squat record, putting up 605 pounds for 10 reps, a number that turned heads well outside the football program when he set it. That kind of lower-body power shows up on Saturdays, where he’s capable of collapsing a pocket from the interior, not just the edge.

Interceptions: Jaquez White

No Hokie pulled away in the takeaway department last season, so the safer bet goes to the player who’s done it before. White intercepted three passes and broke up 11 more at Troy, production that earned him second-team All-Sun Belt honors. He’s joining a secondary that struggled to create turnovers a year ago, and a corner with his track record of finding the ball is exactly what that group needed. Isaiah Brown-Murray, the returning CB1 with a pick and five breakups of his own, is the closest thing to a rival for the lead.

A charter bus failed to slow down when it came upon a line of vehicles stopped in an overnight work zone on Interstate 95 in Virginia last month, rear-ending and killing a Worcester woman in her SUV and a family of four from Greenfield in their SUV, national transportation officials said Thursday.

The driver of the 57-passenger motorcoach, Jing Sheng Dong, was swiftly charged with involuntary manslaughter after the multi-vehicle crash on May 29.

The Massachusetts residents did not know each other yet their vehicles were stopped together in the work zone on southbound I-95 in Stafford, Va. at 2:32 a.m. that Friday.

Priscilla R. Mafalda, 25, of Worcester, was a passenger in a 2021 Chevrolet Suburban that was in the direct path of the 2013 Van Hool C2045L motorcoach. She was traveling with her husband to South Florida.

Also in the path of the charter bus was the Doncev family, a mother and father from Greenfield traveling with their 14-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son to a family wedding in South Carolina. Their 2020 Acura MDX was consumed by fire, the report from the National Transportation Security Board said.

In all, eight vehicles were involved, with dozens of people injured and hospitalized.

The bus, occupied by Dong, 48, who worked for E&P Travel, Inc., and two dozen passengers, was en route from New York City to Charlotte, NC.

The conditions were clear and dry on the six-lane roadway where three southbound and three northbound lanes were divided by two reversible express toll lanes, the NTSB report said.

An overnight repaving project had prompted the closure of the southbound center and right lanes, as well as the right shoulder, according to the report.

When the charter bus approached from the south in the center lane, it failed to slow done for stopped traffic, the report said. It did not say how fast the bus was estimated to be traveling.

The motorcoach continued to travel south for nearly a half mile, causing a chain-reaction crash into eight vehicles, the report said.

The overnight work zone was scheduled to conclude at 5 a.m., less than three hours from the time of the fatal crash, the NTSB said.

The investigation is ongoing while the NTSB determines probable cause.

The ​Virginia State Police, Virginia Department of Transportation, and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration are aiding the investigation.

Tonya Alanez can be reached at tonya.alanez@globe.com. Follow her @talanez.

BLACKSBURG, Va. (WDBJ) – First responders never stop training, and this week almost 500 from across Virginia are honing their skills in Blacksburg.

The Virginia Association of First Responders now includes EMTs, firefighters, police officers and many others who answer the call in an emergency.

Thursday, a farm accident and a collision involving a car and school bus were just two of the scenarios they encountered.

“It’s a week-long opportunity, not only for technical stuff like this, but for medical classes,” said Covington Volunteer Rescue Squad member Greg Burton. “People call 911 every day for something. And we’re just here to help ease the problem a little bit.”

The annual conference also includes a Rescue Camp for young people with an interest in emergency services.

43 campers are taking part in a variety of activities, including a session on scuba diving Thursday afternoon.