This is ugly. This is probably worse than anyone thought this program would be this year.
We are guaranteed to finish with our worst record in 30 years after today's game. We cannot finish higher than 5th in the Coastal and our bowl hopes are already dashed.
Not great, Bob
Woof - just saw this. The 6 game losing streak is our longest since 1987.
Complete and utter meltdown. No other way to describe it. #Hokies blow an 11-point fourth quarter lead to lose to Georgia Tech 28-27.Virginia Tech (2-7, 1-5 ACC) has lost six straight for the first time since 1987.— Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) November 5, 2022
Not looking forward to seeing how long this goes
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I made the mistake of having hope
This team can't win for shit. They actively go out of their way to lose.
The Problem is by no objective measure is this Coaching Staff making this team better.
Our only "culture" is finding new ways to lose.
This Staff isn't gonna cut it, sorry.
Exactly. From the first game to this one there has been no growth...from the coaching staff. This game had the same feeling as ODU. We had the game in control...never really felt like we were going to lose...mistake-after-mistake...poor decisions...missed opportunities. Then we lose the lead at the very end.
I didn't have it here on TV, but when I saw they made it 22-27 I instantly through they were going to lose.
This coaching staff doesn't have it. I've seen other coaches do more with less talent. For example ODU and GT against us this year.
Agreed. You just sense Pry is tentative and insecure, and you can feel it in the entire team.
Turnovers 🤷🏿♂️
If not for the coaching we would at the very least be 5-5, and that is probably a conservative estimate.
"Our coaching so bad they caused us to lose a game we haven't even played yet..."
/s
Honestly, I feel that way about these coaches right now.
They feel that bad to me
Watch the bowl game where we got waxed by Maryland (🥴) and then ask yourself if new scheme and a Grant Wells transfer was enough to expect significant improvement
Might be better to hit rock bottom.
Welcome. Enjoy your stay
the 4th quarter of this game was an absolute comedy. does anyone think we'll even beat UVA at this point
You do the Hokie Chokie and you lose another game,
That's what it's all about.
Apparently.
Well...shit
Missed an "s" there
RSN is the real MVP.
Less eyes on this dumpster fire.
They're not good enough, I still found a way to see it.
So I can't even give THEM credit, in spite of their excellent effort.
This is a lot like the stock market.
Just when I think we've hit rock bottom, we find a way to dig a little deeper.
The problem is you cannot sell short, and make money through losing.
I honestly can deal with being blown out better than what I've seen the last two games. Part of it is this collection of players have choked games away for years going into the Fu era. But this staff has done them no favors with their shitty play calling, poor clock management, and inability to prepare the team.
We truly are one of the worst teams in FBS this year. This fucking sucks...
This coaching staff needs to figure it out.
What a choke job.
Losing to GT is not a talent issue.
Not sure I can really agree with that.
There are a lot of holes in this team.
Yes, the coaching is currently leaving something to be desired. But it's hard to coach this loose association of players.
Wut.
You know we played the team from Georgia with the "Tech" in the name right?
They just fired their coach they were so bad.
Yeah, I saw that. So did we.
not this season we didn't
No, we fired ours last year.
We're done here. Blame whoever you want.
But to claim that this has nothing to do with the current talent level makes no sense to me.
No one here is saying talent isn't an issue.
It's one of many.
Coaching has simultaneously been poor.
The two are not mutually exclusive.
***
Oops. I said we were done, so I'll stick with that.
Look at the dates that both coaches were fired and realize how silly the statement is you just made.
Lol. I'm not sold on this coaching staff. Two weeks in a row we give up big 4th quarter leads to lose by 1. I think there's a fair to good chance this is the new VT football for the next couple decades
We have to change how the first three quarters go because our defense both weeks played way to long. We don't have the depth to maintain a these lopsided T.O.P.s we keep having.
At this point, I still have faith in Pry, but Bowen cannot remain as our playcaller next year. That decision to go pass happy at midfield when Holsten is carving GT up for 5 or 6 yards a play midway through the 4th with a gassed Hokie defense needing a rest on the sideline was the moment we lost the game.
Our players are not good, but they are better than this record. The last 2 weeks they've done a hell of a job to get themselves in position to win only for our playcalling with the ball to let them down. We have no business choking this game away, and yet again, we played for the loss. Its a disturbing trend that seriously questions the situational awareness of the entire staff.
My faith in Pry is withering quickly....call a T.O. to ultimately give up 3rd&19 by dropping your safties into 30 yds deep--as a defensive coach nonetheless.
After crapping away TO just the week before.
Not showing ANY improvement in Game Management.
We need a Head Coach...I feel like we have a DC, a few of his buddies, and some guys not pulling their weight (Bowen, Holt, Rudolph).
It's not gonna get better til something major changes in this equation.
Fuente was AWFUL but make no doubt, we would have won more games with him as HC in 2022.
Pry needs to do what Dabo did. He needs to go out and hire the best OC and DC that he can find. Now, I'm not going to draw any conclusions on defense right now, I actually think they're playing very well, they just have zero depth and its killing us late when the starters are gassed. But on offense? I haven't really seen any noticeable progress in any singular aspect of the entire offense all year. It started shit, and its remained shit. A lot of that is that our QBs are crap, our best RBs are always hurt, our OL is a fucking mess, and our receivers are extremely inconsistent. But you'd have thought we would have found something that works by now. And what is most concerning to me is that when it looks like we have something figured out in a game, we intentionally go out of our way to adjust away from it just kneecapping ourselves in key situations.
It doesn't help that right now we're paying just about everyone on this staff well above market value (some people got raises of more than double previous salary). Said it then and got flak, still gonna say it now: for the money to be effective we have to use it to hire top level coaches at market value, not pay above market for mids and unprovens
If you want top tier talent at market rates for said talent then we need to almost double our salary pool. Pry, Bowen, and Marve are below top 25 pay at their positions.
member when we hired him at competitive pay, then a month later it wasn't competitive anymore
Pry was hired for what we were going to pay Fuente which was 40th+ among HCs
I don't believe that. We're 4th in the ACC in salary pool. There's no way that's not top 25
I'm not sure we need to double our salary pool, but we would need to double coordinator pay. USA Today put their college football salary database behind a paywall, but if I recall correctly 2 years ago the 50th highest paid public school coordinator was making $875k. From a bunch of googling, it looks like almost every OC and DC in the SEC is making 7-figures. Here are the exceptions:
'Salary pool' info is really tough to find. It's also not clear when that number includes support staff.
There's the whole sec. The B1G. And Texas schools. And USC. 4th in the ACC very well could be outside the top 25. The ACC has probably only one coach who could make it in the big two leagues. Coaching in the ACC is awful. The conference is loaded with shit teams coached by shit coaches.
Yeah but were in a conference (I believe) is 5th in revenue.
I think every SEC school can outspend us outside of Vanderbilt.
Pry needs to hire a DC and get out of the weeds and assume the HC position. Our defense is playing well. And defense is Pry's friend and comfort zone. But it's time to graduate and let that go. One of the biggest evidence of this problem is clock management. It's been awful and that is the HC role. Ill advised timeouts. Not watching the clock and having a delay of game at critical junctures. These are evident of a HC who is not leading.
He's a nice guy. But is he a leader? Time will tell. But right now he needs to grow up.
More worrying to me is the ability for the staff to recognize talent at positions. How did Holloway just start taking punts. Why are we not doing schemes to isolate some of our players. This is not a talent issue it is purely on the staff at this point.
Frankly, Bowen has to go and get an established OC in. Pry is going to have a rough offseason.
Trying to preserve Holloway's red shirt in a year that's mostly a write off anyway.
yeah, when he was fielding punts I thought it was great to get him snaps in the last 4 games of the season and still his the redshirt, but GT was his third game of the season. My buddy made the point that if you're actually trying to change the culture, you have to keep him returning punts redshirt be damned, bc what message does it send if the obvious best option can't play his way onto the field and stay there with good performances? Need a meritocracy with true accountability.
Absolutely disagree with your buddy 100%. As a coach, I want that receiver/punt returner around for four more years, not three. Burn a redshirt to appear in two meaningless games? In a position where injuries are common?
Yikes.
If I were Pry I would go to him and say you are our punt returner now but you only have one game left to play this season. Which one would you like to play in? Then I would talk with him and the receivers coach about how we can get him in open space that game and next year, etc. Future playmaker, let him know it.
From the Tech Talk Live, it sounds like he might have already had the conversation about burning the shirt and it's moot. I haven't listened myself, but I've seen chatter.
I agree with where you're coming from, and that was my first gut reaction too. But how can you realistically talk bout a meritocracy and "winning culture" if you don't give players on the team a route to playing their way onto the field by making plays that obviously help the team? If I'm Pry, I recruit the heck out of "come be part of the solution, show us you belong on the field and we'll play you" and back the staff to recruit another player who can return punts in the next 2-3 classes.
If this redshirt is the difference between Pry sticking beyond year 4 or not, then the decision should be to move on regardless because a lot more has gone wrong.
This is where I'm at as well. College football isn't like the NFL. Sucking makes you suck harder. We're not remotely in a position to let our best players sit. When were good, sure let em learn. That's not us now and we need to accept that.
We'd have 5 wins right now with CornFu at the helm
Please go watch the Maryland bowl game to refresh yourself on Corny's "offense"
with Braxton Burmeister and Connor Blumrick at the QB spot. OK. Yea, sure.
You also would have Hamilton's defense...
We had 6 wins last year and tons of people left either transferring out or NFL declarations. And we'd still have Burmeister and Blumrick. How many jet sweeps do you think would be effective behind this line? And what receivers do you think we'd be using? And considering the run game wasn't ever really a thing with Fuente except when they got Herbert, we wouldn't be using any of our RBs well.
If you HONESTLY think Fuente would be doing better right now, I'm not sure what you're basing it off of, other than purely our record from last year, because we didn't have anybody on offense we could reasonably expect to put up yards and TDs.
O line rebuild will take a ton of time. We need to be sure this blocking scheme is what we want to run. If it is we can't get rid of Rudolph. Building the trenches should be priority #1.
Bowen probably needs to go next year honestly, Glenn should get the nod imo. But it will prob come down to alignment with them and Rudolph. Mines has shown us no reason to keep him if we can upgrade, same with Holt.
If we want to run a different blocking scheme I wouldn't hate a complete offensive overhaul. Brand new staff, philosophy system etc. There are tons of coordinator change offensive success stories and the Penn State offensive tree always did less with more, they won at Vandy because of recruiting
Getting rid of Bowen just to give Glenn the nod because he is here is pitifully lazy and yet exactly what I expect under this administration.
He was a very good OC at Georgia State (and their offense is markedly worse without him this year). It was be a good hire if he's allowed to hire his own staff
Give him an interview, but hire the best person you can. If it's Glenn, it's Glenn. But shoot for better.
I really, really like Pry and think he's a great personality, loves VT, and a really good defensive mind. But I am starting to question if he is the right HC for this rebuild. He needs to definitely pull a Dabo after the 2010 season as you mention. I'm not convinced this staff is what we need.
Alum- I said this a month ago about Bowen and you told me to 'shut the fuck up. Full stop' and doubled down telling me to 'stuff my opinion'. You got the mod -100 downvote for it. Im glad you are on board now, but i feel you owe me an apology sir.
Well at least now I know who has been stalking me and downvoting all of my comments.
You are completely wrong. I have downvoted you one time and then took it back as I said in the other thread when you acted like an asshole to me. I have never downvoted you on ANY other occasion. I took the high road and gave your internet point back. I still believe you owe me an apology - not for your opinion...(people are allowed to change their minds) but for the shitty way you talked to me on here. If you can't apologize for that...well then just don't ever comment on anything I ever say again on here, and I won't ever comment on your posts.
Be a man. Eat your crow.
Thank you for having my back.
Let's do our best not to hold tightly to grudges or anything moving forward, on all sides. It can spiral and get really ugly really quicky
It was disturbingly CornFu-esque.
Oh yeah....the back-to-back QB Draw before the missed FG gave me definite Corny flashbacks.
100% playing for the FG, not even attempting to go for the Endzone.
I'm sorry to tell you but none of the staff is gonna get fired after the season
And I don't think its because Pry doesn't want to I think whit isn't gonna let him for year
You think so? I'd think it's because Pry is loyal to them. Also you'd burn some bridges pretty fast by hiring your buddies and giving them the impression it's a long term gig, just to immediately fire them after a bad season with someone else's depleted roster. Not saying they shouldn't be fired - I think they should - just saying that's how it would look to them
Yeah when Pry said this is a process that they believe in I knew he wasn't going to fire anyone. And it might be too early anyway. But goddamn, if we're not significantly improved next year I expect staff changes.
Yep. If this team isn't 500. And doing the same stupid stuff the end of season 2 then you get different staff guys. But if he doesn't. He's gotta go
I mean, Pry hasn't been shy about calling out the offensive play calling publicly. I don't think anyones getting fired but I wouldn't be shocked to see a shuffling of responsibilities.
That could be a thing
I still think they had to spend a lot of the off-season plugging holes in the roster by moving people around that they would ideally have spent developing players and working through plays. But that's the type of shit you have to fix when you are left with the roster Pry inherited.
And that was just holes we knew about, that doesn't even factor in the almost total loss of production we had on O. Usually you lose one or two of your guys at a position but you know who will be moving into the starting role. Pry and company probably had to evaluate almost every receiver and RB to figure out who would be the starters. That's a lot of splitting reps with the first team and not getting reps with QB1 and his receivers to get the chemistry working.
Every time I think about how things USUALLY work going for one year to the next, then look at where we were when last season ended and who all left and who was left, I feel somewhat amazed we're able to put up more than 10 points in any of these games. Just my take.
Whit has destroyed the football program.
That's a pretty big stretch.
Is it though ?
Yes.
Because the jury is still out on Pry.
But the facts are still piling up. He's failing as a head coach right now - especially at "head coach" type things. - discipline, limiting tos, clock management. The only thing he has done well is stay positive in this situation- which is admirable. But there is a very good chance he is not head coach material. I'll give the pry train another year or two - but he does not strike me as having a vision. He looks out of his depth to me.
If Pry doesn't make any staff changes after this year that will be a strong indicator he's not going to last long.
I have a hard time seeing him make changes. Seems like a " we will all go down together" kind of guy. Which I like. But who knows?
That's how Fu was. I don't think there is any staff change this year but I have to believe he wants to see progress next year and if it's not there then he looks to make a change for yr 3.
My guy.... When you are negative about someone or something, they must have really fucked up. I actually admire your unwavering optimism surrounded by us. But I am curious, what would it take to declare Whit ruined the football program?
Think criticism of Whit is very fair at this point. He's a director's cup AD and not a big football first kind of AD. Honestly think he would do well at a place like Duke or UVA. Pry had a lot of potential and upside but also a ton of risk. We'll never know if he kicked the tires on realistic former HCs with experience like Mullen or Herman, maybe he did or didn't. It seemed like we wanted to get "our guy" who would be here for the long haul. But an experienced guy like Buzz who could be here a few years and rebuild the program for the next guy may have been helpful.
We really haven't seen what Pry can do yet.
Agreed. We have to let it play out a few years. But the early returns aren't exactly promising.
I've seen his sketches - they're awesome
Yeah, but have you seen the baseball facilities? /s
Sometimes I wonder if Whit has been trying to put money towards other sports to make it more equitable to the other programs because football has been the main event since the mid 90s?
He hired Buzz and staff and got the basketball team winning the conference. He rebuilt the baseball stadium from a D3 level facility into an ACC caliber stadium that just saw Coach Szefc win the ACC Championship. Then you have the Rector Field House improvements and the soccer and multipurpose fields.
I wonder if Whit really is a Driector's Cup kind of AD, or if he knows we can't compete in the football arms race with our current donor pool so he's bringing up the other sports while doing the fundraising to increase the donation pool? Basketball and baseball both just won ACC championships, so he's getting ROI.
The baseball facilities are really nice though and Szefc really has the team running on all cylinders. And they can get even better. On Friday they gave out the ACC championship rings to the baseball team and on Saturday I got to see one up close. They are sweet!
It's because VT leadership (President Sands, Board of Visitors, big money donors) want us to have a well rounded athletic department. They want us to be more like Florida than Clemson.
VT doing as well as Florida would be incredible. If some rich nerds are cutting checks for that future please let's get them to cut some more!
Weaver did us NO favors leading up to the mess / lack of keeping up that Whit had to clean up when he arrived. I think everyone needs to go back in time a bit to recall what every sport not called Football looked like before we switched ADs. Whit has raised the bar significantly for the AD, and it just so happens that this has coincided with the end of a career for a football coaching legend and having to pivot from that. That handling of the retirement and moving on has broken many programs - ND, Alabama, FSU are a few that come to mind. Change is not easy and we're squarely in the middle of it right now with this program.
I will say that if the Pry hire doesn't work out then it probably is time to move on from Whit, but I'm not ready to give up on either one right now.
Dabo benched DJ.U when he had turnovers that were killing the team...why can't we do that with Wells?
Dabo had a backup QB.
Maybe we need one of those.
Because Dabo had a 5 star recruit to turn to....we don't
I'm sick of portal QBs!
Because Wells is our best QB and its really not that close of a competition. When it comes to player execution it very much is a talent problem
You mean Cade Klubnik?
The *checks notes* 5-star, #1 QB recruit in the country?
Yeah, I'd go to him too.
Yes, he's a 5* that we don't have, I realize that. But at this point, what do we have to lose by benching Wells...
Losing games by way more than 1 point? Not being remotely in any game that we're playing? Demonstrating to QB recruits that the staff won't stick with them so maybe they shouldn't come here?
True freshman vs 6th year senior. Brown managed games well enough to win on a bad SC team last year
How many proven receivers did he have though? Good receivers can make up for less than perfect throws. Our receivers have had problems bringing the ball in when it hits them in the hands. That means there's way less room for error on the part of the QB.
If you want to go by stars, wells is a 2* and we have higher rated qbs on bench
Wells was a 2 star by 247, 3 star composite. Then rated as a 3 star as a transfer, meaning evaluated at the college level. Star ratings are evaluations that represent anticipated performance, but doesn't guarantee anything. So saying we have higher rated guys on the bench doesn't mean anything if they haven't been showing out in practice.
You mean like how Fuente evaluated Hooker in practice?
Well, they did have Hooker start. But probably woefully underutilized his full talent and abilities. And didn't he have the starting job until the game he got the "chills" (what looked like small convulsions or something)? And I think Fuente thought Hooker was faking or gave up on the team or something.
Not sure it's the same thing.
I think he's talking about the part where Ryan Willis still won the starting job leading into the 2019 season.
Hooker didn't get the starting job until after we got manhandled by Duke to drop to 2-2, with one of those wins being a very shaky FCS win.
But Willis was more experienced and when things went south, they had enough confidence in Hooker to even try him. Hooker that year wasn't going to have the same kind of season he's capable of now. So at the time, it may not have seemed like there was as big a talent gap between Willis and Hooker, and usually if the talent gap isn't very wide, you go with experience (which would give the job to Willis).
The point being that people seem to expect that, for whatever reason, we would bench our starter and things will be better. I mean maybe because of what happened with Hooker after Willis, or how a school like Alabama can lose their starter but has another 5 star backup, it seems like the backup will automatically be better. People point to Brown at USCe, and act like him coming in will be an upgrade.
To me that says that the people who think that must believe that the coaches actually WANT to lose because they're keeping someone on the bench who is capable of just as much or more than our starter. If it was a 50-50 toss up, where they think Brown could even remotely have a chance of doing better, that they would have tried him out?
The backup QB is always the most popular player on the team.
Glad I don't work for all these people whose answer for everything is taking someone's job away.
Remember way way way back when our fans tried to compare Clemson's current account program to our trajectory...yeah good times.
I'll say this about Wells... He isn't a quarterback that you feel confident that will win you a game when it's on the line. He doesn't have that it factor. When a play breaks down, he can't find a way to make it a positive play. When given time in the pocket, his accuracy and decision making isn't consistent and seem to be worse when the game is on the line.
I'm very worried that Pry may have strung himself to Wells, bringing him here as his QB recruit. And with 2 more years of eligibility, I worry that Pry will try to further develop him as the starting QB. But I don't see him developing into a P5-level QB.
I think Pry has to consider bringing in Farrell to at least give him a look and some real reps. This team needs to be looking at 2023 and beyond.
How many QBs are there like this in cfb? 15 maybe? Across 132 FBS schools.
Surely there are more than 15 QBs that make their teams feel like they give them a chance in neutral or negative situations. Wells could not be less clutch if he tried.
I interpreted the previous post differently - I thought Chazz was talking about QB's that can go out and win a game for you, not QBs who can just 'not lose' the game.
ACC QBs that can win you game:
There are 5 (maybe 6) QBs in just the ACC that, when the momentum begins to swing in the other direction, I would have faith in making a drive or play that will win the game. I don't know how many are in CFB total (I don't follow B10, B12, or P12 enough), but it's not that huge of an ask. And I'm not saying that the QB will be successful every time, but you have confidence that he at least give you a chance.
After that fumble, it felt like VT was going to lose. And it's because we have never seen Wells win a game. All those QBs I just listed have won games either by coming back or shutting the door when things were getting dicey.
I mean, just look at the two freshman QBs that VT played the last two weeks. Both made enough plays to comeback and win the game. They needed help from their defense , but they made the plays to win those games (and frankly it helps playing VT's defense). But if Wells was in their place for those drives, I would not have any confidence in Wells to make enough plays to win.
Gotcha, this wasn't how I interpreted your post. I kinda had in my mind, who are QBs that could go out and win a game down a possession or so - to that end, I think Drake Maye is the only QB in the ACC that good (Leary was in that convo last year, as was Hartman - who just had 6 turnovers in one quarter last week). Anyways, thanks for clarifying.
I get that Wells hasn't been playing great, but he's not getting consistent support from any position group. I just feel like it's tough to say what is Wells' ceiling is given the rest of the offense. Honestly, I don't think Wells' situation is that much different than Phil Drakovic's in BC. Our line is a little bit better in pass pro, but that's about it.
Back to your original post, I don't think Pry is married to staying with Wells for 3 years, but I also don't think should 'trade up' for minimal gain. We'll see what happens.
CanDAN Marino was effing awesome. I wondered why he didn't have a ton of super bowl rings, then I saw his receivers. And I no longer wondered - I watched one game of Marino delivering balls right into the chest of receivers and it boggled my mind how many of those passes weren't actually caught.I'd argue the same applies to us. Even if we had an amazing quarterback, who are our receivers that would make him look good? And how much does that translate into a QB's demeanor and confidence?
Does anybody track drops that should have been caught? I don't know how many times this season receivers should have made catches, but it feels like a lot.
EDITED: because autocorrect is idiotic.
Hartman to me looks like the next Big Ben.
I feel this in my soul. When King fumbled I said "oh we just lost" and everyone was like "huh". That was literally the game. I don't think a stud QB fixes it. I thought Pry would fix the culture but they fall flat in the 4th too.
And the good news is, that at the rate we are losing we'll get the #1 draft pick!
/s
Zero progress in any aspect of the game. Offense scored 13 points. Defense collapsed again to a freshman QB. Personnel management continues to be a head scratcher. Awful special teams. Crucial penalties every week. Recruits aren't exactly flocking to the program. Love Prys personality. But he's in over his head and it's obvious. I've seen enough to have doubts that he will recover. I'd hate to be Whit right now.
To be fair to the Defense, we're asking them to carry the team, and they're not the cohesive, talented bunch that VT has had in past years.
They are falling apart in the 4th quarter, because they're exhausted.
The defense is the one and only area of improvement. Pry has proven to be a really solid DC. But, in my opinion, that is all. We have only played 2 decent offenses this season. Pitt and UNC. Both crushed us. Every other team has a losing record or played their back up qb. Play calling when it counts on defense has been questionable. We lack talent and depth everywhere but we also play in the worst P5 conference and have had an easy schedule. I agree the defense is tired after all the 3 and outs. Feel bad for those guys because they do enough to be a .500 team or better.
Agreed.
When you're missing a bunch of pieces on a team, it's hard to make that look good, or maybe even to figure out exactly what's wrong.
Tucker Holloway at least had a huge impact in the Punt Return game today
we were doing nothing with Harvey calling fair catches on every punt
That's true.
We need some people to pull victory from the jaws of defeat, instead of the other way around.
I was curious about what you said, and so I went and looked it up.
We had exactly 33 punt return yards coming into today's game. Thirty-three over 8 games. That's untenable..
To be fair, today was first punter with 65 yard line drives and the first time we had a lead blocker back
Incredible that he doesn't see the field on offense.
How many stars was Holloway? Guy did his job. Ran to daylight and scored. The offense can't even line up and run a simple play.
3*, if that was an actual question.
Yea. I was curious as he doesn't really jump off the screen. But he went out there and kicked but. Props.
There is zero chance this coaching staff can get us back to where we need to be.
Hold on to your butts for the next 2 weekends coming up
The biggest disappointment at this point in the season is that there really isn't a whole lot of measurable progress in any phase of the game. Beyond that we haven't hit rock bottom yet - that will come on Thanksgiving weekend after we've lost to Duke, Liberty and finally to UVA.
Pry will not only need to work hard to get good recruits to buy in he'll also be struggling to keep a largely disinterested fanbase from bailing altogether.
Running game looked good today
Thats true, however I'm looking for progress not an isolated game where one thing was working.
I'm looking for progress, don't provide me with examples of progress.
I assume this is meant as a sarcastic response to my reply, which was meant only as an honest assessment (not sure why the downvotes).
What I was trying to communicate was that a single isolated part of the game against one of the worst defenses in one of the worst divisions in the worst league doesn't necessarily equal progress. If it continues, then yes we have progress! If it is a "one off" then no we don't have progress. That's all my point was.
In any event, the coaches decided to take the ball out of the hands of the one player who was carving up the GT D. So while the run game was working better, the coaches still cannot get out of their own way.
I've just noticed a lot of people who "aren't seeing improvement" are quick to dismiss any example of improvement as not significant. After our third quarter against NCST, I didn't see a single person on here praise Bowen for making successful changes. I agree the success was not sustained, but it still happened. Sometimes that's what improvement looks like.
Improvement is not a straight line.
I think what we are looking for is consistent improvement. While there have been intermittent bright spots, on the whole this team does not look better than it did in September.
As for your example, I think it would be a lot easier to give Bowen credit if in the immediate next Quarter, his Offense didn't "produce" -4 yds.
Being productive for 25% of a game doesn't really do alot to make up for being utterly inept the other 75%.
I'm all for looking for bright spots, but the fact that I'm openly wondering if this team would have won more games this year with Fuente still as H.C. is not at all complimentary of this Staff.
It's irrelevant if Fuente might have won more games this year. We didn't replace Fuente with Pry to win more games this year.
We replaced Fuente with Pry because we felt Pry would go a different direction and do more with the program over the long term. The team will be different with Pry than it would have with Fuente
Look at it like a house renovation. It will likely look worse before it looks better, and you may not see improvement for a while. You have to trust the process. If you try and micromanage it or shortcut the process, you can screw it up.
We've made the decision. Now we have to give Pry the support and space he needs.
True. But we clearly hired Pry to win more games at some point. I'm interested in anything you can point to that has happened on the field this year that makes you believe that's a high likelihood.
When players that were performing well under a previous regime are now objectively performing significantly worse, the team is nearly leading FBS in penalties, and has an awful turnover margin---it's 1000% relevant because those things weren't happening last year and it's costing us wins this year. It's a direct indictment of the current coaching staff, and to ignore it is to put your head in the sand.
A lot of the voices on here that continue to blame Fuente repeatedly and repeatedly and repeatedly sound like a lot of the same voices that were blaming Beamer when the holes started to form in Fuente's ship after 2016.
"Beamer stopped recruiting and left a bare cupboard"
"Beamer didn't even have HUDL"
"We don't have good enough facilities" ect, ect, ect.
It's making excuses for what's happening on the field. Regardless of the talent level inherited, this Staff this season has not made them better. That is a basic expectation of coaching and it's not been achieved.
I stopped playing this game a couple weeks ago. This season is going to be a dumpster fire all around and I doubt it is predictive of much in any direction, positive or negative. We have a roster problem inherited from the previous coaching staff, and new coaches learning on the job in some cases. And Pry needs to hand off his DC role and focus on being HC, which he has said he will do after this year. There are a lot of warts all around and no single issue is to blame.
I want to see what happens in the off-season related to recruiting, any shuffling of duties on the staff, etc. and let's see what 2023 brings. This year was about stopping the bleeding from the last few years. We're bottoming out. Let's see if we can start moving uphill again next year. For all we know, the whole team could have a very different look.
The biggest issue is that all of the issues are intertwined.
So in the coaching vs. talent debate, the correct answer is probably both.
Precisely. If I knew what was going on with this team, I'd be making a boatload more money over in Athletics fixing it. I see problems everywhere but I don't know what the solutions are and I have no benefit of knowing what's going on at practice, in the locker room, etc. I like Pry and want him to succeed. I'm frustrated with the bad season but at this point I've embraced that this is an atrocious year so let's see how things go from here through next season. Then I'll feel more confident in expressing an opinion on anything.
When GT closed to within 27-22, I turned to my wife and said "they're going to blow this one, too." It was a rather zen moment. It sucks, but I wasn't angry. No point. We're a bad team. I can only hope for better in the future.
Freshman Halloway housing a punt for 90 yards. Freshman Lawson pick 6. Freshman Delane starting. Sophmore Stroman has looked pretty strong on the field this year.
There are small things that are starting to show you just have to look for them. It's not going to be instant and it's not going to be quick but there is some small signs of change showing.
Then you weren't reading. The praise for whoever was calling plays in the 3rd (it was Bowen BTW, but at the time there was speculation) was all over the place.
Beyond that, progress is certainly measured primarily in the small things, however the small things are still a major issue with this team/program. Maybe its simply that we have a losing culture. Who knows. But my point remains, "progress" cannot be viewed in a vacuum. And this comes from someone who spent years coaching and years building organizations.
So people saying the offense could only have improved by Bowen being replaced equals praise for Bowen? That's like putting "has the potential to be average" on someone's performance review. It isn't a compliment.
horseshoes and hand grenades.
It's all fair game till the Ls become Ws
it's pretty sad that we all knew we would lose when we fumbled inside the 10 with an 11 point lead.
Plaid
that's when it became a certainty. I had a gut feeling just going into the 4th that this was going to end badly, and I wasn't even watching the game and had no idea what was going on as far as the eye test was concerned.
For a season full of "20 plus years since insert awful stat" happened, VT gets not one but two "it's been 20+ plus years since insert good thing happened", with the PR yards, TD and pick six.
They still manage to find a way to lose.
I want Pry to succeed, I refuse to blame this totally on him, but he has to look in the mirror and get someone on this staff to teach him the fundamentals of situational coaching. Taking the ball out of King's hand because of a fumble, isn't the right call. He was carving up GT. We had them on the ropes. And we let them back in the center of the ring. That's a Fuente action, trust your players not to mess up twice. You have 2 wins this season, what do you have to lose. Then the call to go back to passing with 3 minutes left. Like come on! Then you decline the penalty for extra men on field. Yeah we were in our half but accept the penalty and pin them back further. Just so many situational mistakes. This coaching staff has to look in the mirror and ask themselves, where can we improve. Our defense is gassed by the 4th because we have no depth, so how do you counter that, RUN the damn ball. The whole team can do better. I hope Pry is the type to raise his hand and say I can improve too, else this staff won't last very long.
Edit: Brian Kelly over here showing how to trust your players to make plays....ballsy....
Devils advocate, we do everything you mention and still lose and the arguments go in the other direction.
I actually agreed with declining the penalty. Seconds more valuable then yards at that point
Pin them further back, or a fumble down at their side? Situational football. Give your team a higher percentage chance of making a play.
I agree with the above comment, we could've lost still with all of those calls. But the line of scrimmage control was in our favor at that time and they took that advantage away. It's one thing if the team took that advantage away, but we took it away from ourselves. That's bad coaching. We have limited talent at receiver, why switch it up?
I did not get why King was out of the game. With Thomas out, he's the best talent on the team. He has breakaway TD potential. Especially the 2nd series after the fumble when they clearly needed to score as the defense looked gassed.
Because these coaches will hold the most dynamic healthy offensive player accountable but no one else. Not the turnover prone and anti-clutch QB, not the jumpy linemen, not the 4th and 5th year defensive guys making boneheaded mistakes, not the last place PFF right tackle.
Turnovers are the most predictable W/L indicator in football- at any level. Averaged out, the team with the most turnovers loses. Coaches hate them. If David Wilson stayed healthy, it may have ended his NFL career prematurely. It did end Roger Craigs career and almost Tiki Barbers. I can see why Pry didn't want to risk another fumble with King. He has poor ball security fundamental's- which can be coached. This issue has spanned his entire career here. Good back- good speed, but puts the ball on the ground. Coaches hate that.
Getting run off the field in Lynchburg is really going to hurt. I've reached the point where I'd rather forfeit the remainder of the season than go 0-3 to in state schools. Good luck recruiting, coach
Liberty's program is better than VT's right now. After a couple of more years of playing in the Sunbelt with 85 full scholarships, JMU's will be too if Pry doesn't get some real P5 talent and depth in here. And as a VT fan- watching us go from independents to the Natty to the nations longest bowl streak- it sucks fucking wind. it really does. But that is where we are.
It's popular to shit on the coaches but they didn't actively tank that game because they are inept. That was more on the players if you love playing the blame game to let your stress out. Kicking game left 4 points on the field with the bad XP that got deflected and missed a makeable 40 yard FG. The first Wells INT hit Lofton right in the hands, that's a catchable ball. Two of the fumbles, especially the painful King fumble, was GT making a good play (tip your cap to them). Could Bowen and the offense burnt more time in the 4th? Maybe, but this game the offense had its most consistent rhythm its had in some time and they did that by playing with some tempo. It wasn't fast, but it wasn't slow either. They were moving the ball well. It's not so easy to just say "slow it down and turtle up". And the defense got sloppy with its tackling in the 2nd half, going for strips, taking bad angles, and more. It's not like the coaches told them to forget their technique. That's on the players and its a sign of bad habits learned over years that aren't ironed out yet.
The cliche in sports is your have to learn not to lose before you can win. These last two games are perfect example of that. This is a program that has not been good in years and went off a cliff the last 3 years (and some people still don't realize how far down we are based on the comments each week). We had games where you can literally see players quit on the field with shit effort as the team gets blown out. Bad habits all around. That's not fixable in one year, especially with a talent deficient roster. We're just not at a point yet to put pieces together.
When you're in a place we are, you can lose to anyone at any time. So its not surprising to see this happen. It sucks, its painful, but it is what it is. Just gonna keep driving this home, you're not gonna see tangible results in year one. Celebrate a win if they come. If we lose, turn the TV off, log off, and find something else to spend your time with.
This is my thought as well. The Coaches aren't getting 'the most' out of these players, but the players aren't making it easy either.
I'm not ready to say we need staff changes yet. I want to see how we do in the portal first.
Nah man. You tell me then? What IS on the coaches?? I'll tell you - getting players lined up before the snap and holding til it's time That's coaching. Inspiring the players from the sideline - coaching. Closing is coaching and instilling a winning mindset in these capable players. He isn't doing that from what I can see. The team looks extremely unpolished and even flat at times. Pry is not doing well right now. Besides the fact that the talent level is low
The most important thing Pry can do at this point is convincing rich old folks to open the wallet for NIL and start filling the bench with P5 caliber players. No amount of coaching/scheme is going to save you when there are freshman and walk ons all over the two deep.
My biggest flags going into the season was that they hadn't brought in a big edge rush talent in the portal and that the returning WRs combined for like 3 career catches. Get out the wallets and let's go find some dudes who want to change their name to "New River Automotive Jones" for $1 mil/season to come play in Blacksburg
Yea but it shouldn't be losing to everyone, all of the time, especially after taking a sizeable lead. Feels like going up 2-0 in fifa.
Preach it Brother.....Preach!!!!!
Nuff said.
Hot take incoming:
Pry has pretty much burned all the good will of the off-season away with his ability (or lack thereof) to be a head coach of a football team to me. I know this team is talent deficient, but the last two weeks have straight pissed me off. We've blown double digit leads in the 4th quarter the last two weeks, which to me says as much as these players don't know know how to win, these coaches may not have a clue either. If I see what I've seen this year in 2023...I have no issue in saying Pry ain't the guy. This team has let FRESHMAN QB's come back and torch them in back to back weeks!!!
And yeah Whit deserves blame. He waited a year too long to can Fu and then he let his first time HC pick an equally inexperienced staff. I'll take my downvotes now lol...still love you guys!
I agree with everything except firing Fuente a year too late. He fired Fuente 3 years too late. After 2018 he should have told Fuente to hire a new OC or pack his bags.
At the very least, Fuente should have been shitcanned the moment he fucked up the reunion with the 1999 team.
I would agree, but then he kinda made up for it by starting Hendon and going on a fairly solid run the rest of 2019 until UVa.
The ODU loss, but I feel ya.
If Whitt fired Fu in 2020 we might have ended up with Tony Elliot. Anyone watch UVA lately?
Pry's defense is too reliant on getting to the QB quickly. It's all based on that. So when our guys can't get home, there are WRs running free and open. The whole defense relies on pressure, pressure, pressure. Pry has disappointed me a bit in the fact that he is a "defensive" guy and hasn't been able to adjust/tweak at the end of the game. I was much more dissapointed in the Pitt effort than the last 2 games however. GT did not outmatch us physically, neither did NCSU.. Pitt did, and that pisses me off. But to your point- if your bread and butter is pressure and you don't have any talent and depth at DE, you might want to figure out a contingency plan.
To underline just how bad of a loss this was
Like we need some fake statistics to prove how bad this was?
lol
Well, at least Twitter is still proving it's worth.
Anyone who has watched VT football this year knows that in the 4th quarter, the defense is gassed and we have no offense.
Another week, another full notebook for the head coach
Make it plaid...again
I mean, we can't run the ball, so there's no way we can win TOP
We had this same issue when I was in college (late 80's - early 90's). Good effort through three quarters, then Choke in the 4th. Ahh, nostalgia. Sadly, I don't feel 20 again.
Oh my gosh. We were the at the same time and I also remember "the Chockies". I cannot remember the exact numbers, but there was one season where if the games had ended at the end of the third quarter they would have had something like 3 or 4 more wins than they did at the end of the year.
Was there during that time too. Back then, we would say if football was a "3 quarter game", the Hokies would have won at least one natty.
I guess this is how I would sum up the coaching grades: 1) what are our offensive and defensive strengths (plays or players)? 2) what are we doing scheme to those strengths?
Our D is good up front and blitzing (not good in space and long coverage). Why aren't we attacking...always!?
Our O is good at 50/50 balls to the outside (Smith), crossing patterns (Gallo and Wright), and perimeter runs (getting King the ball in space). ...we are not a power running team (our zone blocking is much better).
D can't attack the whole game because they are always on the field and have few backup players that should be on the field.
OK, when you put it all together like that...
It's as bad as I remember it.
This is my problem with people shitting on Wells. Yeah he could have been better but there were many other errors too
The fumble is on Wells, but that pick was ALLLL on Lofton
Throw was behind him
Yea, terrible throw, combined with an unathletic play by Lofton. If Wells made a good throw that leads Lofton, it's a first down with a possibility of a lot of YAC.
The pick is on Wells for the bad throw, the inability to get back and make a play to save is QB and team is on Lofton.
This is my biggest complaint about Wells. Second is lack of touch. But he has to work on leading the
defenderreciever and not throwing it into double of triple coverage.Any one of those things doesn't happen and we probably win. We'll maybe not the fumble on the final drive because we'd still need to score.
This coaching staff has to go. It's as simple as that.
Spare me the "but we lack talent" part. Give me one reason a talented football player would want to come to Virginia Tech right now (assuming we are not their only P5 offer).
We are getting worse as this season goes on. Whit blew it twice. This is so pathetic I'm regretting my personalized plate at this point. This staff is not going to turn it around with recruiting.
HS talent or portal talent? I agree portal talent won't want to come here. HS talent sees the lack of talent and see that they can get on the field here. Plus, the best current talent has been mostly freshmen and sophomores (and King).
Any talent. I got downvoted a few times but whatever. There are multiple teams in VA alone that could showcase good talent right away. We don't want to admit that, but if you're good, JMU, ODU, and *gag* Liberty probably give you better showcase by getting on the field right away AND better coaching.
And if you are really good and any P5 school offers you, other than "staying home"...what's the reason?
Money baby! Get Brock Coalington III in the building with a big check and let's get this team fixed.
Whit should be calling up every family with a building named after them on campus. If we're serious about playing this game, we need our checkbooks to come through.
Wells is not the problem. Sorry he isn't Tyrod, but he isn't being put in enough good situations period.
He's not the problem, but he also isn't the answer. And the team as a whole doesn't have the talent and needs to play perfectly to win ball games at this point. That interception he threw was behind Lofton, but I also don't think Lofton made a strong attempt on it either and has had alligator arms on some balls already this year. Two players make do less than perfect... turnover. Didn't totally like the play call either as that pass is deeper across the middle than was necessary which almost guarantees a tipped pass gets picked - very similar to the pick off Holston's hands against ODU. Wrong play call, lousy execution, bad outcome.
Combine this with the fact that we fold under just the *slightest* pressure and we're done for. We need some leaders. The captains aren't cutting it and the coaches aren't cutting it. I miss Dax going nuts on the sideline, same with Wyatt Teller. We need, for lack of a better term, some bad motherfuckers, who are going to push everyone for every last ounce on the field until we start winning some games and it becomes ingrained in the culture.
Pry is really testing my pledge to give him a mulligan year. I'm seeing a lot of stuff that doesn't feel like a talent problem.
As my daughter say, "facts". The team just doesn't look or act well-coached - there's a way to lose and look like heros doing it. We aren't it.
I've been watching football a long time, and I haven't really seen too much of that.
When you lose, you admit you lost, you get up, brush yourself off, and try again. That's it.
A rebuilding team would be playing nothing but young guys, benching the least clutch QB in recent memory, pulling 4th/5th year players for walk-ons when they screw up to build a culture. Very little of that is happening, so what exactly are they doing aside from taking kicks to the teeth every Saturday?
We got some great plays from some of the younger guys, but this is still the firm foundation of a losing team.
I would request, however, that there be even a superficial attempt at pretending evenhandedness on pass interference calls.
I got nothing. All my vents for the season came out last week. Completely at my wit's end as to how to make sense of it all.
I thought simply getting rid of Fuente would be addition by subtraction. In the long run, that could still be proven right, but that possibility is rapidly shrinking week on week.
I thought over the summer that we might suffer through a season like this. Then we notched a conference win in the home opener and I dared to hope for more.
I've said the roster is filled with kids who don't know how to win. But the coaching staff is filled with coaches who also don't know how to win.
By the end of his time here, I hated Fu. Hated how he seemed to watch everything around him burn, shrug carelessly, and throw his lit cigarette into the flames. But in trying to build the foundation of something new, Pry has been using lumber that's rotted through.
For the second year in a row, I'm admitting that the answers are beyond me. It's one thing to expect a bad year. It's something else entirely to go through it. When does basketball start?
I feel your sentiment exactly. On one hand, with a single high performing offensive player, or even just cleaner more disciplined play, this team is at 4-5ish wins right now and the fan base can accept the state of the program. On the other hand, this team has underperformed and played sloppy football all year AND the team figured to be younger and less talented next season. I have been looking for something to build on this year going into next. I am at a total loss. Delane or Wright might be building blocks for next season, but they aren't the difference between 2-4 wins this season and 8 wins next. If Wells was even good, you could build on him for 3 years. But he is barely serviceable. RBs can't stay healthy, and their young backups can't crack the depth chart. And most importantly, the coaches have neither won on the recruiting trail nor developed the talent they have. Yet.
I really hope I am proven wrong but it is getting harder and harder to find something to latch onto. These last few games MUST be about finding more building blocks. Find something or someone to build on. Please.
This is tough. You're right - it's one thing to predict 2 wins as expectations for the season (which a decent amount of people did), and to actually live through it.
I mean, looking at what we had on offense, to start the season, the O was always going to be dog shit unless we miraculously had a number of unproven receivers all of a sudden come out and be studs. And then, if we want our identity to be pound the rock - that's INCREDIBLY tough to do after you lost 3 O-line starters and your RBs are banged up. So your run game is dodgy at best and your receivers aren't the kind to be able to bring in anything that's thrown anywhere near them. Oh, and your field goal kicker is suspect.
This year is just going to be tough. And for all the people shitting on the coaches, coaching what we have is a lot more difficult than coaching a team full of studs. Great players make coaches look great. Coaching a team of lower talent guys can be done, but it takes time (which is why guys like Clawson need years of coaching to put a respectable product on the field).
This is about what I expected. Seeing the close losses is tough, but I'm still surprised we're even putting up as many points as we have been. For all the people wanting to see progress, I decided weeks ago that I have zero expectations for this season - I want to see how we come out to start next season. That's where I'll really start looking for progress and I'm hoping it will be obvious.
Love this coach. I want him to succeed so badly it hurts. He's willing to do something that CJF rarely did. Say the words "It's on me," and show the contrition that goes along with that statement. Saying this staff needs to go is comical in the guys first year. We deserve nothing. Vick, Beamer, and Foster are long gone. We gotta earn respect all over again. Give the guy a chance.
No fan base deserves these last 2 losses except maybe Miami.
He's gotten a chance. To quote Don Draper..."That's what the money is for!"
He's not taking advantage of it at the moment. None of us were expecting a division title run. But these losses have been pathetic.
I really like Pry too, but at some point you can either hack it at this level or you can't.
So far, the evidence is pointing heavily towards can't. Maybe he will be willing/able to make Staff changes in the Offseason and significant upgrade the Roster, but color me skeptical.
I loved Justin Hamilton too, but it came to a point that you had to acknowledge that VT Football would be better with a different D.C.
And as much as I loathed Fuente and his hapless buddy Brad, this Team even as currently constituted would have more than 2 Wins if they were still here. The regression we have seen at several position groups, in penalties, and continued gaffes in game management just aren't deniable at this point, nor are they explainable by "not enough talent."
This 100%.
Most people don't care why the coach says they dislike him. He says things are on him and it's still not good enough. People want people fired in year one. Without their own people / class on the team. You have to give people time.
We don't fumble the ball we don't lose this game. We are probably winning big. But those fumbles aren't on the coaches. Missed fg isn't on the coach. Tipped extra point isn't on the coach. But let's fire the coaches in year one.
I thought wells played a great game for the most part. People still want Leap to come in and take over for some reason. Because they know that the backup is better because they spy on practice with Binos and are secret hall of fame coaches if only the world would find them.
He admits faults and mistakes. He knows we have to get better. Rebuilding this program is gonna take time. I'm not saying he is the long term solution, though I hope he is, I like him. I'm not saying Bowen is the long term solution at OC but you gotta give the guy at least another year to see what we have.
We are gonna be and for a couple years. It hurts. But it's better than jumping ship and becoming like auburn who fires a coach every other year bc they aren't winning national championships.
Sigh.
We have two coordinators under the age of 35. We don't have enough depth to keep our top guys relatively fresh in the fourth quarter. We have a bunch of key players pressing because they don't believe enough either in the coaches or their teammates.
At this point, if we can beat UVa, I'm happy.
Ooof, I got some bad news, bud.
Hokie nation, thank you for the support over the past 20 years. It's been nothing but love but at this time the best decision for me and my family is to transfer to liquor. Beer is not enough for this season. Thanks you. No interviews please. Respect my decision.
I'm not happy about how this fell apart, but I did have a good time in Lane today until the very end.
i have spent this season coaching my sons soccer team to a 7-1 record (boom) and watching my other school (gasp penn state) have a half decent season. there's a reason i don't get invested in this team, but damnit i want to be.
multiple people have said it and i'll just beat the dead damn horse. i have faith in pry, but only if something changes with the offense.he has so far shown nothing but a great personality in terms of what the fans want. besides that, not a damn thing and i love the guy
wins and progress really matter... i think pry knows that
we all truly hope he'll make some coaching shifts within the next year. but if not, get ready anyways i think he will be here for 5 years unless whit is gone.
The thought that crossed my mind today was this:
- Fuente re-energized a talented team and immediately brought success because of that energy and a new approach which brought back hope, but ultimately failed because he couldn't recruit
- Pry has re-energized the fan base because of his focus on recruiting and being more accessible. But the wins aren't coming...
- My thought/fear is that it's going to be THE NEXT coach that inherits the recruits from Pry that is going to be the one that turns the corner for the program... meaning it's going to be 3-5 years before we get back to winning.
Loved it when Pry in his post hire pressers was like "yeah I was watching VT from afar this last few years and didn't think they were getting it done" and then gets here and tells the fans to buckle up for historically bad football
Did you expect him to have a magic switch?
I expected him to win more than 2 games and find a way to not look inept every single week on the field, yes.
It shouldn't take magic to beat GT at home featuring a backup QB and an interim coach. If it does than Elko is Harry freaking Potter.
It shouldn't but Pry also didn't fumble the ball on the 10, miss a fg or get an xp blocked.
I feel like there was some magic in the air on that missed FG. From my angle on TV, it looked like it was sailing through the middle until it crossed the goal line and then suddenly veered left, like someone yanked it away.
I think at that point in the game the weather wasn't cooperating with us. It was still wet out and the wind was howling. Also, it looked like a bad snap, with a less than perfect placement by the holder. All of that put together, with an inexperienced kicker (who I'm still quite high on) and a special teams unit that has allowed a lot of pressure this year... not surprised the kick was no good.
But yes, there are a lot of little things that swing this game. Chatman pulls down the pick-six on the second drive and its a 14-point swing. Make one of the kicks and we're either tied or leading. It's the story of the last three years.
There's a lot of things wrong with this team from coaching, play calling, and talent. But if you want to really make this easy and understand why we are failing it's because we constantly get beat on the line of scrimmage on both sides. We need to improve the D and O line and then build from there. The true foundation of our losses starts on the line for me.
I think the DL played well this game and got some good pressure. But overall we do need more talent there.
This ^^^ There is one P5 DL on the roster, which is Garbutt, but even he is undersized. Johnny Jordan has regressed terribly, such that Moore is probably the only P5 level player on our OL. Silas is clearly playing out of position, but we've got no alternative thanks to roster mismanagement by Fu and Co. And, to think, his extra year was pretty unexpected. Clements has regressed and Hanson has been absolutely abysmal. The trenches are absolutely the root of our problem. We should take 5+ transfers on each line. Not joking.
Lastly, the "Fu would have 5-6 wins" take is baffling to me. He finished with 3 out of 4 losing seasons with far more talented rosters (Hooker, Turner, Robinson, Blackshear, Herbert, Mitchell, etc.). No way he's winning with these guys. There is also a good chance they would've quit on him weeks ago, which to the players credit, has not happened yet this year.
One other thing, but I can't get past how Dax was challenged to be as lean and fast as possible, yet he showed up to camp 10 pounds heavier. I can think of major plays against WV, Miami, Pitt, and now GT where if he's a step faster a back breaking TD potentially doesn't happen.
Bottom line, the roster is bad and there have been plenty of coaching mistakes, but while the record is worse, we're in every game rather than getting rolled by 30+ multiple times. I haven't given up on Pry just yet
didn't see the game, actually haven't seen the team in a while because of no access to RSN's...but what is up with christian moss and jaylen jones? are they both injured? are they playing at all? i am really concerned about next year if those two guys aren't stepping up. gotta get some WR's in the portal
I know this is going back pretty far, but why the hell was Pry allowed to hire an OC with no prior experience? That's a pretty small time thing to do at a major program when you really need to get things right
Because in Whit we trust
Because here at Virginia Tech, we think about offense third.
I know they wanted Bowen to finish out the NFL season, but I also can't help but think he wasn't the first choice and that was another reason for the long wait to announce
There is absolutely nothing from the first 9 games that lead me to believe that Pry is going to be successful here. I mean heck, I think Fuente is at least 5-4 with this roster and schedule (not saying we should have kept him).
Sure, the coaches will get more comfortable in their roles and recruit guys that better for their scheme, but in terms of game-day preparedness/coaching, you can't give this staff anything more than a D or D-.
Can't give em more than an F
Liberty beat an SEC team today. We're rapidly reaching 4th place status in the state. 5th, potentially, depending on where you rank ODU.
I mentioned Liberty a bit upthread.
They've got more NIL money to offer too, I imagine. And they are coached better. And they are actually just better.
Forget the coaches, past and present. That's on Whit now. The Pry run was ended the moment they gagged against ODU. Hate to be so reactive, but we are in a world where if you give a bad staff "one or two more years", you're gonna be so far behind it will not matter who the next hire is...
Because it's already happened to us
But you can't turn into Auburn, or Tennessee between the end of Fulmer and the start of Heupel.
think we are very much at the point where those programs will point and say "you don't want to turn into a Virginia Tech by holding onto a bad coach for 2 years too long"
That's the flip side of the coin. I think both are bad but cycling through coaches is worse.
I'd trade places w Tenn right now. Also, Auburn fired their coach mid-season and their record is better than ours.
I'm not so sure I would trade placed with Tenn right now....they weren't relevant to the CFB landscape from 2004 until 2022.
Georgia Tech's is better than ours too...
On this game:
On the players:
Simply put, the team just doesn't know to win. They're playing tired (because they are tired). They don't have the mental fortitude to move on after a mistake. They're making mistakes everywhere because they're young (and tired). Especially on offense, we don't really have anyone who can bail the team out, or free up other players by forcing the defense to focus on them - Thomas was that player, but he's hurt.
All that said, they're not quitting. I think we get another win this season. Maybe more.
On the coaches:
They're in a tough spot. For this team to win, it feels like the coaches need to call a perfect game. I don't know how you can coach a game well enough to overcome 3 turnovers, a missed XP and a missed FG against a team of a similar talent level. The coaches need to be better, but I'm not ready to say heads need to roll.
Beat UVA, kill it in the transfer portal, and keep crootin. Get culture guys in '23, upgrade in a few spots (or more) in the portal, and start putting together a great '24 class. That's really all I care about right now.
On Whit (and criticisms of the hire):
Anyways, if you're calling for Whit's head over this hire, you're ignoring how he's overhauled fundraising at VT. Beyond that, his hiring logic has been sound, they just haven't worked out. P5 coaching hires are hard. More fail than are successful. After Fuente, the fanbase didn't want a proven G5 head coach; they wanted someone who was a proven P5 recruiter, who knows how the sausage was made. So Whit went out and got one of the guys who was recruiting the shit out of our backyard. We got turned down by Napier and Clawson. Chadwell was too much like Fuente. Dykes can't coach outside of Texas. Not sure who else people wanted. We were all skeptical of the OC hire, but you gotta let Pry hire his people.
Sums up a lot of my thoughts. We knew it was going to be bad this year. Then the head coach reminded us all that it was gonna be bad this year.
What i said all along was that my hope for the season/criteria for "success" was threefold:
Don't blow 2-score 4q leads. Look better in november than september. Don't be weirdly and confusingly conservative on offense. To say I'm underwhelmed in this part now doesn't do it justice.
Although cleaning house and starting over after one season doesn't seem like a very smart way to try and succeed moving forward
(Light edit for clarity)
At the risk of being "that guy"....
That doesn't take the point chasing into account. If we had that extra point, the score would have been 28-22 when GT got the next to last touchdown. A two point conversion there would still have them down by 4, so they probably would just kick an extra point, making it 28-23. Their next TD would get them to 29 points over our 28, so they might have attempted a two point conversion there to make it a three point game. Either way, we still lose.
That being said, we had plenty of opportunities to put that game away and failed.
I understand where you are coming from here, but this just isn't true. Teams change how they play depending on the score. We missed the XP early and GT went (and failed) for two twice attempting to cut it to three and then to go up by three. They scored three TDs and three FGs, 30 points if they just kick the XPs.
I get tired of seeing this argument over and over because teams also just burn clock and protect the ball when they are leading. VT making a missed FG increases our chances to win, but the remainder of the game also plays out differently.
Edit: I should have read the reply above mine. Time to drink 🙂
Not gonna read this thread, because I don't have healthcare coverage at the moment and I'm not trying to go to the hospital for third-degree burns from all the flaming hot takes.
I'll say it for the umpteenth time, this is Year Zero. Nothing that happens on the field in terms of wins and losses matters. Come talk to me at the end of next season.
Everyone could use a palate cleanser after this game and for the season. So do yourself a favor and watch this totally 100% factually accurate documentary (it's free too!) on the Roku Channel
https://therokuchannel.roku.com/lp/weird
I REALLY like Pry and I haven't given up on him yet, but the obvious dumb decisions he made early on that many of us pointed out are clearly biting him in the ass.
To beat the dead and buried horse, he's a first time HC from the defensive side. Hiring a first time OC was dumb. Dumb on him. Dumb on the administration (but that's nothing new).
But waiting for his first time OC to finish their nfl season before being announced was really, really, really dumb. Like potentially poison pill for this staff dumb. It made it impossible to go out and get the needed offensive transfers, namely qb and wr.
Now we reap what they sewed and it looks like a 2-10 season.
I'm afraid this is the tail spin already. They really needed a little bit of first year success to sell. Like even 4-8. I don't think they will be able to recruit well enough to get themselves out of it. Even if we change OCs now, I think a fatal wound has been inflicted.
Hope they figure out how to get the horses they need.
Lots of people hanging this game on the coaches... I'm not seeing it.
This game was lost by players. And I'm willing to give them a little bit of leeway on the turnovers.
Coaches didn't throw interceptions. Coaches didn't fumble on on what should have been the scoring drives to ice the game. Coaches didn't go for a strip instead of putting the qb on the ground short of first down. Coaches didn't let a referee block them (I saw that coming from a mile away. The instant he didn't step forward to clear that ref, I knew we were screwed) on a GT touchdown.
At this point, the coaches can fix a few things.
First is finding who replaces Hanson. I want to root for the guy, but watching these last few games, he isn't a starter right now. He's been the culprit on false starts. He flat out got Wells killed in the first half. He just straight stood up and did a matador move.
I don't know what is going on with Jordan's snaps. But, give Jack a shot.
I can't explain why Clements looks terrible at times. I really can't. He let one play get blown up badly.
Punting unit needs to go back to a standard formation. GT wasn't respecting the spread out formation at all. And we arent doing anything about it when people don't respect it. They know we aren't going to fake it when it's more than 4 and 10. Why should they protect when they can pressure through the limited blockers?
And none of those things really matter if your players keep putting the ball in the other teams hands.
If you count the times we beat ourselves we're 7-2 and not 2-7
Well my prediction for Pry's tenure was "Bowl eligible in year one, ten wins in year two"
But I guess we aren't going bowling this year, right? Or are we still in the position of possibly getting a bid if there aren't enough teams and our GPA is high enough?
I'm somewhere between "this is horse shit" and "we knew the season/team could be this bad"!
My heart wants to believe we are better, my eyes tell me we are who we think we were!
At some point Pry has to offer up some hope to the fanbase that he's the right guy for the job. Something. His preseason tour was exactly what fans needed. His approach to recruiting — mending VA relationships and sticking to the Beamer radius — resonated with fans, even if the fruits of the labor haven't paid off yet. But at the end of the day, it's about wins and losses. And on the field, boy is he and his staff struggling. As a whole, the fanbase had very low expectations for this season. Unfortunately, he's on pace to, or has already underachieved those. So much of the conversation has been between picking a side between talent and coaching. As of right now, I'd say that both have tons of room for improvement.
Not sure about the fan base having low expectations. We should have. But, a bunch of fan sites and podcasts were out there saying the preseason predictions were wrong and we were a 6, 7, or 8 win team. And there are a lot of people who digest that content and believe it.
Unfortunately, that has contributed to some unreasonable expectations.
We were predicted, by experts, to be a 4 win team. Falling one win on either side of that shouldn't be a surprise or disappointment to anyone. And there is still the possibility that happens. Quite frankly, we've been incredibly close to meeting that expectation and choked it away. If anything, we are tracking to around what was expected of us. We may find we don't get there, at the end of the season. But, otherwise should people really be upset? Or are they being unreasonable? I can understand disappointment. I'm disappointed we are where we are. But, it shouldn't be unexpected.
Some of it is certainly eye test. And if Tech won half of the games they lost by 6 or less, I think there's a different mood in the air. They've been close, but the way it's broke has been painful.
Regarding expectations, perhaps that's my own bias. I knew this team would be bad, and in the absolute best case it would win 6 games. I missed those predicting 7 or 8 wins, but boy I'm not sure how anyone could see that with this roster and inexperienced coaches in the top spots.
I peeped a few 7-8 win predictions on here in the weeks leading up to opening night...
By "experts" you mean Andrea Adelson? Our win total in Vegas fluctuated between 5.5 to 6.5, so 6-7 wins was not unreasonable for those bullish on this staff. In fact a ton of bettors and numbers guys were over on the 6.5 win total, so the consensus was that we had the the talent to win against this schedule.
I've said it before and will repeat it, a good offensive staff could coach us up to 7, even 8 wins pretty easily (this should be apparent to those paying attention). That doesn't mean our team would be good, we've just played a Charmin soft schedule. ODU, Miami, State and GT all are wins with a competent offensive staff and we still have Virginia on the schedule. WVU and Pitt are also coin flips at least with a top 60 offense, and UNC has been so bad on defense even that game is probably competitive.
So no I'm not buying that we're close to meeting expectations, in fact the opposite given the roster we were left with (which isn't thaaat bad even though people want to pretend it is).
I've watched this team, and I don't believe you. It's hard enough to coach a good team to 8 wins, and this is not a good team.
I still believe this coaching staff will be able to improve this team over time, but a good bit of that is going to come in the form of recruiting. and another year of experience for both the team and the coaches.
Well if you add one extra TD a game you're already at 7, with a shot vs Liberty and Duke to get to 8. A good offensive staff would likely add add 2-3 TD's per game.
8 wins is tough if you're not playing in the worst division in college football with one crossover as BC (<115 team) and only one nonconference game vs a team inside the top 80: Liberty (who is in their 5th season as an FBS team).
Pry has been very accurate in assessment each game. And he has made corrections, and various parts of the team is improved:
And for VT and Pry, it's kind of like trying to plug a dozen holes in a boat. When one hole getts plugged, another pops off. Will he get it all together before the end of the season and the team play "complimentary football," I don't know. VT will not be favored against Duke or Liberty, and UVA will be a toss-up game. Pry still has a chance to (a) beat Elko who is a direct comparison of how a first year coach can better coach up talent, (b) beat the G5 neighbor looking to become the "best team" in VA, and (c) beat VT's rival.
He can end the year strong. It seems unlikely, but he can start writing his VT revival story here and now and that will build back fan enthusiasm heading into the offseason.
We still had some horrible timed false starts. 3rd and 7 to 3rd and 12. Team is sloppy as hell.
And our tackling is so much better than it was in previous years. You see bodies all around the ball. Generally, we are making good solid tackles. I don't see as many arm tackles these days.
As you said, Pry has been very open about what he wants the team to work on. And the following week, it generally shows that they have worked on it. I feel like they might focus too much on the point of emphasis, and the rest falls through the cracks. Or we just don't have the players to put it all together. Not sure
Maybe in total, but (and I hate/love to do this) Chatman is by far the worst-tackling player possibly to ever suit up at VT. His replacement can't start playing soon enough.
Conner, Chatman- have always been overrated. They aren't great players by any stretch. They miss many more plays than they make- especially when it matters.
When you don't when the horses to race you look pretty bad when trying to. I'm not going to dive into this but the talent level and depth are the major issues here. Read Andy Bitter's list of folly's. I see a lot more talent issues and player mistakes that's on the players and not the coaching. Not giving the coaches a full board pass here, but.....
Yep. I mean there are execution issues everywhere, and it's very much going to take a complete purge to get the roster on the right track. And given ESD last year and the portal that was already fairly settled when we hired Pry, I think last year was a case of taking whatever we could get and not necessarily the right players.
That said, our play calling is suspect as hell, and deserves to be called out.
The past several seasons have built a culture of losing. I hate to say it, but we may have to clear out some of the older, more ingrained players, to change that culture. Some of that will happen naturally through graduation. Others might need to be told that their time is up.
I fully expect a lot of attrition this off season. Some will probably be players we don't want to leave, but the needs of the team has to come first.
Tayvion Robinson was the big "ooof transitions hurt" transfer for me. TBH every other player in the team could transfer portal tomorrow and I think most people would shrug
Just one question. Is the Tech administration really invested in a competitive football program?
No.
I think they're a many million dollar reasons to the contrary.
Whit's fundraising for football specific programs has been excellent these last couple of years.
We took that money and overpaid an inexperienced staff
Okay. But the question was whether the administration was invested on football.
I mean kind of depends on your definition of investing. Say I've got $200,000 and buy 1,000 shares of Apple at $200. Right now it's trading at $140 a share. I've spent $200k, but have I really invested that much? I could've bought over 400 more shares with that money.
Total amount spent means nothing without effective allocation
I will say Whit has done some good things as far as improving fundraising and committing more resources to football with the Reach campaign. That took commitment from the President, BOV, AD, and a lot of other people to get approved.
However, we are also still so incredibly far behind. I'm worried it's too little too late. Also I believe it took a lot of convincing for the higher administration to buy into putting more funding toward football. That is concerning in itself.
At the end of the day, I think people like the idea of VT being a competitive program, but are just so far behind and may not truly have a good idea of what that needs to look like. I've said before and lots of others have said same that we may need an Associate AD/GM type role just for the football program. I don't think Whit is a very football guy and seems to just completely trust in the coaches he's hired to steer the ship. Which completely backfired with Fu.
TL;DR I think we have made some recent moves which show some desire/commitment to the program, but it may be too little too late and we are way behind. I'm not optimistic VT football gets back to a level where it can realistically compete on the national level again.
There are too many people throughout Tech who were happy and content that we made it by joining the ACC and consider that a big enough Mission Accomplished that there is no further long term planning needed.
Yep, I've said before winning the ACC in year one was the Mission Accomplished banner for our program. Football had served its purpose for the admin in getting us into the conference we longed to be in so we could brush shoulders with Duke, UNC, UVA etc. We thought we had arrived, that recruits would just come to us, and the program slowly went on autopilot. These issues have been brewing for a long, long time for people who have followed VT football for a while.
It goes beyond that, to be honest.
There's a lot of people who kept reminding us about the 80s and early 90s football days over the last decade or so to the point where it's almost like that's where they wanted us to go back to. Almost as if they resented the fact that the program had emerged as a legitimate player and always wanted us to go back to the small time regional po dunk school who was content with an annual rivalry with VMI and held back progress because of it.
And unfortunately, they might have got their wish.
The sad thing is, pretty much the entire ACC is going to be regional po dunk here before long with the massive and growing financial disparity plus a seemingly inescapable GoR for the next 15 years. Even Clemson is starting to fall off. But this is the conference we always wanted to be in, so we got our wish. Anything else is poppycock!
What more do you need to see from the administration?
Not sure what you're looking for here...
Frank Beamer was 2-9 his first year at VT. I believe 3-8 the next. If the angry masses proved to be right 100% throughout history I would join in the whining. I bet everyone was excited about Fuente after that first year, and he destroyed the program.
VT was freaking one drive away from beating Clemson for the ACC title. The fanbase thought they had the seen the beginning of the next era of ACC dominance and NY6 bowls. Sigh.
Just pointing out that current performance may not be indicative of future results
All that is true but comparing 2022 to Beamer's early years and even to Fuente pre-Transfer Portal is not really a useful process.
The landscape of CFB is completely different now.
I've grown much less enthusiastic about Pry as this season has progressed, but the book is still out.
I think this season is a lost one at this point, but this Offseason will be very telling.
I'm worried about Pry's ability to enhance the Roster thru the Portal but I'm even more worried about teams coming in and poaching some of our promising players-Delane, Thomas, Wright.
The NCAAs lack of any exploration of what appeared to be pretty obvious tampering in USC getting Addison from Pitt demonstrated that they are more than willing to let the "Blue Bloods" use other P5 Programs as de-facto farm clubs.
If he is able to enhance the Roster, I will feel better--if we get poached and replace our players with mostly G5 talent, I don't know if this will be recoverable.
But we're there "angry masses" back at that point in time?
I honestly don't know. The times and the context have changed. 2-9 now at VT is not the same as 2-9 when Beamer took the reins.
And 2-9 now hurts a hell of a lot more in terms of recruiting and $$$. Not to mention, I wouldn't be surprised to see what actual talented players we do have leave through the transfer portal. The team doesn't seem to have the coaching right now. And I'm more comfortable blaming grown men making a lot of money for failing than blaming kids over their execution.
Both are a problem, but at some point if the same mistakes keep happening, it's because guys are not being taught how to improve. This team looks worse than the start of the season (when we also lost to a "less talented" team)
This is something that has been mentioned a bit, and is good context but also divorced from reality. Beamer said that we almost fired him before the breakout season in 1993. He was only saved by his ability to explain the progress that the team had made in 1992 to the AD, and by bringing in a new OC and DC.
That just isn't college football anymore. The leashes are shorter, the expectations are higher, and the circumstances with NIL and the portal are entirely different. I think that we should absolutely give Pry some time to adjust, but I'd love to see them get creative now that we're out of the bowl conversation. Let Marve call the plays on defense. Run more plays out of that off-balanced line (with DaeQuan Wright lined up at the right tackle spot). Use some of Glenn's Georgia State offense (more orbit motion and true RPOs). Get the youngsters more time on the outside (god forbid someone makes a block on the outside for a screen)...
We can debate talent versus coaching literally until next season. And let's be honest, we will. But in the meantime, there are some real developmental opportunities for everyone in these last three games that we should take advantage of. And if we still don't see any progress, then we have an entire offseason to reset. and either A) bring in a Jerry Kill-esque analyst to straighten things out, B) reassign some duties (Glenn to OC/QB Coach, Bowen to TE coach), or C) make a big change.
I see A or B being in the Whit wheelhouse, but I'm sure there will be pressure (and again, rightfully so) to do C.
I don't think it's divorced from reality, I think we had a delusion of what our baseline was this year. That was more divorced from reality. I agree we should have two more wins than we do now, but I'm not going to call to burn it down after one bad year.
You can't compare Beamer's early tenure to this. Beamer picked up a team with scholarship reductions. In Beamer's famed 2-8-1 season, five of the losses were by one score or less. The '92 team played #1 Miami closer that than Pry's team played middle-of-the-pack WVU.
There was no transfer portal in '92. With the exception of Notre Dame, no one was recruiting players beyond driving distance of their school. The landscape of the sport was so different, you can't compare that team to this team.
Pry's losses that are 1 score or less: ODU(3), Miami(6), NC State(1), GT(1).
I don't think we should burn it down either - I think we could just be smarter about our criticisms and where to go next. We have three weeks to really make some progress and find out what kind of team we should be next year.
As a side note, I've done some forecasting/modeling for VT win predictions since 2020. Unfortunately, that first season really got thrown out of whack with all the COVID issues. But last year I got 5.7 wins predicted before the season.
This year? 5.2 wins... Three bad losses by a combined 5 points put us right there.
Care to share your model? Always curious about these things.
It's nothing too crazy, I was just practicing for my Management Science class final on forecasting and kept it going.
It's a simple excel linear regression based on the winning %, national 247 recruiting ranking by year, conference 247 recruiting ranking by year, average recruit ranking per year, and sports-references strength of schedule metric. Lots of things I'd do differently now that I'm a little more familiar with statistical modeling.
I lost a lot of files and when updating it for last season, it was actually 5.8 wins in 2021 (which we beat), and 6.2 wins in 2022 with strength of schedule included, or... 5.9 wins in 2021 and 5.7 in 2022.
Let me know the best way to send it to you.
Our baseline was losing to 4 teams outside the top 70 and having only 2 wins vs a <115 FBS team and bottom tier FCS team?
And likely another loss to a < top 80 team and two other teams with less talent than us?
Had to work yesterday but was able to have it on in the background. Turned it off when we were up 27-16 (was it 13...? Idk, we were up, I was happy and DAMN sure we wouldnt blow a second double digit lead). Got in the car and my phone alerted me to the final score..... couldn't even do anything other than sigh and put her in drive....
Idk what I think is the most pertinent issue, but I do know that I like seeing a bunch of '23s recruits tweeting about how they're still committed to making Tech a powerhouse again (although we know how that goes until they're signed.....) and that folks just need to be patient. I just hope the biggest issue isn't the coaching,although i know a chunk of it is, and those kids really will come in and turn the ship around.
For the first year in forever, every week I can say "At least there's Buffalo Bills football tomorrow..."
"At least there's Buffalo Bills football tomorrow..."
Aged as well as me watching the NY Rangers up 2-0 after the 1st period today.
Yeah, they played like shit yesterday too.... only good thing about the weekend (sports-wise) for me was our ECHL team went 2-0 on the weekend and they look like they'll have a good shot to defend the Kelly Cup title if they can get the power play going.
Does anyone remember how the coaching staff all off-season and as we started the season kept saying, "Blumerick is the most talented player in the field. He's fast, he's smart, and so athletic!"? Because I've been pointing it out to so many people that he's rarely on the field for being "the best player on the team." If someone could do a stat line of how many snaps he's on the field per game it would be probably 50% or less. Which is a joke for again, "the best player on the field."
I was at the Miami game and asked almost every play, "where's Blumerick?" Then he came in, he stood taller then all of Miami's secondary, he out ran them on the few routes he did have, but then we would take him right back out.
Is there something I'm missing or I have missed as to why they're not using him? He came in yesterday, got us that one big catch, then they took him back out.
Watch his route running. Not very open.
We could be A&M with that garbage record with a team loaded with 4 and 5 star recruits . Also Jimbo's terrible contract lol. People out here in Texas want Jimbo gone ASAP.
I would trade places with A&M in a heartbeat lol. Silly thing to say.
We picked up a commit yesterday.
We scored on offense, defense, and special teams.
Running game showed signs of life.
Kaleb Smith played great in a losing effort.
We also stuffed two 2 point conversions.
You don't win games with 4 turnovers, though. But this game and last week's game against NC St did show signs of progress with this team. Now we need to close out games.
I'll be quite honest. Not sure what the last time I was on this site was. I don't know what the vibe has been and I was afraid of just stumbling down a negative echo chamber after one of the first losses of this bad streak.
I'm just tired now. I was at the last two home games and I'm just tired. Lifeless against a bad Miami team for most of the game, then blowing an 18 point lead against NC State and 13? against GT is just tiring. There are good things and I know this team has to learn how to win, but this is so painful to watch and work through. The careless turnovers, the defense just falling apart down the stretch, the offense that is either completely in tune (15% of the time) or a complete disaster the rest. 3rd and long or 3rd and x-long as the sign on the sideline reads...maybe get rid of the signs because apparently it means stop playing and give up a first down. (THIRD AND FUCKING 19 AND THEY GOT 20 YARDS!!)
I think Pry will do good things in time, but I think he has to do some serious internal evaluations as well. 3 passes in a row when we need to run clock is unacceptable. Offensive line that might have more false start yards against than rushing yards some games. Not to mention multiple in short sequence this late in the year. I could understand if this was week 2 or 3 when you're still trying to work out the kinks, but these guys have to know the offense and snap counts by now. Is that on Pry? Wells? Bowen? Rudolph? I don't know, but something has got to change.
In the end, I still bleed orange and maroon and I still watch, but it is getting harder and harder to have any enthusiasm since it seems like as soon as hope is given, it means we rip defeat from the jaws of victory.
Lastly, Lane Stadium...please don't do the effing wave while a player is down on the field injured. It's in bad taste, and shocker, seemed to line up with when GT started to roll over us again.
I've seen this in a few places, but I couldn't disagree more with this assessment. The most important goal is to score, not run out clock. And you call the plays that give you the best chance to score. (Whether 3 passing plays provided the best opportunity to score is a different debate.)
VT was at midfield with about 7 minutes left in the game. The average scoring drive is about 3 to 4 minutes (and quicker when under 2 minutes to go in half or game). GT also has all 3 time outs. Thus, you can expect GT to have at least 1 more chance (and likely 2 chances) to score. Being up only 6 points at the time, the best chance to enable a victory is to get a score, and most preferably a TD. Playing to run out the clock at midfield will not give you the best chance win the game.
If the scenario was a little different: If VT was able to get into FG territory with about 6.5 minutes left in the game (e.g., instead of interception, Wells leads Lofton on the slant and he catches it and gets first down at about the 20 yard-line), maybe you kill their 3 timeouts and settle for a FG attempt. But I would argue even that is a bad decision. VT's kicker had missed an XP and 40-yd field goal, so making the field goal was not an easy proposition. So, there would have been a pretty high likelihood that VT gives them the ball with decent field position and about 5.5 to 6 minutes to score. Notably, GT's final scoring drive was 3 mins, 24 seconds (no time outs used). There is a lot of risk to play run-out-the-clock ball when the opposing team has 3 timeouts and there is more than 2 minutes on the clock.
Went to the Marshall-ODU game on Saturday (sigh, defense kept the Monarchs in the game but the offense could do nothing the entire day) and only caught the GT-VT meltdown at halftime of the ODU game. That was unpleasant to tune into. Not a lot to like about falling apart in the 4th quarter. At least it was a gorgeous day in Norfolk to sit outside and watch a game.
But I have to say, if you are getting super upset and angry at the performance of the team (and I get it, it's frustrating), it might be a good idea to step away for a little bit. It doesn't make you less of a fan to take a mental health break from Hokie football. As someone who used to get absolutely livid at games and would allow a bad game/play to ruin an entire weekend, trust me, you are better off if you can step away than if you just obsess over what happened/didn't happen.
If this isn't you and all you need is just a few posts to vent and then you're good, that's cool too.
This one hurts. This is my family game. Now I have to say "Virginia Tech" all year instead of "Tech", and boy will my sister let me hear it when I slip up.
DAMMIT!
Turnovers.
There is no way in hell Grant Wells was going to execute on the last possession with no timeouts, OL that is trash, and WRs that can't win 1 on 1 matchups. The defense failed spectacularly when it mattered. This a team that makes losing plays, so they made losing plays.
There is no phase of the game to lean on, or player. I know its a chicken vs egg question....Do you need a Jim vs Joes advantage to generate an XsAndOs advantage or vice versa? Not only is the team poor, but its so god damn muddy I can't tell what is actually going on. Coaches, Players, Scheme.....the in-game collapse(s) are so horrendous that I can't even assign blame.
The fanbase keeps showing up. The fans are 12-0.
Really well said IMO, could not agree more.
All of this.