Editor's Note: Beau brings up a few good points. What's the state of the running game? And where is it going? Is/will there be a feature back? A couple of quick stats, Tech is tied 74th nationally in rushing yards per game (141.50). No Hokie has netted more than 100 yards this season (Holmes is the leader with 94, Coleman second with 54, Marcus Davis third with 48). --Joe
French is and will be the go to guy for all things analysis. How he simplifies things for us Armchair Quarterbacks to decipher is top notch. Therefore, I am not going to try to duplicate what he does. Rather, in his latest assesment French brings up concern with our run game and having no distinct leader for it. Making somewhat the same realization after perusing stats and footage from the Austin Peay game. I began to delve a little deeper to see what we're up against. This is not a pump the breaks and freak out piece either. After all, we just played two games in less than a week with one opponent being a sizeable rival.
There is a saying in football "If you have two quarterbacks....you have no quarterback" (see: Redskins '11). That adage doesn't quite fit for running backs, as often there is need for guys in rotation or committee. What Ronnie Brown and Cadillac Williams did for the '04 Auburn team is one such excellent example. Their success however, was predicated on a system that used their strengths according to a game plan. Conversely, what we have are two guys who both seem to want to be starters with a game plan that relies on Logan Thomas first, then sees how to fit either in.
Again, this is not to say we have a complete disaster on our hands. Many fans have gotten cozy with the slew of 1,000 yard plus rushers we've had the last five years (save for '10 due to injuries). It doesn't seem, at least to this point, that we'll be seeing that again this year. That is not the issue though. What has stood out to me is how unproductive our gameplan looks with the talent we do have. Our offense has always been heavy on the run, and often wins and loses based on how effectively we execute it. Looking back to 2007 via cfbstats.com, there is an obvious trend with regard to those win/lose columns and how many rushing yards we get in a game. One time we hit over 200 in a game and still lost (rhymes with Hames Radison). On average however, most games we won had us around the 180-200 yard mark whereas we'd hit 120 or fewer in most losses.
Without context those yards are meaningless, but seeing how we've played throughout the years should tell you that our commitment to the run game provides two major things, time of possession and the ability to open up the pass. Without it, as many of us have seen, we end up having to play from behind and rely on the QB to become a blast cannon. Sometimes it works, most times it does not.
Therefore, when you see no more than 17 COMBINED carries by your #1 and #2 backs in the first game then another 15 total in the second there should be some worry. Austin Peay was indeed more of a scrimmage giving time for coaches to further evaluate players and execute new formations. Nonetheless, the questions remain as to why no one is being shown yet as a clear frontrunner and whether or not this is an evolution of our gameplan or a grab at straws? I sure as hell hope that unlike our case, having four or five ball carriers means we have no ball carrier.
Your thoughts below.
Comments
Shane said he will go with whoever is 'hot' but it's hard to get warm if you keep getting taking off the stove.
Hope we see a big breakout game by one of them in the near future, like Evans against Maryland in 08.
during this last game, i was screaming for us to RUN THE DAMN FOOTBALL the entire second half (to the point of being borderline obnoxious). honestly i would have loved nothing more than to see 10 consecutive runs up the middle by a single back (holmes or coleman). instead we would run once, then throw in 3 pass plays. if we keep refusing to run the football and md7 and dyrell keep dropping passes, i do not feel very good about this season.
Shane demanding perfection in pass protections too.
Looking at any status of any shade of our team this early in the season is, imo, premature. French said a number of times that peay was a scrimmage, which would explain why we were passing more, possibly in an effort to get roberts and davis the ball more in a low-pressure situation. I also refuse to draw conclusions from the GT because that game was, always has been, and will continue to be a sludge-fest.
I honestly think with the departure of a large chunk of our offense from last year, we are trying to find what works and that may involve a trial and error methodology. Given that clemson/miami/fsu stretch later in the season, I would rather have our coaching staff figure things out now when opponents are lighter, then scramble later on when our opponents get much tougher.
I get that, but I still feel a little uneasy about the running game because we still haven't seen anyone get a serious number of carries in a drive. It seems like in past seasons, even in early tune up games, one or two backs would get a series more or less devoted to them trying out a few runs and getting the majority of the touches on a drive.
But then, I also agree that it's hard to draw conclusions this early against these two opponents. When the offense struggled against AP, I was crying out for a drive where we would turn to the ground game with a single RB, because that is, to me, still the offense's identity; when in doubt, pound the rock. That said, since it was, more or less a scrimmage, it's quite understandable that the coaching staff would instead to call plays and schemes that are less tried and true.
In the end, I think I would like a nice, tone-setting drive in the first quarter at Pitt where one (or both) RBs get about 2/3 of the calls on a sustained drive; that would make me feel more confident about it going into the rest of the season, even if it was abandoned for the rest of the game.
I agree with a lot of what you said; my only response is that its very hard to pound the rock with one RB when you don't know who that RB is going to be. Holmes and JC represent different RB styles and considering JC's athletic ability, going with the seniority route (which is sometimes our traditional default) probably isn't the best way for this situation.
I'm fairly confident that our staff will figure out something by our late october stretch. Until then, I won't fret too much if we win some games by less than an expected amount and some of our offensive choices aren't exactly what I would expect. I'll save all of that for Clemson.
You're ignoring the 11 carries against AP that were split between Scales and Gregory. We had 38 rushing attempts (27 by running backs, 7 by quarterback, 4 by wide receivers) in 64 total plays. That is commitment to the run.
One thing we have to keep in mind is Stiney and O'Cain are still figuring out a) how to properly utilize the two freshmen backs who top the depth chart, and b) how to best incorporate the rush into this new hybrid spread scheme they've installed. This won't be a ground and pound, between the tackles rushing offense this year. At least not in its base look. Expect a lot of misdirection and a lot of counters and a lot of plays to the outside to get our backs in space. That's a rather fundamental shift from how we used to run the ball just last year, and really for the last decade.
The ground and pound.
That's the one area I'm a little bit concerned about. I agree with what said above, we've shifted the offensive philosophy so worrying about being able to line up and pound 30 times a game is useless. Still, there's will be important 3rd-and-2s or 4th-and-1s that we'll need to be able to pick up. Last year LT3 was that guy. Will it be third-and-Logan this year too? The coaches haven't ran him into the teeth of the defense that much, which is smart, keep the kid healthy for the home stretch. They did the same last season. In the mean time, how are we getting those yards inside with plays that gel with the new philosophy? I'm reviewing the Cincy-Pitt film and the 58-yard home run, run George Winn had on Cincy's first play was just a very well blocked zone read. I'd like to see us get better at running that play, and be more physical at the point of attack with the straight ahead stuff from the pistol.
When the going gets tough, I hope we don't stray outside of the new system like in years past.
I do believe the coaches are committed to this offense, and like the implementation of any system, there are growing pains. What we're seeing in the run game is a result of that. I'm glad they're making the attempt to get better, and Beamer Co is one of the best at fixing things on the fly.
Joe, I owe you a beer sometime too.
The nice thing about this hybrid spread that O'Cainspring has come up with is that it incorporates the I form as one of the three fundamental formations. Even if CFB decides to go back to a little bit more power running, we can incorporate that into what we've done offensively without throwing the baby out with the bath water. So far it's been about 50% shotgun, 25% pistol, 25 % I form. We could just tweak the percentages to more around 1/3 each to get a little more 'tween the tackles action.
That's provided we can find a back who can gash defenses up the middle. I think Michael Holmes might be that back, but then again he might not. Holmes' game seems to hinge on his vision, scanning the line for the hole to hit right up until the moment he hits it. That's often costs him a step and removes some of the power from his runs.
JC Coleman's a smurf. I do not see him running a power game inside.
Martin Scales has pop, but we don't know if he has 20 carries a game type stamina. We also don't want to elevate the third string back to first string in power running situations unless we like seeing nine men in the box across the line from us every time he comes into the game.
Trey Edmunds needs a redshirt. And I mean NEEDS it.
If we don't want to bang up our meal ticket QB, who's left?
And I think Frank realizes all that. Expect Mike and Bryan to keep tinkering with the hybrid spread unencumbered until it costs us a game.
For the stat freaks, take a look at how many carries the running backs get in the first quarter. I think when the backs start getting carries on the interior, everything else in the offense works better.
The point
Of this point was not to be all doom and gloom. I tried to convey that a few times but I guess I didn't do a good enough job. I think Joe alluded more to my point with the question of "where are we heading/ what is the current situation?"
I know GT was a grind and Austin Peay more of a scrimmage. That wasn't lost on me at all. However, in EVERY game we've played GT we have made sustained drives primarily through a running game. You saw how we had to come back with :44 to tie it with a FG. If they were up by a TD with enough time the outcome would have been much different. Looking back to '07
'07 W 27-3 185 rushing 2.83ypc
'08 W 20-17 199 rush 4.33ypc
'09* L 23-28 175 rush 5.65ypc
'10 W28-21 198 rush 4.93ypc
'11 W37-26 267 rush 5.13ypc
'12 W20-17 96 rush 2.74ypc
Now, you can look at these and say "WOW! look at how much their defense has improved. Al Groh may have been better prepared but I'm not buying it all that much. So we did know it would be a slugfest but that was more in terms of T.O.P and keeping our Defense off the field. Nonetheless, it was our FIRST game with TWO Freshman running backs.
I am not one to freak out with this team, nor am I going to. I am just wondering, like everyone else, how this is going to shake out. Luckily Shane Beamer was on last night answering fans tweets (love that guy) and I sent him this:
Beau @BeaunerJam
@CoachSBeamer no one is expecting a replacement to DW, but do we have a featured back? < 15 carries for either guy per game
and got in return
Shane Beamer @CoachSBeamer
“@BeaunerJam: @CoachSBeamer no one is expecting a replacement to DW, but do we have a featured back?"4 really good ones. Go w the hot one
Which one is hot? Holmes has the most carries with 22 and a 4.27 avg and 2TD, Coleman only 10 with a 5.4 avg, then Scales has more yards with a 6.0 avg, and finally Tony Greggory has ~50 with a TD and above 5.0 avg. These are not shotty numbers for the snaps they played. I don't even care if all four get the ball during the course of the game. If the offense is changing where there are no frontrunners thats ok too. However, grabbing sub 100 yards in games relying on Logan to do it all will not impress anyone. Just my thoughts. Thank you all for contributing!
No offense, but I think you are reading way too much into the "go with the hot one" line from Shane. I doubt he would tell a fan on twitter his exact running back plan unless he was willing to tell the press. All I took away from that is that they don't know who the "hot" RB will be, and once they figure that out, that RB will be featured. Could be holmes, coleman, scales, or even Drew Harris but its so early in the season that such a decision isn't really that important.
you read my last paragraph right?
we're saying the same thing. There was no guess work as to who I thought the hot one was. I don't care, as long as we get a gameplan for more of a ground attack.
yeah you're right. I reread it and we are saying the same thing. Sorry about that.
Tangentially...
Why aren't we putting the ball in the air more? We've seen how effective it can be, Logan's got the arm, and we have a pretty good receiving corps. Beau, I realize the intent was to focus on the running game, but the entire offense scheme seems to be lost in a foggy malaise.
If there's anything that the Hokies in the NFL have shown, it's that our receivers have traditionally been under-used. As a prime example, Eddie Royal had a breakout rookie season with the Broncos, and every highlight had me screaming at the TV, "Why didn't Frank use him like this?!" We all love Danny Coale and want to see him used/succeed in the NFL, just like we want the same for Jarrett Boykin -- and they had a great QB in Tyrod -- so why not let Logan go vertical with Davis/Roberts/CFuller/Knowles and hell, even Randall Dunn, who was doing work without a shoe on Saturday.
Our run game can't succeed the way you want it to if we don't show the threat of completed passes on every down. We can't force the opposition's defense into a two-deep zone coverage and then run on it if we don't establish that portion of the offense first.
IMO
The starters this year may not be tried and true yet, but I think they will be by mid-season, but I think we'll always have great backs... The tradition started seemingly forever ago. Only recently has it been in the national sports media however. And this year they're jumping at the chance to criticize our backfield.
But even though we're "little in the middle," we're still gonna have a lotta back.
holmes and coleman have completely different styles
holmes is one cut and get north (ideally at least) and coleman is your classic scat back. give it to holmes between the tackles, get it to coleman on swing passes and from the slot and whatnot. the coaches should play to their strengths, and i think we're seeing that. i think they'll be 1 and 1a all season. the coaches are notoriously conservative, and they're easing their young backs into things.
Score points and win games
I don't care how it gets done.
I am not going to advocate for any particular back. I don't think any of the backs have been given an opportunity to get into the flow of the game in the 1st quarter of either game this season. Coleman is small and has game breaking speed and cuts, but he is a MUCH better runner on the interior on fast quick hitting plays than he is on the jet sweeps. Holmes is more patient, and tends to be tougher to tackle, but neither are going to make anyone forget about Earl Campbell.
To me, Holmes should be getting 20 carries minimum a game, with much less read option and more pistol counter dives and zone plays, especially early in the game. Then the playcallers have to have a "gut feeling" as to when the defense is a little fatigued, and that is when you spring Coleman. Then you come back to Holmes when you have a lead in the 4th quarter.
Gregory and Scales don't belong in the discussion. Hence a frustration point with Shane Beamer. I appreciate their hard work, but the best players should play. This isn't little league where everybody gets a trophy.