Starting a thread to share season previews, mostly from outlets/media member that I enjoy. So far we have:
Split Zone Duo: ACC Preview
- The podcast compares VT to Miami and Louisville, because all three schools recently hired 'native son'-ish coaches. The segment starts at 26:20ish, and VT convo starts 32:25ish.
- Says Brent Pry is like the honest mechanic who isn't afraid to tell you that your car is totaled.
- Doesn't really give a 'prediction' other than we could be really bad again. Praises our work in the portal (not enough IMO).
- Says the goal should be to win 1-2 more games, limit portal attrition, continue winning recruiting battles in our region, and keep UNC out of the state (noting that so far we're making progress in the latter two).
Athlon:
Athlon has us ranked 78th in pre-season, with this summary:
The talent deficit in Pry's first year was enough that most fans are giving him a mulligan, despite the program's first seven-game losing streak since 1951. Odds are they'll be less forgiving in Year 2.
Tech has more viable options, particularly on offense, but the heat will be on offensive coordinator Tyler Bowen to achieve liftoff with a group that fell flat on its face last season. Even a marginal improvement from the offensive morass of last year should get this team back in the bowl conversation, but ACC contention is a ways off.
Bill C:
Bill C's ACC Preview is out. 2022 End of Season rankings here. Discussion in the comments. Summary below:
| 2022 | 2023 (Projection) | |
|---|---|---|
| Wins | 3 | 5.0 |
| Conference Wins | 1 | 2.8 |
| Overall SP+ | 96 | 65 |
| Offensive SP+ | 125 | 90 |
| Defense SP+ | 38 | 46 |
ESPN FPI
Source. Projects us to be 63rd in FBS:
- Basically expects us to go 5-7
- 35% chance of winning 6 games
- 3.7% chance of winning the division (not sure what that means in the divisionless ACC)
- 0.5% chance of winning the conference
Kelly Ford
Discussed in a previous post, but sharing here because why not. Here's his website if interested.
The Solid Verbal
Link here. VT talk at 58:45. This one hurt...
- Because our schedule is pretty easy, Ty thinks we could be one of those teams that is 'worse than their record' - thinks we'll get to 6 wins, but just because the schedule is easy.
- Attributed the 2022 offensive performance to 'not having dudes' and the mismatched styles of Bowen (an 'NFL Spread guy' - not sure I agree with this description) and Joe Rudolph (run-the-ball guy from Wiscy).
- The most painful part: They talked about how VT has become a 'gloss over' acc school - meaning that when fans of other teams look over their schedule, they just 'gloss over' VT, because we're just another mediocre ACC school like BC, UVA, Duke, NC State, etc.
Comments
Oh yeah this definitely warrants it's own thread. Thanks for posting and summarizing.
Love the comparison of Pry to an honest mechanic. Seems pretty spot on.
how in the world does he see our offense going from 125th to 89th? That's a massive jump that makes no real sense to me (since he has to be assuming that our starting QB is the same)
From the article (underlining is me):
We landed some pretty highly ranked transfers. Look at how we overhauled the receiver and running back rooms. It's also possible that our offense was so bad (even by VT standards) that we're getting a 'recent history' bump.
But I'm also curious exactly what levers we pulled. Will be interesting to see what Bill C says in his ACC preview.
It's gotta be all (or mostly) in his adjustment for transfers though. He measures recruiting by the past few years and we only have one good(ish?) year in the last several to pull from. Otherwise, returning production (lol, if you can call it that?) shouldn't bump us much and recent history has been baaad bad. I just struggle to see how our offense gains 36 spots on the rest of the teams. Thats basically saying that we're jumping roughly 1/4 of all cfb teams on offense and, frankly, I just don't buy that.
I can buy arguments that we might be improved but that's just too big of a jump for me to believe.
I felt the same way, but keep in mind, 89th ranked offense would still be REALLY bad. Like, "you don't belong in the P5" bad. He's asking us to jump 36 of the worst offenses in the country, not 36 average offenses.
Our offense was so bad last season that we could be way improved and still be really really bad.
Fair point.
I still think that 36 spots is a big jump to make given the situation on our o line and our returning qb. Wells was bad last year and unless he's vastly improved, or supplanted by a much better option, all those skill players we upgraded will be for naught.
Our offense was bad last year because of bad talent AND bad coaching. The talent has arguably improved some but there is no guarantee the coaching will be any better. Hopefully it is but I think we have to assume it'll be about the same.
All I'm saying is, assuming coaching is about the same, if Wells is the starter I don't see how anyone could predict our offense to be "way improved" based on the information available.
My hope, of course, is that Bowen does actually know what he's doing and despite our shortcomings on the offensive line he's found enough talent to work with to field a halfway competent offense. But Bill's analysis doesn't take into account hope. It doesn't even account for coaching as far as I can tell. Based on recruiting, returning "talent", and recent history I just don't get how anyone could expect our offense to jump from the bottom of the heap to 89th with the same bad qb and a putrid oline.
You're still thinking about this from purely a VT perspective of what we gained, but you don't know for those 36other teams, maybe they lost a lot more talent than they gained, and so they are in worse shape than us.
Basically it's dynamic, other teams got better, or, considering us jumping so many spots, worse from last year.
in scoring offense it's <5 ppg and total offense it's 30 yards.
We can gain 30 yards by not fall starting this year.
Couldn't help myself, just in a weird mood this morning.
Well, that gif is actually a pretty perfect depiction of the 2022 VT Offense as a whole.
As others have noted, a jump to somewhere in the 80's range in total Offense seems massive but with some upgraded skill talent and OL play that is even semi-competent it's not unreasonable. We're talking about going from historically bad to just pretty bad.
FWIW I think even with a bad season Pry has bought himself a decent amount of leeway but this is going to be a very important season for Bowen. If he puts another woeful Offense out there, his seat is gonna get very warm quickly.
Well if there's one thing our offense can do, it's jump.
I agree re: Bowen. The question is, what do we consider "woeful"?
If our offense is in the 100s again I think you have to make changes right away. If its in the 80s or 90s I think you bill that as pretty good progress despite still being pretty bad. You'd like to see it climb into at least the 70s by year 3, though. If not, I think the likelihood of it getting much better than that is pretty low without making substantial changes. There are 65 P5 teams. There's really no reason a team like VT can't get an offensive coach who can get us into the top 60 offenses nationally within 3 years. If Bowen can't do it, he won't be the guy we need to get our offense into a respectable top 50ish range, or better.
I honestly think we need at least a 20-30 rank increase in offense this year to keep Bowen around. I think he needs at least a 10-20 rank increase the year after that as well to keep his job. We need to make a significant step forward for him to keep his job.
I am no fan of Bowen, think he was a terrible hire, and firmly believe that he's in way over his head and yet I think he will/should get a longer leash than two years.
I'm simply guessing, but I'm not sure he'll be on the hot seat until year 3. The team Pry & Co. inherited was and still is BAD. They need time.
I think after we go 15-0 this year, Bowen's leash will get significantly longer.
I liked the hire for one reason. He coached in the modern NFL- which is a hell of a lot more like college on offense now. And that league is a different deal - they watch much more tape, prepare for much more difficult schemes etc. I loved his NFL exposure. Let's see if he can bring that level of preparation and scheming here.
Having NFL experience is a plus, but considering Pry's experience is 100% defensive I would have liked to see him hire someone with significantly more OC experience.
very logical and reasonable, agreed. But I'm willing to give Bowen a chance. My issue last year was mistakes, bone head plays vs. scheme. Although the doing absolutely nothing at half to adjust was very cornelson- like. in 23 we are breaking in all new skill people with a new OL coach, so no I don't expect the offense to be top 30 this year either.
Agreed, I'm not giving up on him by any means - I'll just be *very* pleasantly surprised if Bowen ends up working out.
And frankly, it may be more of an issue where it was a bad fit due mostly to his inexperience rather than a lack of ability on his part.
Agreed, last year was a complete wash of starting over. This year he has the OC reigns completely on his own. I want to see a good improvement. If we move up twenty spots that still puts us on the bottom half of the NCAA, but is a good step forward. Where I will be disappointed is if in year 3, we aren't still taking steps forward.
I think the only way Bowen doesn't see year 3 is if the offense makes no progress with an even easier schedule than last year.
I'm not really sure if our schedule this year is truly easier than it was last year. Someone posted somewhere that according to ESPN we have the second easiest schedule in the P5 for 2023. I'd like to know how easy our schedule was last year too - because it seemed pretty soft to me (but, our schedule has been really soft for the last 5 years....I digress)
anyway, I think hiring Bowen was a mistake purely because lack of experience (not just his, but Pry's as HC - I think he could have protected himself a bit by getting a proven OC to manage the offensive rebuild while he focused on mentoring his protégé for defense). But he's got the time to prove himself right now and I really, really hope he does. If he can get our offensive ranking into the double digits that'll be a good step in the right direction. I don't expect a top 30 offense this year (or even next year) but I do need to see some tangible progress over the course of the year and into next year. If our offense is as bad or worse than last year he should be shown the door immediately. I don't think that will happen. I'm not going to feel great about where things are headed if we're hovering around 100th by the end of November. If he manages to get us into the 90s (or even 80s) that will be a good enough sign to me that he's moving in the right direction. If he does even better than that, I'll be ecstatic (and shocked) and then I'll get my hype on for 2024.
I'm not sure you can definitively blame Bowen for the offense last year - we had the worst OL in the ACC, and simply couldn't push anyone off the ball. Hard to be an efficient offense that way.
Bowen wasn't THE problem. He wasn't the ONLY problem. He was PART of the problem. I'm not saying that an experienced OC would have come in and fielded a top 30 offense by any stretch, but I think a guy who had done it before would have gotten more out of the tank than Bowen did. Our offense didn't track with our talent level (i.e. on paper, our offense should have been better, especially considering the soft schedule we played)
I think Bowen has an opportunity to prove himself in the next two years and I hope he does it. I can root for him and be skeptical at the same time. I recognize that his lack of experience exacerbated an already bad situation in Blacksburg last year. Hopefully he grows up quickly and is able to fix a lot of the issues that have plagued our offense for decades. It's not going to be easy to do, though, which is why I would have felt much more comfortable with a known, proven OC to take on the task. It's a very tall task and I think it was unfair to Bowen for this to be his first OC gig.
I think the offense last year perfectly tracked our talent level. The worst in P5.
We had a former walk on possession receiver that we forced into the #1 WR role while having no clear number 2. We did not have a P5 running back. Our OL was thin and inexperienced. Our best receiving TE was a true freshman who could not block. Our QB was a G5 transfer with a history of poor decision making and a high number of INTs.
As the saying goes, it's hard to make 🐔 salad out of 🐔 💩. It's no surprise that we brought in transfers at every single position other than TE.
Worst in the P5 still is better (or should be better) than 118th nationally. There are only 65 P5 teams. Our offense should have been in the 90s or so (based on "talent" alone). Poor coaching landed us near the bottom of the heap. Hopefully the coaching is better. It'll take some time for the talent to improve but I think the coaches are doing an okay job in that department. For now.
How you define the problem is based on what you hold coaches accountable for.
Are coaches accountable for fielding a historically bad offense? Some attribute this to lack of talent. But then, the PFF data indicates most of the offensive starters regressed from the prior year. Are coaches accountable for player development, collectively? We also have heard that our scheme didn't match the strengths of our players. Are coaches accountable for mismatching scheme with talent?
To me it all comes down to coaching in the end. We have replaced two offensive coaches so we'll see if that helps. At this point, it comes down to Bowen.
I'll mostly agree with you, but offer some mild dissents:
The talent level on offense was bad, but still underachieved. This should have been a top 80-100 offense, not a top 125 offense.
I could agree with some of that. However, I think there is a bit of logical fallacy involved when folks point to the fact that there are only 65 Power 5 teams and assume we should be no worse than 65th, or perhaps only a few slots lower.
What I mean is, we play a schedule that is largely comprised of P5 teams, but we did not have P5 talent. You would expect that our overall numbers would therefore be much lower, as opposed to, for example, a G5 school like App State (my alma mater) that consistently has fringe P5 talent, a good coaching staff on offense, but plays against a predominantly G5 schedule.
If you look back at last year, our 4 lowest scoring games were against P5 opponents. If however, we played games against Troy, The Citadel, Georgia State, Robert Morris, etc. like App did, you would expect our overall numbers to increase substantially.
This is a fair point.
I don't really have much of a counter other than I think in recent years the line between G5 and P5 has gotten really blurry. There is the SEC which is head and shoulders above everyone. Then the B1G. From there, the rest of the P5 leagues aren't really much better than the G5 leagues. I think the gap between an average SEC roster and an average ACC roster is larger than the gap between the average ACC roster and the average G5 roster.
Like, yeah, the ACC teams are generally going to be more talented but not such a big gap that a solid game plan or good scheme can't mitigate.
For what it's worth, SP+ is does account for for strength of opponent.
Does it take into account the talent level of the opponent, or their stats before the game? I'm genuinely asking. For example, how does it compare a 6-2 Georgia Southern to a 6-2 NC State if they both average the same yards/ppg?
SP+ does account for talent level
Yes and yes
The short, oversimplified answer is margin of victory. If Clemson is 7 points better then NC State, and Clemson is also 21 points better than GA Southern, the NC State is 14 points better than GA Southern.
The longer (but still oversimplified) answer is:
Also worth noting that at some point ~5 years ago, Bill C further adjusted for recruiting rankings and past performance. These adjustments are weighted heavily in the early season, but carry a little less weight every week. They were included because they made the rankings more accurate.
Anyways... So if you're looking at 2022 year end SP+
You can gain the following insights:
It's not as straight forward comparing offense directly against defense, (because projected offensive points scored depends on field position, how many snaps the defense typically allows, etc).
If you want to read more, this is a really good starting point.
Well I for one was expecting 700+ yards against UVA had we played them so top 90 sounds right to me.
I guess some of the improvement would be related to the returning starters, since returning starters would be expected to improve year to year, even Wells. So hopefully we can find a way for Wells to utilize the talent we have on offense to distribute the ball to our playmakers in quick fashion, because with our o-line, he probably won't have much time to sit back in the pocket and analyze the defense. I do think a sub-100-ranked offense for us is possible with just marginal improvement.
The nice thing about SP+ is that it ranks teams based on projected point differential (basically, if VT played the 'average' (aka 65th best) team, what would the spread be)? For example, VT is the 69th best team, and would be projected to lose to the 65th best team by 2.1 points. This applies to offense vs defense too; VT's 89th ranked offense is expected to score 21.5 points against the 65th best defense.
All that to say, here's a few different ways to ask 'how good is our offense':
I would answer these questions probably, yes, probably not, respectively.
Anyways, I don't have any real insight here, just providing a couple different lenses through which you can view our preseason offensive ranking.
Those numbers don't lie but how many times have we seen a VT offense make a terrible (UNC, Syracuse, ODU) defense look like the 85 bears? too many times to count.
For sure - I'm not suggesting that the numbers are 'accurate' or definitively correct. Just trying to add context to what a 36 spot improvement means.
It's probably a combination of recruiting rankings (they aren't good, but better than 86th) and portal additions that are balancing out last year's performance.
EDIT: disregard, Bar's comment came sooner and is significantly more thorough!
ESPN Football Power Index projecting Hokies have the 2nd Easiest Schedule in P5 with only BC with a softer schedule. 5 of the top 10 easiest on the Index in P5 are ACC schools with UVA, NC State and Louisville. Syracuse, Clemson, UNC ad Miami are in the next 10. All but BC of these are between 56th and 73rd in REM SOS overall. BC is 86th.
Not a good look for the Hokies or the ACC.
Been saying it for years. Our schedule is soft and has been soft for a long time. A good coach should be able to get 6+ wins in the ACC pretty quickly. The ACC is full of trash teams and, unfortunately, we're one of them right now
That's some tough love truth right there. Painful, but true.
ESPN to the ACC:
is that binary?
I was just trying to make a math joke but thanks for the detailed response. i've never seen letterkenny but it looks funny
Oh believe me, I got it. There are 10 types of people in the world after all: those who understand binary and those who don't.
Letterkenny is hilarious, if ridiculously immature and crude at times. The creators had a lot of fun with it.
I see the muscle shirt came today. Muscles coming tomorrow?
"Now if you hit me and I ever find out about it..."
You better settle down over there or I'm gonna come talk to you.
You gotta wake up pretty early in the mornin' ...
It's been so embarrassing for awhile.
Not enough work, or not enough praise?
I also found this to be ambiguous - I took it to mean he didn't think the praise was enough
I think Godfrey underplayed the success of our portal recruiting. He said something to the effect of 'VT portalled because they had to.' He failed to acknowledge that we went out and got the second best WR available, a 4-star dual threat QB, an RB that had an offer from UGA, etc.
To be fair where it objectively wasn't enough is offensive line. That is going to be our limiting factor for probably the next two years. Frady is a good pickup, but if we had gotten another solid starter I would be feeling at least 1-2 wins better about the season
Better here than other thread. As you can tell, I'm a PATT :-)
Given Crook's past fast turnarounds on the OL at WVU and Cincy + OL experience (yes I know no depth) + Tuten looking like a stud in limited reps in the spring game + depth and experience on DL + Wells improvement + legit talent at LB and CB = this team way outperforming preseason predictions.
Have a bet on O/U wins and I have 8, co-worker has 6.
I would be extremely happy with 8 wins. 6 wins would still be a step in the right direction.
For where we are now. Make a bowl game and move forward.
8 wins is to tough to see right now, but damn would that be great to see.
Got around to listening to the SZD pod. Even though they gave a pretty lackluster prediction for VT this year, I was happy to hear them rip into Miami. Always makes me feel better hearing about how dumb they are.
Quote of the pod for me:
That is just gold.
Godfrey and RJ together without Alex is always a trip. The segment on Miami made me laugh too.
There is no better sports podcast going right now. Do I watch CUSA games? Hardly. Do I love hearing them talk about them? Absolutely.
See if you can pick out the wildest lie about this post! What in the name of chatGPT is happening over there?!?
https://www.metroleague.org/virginia-tech-best-players/?unapproved=11883...
Oh?
Looks like Mike Young is going the Buzz route for player measurables.
this explains a lot about his play last year
We sometimes surprise in big ways.
Oh man, what a wasted year. Marshawn Williams and Shai McKenzie....such a shame they couldn't keep healthy.
Shai would have been a great back. He had the acceleration we haven't seen around here in a while.
I know a lot liked Williams cause he wanted to run through people, but I always felt Shai was the better back and Williams would have been a better version of Andre Kendrick.
Shane had the right idea- he really did- recruit two guys you know can play at this level- use it as a change of pace and keep them fresh on an i-formation type team. If they both stayed healthy, they would have given people problems.
Did Shae leave due to... legal issues, not injury?
Oh yeah cause you know in the 4th quarter those 2-3 yard Marshawn runs turn in to 5-6 yard runs cause everyone is tired of getting hit and chasing Shai around all game.
McKenzie, McMillian, McClease. What high hopes we had for Run3MC...
2nd best running back group name, only to Jones, Suggs and Harmony.
Ahhh McMillian- literally the only explosive guy on the team, so let's play mind games with him and bench him after he breaks off a 50 yard run on a team that begs for first downs. GREAT fucking coaching Fu. Your only playmaker- make a statement.
2014 and 2015 teams had so much talent. When you take a closer look at how those seasons went down, the records were pretty misleading. The glow up in 2016 was actually not as significant as it was perceived. I think both the 2014 and 2015 teams were more 9-3ish type teams on quality, than the 6-6 units they ended up being.
Brutally unfortunate in one score games with 5 of 6 losses by a single score in 2014, and 4 of 6 by a single score in 2015 (Miami loss still close by 10). Tons of talent all over the field, but really tough injury misfortune, particularly missing Brewer for key games.
This right here. If Brewer doesn't get his collarbone broken by Adolphus Washington in the second half of the OSU game in 2015, I think that season (and perhaps game) goes much differently. In 2016 we were a QB away from having a really good year, and Evans added that missing spark. It pains me in retrospect that Fu got ACC COY in 2016 for what was Beamer's roster. Really all we had was fools gold.
The Cover 3 Podcast will drop their win totals for the ACC pt. 2 sometime soon (maybe today), and based on how the first half of the pod went I am curious to see what they say about VT.
edit: LOL.... they all went under. Guest picker went way under, and only game he felt good about predicting as a W was ODU. Can't blame em, but might as well use it as motivation.
I would guess Bud under, Tom under, Chip over "based on media day vibes", Danny is a wildcard I would guess under. And guest picker under unless he's a VT fan
Bud never seems to like VT, but he always shows his work and gives a good explanation.
Looks like generally their takeaway from Media Days was negative in that Pry said this was going to be a slow build and pointed toward 24.
Bud seemed mortified by that actually.
Chip "Vibes Curator" Patterson
that might be the worst attempt at an anagram i've ever seen
Don't blame me, he gave himself that nickname
I mean, I expect us to be bad, but it sucks hearing people be lower on us this season than they were heading into 2022. Best case, we have plenty of bulletin board material for the season?
Guest picker did say his parents went to LOLUVA. So his take on Tech might have some bias.
Finally listened to this ep. I thought Hank (guest) did mostly a good job but his take that he thinks Pry might not last the season was extremely off the wall. He's not a professional, so I won't get too upset lol.
They're all pretty down on Wells, but over the off-season Bud and Chip have talked about Pry saying it won't be a good team until 2025. I think we as a fansbase have to remember that. Pry isn't blowing smoke up our asses, he said we're a 102 level team this year, so not as bad as last year's 101 level but not much of an upgrade.
his take that he thinks Pry might not last the season was extremely off the wall
That part definitely caught my attention. Even if we have the same record (or worse) I doubt Pry gets fired.
I do wonder how many "outsiders" think this is a possibility?
Unless there is a major scandal, serious regression of offense and defense, and the same or worse record Pry is fine. Year three there might be heat if we don't take big leaps forward but as far as I am concerned (right now) his seat is ice cold. He has said all the right things, public involvement or at least witnessing is up, recruiting is up, and interactions for future recruiting is up. Now his coaches need to do their jobs and develop and win.
Do you listen to cover 3 a lot? I love Bud but I hate most of the other guys there (Danny Kanell suggesting VT hire Gary Patterson to replace Fuente had to be one of the dumbest things I've ever heard)
I do listen to Cover 3. I also don't care much for Danny lol, and I only listen because of Bud. I followed him from late-stage PAPN to Barton and Bud to Cover 3.
The Athletic doesn't think too highly of our chances to win this year. 17.1% chance of 6+ wins. =^/
Edit: They also say this in the Best Bets section:
Not including any more text, because I'm not sure where the line is about quoting parts of paywalled articles.
Have a link? Would be great to know their methodology.
The Athletic runs behind a paywall, so we can't link the article here. But this is what the author says about his methodology (not much):
Who's the author? Seems like the same general methodology as SP+ or FEI.
Austin Mock
Honestly, the health and progress of the O-Line will be the difference between stopping to these expectations or generously exceeding them.
I think we are the team in the ACC with the greatest disparity between our ceiling and our floor
A questionable OL and probably the same QB that were in the 120s last year is not a recipe for success. I'd take under 6 wins.
In all honesty, you have to caveat Wells performance last year with the lack of anyone to throw to.
I don't put much stock into how he played last year.
I am amazed at how many people completely and I think rather conveniently ignore that players can grow and get better in an offseason. It's like they believe if you failed once you can never succeed after that. I would hate to have to deal with people like that in my every day life. I don't know how people with that kind of negative mindset ever get anything accomplished.
Purely looking at the stat lines between Marshall and last year at VT might be a reason to make a trend line here
Sure there's plenty of caveats to throw in there (new system, no WR, poor OL) but like he also wasn't lighting the boards up at Marshall and was a turnover machine there too...
Look at his stat lines from 2020 to 2022, wells had higher than you would like to see int number, but otherwise statistically played well at Marshall, took a huge step forward passing from 2020 to 2021, and the a huge step back in 2022 (I wonder why /s). I don't think his body of work at Marshall is as much of an indictment if his quality of play as you are implying.
I need to see the coaches actually develop one of our players (any player) before I go into a season expecting one player (much less multiple units) to improve. The defensive staff has earned some benefit of the doubt with their work in the secondary and linebackers (mostly Lawson) last season. Mines turned a walk on into a #1 receiver. He's earned trust.
On offense, we have a first time QB coach, a struggling offensive line that only goes 3-4 players deep, and a returning (but still inexperienced) OC who has never ran an effective offense.
I think don't think Wells is nearly as bad as he played last season. But I think his ceiling is being a poor man's (healthy) Michael Brewer.
It is possible Wells improves. It is also possible that he is what he is. He threw a lot of INTs at Marshall. He's going to have to grow up a lot to make a positive impact. He may have better targets to throw to this year but he will also be behind an even less experienced OL so his protection doesn't figure to be fantastic. The jury is still out on whether the running game will help him at all either. I think the commentary on Wells (fair or not) is also a little bit a commentary on the offense generally. He wasn't set up for success last year and I'm not sure he'll be set up for success this coming year. Our offense has a long way to go to get to a level fans will approve of and it's not going to happen in one off-season.
One player improving in the off-season isn't the missing piece that this offense needs. Our offense has been pedestrian for decades and needs to be completely overhauled. That's not Wells' fault. But it's also not something that Wells alone can fix. It's going to take time. It's going to take upgrades at every single position. Ostensibly, we've upgraded our WR room. But we still have TEs, RBs, OL, and QB to upgrade before we get to a place where we can roll out an offense in the top 50. I will be SHOCKED if our offense is better than 90th by the end of 2023. I hope it is. I would be ecstatic. Also, shocked. I don't think Wells is the problem. I also don't think he's part of the solution. The solution isn't on campus yet, and likely won't be for another year or two. (also, the solution isn't just one player...the solution is several key upgrades across every offensive unit, including QB)
This team will be lucky to get 6 wins. And that's mostly because this offense just isn't ready yet. It's a multiple year rebuild (thanks, Fu/Corn) that will likely take until 2025 before we see a real jump in the rankings.
If you are referring to Grant Wells, he has a significant body or work/snap count to make a fair assessment on. He is not going from his RS freshman year to starting. He's played a lot of college football. Can he improve? sure he can. Does he also show a consistent pattern of turnovers that doesn't typically change drastically on QBs that like to sling it around so to speak ? Yes. Both things can be true.
Last year Grant Wells threw 9 interceptions in 11 games, with 4 interceptions in the first game again ODU. So for the last 10 games, he threw 5 interceptions. That's 1 interception every other game, which is fully acceptable. Now he needs to throw more touchdowns and score more points.
Fair point. 4 ints in one game skews the numbers. Those 4 being against an internet school clouds the mind too. But part of the reason we are arguably the worst offense in the country is that we shrunk the playbook down to avoid said interceptions/tendencies. End result is the same in terms of Wells. Do you trust him to sling it?
I had a shower thought last night that I think we'll know a lot about this team after the first two games. I think each of the first two games comes out to about ~3.5 games we could expect to win.
Beat ODU and lose to Purdue - probably a 4 win team. Beat them both and there's a chance we could win 6-7.
I think the first scenario is more likely (and so does Vegas and the Athletic), but that's sort of how I'm approaching expectations for the season.
Bill C's ACC Projections are out. SP+ has VT winning 5 games (2 or 3 in conference wins), improving to 90th on offense (from 125th), and finishing 65th overall (up from 90th last year). Here's his ACC rankings:
A blurb about Tech:
He also ranks Ali Jennings as one of his 10 ACC players to watch.
Common informed Bill Connelly W.
There were a lot of bad stats to come out of last years offense but OOOOOOOOOOOFF
For i dunno - 20? years? VT's offense has been way too predictable. We rarely throw on first down, so that's one out of 3 downs where you can scheme accordingly. So we way too often throw it on 3rd down- hello- teams know that and pressure the QB accordingly. Sacks come from being predictable as much as they come from poor O line play.
man, I miss the days where they knew we were gonna run on first down...and we get 6 yards anyway.
Like the 1983 game at Lane North when we averaged 9 YARDS on first down!
NOBODY runs on UVA! ;^)
Ah yes, the '83 squeaker. The first VT game I attended in person. I used to have the bumper sticker as well.
What are you talking about? 3rd down is 100% a qb run for 8 yards when there was 10 to gain. It's been our go to move for a while now.
People keep failing to mention Tuten, who I think is going to put this offense on his back a la K. Herbert
(I have a feeling this gif will get a lot of run in the next few years.)
So, maybe more of the focus in regards to S/S improvements should be on our rankings more so than the W/L record comparisons?
If we won 5 games and jumped up the rankings as predicted, without getting to granular would you (all of us) be satisfied to a large degree?
I myself, may be so inclined
as long as recruiting continues to improve, I'm fine 5-7.
Edit for Context:
PSU's recruiting under Franklin improved from 31 -> 24 -> 14. There were two straight .500 seasons, followed by a breakthrough season in 2016. I don't expect VT to be recruiting at a top 15 level in 2 years, but if we can be comfortably recruiting at a top 25 level, I'm willing to wait a few years to get a winning record.
Yeah. Recruiting has to be good. And I hope it gets better. I think 5 wins is a reasonable expectation for 2023. But if we don't get better athletes we won't stand a chance of winning more games in the future.
With BALANCED top 20 ish recruiting, VT can compete for the ACC and win 9-10 games, IMHO. What we can't afford is the 25 and 26 classes to be in the 50's, etc.
Disappointed, yes. Understanding, Definitely.
At five wins, I want to see signs that the offense is getting better. Better calls, etc. I would love to not be able to predict the offensive play calls.
Which is a state that Virginia Tech football has NEVER been in.
The only play call I knew Ricky Bustle was going to call was the "Ricky Bustle special". It seemed like after every turnover for the other team, he called the long bomb.
I think the development of the coaching staff is going to be the big improvement this year. Coach Pry can concentrate totally on being the Head Whistle. And the offensive coaching changes are going to lead to a more coordinated approach on that side of the ball. I am really hopeful that the offensive line play will improve. Coach Rudolph may be a great line coach; but I don't think he was a good fit last year. And we have talked quite a bit about the lack of direction overall. I suspect there was some misunderstanding among the O staff about what was expected last year and that lead to coaches going in different directions. I hope this year will see a staff united in their approach and I hope that leads to some improvement.
If we can just clean up penalties and stupid mistakes, we should be much improved. We've added skill players at RB and WR that should help greatly. Quarterback has to be as good or better. Couple this with the coaching changes and united approach you mention, I'm hopeful we see a marked improvement if we can get the line to be serviceable.
I think it's definitely an X Factor aside from the roster changes, that's being overlooked.
Some of the offense strategy decisions or divisions of labor were head-scratching last year. I know what they were working with, but it still felt like they left some meat on the bone as far as game planning.
Not sure if that was too many chefs in the kitchen or what, but there was some things there that never really meshed. So I hope there's room for some "quick improvements" if they can be a bit more cohesive in some of those areas. And when your offense looked like ours last year, anything helps.
The truth hurts. The ACC is arguably the weakest P5 conference and one reason for that is the recent decline of VT as a respectable football program. The coastal division in particular (up until they did away with divisions last year) was absolutely the weakest in the P5 and arguably weaker than some G5 divisions. I mean, we're talking about Duke, GT, Miami, Pitt, unc, uva and VT. That lineup of teams ain't scaring anyone. When DUKE is the beat team in that group you know it's poverty. It's a goddam crime what Fu and crew did here.
"P5 and arguably weaker than some G5 divisions"- nah man. Seriously. GT under Paul Johnson would run a G5 team off the field on most occaisions. UNC has always had talent. Miami we like to make fun of, but they are not a g5 level team. The past couple years- maybe, but UNC has been competitive and Miami hasn't been a 4 win program either. It's bad, but its not g5 bad week in week out
lol. dude, Paul Johnson hasn't coached in 5 years. That's an eternity in college football. UNC and Miami have talent, I'll give you that. But they do less with more and are soft as a baby's bum. Basically, your argument is that in the last few years there are two coastal teams that would probably win a G5 division. I think that's a pretty good argument in favor of the ACC Coastal being "arguably weaker than some G5 divisions"
No, I think VT- or insert whoever you want here - Duke etc- would have won a sunbelt division in the covid year or even 21 honestly. I think the coastal is better than a G5 division, yes- no qualifiers.
It's not very easy to compare divisions, to be honest. So this is probably a silly debate but I was curious how much of a gap there is between the ACC Coastal and the Sunbelt (since you mentioned them, even though they're not the strongest of the G5 leagues - that would be the American Athletic Conference)
The Sunbelt has two divisions (A and B). Division A looks stronger than B so I'll focus on Sunbelt A vs ACC Coastal. I looked at overall records for each team in each division and then how they performed against P5 opponents (for Sunbelt) and G5 opponents (for ACC).
Given my premise (that the ACC Coastal is arguably weaker than a G5 division) here is what I found.
The Sunbelt Group A teams had a combined overall record of 45-41. The division's combined record against the P5 was 4-5 registering wins against ND, Nebraska, Texas A&M and VT. They posted losses to Louisville, UNC(twice), South Carolina, and UVA.
The Coastal had a combined overall record of 43-42. The division's collective record against the G5, specifically, is 7-3 with wins over Temple, UCF, Western Michigan, Southern Miss, App State, Georgia State, and ODU. They had losses to UCF, MTSU and ODU.
I would say that, based on this very rough analysis, there is not much of a discernable difference between the Coastal division of the ACC and the best division of the second best G5 league.
Maybe I can't say that the ACC Coastal was weaker than a G5 division. But I don't think you can so definitively refute that either. It seems to me to be a pretty small gap. I think if you drop any of the top 4 Coastal teams into the Sunbelt they would likely be top 3 in the division but nowhere close to guaranteed to win the division. Similarly, if you took any of the top 4 Sunbelt teams and dropped them into the Coastal they would most likely finish near the top of the division but nowhere near guaranteed to win it.
Brutal
There is no reasonable college football fan, or VT fan for that matter, that would think the ACC Coastal is better than most G5 conferences/divisions. Sure, there may be one good (according to ACC standards) team, but it really is a whole pile of shit atm.
And until anyone in the coastal is beating G5 teams by 4+ scores regularly, this will continue to be the harsh reality.
Miami did get smoked by a G5 team last year, for the record.
Until Miami is Bak, they will get smoked by somebody every year that they were expected to roll. That is the biggest sign that they aren't Bak yet.
And being 100% truthful, I am perfectly fine with that happening to them forever. I don't care if it's "better" for the ACC for it not to happen.
I would love for Miami to never qualify for a bowl again. I hate them more than LOLUVA.
Jalen Lane with 4 catches for 135 yards in that game
There were a few questions above about how returning production/transfer portal impacts SP+ rankings - Bill Connolly talks about this a bit in this week's episode of 'The Football Analytics Show'. I haven't finished the episode yet, and I don't expect any VT talk, but it's a really good listen. When he talks through specific examples, it makes it a bit easier to understand what stats he cares about, and why they impact his projections.
One specific example is the USC defense, which returns 70% of it's production. Given the quality of that production, Bill C expects that their defense will give up 2 points less per game (against the median FBS team). He goes on to talk about Grinch's scheme, and how his defenses are good at making big plays, but due to roster deficiencies on the front 6, they are not efficient. He then goes on to discuss that if one of the new players on the line can improve the pass rush, it would likely increase USC's success rate (the key efficiency statistic in SP+), which could elevate their defense into the top 40.
It's really cool how he can quickly and understandably translate scheme and personnel moves into statistics and probabilities that inform his projections. It's the primary reason why I enjoy (and evangelize) his work.
Calling out the Two Deep fellas, I know y'all hang around here.
tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk
The number of times I have explained that Clemson is not nearly as 'in the middle of nowhere," or remote as Blacksburg (perhaps most importantly, in terms of perception by recruits in relation to talent hotbeds...) on this board only to have you say that to Spencer Hall... I am not upset, but I am disappointed.
wow not even two weeks removed from this comment and Clemson Chris is making an appearance
Wait did spencer go on the 2 deep pod?
Yep! They did a season preview in a "Finding Wins" format with Spencer Hall that dropped yesterday.
Oh shit that's big time
Is he decent? I've seen he was on SECN with Richard Johnson a couple times (just clips, I will never watch that network, unless Virginia Tech joins the conference). But he's also semi-annoying on twitter from what I've seen
He's basically the inventor of the college football blog (literally - he was one of the first people to build a following without being on a mainstream media platform). The Shutdown Fullcast, Hatin ass Steve Spurrier, the charity bowl... dude is an absolute legend.
I think you can set up parental controls so that Richard Johnson is never on your TV
Okay, so I finally listened to the episode, and it was great.
Spencer's commentary on the perception/standing of our program was both sobering and optimistic. Basically said we are a top school in the third quartile of college football. That puts us right on the bubble of the seemingly inevitable 'college football premier league'
Regarding Clemson's location - they didn't explicitly say this, but they hinted at it - Clemson's location challenge is more about the number of really good nearby schools (all of whom are competing for the same talent). VT's location challenges are more around how remote it is, and asking recruits (and their families) to travel 3-5 hours each time they come to campus. BUT I agree that the offhand comment about Clemson being 'in the middle of nowhere' was hyperbolic/a little 'fast and loose.'
The Athletic ranking us 88th in their 133 team preseason poll. Last year we finished at 103. Source.
I will gleefully take 88th after 133rd last year. I would love to be in the top 25, I would be happy to be in the top 50. I will definitely be okay in being in the top 100.