The circumstances around Virginia Tech's defense in 2026 are different than what you typically see in college football. Brent Pry, fired as the Hokies' head coach following a 0-3 start in 2025, came back to Blacksburg months later — this time, he's in the 540 as James Franklin's defensive coordinator. Love it or hate it, the arrangement is unconventional, and it puts Pry in the unique position of having to clean up a mess he partly created. The defense he's inheriting has real problems, but also some upside. Whether that upside shows up before the season gets away from them is the whole ball game.Here are three questions that I believe will define how this unit looks come fall.1. Can Pry rebuild the defense quickly enough?A 3-9 season doesn't fix itself overnight, and Virginia Tech's defense was a critical reason in why the 2025 campaign went sideways. The Hokies gave up points at a rate that made wins almost impossible to sustain, and by November, the wheels had come completely off. Pry knows this roster, though. He probably knows it better than any outside coordinator hire would. That familiarity cuts both ways. He understands the talent in the building, but he is presumably cognizant the bad habits and the trust issues that come with a program that just finished 3-9 and had to fire him three games in.The portal haul this offseason was aggressive and targeted, leaning heavily on the Penn State pipeline that Pry and Franklin both know well. The pieces are being assembled. The clock, however, is not waiting around. Virginia Tech landed 27 total transfers from the portal.Virginia Tech opens against VMI on September 5, but the schedule gets tough as the season goes on. The ACC doesn't offer many warm-up laps, and a defense still finding its footing in Week 4 or Week 5 can watch a season slip away before October.Pry has the defensive pedigree from his time at Penn State and Vanderbilt, but translating that to a depleted roster under a new head coach, in a coordinator role he hasn't held in years, is a genuine challenge. Spring camp was a start. It won't be enough on its own. 2. Is there enough depth along the defensive line to last a full season without showing wear and tear?Kemari Copeland is a talented player. The redshirt senior defensive tackle led the Hokies with 4.5 sacks in 2025, earned Third-Team All-ACC recognition, and was the only Virginia Tech defender to land on any of the All-ACC teams. In a unit searching for proven production, Copeland is the guy. The issue is what happens when the depth chart drops off past him. Virginia Tech lost Kelvin Gilliam and Kody Huisman to graduation, which carves a noticeable hole in the tackle rotation. The Hokies brought in bodies through the portal — Eric Mensah, Randy Adirika and others — but most of them are raw or coming off limited roles elsewhere. Aycen Stevens brings three years of program familiarity on the edge, though his stats to this point are limited, and Elhadj Fall gives them another experienced tackle option. That's a workable starting four on paper. The question is what game nine looks like when injuries have inevitably thinned things out. 3. Can the front seven generate the kind of consistent pressure that changes games?This is ultimately the question that determines whether Virginia Tech's defense goes from serviceable to disruptive. Generating pressure changes everything. It shortens drives, creates turnovers and takes heat off the secondary.Last season, the defensive line was actually the best unit on the defense. But the Hokies still gave up big passing numbers too often, a sign that pressure wasn't consistent enough to alter what opposing offenses were doing schematically. Javion Hilson is the name that could change that conversation entirely if he's ready. The redshirt freshman edge rusher transferred from Missouri, where he appeared in just three games. However, high school tape is something else. At Cocoa High in Florida, he was a wrecking ball, logging 38.5 sacks over his final three prep seasons. He earned three state championships and recognition as the eighth-ranked edge prospect, according to 247Sports. The question is whether he can sustain that level of production against Power Four competition.A front seven that generates consistent pressure makes every other problem on this defense smaller. One that doesn't put the entire unit under water before the fourth quarter even starts. Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow