Remember when Loeffler was considered a QB whisperer from his work with Tom Brady? I'm starting to think that the title is not necessarily a good thing
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Was it George Whitfield that Logan Thomas worked with after his really good 2011 season? The guy was supposed to really good. Logan was never the same quarterback after that.
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Only tangentially related, but you know who is a QB whisperer? Lane Kiffin.
Matt Corral got benched in 2019 in favor of John Rhys Plumlee who is primarily a runner and very limited passer. In 2020 Kiffin put his faith in Corral even after a few bad performances and he finished with 3300 yards, 29 TD's, 14 picks (this is important), and 10.2 ypa. One more year with Kiffin, he has 1900 yards, 15 TD's, 1(!) pick, and 9.2 ypa through 7 games. His slightly lower ypa is almost certainly due to having Elijah Moore last season, and they've had a ton of injuries to their skill players on offense (WR in particular) this season so far.
Additionally, in his first year at Alabama he turned a low 4* RB/ATH recruit coming out of HS (Blake Sims) into a QB who set almost every single Bama single season passing record in 2014 in his first and only year as the starting QB. Dude absolutely has a knack for making his QB's life much easier. In 2015 he turned FSU transfer career backup Jake Coker into a National Championship winning QB, a guy who was only briefly on a practice squad after signing an UDFA deal before retiring to work in Insurance. In 2016, he turned true freshman Jalen Hurts in the SEC Offensive POTY despite being less developed as a passer coming out of HS.
Even in his one year at Tennessee he elevated Jonathan Crompton into a viable SEC QB, especially compared to the Vols QB play in 2008 (year before) and 2010 (year after).
At USC, Matt Barkley improved both of his first two years under Kiffin, before having a slight regression in 2012, but they were also a weaker team overall in 2012 compared to 2011.
At FAU in 2017 he dramatically improved QB Jason Driskel from the season before he arrived, and in his 2nd and 3rd years at FAU with a new QB (Chris Robison), he made huge strides from his first to second year under Kiffin (2018 to 2019).
I don't say that to suggest Kiffin should be our next coach, so no need to misconstrue this is me suggesting that. I don't think he would come here anyway given how he is doing at Ole Miss at the moment.
Edit: I'm usually in the camp of good/talented QB's make OC's/HC's look good and that the QB whisperer is sort of correlation not causation type myth in most cases, but after going through this long period of over a decade of basically a 100% hit rate on improving many different types/styles of QB (and at different levels) I think Kiffin might just straight up be a real QB whisperer.
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To further reinforce the point of your edit, I think people are seeing this now with Tony Elliot down at Clemson. After 3 straight Heisman QBs, the year that they don't have one is fraught with offensive issues that might have been covered up by the straight baller that Lawrence was.
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Oh wow, I totally forgot he was the Raiders HC in 07 and 08. Yeah, I guess that one is tough even though Russell had well documented off the field issues that likely interfered with his focus/ability to play QB at a high level in the NFL.
So even if we say that's a QB whisperer failure, his college record with QB's from 2009-present is a 100% hit rate.
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He does make them eat in silence for breakfast on gamedays. He even said it's because "he wants them focusing on the game" but it seemed like a weird control thing I thought. HAHA but if it is a daily thing or turned to that now I can't help but laugh until I'm crying!
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His first year, they were doing a special about Fuente and showed the players on game day eating in complete silence. I'm not saying this is neither a negative nor a positive, I'm only saying that this is a real thing in year one; not sure if this tradition by Fuente has continued.
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I heard something about that from someone not associated with the program and hadn't seen it on any of the VT sites or a google search. So I assumed it was was just a rumor..
Just to be sure you're talking about a different issue than health.
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Bud is cemented as a Hokie great and should be in the College Football Hall of Fame. I think he enjoys drinking beer on his dock at the lake more than the headache of booster dinners.
That being said, why Bud didn't take the reigns at the beginning of the decline of the Beamer era is a mystery to me. I often wonder what state the program would have been in if Foster took over around 2012-2014.
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I'm glad he didn't, because I love Bud. If he had taken over as coach and been unsuccessful, it would have tarnished the overall view of Bud. Instead, we're left with a man who will forever be almost sacred in the minds of Hokies everywhere. He left pretty close to his peak years, and the fact that this question keep coming up just provides further evidence that he remains beloved. I would much rather see Hokie Nation asking "What if?" rather than damning him for a program in decline. Would he have been successful? Maybe, but maybe not.
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I still would have been fine with giving him a 2-3 year window for the transition to the next guy. If the plan he always talked about of getting a top-flight offensive mind in as OC and letting him do his thing worked out you talk extension. If it doesn't quite work out you just saved the next coach, who brings the "full" regime change, from being the dreaded "guy who follows a legend."
I've heard some of the rumors as to why he wasn't considered as seriously as some of us may have liked, but I disagree that he would have tarnished his legacy too bad. If nothing else, the defensive talent we had in 2016 and 2017 would have been enough to keep us as a bowl team (if we are assuming the timeline as it happened). Much more speculation required to go the hypothetical "what if he took over after 2012" route, which I don't (personally) care to do that exercise.
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In retrospect, I think one of the big mistakes of 6 years ago was keeping Coach Foster (and a lot of his staff) on Fu's new staff. Bud was pretty open that he wanted the head job so its not great dynamics for a new guy to be forced to inherit the person he beat out of the job. I'm sure they were all professional and made it work but for whomever comes in next, they need to be able to pick their entire team to set their culture and priorities (sorry JHam).
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whomever comes in next, they need to be able to pick their entire team to set their culture and priorities (sorry JHam).
JHam is hands down the biggest loser in all of this. The defense turned the corner between last year and this year. And the offense has hamstrung them in the worst way possible in all 4 losses this year:
-couldn't score against WVU, even after gifting us an interception in the red zone
-couldn't hold the ball against ND to run out the clock, plus multiple 3 and outs swung momentum
-Syracuse, see ND above
-Pitt, offense didn't get off the bus
Hell, UNC should have been a loss had our defense not shown up (or big blowout win if we scored on our possessions like we should have).
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They did fall apart there at the end but the depth is abysmally thin. But i think most would agree the defense is improving. They might have a turned a corner but still need to turn another corner to become really good. Need to get the 'cruits to turn that last corner.
Although, 1 more first down from the offense in the notre dame and Syracuse game and they'd be 5-2....
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And they got gashed because
1) basic fundamentals in how to fit a gap versus zone read went all to hell (FILM REVIEW)
2) tackling
3) Per Fuente's presser today, they practiced a coverage audible against the formation Syracuse lined up in on the game winning TD, and the players didn't make the check like they practiced. That is a sign of either poor prep or mental exhaustion... damning of the players and damning of the staff.
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I did notice that the linebackers, specifically Dax, several times were getting blocked out of the play because it looked like they were slow to fill a gap and it was the wrong gap. The Syracuse OL seemed to always have a guy make it to the next level almost immediately to ensure our linebackers were completely out of the play after filling the wrong gap.
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I don't disagree. If Bud wasn't here in 2019, though, we probably end up missing a bowl game a year earlier. 2016 and 17 were good years for the defense but the departure of talent was never really addressed and Fuente's first couple recruiting classes were really light on defensive players. It made a lot of sense for our defense to take a step back in 2018, which it did. Then Foster showed exactly why he's the best in the country at what he does. The coaching job he did for that 2019 defense to be as good as it was with the pieces he had to work with is criminally underrated around here. He had two shutouts in 2019. Most of us don't even know what a shutout looks like anymore.
I think the big step back in 2020 could, in part, be attributed to Fuente not getting the opportunity to bring in his entire coaching staff at once in 2016. Bud definitely delayed the inevitable, though. The defense, 2018 aside, really propped up the offense during Bud's time on staff. And there is no argument he's not one of the best in the land. Without him, our defense isn't as good in 16 or 17. It's probably worse in 18 and there's no chance it's as good as it was in 19.
Do you think it's a coincidence that the worst teams we've seen with Fuente are teams that have a bad defense? Defense has been critically important to Fu because his offense is non-existent. I think Fu is fired after the 2019 season if Bud isn't kept on staff for 4 years. 2020 and 2021 are just proving my point. No Bud, no Bowl. Pretty simple.
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I don't remember an overwhelming amount of people wanting Bud Foster to be the next head coach after Beamer. After years of offensive ineptitude, we wanted a head coach that was considered to be offensive-minded. Yes, it hasn't worked out that way, but at the time it seemed like a good hire for that.
I still don't think we should have hired Bud. I've seen multiple times that he had kind of checked out on some aspects of coaching in his final years, especially recruiting. Another reason why Beamer's tenure came to an end was lack of recruiting success. Again, it's not something Fuente has improved, but promoting Bud to head coach would not have been the solution there.
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There's always been rumors about Bud. 0 chance he doesnt get a head coaching offer if "background checks" came out clean. By the time the head coach opened up, I think that, for health reason, he needed to just take a step back. He is one of the greatest DCs of all time. I do wish he got a shot at being a head coach when he was younger.
I still think that the demise of Beamer was when he got rid of Coach Cav. That guy knew everybody in VA and was a huge reason we found and signed a bunch of great recruits during Beamer's glory years. It's no coincidence, in my opinion, that VT football talent started getting bare a few years after Cav left (2013).
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Comments
We wanted an offensive mastermind and a quarterback whisperer.
And we got neither.
The answer to our QB whisperer dreams...
Remember when Loeffler was considered a QB whisperer from his work with Tom Brady? I'm starting to think that the title is not necessarily a good thing
how is the QB supposed to hear him if he insists on whispering so much
Was it George Whitfield that Logan Thomas worked with after his really good 2011 season? The guy was supposed to really good. Logan was never the same quarterback after that.
That's because Logan had no one to throw too. Turns out Coale and Boykins covered up a lot of errors.
That was part of it, but his accuracy took a huge dip after 2011 IIRC.
Only tangentially related, but you know who is a QB whisperer? Lane Kiffin.
Matt Corral got benched in 2019 in favor of John Rhys Plumlee who is primarily a runner and very limited passer. In 2020 Kiffin put his faith in Corral even after a few bad performances and he finished with 3300 yards, 29 TD's, 14 picks (this is important), and 10.2 ypa. One more year with Kiffin, he has 1900 yards, 15 TD's, 1(!) pick, and 9.2 ypa through 7 games. His slightly lower ypa is almost certainly due to having Elijah Moore last season, and they've had a ton of injuries to their skill players on offense (WR in particular) this season so far.
Additionally, in his first year at Alabama he turned a low 4* RB/ATH recruit coming out of HS (Blake Sims) into a QB who set almost every single Bama single season passing record in 2014 in his first and only year as the starting QB. Dude absolutely has a knack for making his QB's life much easier. In 2015 he turned FSU transfer career backup Jake Coker into a National Championship winning QB, a guy who was only briefly on a practice squad after signing an UDFA deal before retiring to work in Insurance. In 2016, he turned true freshman Jalen Hurts in the SEC Offensive POTY despite being less developed as a passer coming out of HS.
Even in his one year at Tennessee he elevated Jonathan Crompton into a viable SEC QB, especially compared to the Vols QB play in 2008 (year before) and 2010 (year after).
At USC, Matt Barkley improved both of his first two years under Kiffin, before having a slight regression in 2012, but they were also a weaker team overall in 2012 compared to 2011.
At FAU in 2017 he dramatically improved QB Jason Driskel from the season before he arrived, and in his 2nd and 3rd years at FAU with a new QB (Chris Robison), he made huge strides from his first to second year under Kiffin (2018 to 2019).
I don't say that to suggest Kiffin should be our next coach, so no need to misconstrue this is me suggesting that. I don't think he would come here anyway given how he is doing at Ole Miss at the moment.
Edit: I'm usually in the camp of good/talented QB's make OC's/HC's look good and that the QB whisperer is sort of correlation not causation type myth in most cases, but after going through this long period of over a decade of basically a 100% hit rate on improving many different types/styles of QB (and at different levels) I think Kiffin might just straight up be a real QB whisperer.
To further reinforce the point of your edit, I think people are seeing this now with Tony Elliot down at Clemson. After 3 straight Heisman QBs, the year that they don't have one is fraught with offensive issues that might have been covered up by the straight baller that Lawrence was.
jamarcus russell tho 👀
Oh wow, I totally forgot he was the Raiders HC in 07 and 08. Yeah, I guess that one is tough even though Russell had well documented off the field issues that likely interfered with his focus/ability to play QB at a high level in the NFL.
So even if we say that's a QB whisperer failure, his college record with QB's from 2009-present is a 100% hit rate.
For Jamarcus to be successful, he would have needed to be a QB Yeller.
Or a QB nutritionist
And Bud was not known to be a good recruiter.
Lol well we hired an ace
I ate breakfast and lunch with players his first year and there was not silence. Aren't there enough real issues without making this weird stuff up.
He does make them eat in silence for breakfast on gamedays. He even said it's because "he wants them focusing on the game" but it seemed like a weird control thing I thought. HAHA but if it is a daily thing or turned to that now I can't help but laugh until I'm crying!
It is a known fact that they do that on game days.
His first year, they were doing a special about Fuente and showed the players on game day eating in complete silence. I'm not saying this is neither a negative nor a positive, I'm only saying that this is a real thing in year one; not sure if this tradition by Fuente has continued.
Don't mean to be cryptic but if you know, you know.
yea, lots of rumors around Bud, probably partly why he retired fairly early too I would assume
I heard something about that from someone not associated with the program and hadn't seen it on any of the VT sites or a google search. So I assumed it was was just a rumor..
Just to be sure you're talking about a different issue than health.
The other issue is very well known around the golf courses and was a common thing in Awful Arthur's before they closed.
I love Bud. 100%. Want him to go down as the best DC ever. I don't want his rep tarnished.
Having said that, it kills me that I have no idea what everyone is talking about. I'm out of the loop; I don't play golf.
Adult beverages will get after ya...
Sober October cannot end soon enough...
What the fresh hell is that?
It's like Dryuary, but in October
Luckily, I never heard of that.
Oktoberfest is a much better tradition.
I'll drink to that
In the early 2000s it was more than adult beverages. *sauces, but no judging*
Bud is cemented as a Hokie great and should be in the College Football Hall of Fame. I think he enjoys drinking beer on his dock at the lake more than the headache of booster dinners.
That being said, why Bud didn't take the reigns at the beginning of the decline of the Beamer era is a mystery to me. I often wonder what state the program would have been in if Foster took over around 2012-2014.
I'm glad he didn't, because I love Bud. If he had taken over as coach and been unsuccessful, it would have tarnished the overall view of Bud. Instead, we're left with a man who will forever be almost sacred in the minds of Hokies everywhere. He left pretty close to his peak years, and the fact that this question keep coming up just provides further evidence that he remains beloved. I would much rather see Hokie Nation asking "What if?" rather than damning him for a program in decline. Would he have been successful? Maybe, but maybe not.
I still would have been fine with giving him a 2-3 year window for the transition to the next guy. If the plan he always talked about of getting a top-flight offensive mind in as OC and letting him do his thing worked out you talk extension. If it doesn't quite work out you just saved the next coach, who brings the "full" regime change, from being the dreaded "guy who follows a legend."
I've heard some of the rumors as to why he wasn't considered as seriously as some of us may have liked, but I disagree that he would have tarnished his legacy too bad. If nothing else, the defensive talent we had in 2016 and 2017 would have been enough to keep us as a bowl team (if we are assuming the timeline as it happened). Much more speculation required to go the hypothetical "what if he took over after 2012" route, which I don't (personally) care to do that exercise.
Why must we participate in this equine flagellation?
We all love Bud. Bud didn't happen.
In retrospect, I think one of the big mistakes of 6 years ago was keeping Coach Foster (and a lot of his staff) on Fu's new staff. Bud was pretty open that he wanted the head job so its not great dynamics for a new guy to be forced to inherit the person he beat out of the job. I'm sure they were all professional and made it work but for whomever comes in next, they need to be able to pick their entire team to set their culture and priorities (sorry JHam).
JHam is hands down the biggest loser in all of this. The defense turned the corner between last year and this year. And the offense has hamstrung them in the worst way possible in all 4 losses this year:
-couldn't score against WVU, even after gifting us an interception in the red zone
-couldn't hold the ball against ND to run out the clock, plus multiple 3 and outs swung momentum
-Syracuse, see ND above
-Pitt, offense didn't get off the bus
Hell, UNC should have been a loss had our defense not shown up (or big blowout win if we scored on our possessions like we should have).
The good news is that he shouldn't have a problem landing a new gig, if he ends up out of one at VT...
In the Syracuse game, it didn't look like the defense had turned a corner.
They got gashed on some plays and at the end of the game. I don't think you can blame that all on the offense.
They did fall apart there at the end but the depth is abysmally thin. But i think most would agree the defense is improving. They might have a turned a corner but still need to turn another corner to become really good. Need to get the 'cruits to turn that last corner.
Although, 1 more first down from the offense in the notre dame and Syracuse game and they'd be 5-2....
And they got gashed because
1) basic fundamentals in how to fit a gap versus zone read went all to hell (FILM REVIEW)
2) tackling
3) Per Fuente's presser today, they practiced a coverage audible against the formation Syracuse lined up in on the game winning TD, and the players didn't make the check like they practiced. That is a sign of either poor prep or mental exhaustion... damning of the players and damning of the staff.
I did notice that the linebackers, specifically Dax, several times were getting blocked out of the play because it looked like they were slow to fill a gap and it was the wrong gap. The Syracuse OL seemed to always have a guy make it to the next level almost immediately to ensure our linebackers were completely out of the play after filling the wrong gap.
I don't disagree. If Bud wasn't here in 2019, though, we probably end up missing a bowl game a year earlier. 2016 and 17 were good years for the defense but the departure of talent was never really addressed and Fuente's first couple recruiting classes were really light on defensive players. It made a lot of sense for our defense to take a step back in 2018, which it did. Then Foster showed exactly why he's the best in the country at what he does. The coaching job he did for that 2019 defense to be as good as it was with the pieces he had to work with is criminally underrated around here. He had two shutouts in 2019. Most of us don't even know what a shutout looks like anymore.
I think the big step back in 2020 could, in part, be attributed to Fuente not getting the opportunity to bring in his entire coaching staff at once in 2016. Bud definitely delayed the inevitable, though. The defense, 2018 aside, really propped up the offense during Bud's time on staff. And there is no argument he's not one of the best in the land. Without him, our defense isn't as good in 16 or 17. It's probably worse in 18 and there's no chance it's as good as it was in 19.
Do you think it's a coincidence that the worst teams we've seen with Fuente are teams that have a bad defense? Defense has been critically important to Fu because his offense is non-existent. I think Fu is fired after the 2019 season if Bud isn't kept on staff for 4 years. 2020 and 2021 are just proving my point. No Bud, no Bowl. Pretty simple.
but but but, Fuente said Bud wouldn't have to worry anymore. sigh.
I don't remember an overwhelming amount of people wanting Bud Foster to be the next head coach after Beamer. After years of offensive ineptitude, we wanted a head coach that was considered to be offensive-minded. Yes, it hasn't worked out that way, but at the time it seemed like a good hire for that.
I still don't think we should have hired Bud. I've seen multiple times that he had kind of checked out on some aspects of coaching in his final years, especially recruiting. Another reason why Beamer's tenure came to an end was lack of recruiting success. Again, it's not something Fuente has improved, but promoting Bud to head coach would not have been the solution there.
As my mother would say when I would get into post-mortem what-ifs on any subject: "If your aunt had balls she would have been your uncle."
There's always been rumors about Bud. 0 chance he doesnt get a head coaching offer if "background checks" came out clean. By the time the head coach opened up, I think that, for health reason, he needed to just take a step back. He is one of the greatest DCs of all time. I do wish he got a shot at being a head coach when he was younger.
I still think that the demise of Beamer was when he got rid of Coach Cav. That guy knew everybody in VA and was a huge reason we found and signed a bunch of great recruits during Beamer's glory years. It's no coincidence, in my opinion, that VT football talent started getting bare a few years after Cav left (2013).