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A few days ago, we posted the released team rankings for NCAA Football 14, which comprised ranking the offense, defense and overall team rankings of each team in the game. Now, per this video from the floor of E3, Operation Sports reveals the top-10 players on each team in NCAA 14. For the Hokies there are both some surprises and some players that were expected to be among that group. The list of top-10 players can be seen in the video below:
Or, if you don't want to sift through the video trying to find Virginia Tech (Hint: At about the 4:28 mark. You'll want to pause it immediately though as they move fast), we've listed each of the top-10 players individually below. Or simply examine the cover photo for this story.
- James Gayle 93 OVR
- Andrew Miller 93 OVR
- Derrick Hopkins 92 OVR
- Kyle Fuller 90 OVR
- Luther Maddy 90 OVR
- Logan Thomas 90 OVR
- Jack Tyler 90 OVR
- Detrick Bonner 89 OVR
- Mark Leal 88 OVR
- Tyrel Wilson 87 OVR
Again, while some of those players seem to fit their rating (i.e. Gayle, Miller, Hopkins, perhaps Fuller, Maddy, Thomas on a good day, Tyler is close and Bonner at the end of the year), Leal and Wilson, two backups, while they have in their limited time on the field, are probably not among the top-10 players on the Virginia Tech team by any measurement.
For instance, Mark Leal has only attempted 19 career passes. And while he's completed a high percentage of them, has played against only Appalachian State, Marshall, Virginia (2011), Austin Peay and Bowling Green, all blowouts. So not anything against him, but that's hardly murderer's row when it comes to competition.
Likewise, Wilson, while filling in for an injured James Gayle, has only started five games over the four years he's been in the Virginia Tech program (including a redshirt year, so that may seem misleading). He has, however, produced 7 career sacks, 4.5 coming in 2012, a pretty good total for a backup defensive end to one of the best defensive ends in college football. But to say he's among the best 10 players on the team is a stretch, especially as he is pretty much exclusively a rush end.
There are also some interesting omissions from that list, including Antone Exum and Kyshoen Jarrett, perhaps the Hokies' second-best defensive player a year ago. The discussion that followed our release of the top-10 on Twitter seemed to be mostly about Leal and Wilson's inclusion and the omission of Exum.
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