About last night - Things will get better... eventually

I don't even know how to start this comment, so I'll just get right to it. We don't have a good team this year. Our years of poor recruiting under Fuente and an Early Signing Day happening a week after Pry was hired have pretty much torched whatever talent and depth we had over the last couple years. And games like last night are probably going to be the norm for the next couple years. Pry has a mess to clean up, and we're just not realizing how awful the program that he inherited had become.

But

Sleeping on it and looking back, I am actually somewhat encouraged by the scheme I'm seeing from the team, at least early in the games. The first half of the game last night, we held our own against a team we probably had no business competing with. Our defense held a high powered offense in check, and we absolutely shut down a very good running game. Our offense, at least via the passing game, was able to move the ball pretty well. And even the plays that didn't connect, we generally had someone in the route tree come open. The scheme itself has signs that it is working.

The problem is, we're getting torched in the trenches and we have zero depth. We're eye openingly small across both lines. Helmet to helmet, we're just a smaller team than WVU, and a major part of that is that Fuente recruited VT as if we were a middling G5 program the last 3 or 4 years. And the coaching, especially in OL, that we've had the last few years, has been poor, so not only are we working at trying to undo the technique that they were previously taught, we're also asking guys to take on physical responsibilities that they might not be able to do. And then combine this with the overall lack of depth that we have, and the team was gassed by halftime, and got predictably gashed in the 2nd half.

I dunno, maybe I'm trying to be too optimistic about a really bad outing knowing that we're going into a stretch where we're probably going to be pummeled for at least the next 4 weeks, most likely breaking the Not Shutout streak in depressing fashion, but it feels like the potential is there, it just needs the right pieces in place to see it.

One thing is for certain. We have the former DC and LB coach of Penn St and the former OL coach of Wisconsin. I do not worry that our size is going to be at our disadvantage along the trenches in the future, even if it is now.