Well, not the outcome we all wanted, or even anticipated. But here we are, 1-1.
The game started out horribly, with the defense looking like a wet paper bag and the offense being stubbornly committed to that muddled up Inside Zone. that Bowen likes so much.
I like how we adjusted, on both sides of the ball. Bowen seemed to have made a slight adjustment in the run game, but Purdon't countered which negated anything Bowen wanted to do (he was one step behind all night). And Marve seemed to have made some solid adjustments that had the defense playing really well, until they simply got gassed.
I have no idea why the Drones decision was made with two minutes left in the game. I wanted to see him much earlier; after it was clear that Wells simply couldn't complete a forward pass. Just seemed like it wasn't a well thought out decision. In any event, I hope Drones is the man going forward. If Wells is the best we have we really do need to begin preparing for the future - giving Drones the snaps so he can gain experience and confidence along the way. And who knows, this may help our running game out which pilled up a whole -2 yards rushing tonight.
Gonna be a loooong season FAM
Comments
Fam. We could've packed it in at 17-0.
um, one of us doesn't understand what FAM means I think...
Well, I was trying to "FAM", because I really do think tonight was better than most anything we saw last season... that's why it is a "FAM(ish)" thread...
I could be off though...
I'm with ya on this
"Fam-ished" seems accurate.
Rebuild is not going to be quick (and no guarantee of success), we're seeing incremental progress under the lens and we may as well count the moral victories.
Probably not going to get a lot of real ones this season.
Just gotta keep building up the program, stone by stone
I'll echo what I said in the GDT.
I'd be more upset if the issue wasn't abundantly clear that we just don't have the talent to execute the plays the coaches call. I have lost count of the number of times our linebackers just completely lose gap assignments during a running play. And offensively, our run blocking is terrible, which is aided by opposing defenses who don't honor the pass because our QB is pretty much incapable of improvising beyond the predetermined play, and even then is too slow and methodical with his route progressions and as accurate as a sawed off shotgun on any pass of more than 5 yards. Guys are open offensively, and defensively we have guys who should be there to make plays, we just don't.
The only thing we can worry about right now is recruiting. We need talent. It's really hard to evaluate these coaches right now when you just see mistake after mistake by the players themselves.
We do need to upgrade the talent. And I thought the LB's & Safeties did a better job tonight of "gap fitting" (Now, tackling was a totally different issue tonight. Looked like the last 5 or so years of Bud's group). However, the position that lacks talent the most IMO is the QB position. We need a P-5 QB on the roster in a baaaaad way. Any sense of competency in that room and we win this game easily IMO (that and a bit of a run game).
If the opposing defense had to honor the passing game at all against us, it would help open up the run. But as it is, they don't have to, and we are incapable of making them pay.
This is a lot of where I am. Certainly I wanted a W today and it stings that it was within grasp, however I can actually see the vision and what our coaches want to do and I don't hate it. I also see that the penalties, execution errors, and generally shooting ourselves in both feet and dick at the same time have drastically reduced.
Two games in and I'm not scratching my head like "WTF is happening" because that happened so many times last year. We need to get more playmakers in the program like yesterday.
That's some magic bullet!
What I don't get is that Wells made some really good looking throws last week. And put a couple in the perfect spot to be catchable by our guy but not a defender. My guess as to why he can't do it consistently is he pressures himself mentally that he HAS to make the play, and then he psyches himself into throwing the ball too hard or some other "touch" or finesse problem. I wonder if he'd do better if we took an early lead rather than playing catch-up?
Wells is just a good practice QB...IMO
I mean, yeah I completely believe it. I completely believe that Wells is able to execute predetermined plays in practice when the coaches are hyper-focused on making sure the team executes. But in a game situation where you have to improvise, he struggles.
In an ideal situation where the team was talented enough to execute the plays, Wells could be good, but on this team, he's always going to struggle. And unfortunately, his struggles are a big reason why we spin tires as a whole.
Remember way way way way way back in the day when we would be beating the hell out of a lesser opponent and we would trot out a fifth string QB with a name you'd never heard or or barely remembered...that's about where I'd put Wells.
Ok, maybe he's not that bad, but there are plenty of teams in every sport at every level replete with guys and gals that look great in practice, but can't get it done come game time.
Except, like I just pointed out, he did well against ODU after he settled down. That's why I think he might do well if we took an early lead.
Yeah but either way he's too streaky to be consistent enough to count on him winning you games. He's a known quantity at this point. I would start Drones next week and see what you've got before going into ACC play. Although it likely won't happen, I would go that direction since I think he provides more upside at the position. We need more of a playmaker at QB and Wells is just too hot and cold and indecisive at times to reliably count on.
Drones provides more upside? Based on what? Wells completed 50% of his passes, while Drones was 2/7, or less than 30%. Wells was 58% last week, which I'm sure is much better if you throw out the first quarter. So while Wells may be streaky, he may still be better at passing.
You are relying on a very small sample size, and a last ditch effort at that (that's on the coaches). I think it is completely unreasonable to expect more from wells (I.e. being more like Hudson Lard (sic. That's what his uni said all game) than BB. Bowen also needs to get his head out of his nether parts or someone with an Xbox live acct needs to start calling plays
If I'm basing something of a very small sample size, what EXACTLY is the basis of Drones having a bigger upside? We don't have anything EXCEPT a very small sample size, and that sample is what I gave. What am I missing?
That we know wells ceiling is the floor.
Drones can run better. And with an OL like we have this year, that's a big upside. He's got a decent arm, and the same can be said for Wells. I would start Drones with a short to medium leash. See what we have there. Maybe he's lightning in a bottle and just can't show it in practice, maybe he's a true backup. But find out. There's no harm in finding out at this point. You know what you have come game day in Wells. You have no idea with Drones. What's the worst that can happen? He throws a stupid pick by throwing to something that might be there? Seen that out of Wells multiple times. Start Drones.
My thoughts exactly. We know what we have with Wells. Start Drones and see what happens. If he struggles, throw Wells back in. If he plays well, we have two games to give him some time and feel him out before we start our ACC schedule.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying wells is great and a franchise QB or anything. I'm just saying he had some really good looking throws, and a pretty darn good completion percentage if you take away the first quarter, and no INTs. I know he can be inconsistent, but it's possible to be a lot worse than that.
And not all of our backups are going to be Hendon Hookers. I'd just like to see more of Drones before we all start thinking he's going to go in and be as good or better than Wells.
There was no excuse for the second INT by Wells. Abhorrent. Cam Allen was telling Wells to check to a fade with his alignment pre-snap. You don't throw a slant against that level of cartoonish inside leverage.
That said, Drones isn't a panacea for better decision-marking. I won't spoil the review, but he made a potential game ending choice in his drive that was a bit of a red flag for me. The choice for starters this week hinge on two things- 1) Lane's health, because if he is 100% you have to get him the football and 2) Wells health.
Plus, he stared it down for what felt like 45 minutes. I have a fake knee and probably run a 4 minute 40 time now and I probably could have picked that pass off.
The DB is like 1 maybe 1.5 steps from where he aligned at the start of the play when he makes the INT, he nearly does not move.
One of those late series stops to force a punt was because the LB stayed home in their gap and was able to hit the runner hard enough to stop him in his tracks.
It was so obvious why the stop worked I shouted it out to my wife.
The camera and was perfect and is an obvious coaching tool to show how and why the defensive run stop scheme works when executed.
That was so scatterbrained on offense.
Terrible, we're prob gonna lose next week too
Yeah, Rutgers is a tougher opponent IMO.
We got 6 extra hours to drink DAMFAM
I will give the coaches some credit as (with 5 hours of extra time) they made adjustments that helped get us back in the game. Problem being, they still seem to be day late dollar short when Purdue made their own adjustments.
Defensively, they played about 2.5 solid quarters. Got gassed at the end, but have to also consider that they would have been on the field far less time had they been able to not let a walk-on RB consistently get 2-3 extra yds after contact.
Slow starts have been a consistent problem since Pry took over which makes me concerned that other Staffs are finding it easy to identify tendencies in what we do.
Love Pry as a rah-rah guy and that he does all the executive things that Fuente simply didn't but I have serious concern that, at the core, he has a similar problem as Fuente--that the coaches behind him simply aren't good enough.
TLDR: incomplete game; didn't show up at beginning of either half, just after the rain delay
FFS if he was that hurt why play him at all in the second half. Especially watching us spin our tires like that after halftime
It was obvious he was hurt and idk why they didnt pull him at half
Pure CJF energy
Lol...
Yes, putting a cold QB in on the last drive of the game down 7 is extremely tough...which begs to ask what the logic was in the decision when he clearly could have gone in mid-3Q.
I find my confidence in this Staff eroding bit by bit.
Agreed. Pretty rough on both QBs when the wrong one is on the field for the better part of the half.
Starter is hurt and can't play? This should not be a difficult decision.
Did he perform well enough in the snaps last week that we'd be convinced he'd do better?
And how much of it is on Wells saying he could play?
I think we're judging Pry with the same lens as Fuente not playing Hooker earlier, and I doubt it's the same. (But maybe I'm wrong)
Our coaches are green and living in a dream world that coach speak wins football games. Games are won by execution and familiarity of a game plan and set plays. Coaching is also making in game adjustments to wrinkles the other team is exploiting.
He was clearly playing on one leg in the 4th. Wells knew he couldn't run on some of those plays he stepped up but didn't run for the 5 yards available. Should have pulled him 3 series earlier.
Also didn't help him that Gosnell was the only receiver that could get separation. Our WRs, without 0 and 83, are bad.
Didn't Tuten get a great checkdown pass? I thought I rememebred him working hard near the sideline to get great extra yards.
What the hell?!? So Pry and Bowen willingly left Wells out there to sling it when he couldn't even step into his throws????? And didn't make a move for Drones until the last drive of the game?!? Bush league coaching job there...
Rod Gilmore: "Drones knows the entire playbook"...was it hyperbole or did someone tell him that...
Also, never ask Rod if you should go for it on fourth down! 🤣
Rod is always in 4 down territory.
But what does the card say...4 and three or less...go baby go.
The thing that concerns me here is this is exactly HH v. BB and the pugilistic trotting out of the "starter"
... Makes you wonder why we didn't put Drones in sooner, eh?
Wells walked off the field to the locker room after our last score in the second half and before halftime. That should have been the clue that his ankle was hurt enough to not even stay on the field. If it wasn't fixable during a shortened halftime, Kyron should have been given a shot to start the first series of the second half. Instead, a poorly thrown ball got tipped a bit into a diving interception, which I think was Wells'
firstsecond INT of the game.EDIT: Second INT of the game and second of the season
It's clear that Wells was a different guy coming out of halftime. But I'm clear in my thoughts that he was adamant that he was good to go for the second half. What real competitor wouldn't say that? The coaches have to manage the player's physical and psychological well-being, therefore let him work thru the adversity. When it wasn't happening after a tight second half scorewise, they bring in Drones. He probably gets the tying TD 30% of the time on the drive? I think the coach did alright here. Beat me up if you want.
I like Grant and think he can do well but also think that the timing of the QB change to start the second half could have been better timed and would have placed Kyron in a better situation than giving him the ball with 91 yards to go and only 2.5 minutes to make it happen at the end of a very long day.
even more infuriating... if he was hobbled then why the hell did they let him play another 28 minutes of gametime before getting Drones in there?????
No one can post on your F-Matt Ryan post so I'm replying here. Nice work.
Jaylen Jones stood out in a bad way a few times last week. He stood out in a good way several times tonight I thought.
Pretty positive sign for a guy that was playing WR last year
Seconded-very strong game
Yeah, I thought he looked pretty good tonight.
I was not able to watch after the delay, but I was griping pretty hard about Jones at the start of the game (positioning and missed tackles). I'm glad he ended up turning it around.
I didn't watch. Do we suck?
Short answer: yes
Long answer: yes
But less than last year!
Yeah that makes me very pessimistic for the rest of the season. Purdue is not a good team and probably bottom 5 teams we play this year (along with ODU, BC, UVA and Rutgers)
Changing the name to the Virginia Tech Hoovers...
Don't look now, but the offensive coach (Brad Glenn) that Coach Pry let go is the offensive coordinator at Cincinnati... yeah, the Cincinnati team that put up 216 rushing yards against Pitt.... I know there are more variables to that equation, but it still bears weight IMO.
Not sure what you mean by "let go". But for the sake of clarity, Brad Glenn chose to leave.
He was subordinate to Bowen and is clearly the more qualified OC. I would leave too if I were him
He got a promotion, a raise, and got to work with one of his close friends. Who would turn that down??? Has nothing to do with Bowen/Pry.
Cincinnati also went 9-4 last year and 13-1 the year before that. Maybe, and I know this is crazy, but MAYBE Cincinnati has a better roster than what we had last year?!? There are a lot of variables, but roster is probably the biggest. So, given how bad our roster was and how good their roster likely was, just how much weight do you think them putting up 216 yards against Pitt should have?
So this is kind of off topic to game play but on topic for the game itself, our administration's lighting policy is pretty sad. My girlfriend is a high school athletic trainer and attended her first Virginia Tech game for about 8 minutes of the first quarter. She's got an app that her school uses to track the weather. 10 minutes before they called the weather delay, her phone was exploding with lightning notifications. 5 minutes before they called weather delay we were hearing thunder. As we were rushing to get to castle there was a lightning strike on the others side of the building. There was some serious danger that while it couldnt have been avoided it could have given people more time to get inside. It's pretty sad when a high school athletic trainer is seeing that weather delay coming 10-15 minutes before they actually call it.
We no longer invent the future, and we're seemingly behind and / or playing catch up in everything else when it comes to our football program. This is of no surprise.
I suspect our guys did as well, it just didn't get called until lightning at 8 miles an then took a play or 2 to get down to the refs.
You could hear the announcer at the field already giving instructions as the refs were talking it over.
It seemed to me as if VT forced the refs hand.
We are who we thought we were!
I'm not sure whether we let ourselves off the hook or not
You want to crown them...
THEN CROWN THEIR ASS
Well the headline about the Purdue win over us is front page on ESPN....
If you have VT as one of your favorites on E$PN, or you click on VT stuff there, it will be on your front page because of your previous reads/searches, etc. Just like you get ads for lawnmowers after you search online for lawnmowers.
I have zero favorites of anything on ESPN but that does make sense.
This team didn't quit down early, I guess I'll take that
22 rushes for 11 yards and your HC opining about playing two QBs postgame is a recipe for a bad season
It was negative before drones made the one run
You forgot the 5+ hours Purdue was in possession in Q1.
Paraphrasing, but Pry made a comment in the post game presser when asked about the two qb system where he essentially said that Grant has the better arm and Drones has the athleticism, the run threat, can make all the passes, and has a good feel of the entire playbook so that he feels they're dangerous together.
Am I crazy here or did he just list several things that Drones is more capable of doing compared to Wells? Also, Drones showed on those two deep passes he has that in his arsenal.
Edit: Pry also made several comments about needing to not just run up the middle each time and try to get outside sometimes too to open up the run game "even if that means getting more creative with what we do"
He clearly sees it, now can he actually get Bowen to change something?
I saw that Drones didn't have to throw 100mph for a 5 yard crossing route which automatically puts him ahead of Wells when all things else are equal
Honestly even both the deep balls he threw and missed on were fine. Like he just overthrew the one to Lofton but the trajectory was good and the throw down the sideline on the 4th and 10 was not the right decision but he put it out there.
His throwing motion is bad. Both of those balls were not close as well.
When he throws instead of pivoting he leans and picks his right foot up in follow through but his weight shift is out of rhythm. Mark it down - he will miss a bunch of easy throws and throw picks due to inaccurate passes.
I'm not saying they shouldn't play him, but his throwing mechanics aren't good at all and that's almost always a huge red flag.
Name checks out for QB commentary.
The concerning thing about this is idk how it gets fixed considering the QB coach is a former offensive lineman...
That...really sounds like he said Drones is a better QB than Wells.
So why....wh-....WHY IS WELLS STARTING
Is there not a third option that can use this year to develop?
pop watson?
Pry calling out the OC on things he's like to be improved is my only shred of hope. Our last two head coaches blindly held on to OCs who weren't getting it done but they wouldn't hear an unkind word about them. Pry gives the impression that he'll make a change when he feels Bowen can't improve to be what he needs to be. But I'll believe it when I see it happen.
Drones first completion to Wright was nearly a pick 6, went right through the LBs hands, not ready to say he is clearly the better QB.
What concerns me is that I don't think our administration is all in on football. Without that support, we're just not fully aligned and I don't think we can ever be good at football without that.
Pry can do everything he can but if the top doesn't care about football we just won't be able to compete.
I hate to say this but I think the best days of VT football are behind us. We're bad at a really bad time to be bad. I just don't think we'll ever be good again 😕
This take is tired. Purdue is probably as "in" on football as VT is as are half the schools in P5. Pry chose to hire unproven coordinators and now he's sleeping in the bed he's made. It's unlikely to improve until Pry commits to a staff that can actually coach competently.
Purdue sucks. It's not a tired take. There needs to be complete buy in for football and we just don't have that. As long as Sands is president we'll be bad at football. That's just our reality.
Pry hired unproven coordinators and from the get go I was okay with Marve since Pry is defensive, but the Bowen hire never made sense to me and he clearly is not working out. But I think Pry probably hired the best he could with the budget he has.
We know this isn't true either. Budget for coordinators is very competitive.
Tyler Bowen, Tech's offensive coordinator, headlines the group at $850,000. Chris Marve, the defensive coordinator, will make $825,000, a bump from $500K he made at Florida State in 2021.
If we've got the budget, why the fuck did we hire two rookies who have no experience? It's a fucking shitshow in Blacksburg. I have never liked the Bowen hire. It never made any sense and it's clearly not working out. We needed a veteran oc and we're hurting for not getting one.
Bowen is stinking it up at this moment yes. But Bryan Stinespring has 10 years experience as an OC in the ACC. You want him back?
As an OC. No? As a GM/recruiting analyst? Yes.
admittedly, it's too early to tell with Bowen. I think the signs are pointing to "he's not going to work out" IMO. Stinespring wasn't great but he did one thing better than I think any other OC has done (again, too early to really evaluate Bowen on this) is recruit. Stinespring's offenses weren't very creative, or inspiring. The play calling left a lot to be desired and when teams were stopping us we didn't seem to adjust well. But they were talented AF.
Say what you want about Stiney...but when he wanted to run the ball, he ran the ball. His offenses eventually imposed their will in the run game more times than not. We could have used that the past few years. That's why Fu brought in Kill- we couldn't get a fucking yard running and Fu had no clue. Its why pry brought that triple option consultant in from Army- we can't fucking run the ball. That was NOT an issue under Stiney
it helps when you have a stable of running backs that could dominate other teams. Brandon Ore. Darren Evans. Ryan Williams. David Wilson. etc. Coupled with a QB who could hurt you on the ground, we were a nightmare to defend purely because of the talent. The scheme didn't have to be very creative for us to run the ball. Because we could just out-talent most of the teams we played when Stinespring was the OC.
You're right, though. Stinespring's teams could move the ball on the ground better than we're moving it on the ground now. I remember when we used to hold teams to -2 yards rushing - I never once dreamed that we would be held to -2 yards rushing. And here we are.
The talent isn't close. Josh Ogelsby was getting 4-5 carries on those teams and that kid could play. That's how deep we were. Also - there is nothing wrong with I formation football. Michigan still runs a bit of it, so does USC. It's a solid scheme if you mix play action in there. Stiney was too predictable and conservative- a reflection of the head whistle. Then we hire Fuente- and his red zone offense is much more predictable than Stiney's. Offense sucking has been endemic at VT, unfortuneatley. But I am tired of setting records... like the fewest yards allowed by purdue on the ground.,.... EVER...
Yeah, I think you're right. Graham Harrell would be a good hire for a "veteran OC". He's making a touch under a million which is in Bowen's ballpark.
When I saw Harrell's name as their OC I knew we likely were going to have trouble. He was a Leach tree QB and "Knows" the air raid system. Most of those guys have done well translating from QB to OC.
Plus he saw our defense and prepared for it last year at WVU
That's not competitive if you want a top 60 coordinator. Holmon Wiggins makes as much as a WR coach as Bowen makes as a coordinator. We need half a mil more budget to start to get in the competitive range.
I mean if you want to look at in state then sure we pay what UVA pays as their coordinators makes 850k and 825k. So marve at $845k means we pay 1.1 % better than uva.
We are paying in the range of SEC position coaches.
We should not be benchmarking ourselves against UVa anymore, especially in football.
If memory serves, at time of hiring, they were getting top 50 coordinator pay (among public schools - so Miami, ND, USC, TCU, Baylor, SMU, etc not included) - so each coordinator was presumably being paid top 25 money for their side of the ball.
I think everyone agrees - hiring unproven coordinators as a first time head coach is a risky proposition.
Discussing coordinators' performance against each other while ignoring other factors doesn't make for a good comparison. You could do that if the talent level was equivalent on both sides of the ball, but what we had in terms of offensive talent was so much worse than what we had on defense.
I mean, we lost 3 of our starting OLine when Pry came in, plus 2 other major contributors. We had one proven receiver last year (who left at the end of the year). We had 10 RBs, one of which (King) was good, just undersized, and Thomas who seems inconsistent.
The profound lack of talent on offense bit us big last year. Pry picked up some solid receivers in the portal, but you can't get solid OLine talent from the portal, so you're kind of screwed if you don't have a pipeline. And the line seems like one of our big problem areas, and it's just going to take us time to get there. Meanwhile, our run game won't be as good as it might otherwise, and our QBs aren't going to have as much time in a pocket that a more solid line could provide, so we're more likely to get rushed throws.
This stuff we're seeing seems like it's what we would have (should have?) expected given where our roster was and where it is now. Sadly, our offense isn't going to be as good as it could be until we can get some solid line play, and maybe it gets better this year, but I'd think we'd probably see more improvement by next year.
We just ran for -2 yards against Purdue. Lol. I think it's safe to say Bowen is in over his head
We could have the best coach in the world, but give them undersized, experience-lacking players, and guess what, the line will play like shit. Hell, you could have guys who weigh 180 with tons of experience and excellent skill, and they're just going to get manhandled. How does any of that translate to how good the coach is?
Plus, we have had 3 line coaches in the last 3 years. Even if we had guys with experience, if they're getting coached differently, the guys need time to adjust.
I don't know how you expect us to be behind a weak line? Also, Tuten may be able to get hit and keep going, but he doesn't seem elusive - he's doesn't seem like he'll get past guys, so the contact starts earlier, so him dragging guys may get a couple yards after contact. I'd rather have a guy who can find a way to get 3-4 yards before he gets hit - then Drag the pile.
But we have who we have. As I said one of my comments - it's not easy to get linemen in the portal, so getting a good line behind which guys like Tuten can do well in sadly just takes time.
So mitigate that by scheme. Mix up inside and outside runs. Stick with what works. Our screen game could have absolutely killed Purdue. It was there all day and we only went to it a couple times. Bowen seems stubbornly insistent on running inside, straight up the gut, into the teeth of the defense. And we just can't. I don't disagree that our talent just isn't great. But the coaching and play calling is not doing them any favors
Yeah, I'm curious as to why he keeps sticking to that.
There has to be a reason.
Well yes, small inexperienced players typically are not a winning formula in this game. But ultimately, who is accountable for bringing the roster in? The coaches. If Bowen knew the line would struggle to run his offense, he should have addressed that in recruiting/portal. If Pry knew we had no experience at OG, he should have addressed that- its on him ultimately. And the OL coach is making 7 figures at a P5 major university- at some point he has to coach them up too.
I was giving an example. The problem is they are bringing guys in recruiting. We have 5 redshirt freshmen in the 2-deep. That's incredibly Young for a line, considering all four on the left side are r-freshmen. Maybe we could have gotten guys on the line from the portal, but we brought in a lot of receivers which we also clearly needed. And a RB. And an edge guy on D. We needed a lot of everything which is part of the problem.
Purdue may suck, but they also did overhaul a bunch of things this last offseason so they could conceivably end up as a middle of the road big ten team.
Not a major endorsement of Purdue, just a note.
Didn't Purdue make the B1G championship game last year?
FTFY.
Not true. I named 7 coordinators above we could've hired for the same price as Bowen.
What is "that"? I keep seeing people say Whit's not "all-in" on football, but I don't know what that means. It sounds like some want us to slash the budgets for all our other sports and spend it all on football, is that right? Is that what you think we need to do to be successful?
No, not quite. And I don't think Whit is the problem. I think Sands is. Steger cared about football and we were good at it while he was president. I don't think it's a coincidence that when Sands replaced him our football started the downward spiral we are now in. Successful Organizations are completely aligned on mission and goals from top to bottom. When that alignment doesn't exist, success is much harder to achieve. Sands broke that link and we're going to really struggle to find success on the grid iron as long as that misalignment continues to exist.
I believe Whit wanted to move on from Fuente when he should have earlier than 2021 but Sands wouldn't approve the buyout. Being good at football wasn't important enough to cut losses and course correct. So now we are even worse off for letting it fester
Yawn. Like Purdue is doing more?
You guys know they're not going to start Drones next week, right?
Through 2 games we are averaging 1.8 yards a carry...that's unacceptable. Scheme and play calling matter as much as talent to me, and Bowen has no clue what he's is doing because if he did he would be trying something... ANYTHING to get production, but he's leans on the same dumbass inside runs that don't work. Additionally, the fact that between him and Pry they didn't make the move to replace Wells once it was clear he couldn't be effective and they knew he was injured gives me doubts about the capability of this staff.
With Jennings and Lane out, we essentially have last years WR core out there for awhile...and with no run game? This season may be a really long one.
I mean we ran the speed option with a qb that was on one leg, so he did try something. /s
I'm too drunk to read through y'all comments and to taste this chicken. I'm just going to go DC on this:
We're the ACC's version of Nebraska - we expect to be a good program because of our history but turns out, we're irrelevant.
I'm glad y'all like Pry. We're "building relationships in the commonwealth" and he's "so affable". We went 3-8 last year and we couldn't beat Purdue. Turns out an elite recruiter (Deion) or an elite tactician (Elko) wasn't the play, it's the guy who's best at shaking hands and kissing babies. I'm glad y'all like your open practices and recruiting players from Virginia who couldn't help us beat Purdue.
Buckle up fuckleheads, it's going to be a bumpy ride.
Sadly for the short term, Elko inherited more talent at Duke than Pry inherited, and Pry also didn't get a Heisman candidate at the QB position.
But this year's team is better than last year's, so he's moving in the right direction, even if it isn't as fast.
You're right, though, stay buckled up, because the ride back is going to be bumpy.
Riley Leonard wasn't a Heisman candidate in 2021 when much of the talent of this VT roster shell shocked the core of that Duke roster 48-17...Leonard has good coaches which have developed and maximized his abilities.
Pry made a crap hire at OC cause it's his boy (sound familiar?), and then yesterday when he kept knowingly sending a player who was injured and ineffective back out on the field until the very end of game is asinine in my opinion.
Shedeur Sanders is the Heisman quarterback I was referring to.
Yes, I like Elko. But I'm not sure how close VT was to ever getting him, and crying over spilled milk isn't a particularly pretty sight. My point was that Duke as a program was in better shape when Elko took over. One game doesn't tell the whole story.
That's a huge leap of logic. The Duke Program Elko took over went winless in the ACC the year before and the "less talented" VT program dominated them in Fuente's swan-song game. They were quite literally one of the worst teams in ACC history.
While Leonard is clearly more talented than any QB VT has, he was pretty unproven.
Elko did two things very well - found guys in the Portal that filled gaps and fit his system and hired experienced coordinators. He didn't hire a fired NFL position coach with 1 year at Fordham on his resume.
So while off the field, Pry has been great, Elko has clearly been more effective in producing on-field results.
Is it a huge leap of logic?
While Leonard is clearly more talented than any QB VT has, he was pretty unproven.
If VT has Leonard, I think they win that game yesterday. It will take a couple of years before the offensive line is competitive. Duke is ahead of VT in personnel in those positions.
But I don't disagree that VT could use more experienced coordinators.
Your statement was that the Duke program was in better shape when Elko took over...by nearly any measure it was not.
The OL that was ahead of ours was bolstered by 3 Transfers that Elko brought in. Even this year's team, half the starting secondary is transfers.
Elko has done a better job than Pry, period.
To imply that his job was easier is ludicrous.
by nearly any measure it was not.
Any measure?
Let's just go with bowl wins.
When was the last time VT won a bowl game?
I'll help you out. 2016
How many has Duke won since 2016? 3
My point, which you're arguing with, is that Fuente sucked the life blood out of the program, to where we're even having this debate.
While I like Elko, Pry is the guy. Either get behind that, or prepare for a few miserable years. Because if incremental improvement isn't going to be satisfying, maybe it's time to find a new fall hobby.
Dude....if you are seriously going to try and make an argument that Duke winning 3 low-level bowl games since 2016 (Temple and N. Illinois are big wins BTW) is akin to Duke Football being overall healthier than VT Football, then I will let you die on that hill.
As with most of your "points" your cherrypick random facts to support weak arguments. Just stand up and admit you are wrong.
2021 Duke Football was by any measure one of the worst football teams in the past 20 years. THEY LOST ALL OF THEIR ACC GAMES BY AN AVERAGE OF 30 POINTS. The team Elko inherited was not at all in better shape than the team that Pry inherited. He has done a better job than Pry.
The only reason this is an "argument" is because you continue to twist facts to try and wring out some life for your take which simply isn't there.
Ding ding ding
My "take" is that Pry is our coach, our rebuild is going to take years, not one season, and we may as well get on board with it.
VT and Duke were both arguably very bad teams when the current coaching staffs took over. VT, I'm suggesting, was in even worse shape because they had built up a lot of baggage during Fuente's tenure, and had retained very little talent into the Pry regime. Fuente had squeezed the team dry.
VT football is a rehab project right now. Nobody thought it would go quickly. While I envy Duke's quick success, I think we should give Pry the opportunity to do the rebuild we hired him to do.
These are your words.
Below is what the ACC media voting thought of the relative merits of VT and Duke Football going into the 2022 season.
It was a bad take not supported by anything objective. Be done with it.
Ehhh let's not bury the fact people said that explicitly because we had one of the weakest strength of schedules in all of football (not just P5) last year.
Uhh....2022 SOS had VT at 73 and Duke at 77....so......
This 1000 times. Now that they're good everyone acts like it was inevitable in hindsight. No one would've batted an eye if they were 1-11 last year. In fact that's what a lot of people projected.
Uh, two teams can be bad and different levels of bad. How many players left when Elko was hired? I don't know the answer, but we had a crap ton leave. Plus, did Duke have 10 RBs? I'd be willing to bet our roster was effed up in ways Duke's wasn't.
Pry had to un-fuck our roster, which I believe included guys who were bad for the locker room.
If you have a roster you can work with, you would be two or three steps ahead of where Pry was when he was hired.
The Duke roster was complete shit. Sure our roster was pretty bad too, but one thing we both had in common was no depth or experience on the O line. Duke responded to that by bringing in TEN, again TEN transfer portal offensive linemen in 2 years. 4 of whom got starting roles. We brought in 1 portal lineman in 2 years and he turned out to be a backup.
One staff is doing their best with what they're given and going out and filling pressing needs. The other is not. I don't need to hear any more damn excuses for why they can do that and we can't. One program is Duke, the other is a legitimate top 30 program and former college football power. We can do anything they are doing and more
What's wild is how well scouted these players were. Two of those 10 was from a P5 program (Stanford and Colorado), one was from a G5 program (USF) and the rest were from FCS programs. With the exception of the Stanford player, I don't think any of these players were highly recruited.
This is not industry consensus at all. Cover 3 mentioned multiple times last season that Elko inherited a good program that was a quit team in 2021.
All anyone needs to do is see our recruiting rankings over Fuente's last 3 years and realize those classes make up the major contributors now. Spoiler: bottom 5 rankings in college football over that time and worst in the Coastal.
Yes, what Pry inherited was arguably the worst situation in football at the time. No talent, burned bridges throughout the state in recruiting, and a complete lack of transparency with the fanbase on how bad things had become. It's going to take years to recover from this. 2025 is probably the best case scenario on when we can go into any P5 game and reasonably expect a win. That's not making an excuse for Pry, that's just the reality of where we are.
I don't disagree in any way that Pry took over a mess, but a year plus into their tenures, Elko has had significantly more demonstrable success.
Whether that will continue is debatable, but to imply that he's been more successful because he inherited a better program just doesn't make sense.
It seems like the same argument that was had with Fuente..his system was struggling because Beamer was way behind in recruiting, when the reality was he was an awful executive, his OC was incompetent, and he couldn't keep a Roster together to save his life. Pry has been great in the off-the-field aspects but the things that are happening on the field are giving me alot of concern--and shifting blame for those things to Fuente isn't going to get us anywhere.
Edit: for clarity
I don't disagree in any way that Pry took over a mess
This is my point.
But to your point, Pry appears to be at least a better executive than Fuente, and that was one of his problems.
The jury is still out on Pry overall. And while I'd like to see faster results, I think he deserves a little time to right the ship before jumping off of it.
Full step. There just needs to be a shake up - purely for the shake. If we're gonna suck I wanna suck like a sun belt team going against a P5. We need to be Boise St (2009), app st over M. TCU for the entire period of VTs regression.
We have no pride stop pretending like we do. Get a little crazy.
Beamer WAS behind in recruiting. We were getting eaten alive in state and we were doing very little to actively improve upon it. And when we brought Fuente in, instead of improving upon it, we basically packed up shop and threw in the towel on getting top in state players and started gimmicks like NC2VT, FL2VT and TX2VT. What was an area of opportunity when he was hired became a critical area of weakness by the time he was fired.
And that's the exact thing. The problem we had at the end of Beamer is still there. Fuente only made that bad situation worse, allowed the rot to erode the foundation, and now we have a multi-year rebuild and renovation ahead of us just to get back to where we were when Fuente was hired.
Okay this is barely true. Those guys were not good under Cutcliffe. If you ask almost anyone, analysts, coaches, at the beginning of last year if they'd swap VT's roster for Dukes hardly any would say yes. Elko's done an elite job developing and using schemes which put them in a place to succeed.
And the one major position of need he heavily upgraded through the portal. Brought in 3 offensive linemen that were starters last year, and this year brought in 7 (?!!) 3 of which they were able to cut after spring. I was told on these boards last year that it was impossible for Virginia Tech to get just 1 transfer offensive lineman
Once the results were in, industry was labelling 2021 Duke as a quit team (notably Cover 3). Cutcliffe had developed players better than Fuente and Elko inherited a legit NFL QB. We had skinny legs and Tajh Bullock, Devin Farrell, and Ben Locklear.
Eh there were a lot pundits talking about how bad VT would be last year. I think most informed people thought the rosters were pretty similar. Regardless, Elko is significantly outperforming the raw talent his roster, and as a VT fan, it's quite frustrating that we are incapable of doing the same.
Yeah, Elko is a fairly top notch coach and tactician IMO. And he hired a very seasoned and experienced staff around him. Pry is a very sound defensive mind but I think Elko is a better pure coach. Pry also surrounded himself with a bunch of inexperience, which is risky. He definitely fits the mold of what VT wants in a head coach personality and PR wise.
I think Elko's strategy to be the nerd school transfer destination, and take the really good guys from Harvard, Princeton, NW, etc was really smart too.
it bought him a lot of time, and could be a great long term strategy for Duke
Yep, agree. I think a big program is going to come calling for Elko soon. I was pretty intrigued by him during our coaching search too. I like Pry don't get me wrong at all, but now with that tell-all piece from ESPN and info on Ballein's influence, I definitely think Pry was a comfort zone hire for the VT old guard. Not saying he can't or won't be successful but kind of gives me that feeling now.
Pry can continue to shake hands and kiss babies - IF he hires the tacticians and recruiters to work for him. It seems he did that with Mines and maybe JC on the recruiting end. Now he just needs the coordinators to run the offense and maybe defense.
Do you think Elko is long for Duke? If he keeps winning he will be gone in a year or two.
Prey's ties to the school will keep him here longer. We need stability as we focus on getting recruiting back to where it needs to be.
He's gonna be on the MSU short list this week
Michigan state? I don't think they'll eat that buyout. (They can probably afford it but I don't think they care that much).
You've missed the news - Tucker will get fired for cause soon. No buy out to eat.
Oh snap! That's great? I don't know. (I grew up in lansing. There's a lot to unpack - not sure MSU deserves good things objectively.
Holy s. Jfc. Just read (skimmed) one article.
This is exactly why I said what I said not 2 minutes ago. Problematic in the least.
Team looked better out there today even after waiting around 6 hours to finish the game. Would have liked to see Drones earlier since we are using a 2 QB offense. Wells needs some rest or practice, probably both, so he can't stop throwing behind the receiver.
Every body calling to fire a coach should probably just call this a season and go do something else on Saturdays. We ain't world beaters, hell we ain't a P5 talented football team. For some reason y'all think we have a P5 talent rich team and honestly at best we are a mid G5 team. The expectations need to be tempered A LOT. We are who we are and instead of tearing them down let's help try and build them up. Is that not what fans are suppose to do. Yes criticize but do it productively. You are suppose to want to see them get better not get someone else. Hokies support Hokies.
Everyone complaining that Purdue is a bad team and we just lost them needs to look in the mirror. WE Are a bad team.
We were ranked literally right next to them in the 60s. We had some missed throws, zero running game and two turnovers (one leading to the difference in the game).
While there is a lot to work on it's not like they blew us out of the water. Two very similar teams playing and one turns the ball over twice who do you think is winning??
I'm not pissed at the loss. It sucks but it's where we are right now. We are not the team we want to be right now in any facet and I think Pry would even say that. He said he's at a minimum looking at 2025 to get where he wants to be.
We all want to win but people are acting like we are Clemson who just lost to Duke. People say Purdue is a middling B1G team...well we are a middling ACC team at the moment. Plus they are coming off 8 and 9 win seasons so. Let's get a little bit of reality check of who we actually are at the moment.
Wins and or losses to Rutgers and or Marshall at the moment won't be surprising either way. Hopefully we can find a run game. Tuten deserves and OL.
We are a couple of ODU not gifting us turnovers from being 0-2. Enjoy the wins wherever they come from this season. It's gonna be a three hour stomach ache every game...damn you Fuente.
Quick summation....
One: Read Alum's comment from above about talent and go no further in any ongoing post game assessment.
Two: Like I said after the ODU game, put Drones in, not for a single play or two minutes, but the entire game regardless of how he executes. He need the reps and on-field time.
Three: Wells, healthy or hurt, is done. Please stop playing him. In the words of Ashley Schafer, "Let the boy watch".
Four: I don't know about you, but the fact we came back to tie it down by 17, is a big win for me.
Five, Gosnell is a butterfly-esque YAC running TE.
Last: I am totally bummed for Ali and Lane. Here's to them getting healthy and playing soon for their sake first, the team's second and we fans third.
Six: find the plays that work and make other teams react to them then have a game plan to take advantage of their reaction.
Ex: RB wheel route.
Two: put Drones in. If 2025 is the goal to be good, will Wells even be around then? See what you have in Drones, especially these next 2 games. Hell, I wouldn't mind seeing Pop Watson get some playing time. Let's see what he's got.
Is Ashley Schafer married to a Falwell?
Not this one.
Someone translate for a millennial that has no clue but that search for that name is useless and a terrifying will Ferrell Colonel sanders is all that come up
He is a TV character from the show East Bound and Down played by Will Farrell. There are some epic YouTube videos of one of the best TV characters ever created (IMO).
https://www.google.com/search?q=try+not+to+laugh+will+farrell&client=safari&sca_esv=564312032&hl=en&biw=390&bih=664&tbm=vid&ei=7Oz-ZLKfC8me5NoPuPOswAs&oq=try+not+to+laugh+will+farrell&gs_lp=EhBtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXZpZGVvIh10cnkgbm90IHRvIGxhdWdoIHdpbGwgZmFycmVsbDIIEAAYCBgeGA0yBxAhGKABGAoyCBAhGBYYHhgdSKR1UJANWMFzcAB4AJABAJgBiQGgAakXqgEFMTIuMTe4AQPIAQD4AQGKAhBtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXZpZGVvqAIAwgIIEAAYigUYkQLCAgcQABiKBRhDwgILEAAYigUYsQMYgwHCAgsQABiABBixAxiDAcICDRAAGIoFGLEDGIMBGEPCAggQABiABBixA8ICBRAAGIAEwgIKEAAYigUYsQMYQ8ICBhAAGBYYHsICCBAAGIoFGIYDiAYB&sclient=mobile-gws-video#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:8f865dfa,vid:CQP72p5D0Ew,st:0
The fact is that even with Well's shaky play, our passing game is light years ahead of last year. Look at the passing TDs as evidence.
I don't understand why we can pass block and not run block, but if Bowen/Crook can fix that we can be a middle of the road team this year. That is all I want.
I'd say the WRs are light years ahead with a QB that every now and then delivers a great pass.
We better hope Jennings and Lane's injuries are not serious and they come back sooner than later. If not, our WR room looks much like last year..
Reasons to be happy:
1) team didn't quit
2) The defense changed it up and got better
3) we lost by 7 to a Big Ten division champ who's QB almost beat Bama last year amd transfered away because the biggest name in quarterbacking came in.
4) No one else we play runs a defense like that. They did things we won't see the rest of the year.
5) there were some individual plays that make you think players are starting to get what they should be doing. Lawson had a great pass break up on a hard route to cover, Jones looked way better at safety, Dorian looks like he would have gotten reps on any past VT team you pick.
6) Gosnell was wide open all game long.
There are a lot of issues, there are a lot of players on the defense still trying to play to positions because they don't trust the other player. The run game is abysmal, but we look better than last year.
I might have missed someone else saying this, b he despite all the terrible, am I crazy thinking we maybe find a way to win if Jennings and Lane don't get hurt?
Possibly, but Wells was missing wide open receivers in the 2nd half. Who is to say he would not miss with 0 and 83 as well?
But was this when he was gimpy and couldn't step into his throws?
I believe that was the case.
Is this team better than last years team? For sure it is by the eye test. Is this team good? Nah man ain't there yet. That said if Wells doesnt throw 2 interceptions in this game we probably pull it out. Seemed like the defense had a few plays were they fit the gaps and got the stops they needed.
Play Drones next week, run the single wing, option every play, do whatever needs to be done to have some semblance of a running game.
If our 2 best relievers are going to be out for a while you'd be insane to keep trotting Wells out there, whether he's hurt or not.
Wells through one horrible interception. The other was a badly tipped ball then ended up going to the defense. If it wasn't tipped, there was no way the defense was getting an INT on that pass.
Here's my whole thing with the current state of affairs:
We're a bad football team. We knew that coming in we would be. This isn't shocking. There are definite improvements from last season, we just don't have the horses all around.
Having said that, this staff exhibits some...frustrating if not "scary" tendencies. Wells was hurt, and they knew it, but they kept him in. Bad coaching. Yeah, yeah, "green staff". No that's a bad decision and one that shouldn't have even been a question. Bowen's play calling is the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. We can't continue that rush up the middle on first down every. single. time. Yeah, yeah, "the lack of talent limits the playcalling". Well, if he keeps calling the same things, over, and over, and over, we're finishing this season with 2-3 wins MAX. The team may not be talented enough to get more than that, but at least become a little less predictable and come what may, right?
I think VPIhokieME is right, the best of Tech football is behind us. We didn't take advantage of the momentum back in the glory days and I think we're too far behind the 8 ball now to change that. We are Nebraska. Maybe I'm wrong. I really, really hope I am. Bad timing in the CFB landscape to be a has been...
we are not Nebraska, top 10 all times wins, 5 national titles, went 50 years of sellouts in their stadium. For them to be back it's a massive mountain they have to climb.
We are a historically .600 program. Frank was .660 while at VT. That's 8.5 wins. We don't have to be amazing to be good VT football.
I meant in terms of the best days are behind and the fan base thinks "we're really, really good". We aren't good. They aren't good.
Well, to be "good" VT football we have to well over the double the current average wins, get back to conference championships, and be the media darling again, and be annually ranked in the top 25. We are nowhere close to any of those.
I expected a close score, but VT was beat soundly in all three phases. Not that the VT defense and special teams were bad, but they didn't do enough to get this bad offense good field position.
The real issue is three-fold (1) O-line play, (2) QB play, and (3) scheme/play calling. They all go hand-in-hand, but VT will not get a whole let better until the offseason.
VT can correct O-line play with development and portal. QB is an issue, but somebody needs to take the reins with some moxy (Wells ain't it, not sure Drones is either). At a minimum, TBow doesn't know how to maximize the talent he has and it's unclear if he can be a good OC with competent line and QB play. But VT is unlikely to be stocked full of talent all the time (if ever), so probably need to find an O-coordinator that maximizes personnel.
As far as the offensive line is concerned, they're aptly named offensive. They're not big but they're slow. They may not be talented but at least they're unathletic. And let's not forget while they may be inexperienced, at least they're poorly coached.
I'm going to disagree a little here.
From my unpracticed eye I still see decent pass protection. We just didn't complete the passes, not on the OL.
Run game? Yes, that's OL. I still see better pass protection than last year. That's a huge step forward.
Not good but only 50% (?) as bad?
yea, it's interesting that they are decent at pass protection. I dont know how thay can give up 9 TFLs and only 3 sacks with 40 pass attempts and 22 run attempts.
For my stat geeks, thats a sacks on 7.5% of pass attempts and TFLs on 41% of rush attempts!?!
That's impressive in the "Baxter, I'm not even mad, that's amazing" type of impressive.
Just looking at the drive chart Bowen should be buying the defense lunch for the rest of the year. The offense continually put them in terrible situations and just about every time they bailed them out. That we even had a chance to tie the game at the end was basically a miracle. Defense isn't perfect but they play well enough to win just about every week.
Bowen talks all day long about running the football, then (shocker) the defense sells out to the run and we still commit to it "to set up the pass". Our response to that should be throwing the ball all over the yard, but we don't have a QB that can consistently make short to medium passes. We had the opportunity to bring in a guy like Mordecai, or Hudson Card but opted for Drones who can't throw because of some odd McSorley comparisons (who was incredibly overrated by the way, and was surrounded by NFL talent his whole career)
Hey, we aren't loluva!
Start Drones next week. If he does well enough (edited to add: well enough that we build a sufficient/workable lead) then bring in Pop (for more than a series) to see what he can do. I am not convinced Pop is not our best option. The only caveat to the above is that our WR room is banged up and so anything close to Wells' production thus far should count as an improvement. One way to help the running game is to make them account for the QB possibly running too (this would have course apply to Drones a lot more than the 175-lb Pop).
Edited to add clarification
I am confused or is this a typo, did you mean to say if Drones is doing well enough, then bring Pop in...Why would you sub Drones out for Pop if Drones is playing well?
Sorry - What I meant was IF Drones is playing well enough that we have generated enough of a lead to do so, THEN we can trot Watson out to try out his capability and use one of his 4 "free" games to see what he can do.
Yeah, we don't want Pop taking a lot of hits. If he goes in, they need to be in his ear to either slide or get out of bounds. Depending on how banged up Wells is, these could be our only real options at QB.
A day removed, I have (basically) the same thoughts:
I'm in for the roller coaster, ready for the ups and downs this season brings.
I think this is very accurate and also potentially very problematic.
One of my biggest concerns with the direction of the Program as a whole is there seems to be an attitude of just trying to replicate what worked at Penn State.
And while that's not a horrible idea from a macro perspective, the current VT program is in a much worse state than PSU was when Franklin, Pry, et. al arrived.
We absolutely need more talent on both sides of the ball, but if the current coaches can't figure out how to effectively scheme with what they have, we are looking at another 3-8 year. The OL is gonna be a huge question mark next year as well, and Wells simply isn't accurate enough to be effective without a functional running attack (if Drones is less adept in the passing game its not looking to get better). At some point, accruing talent becomes really, really difficult when you're sitting at the bottom of your Conference.
I mean, if you tell me you need all 4-stars to run your scheme, that's fine, but you better land a top 15 class then. VT has never done that (maybe once the year we landed KJ, depending what services you trusted then, but at best it's an abnormality)
I'm less convinced by this tbh. I don't think recruits care about where you were; they care about what you can do for them (bag & draft)
Is it fine? Should a good coach not be capable of giving the players he has the best possible chance to succeed?
I generally get what you're saying but I also think that a good OC should be able to find a way to get the most of what he's got and I don't think what Bowen has shown scheme-wise so far is doing that.
Pry himself complained about being too vanilla on offense last year and all we have seen in the run game this year is french vanilla at best. I guess that lazy-looking speed option was new from week 1 though.
Agree...hiring a coordinator seems as much about finding the right fit as hiring the guy with the prettiest resume. See Gattis @ Miami as a clear example of that.
And the "I need 4 stars" guy was never going to be a fit at VT. Even at our best, that wasn't our roster makeup.
Honestly, I was cautiously optimistic about Bowen, thinking that maybe he was an under-the-radar guy who could make more with less. So far, results suggest he's a buddy of the H.C. who just wants to copy and paste the Penn St. Offense here, but without a talent mismatch his O doesn't work.
2 thoughts:
I agree, but I think even that is generous. I agree his ceiling is based on the talent around him and hits his ceiling when he's on, but because he is streaky, he can make others on the team not reach their potential when he is off.
He also doesn't have that confidence or moxy or it-factor or whatever you want to call it. He doesn't inspire the team around him. He just throws the ball accurately sometimes.
My issue is that good coaches adjust to what they have and try to maximize that. Sure, his gameplan may be reliant on having superior players, but we don't have that, and now our two best WRs are going to be out for some amount of time. How do we get production out of what we do have? Why consistently try to run up the middle when we don't have the OL to do that? One of the things that's impressed me about Deion is he hired 2 great coordinators. Their OC recognized the fact that their OL is tiny and gameplans accordingly. Sure that may end up being moot when they play the Oregon's and USC's of the world, but at least they're doing something (and are 2-0) instead of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole for two games in a row to try and prove that their system is good.
This is exactly my issue with Bowen and Cornelsen. They wouldn't adjust. They didn't demonstrate any amount of ability to make the most of what they have. The good ones do and we have just never seen that in Blacksburg.
I can't disagree with anything you said. This is basically what I meant when I said "I'm not sure it's the right identity (for this team or future teams)."
BTW, I love Sean Lewis, and could've gotten excited about him as a head coach hire after Fuente was fired.
Running up the gut is better than trying to run laterally and having your run stuffed 2-3 yards behind the line of scrimmage. Or were you saying we should only pass the ball?
And our problem isn't that we have tiny linemen, it's that of our 10 man 2-deep for the OL, HALF of them are redshirt freshmen. Freaking half. Including all 4 of the 2-deep at left tackle and left guard. I mean, you don't gameplan away lack of experience. You start teaching them what you want them to do, and give them experience doing it. They need the experience, reps, and weight room, but I don't think you try teaching them something different now only to teach them what you want them to do when they're stronger and more experienced.
I mean, ideally, you go back in time and have recruited linemen well enough that you aren't starting two redshirt freshmen and relying on three more in the 2-deep.
Also, not sure where you're getting that Colorado's line is tiny? On their depth chart for TCU, they have 3 guys below 300, and one is 280 and two are 290. They have 11 guys on there because they have 3 at one position. They have 2 sophomores, 3 juniors, and 6 grads (I'm assuming they're redshirt seniors). That's a whole hell of a lot more experience than we have on their line.
I'm not saying solely pass, but try something different, even Pry said they need to try something different. One of my favorite play calls of the night was the touchdown pass to Tuten because it was basically an extension of the run game. It wasn't a run but it got Tuten out in space and let him work. I just don't think it's smart to run right up the middle at 300+ lb DTs because that's what you want to be able to do.
Sorry for the poor wording, I wasn't saying our line was small, I was just using Colorado having small lineman as an example of a disadvantage they have and how they have schemed around that.
I'll fully admit that my source of Colorado's OL being small comes from listening to SZD and the Shutdown Fullcast where everything they talked about leading up to week 1 was how small they are in the trenches and how they would struggle mightily because of that and then, ultimately, how impressive it was that they were able to overcome that in both wins. I won't pretend to be an expert in that.
Im not sure how big they expect an OLine to be if most of them are 300 pounds. That seems like it would be about average for a college line.
I mean, I feel like yeah, Bowen could be doing better, but some of it is probably a lot of details, like last season we had one, just one really solid receiver. Now we have two of our most solid receivers injured. And maybe he was expecting the run game, or maybe Tuten in particular to be better in games, so he's trying to find what works, or maybe if they can get the run game going, etc.
All I know is I sure as hell don't envy Bowen. I think it will be interesting to see what he can do as we grow our team.
Couldn't agree more.
And what really bothers me is when we try and rationalize our Coaches' inability to effectively scheme and adjust on outside issues (i.e. Fuente).
Case in point, ODU and Ricky Rahne. Their offensive talent was doo doo on a stick, yet they created a scheme using wide splits that very effectively exploited our LBs inability to fit gaps and play in space. They had over 200 yd Rushing and, let's be honest, without the Turnovers would have been within 1 score deep into the game.
Our OL is not very good--theirs is worse.
Our QB is inconsistent (at best) - theirs couldn't start at Fordham.
We poached the only P5 talent they had on O from their roster.
So when I see other teams able to do more with less, the notion that somehow our coaches just don't have enuf talent to create even an average offense doesn't ring true.
This right here. It's at the point where you begin to wonder if there's some weird voodoo curse on the team that dictates we can never have a competent, creative, cohesive offense at Tech. Our only real shining moments of offensive success over the years has come not from scheme, but from having once in a generation athletic talent at RB, WR, or most importantly - QB. And as we know, those guys don't come as often (anymore), and without them mediocrity has been all but certain.
But... as you point out, this doesn't seem to be a problem elsewhere. Other teams seem to be able to work with the talent they have. And it's like we just can't have that from a scheme and staff standpoint. Either we have a Michael Vick, Tyrod Taylor, David Wilson, etc. literally willing themselves down the field with the sheer force of their athleticism in spite of our scheme and strategy, or we have only our scheme and strategy - which for three straight staffs has been unsalted mashed potatoes, vanilla pudding, white people taco night bland.
Why is this?
WHY??
My tacos are delicious.
This is exactly where I am. There are 130 teams. 124 of them are better on offense. There's no way in hell they all have more talent than we do. Our talent isn't P5 quality but we're not rolling out a bunch of kids who have never played football before.
No team in the country does less with less than VT. We have excuses for days and we keep excusing our coaches but offense has been dumb and ineffective in Blacksburg for decades and there doesn't seem to be any way to fix that. Meanwhile, teams like Colorado, Duke, odu, jmu, unc Charlotte, etc (teams that should have no business being better than VT) have no problem finding OCs who can work with the talent available to them instead of just complaining about execution or whatever.
I just don't buy the talent excuse. I know it's bad and needs to get better but there are teams with less doing more. I'm not even expecting a top 20 offense (that's what you get if you combine good coaching with good talent). I just want a coach who can build an offense that makes sense and teach the players he has to execute it. With our talent a good coach should be able to get us into the top 70.
The way I see it Purdue was a must win. If we lose next week we very likely start 1-5. With how Wake is looking that could very easily be 1-6. At that point you lose the fan base and at best the locker room morale is low. A failed season like that would make Pry's rebuild infinitely harder.
Imo the next two weeks are must wins. 3-1 you have some momentum and maybe you steal a game or two. If we split or most likely lose both, Pitt has our number and we're not beating Florida State. 2-10 with a loss to UVA is not off the table at all. If that happens Pry is all but finished, and he has to not only fire Bowen but frame it as him being the issue.
Sadly, as I look over the schedule, 3-8/4-7 is entirely possible, and maybe probable. That would not be ideal for Pry.
4 wins was kinda the expectation though
Yeah, exactly. I think it's unfair to expect this team to win more than 3 or 4 games. The schedule is tougher this year and we're still lacking a lot of pieces
Taking the job with where Fuente had us was not ideal for Pry. Anybody who thought, and hopefully doesn't still currently think, that we weren't in desperate need of a big-time rebuild was setting themselves up for disappointment.
I mean, as much as everyone complained about how horrible the recruiting was under Fuente, I don't see how anybody could think we would be even a halfway decent team inside of three years. And it wasn't just talent (or lack thereof), it was Strength and Conditioning, and possibly even the bigger problem - mindset.
Remember, we had guys who WANTED to lose our last game one season so we wouldn't HAVE to play in a bowl. I get COVID and not being able to see family, but win the damn game then opt out of the bowl (I'd have WAY more respect for that). In the immortal words of Shoresy, they didn't hate to lose, and that is a very bad mindset to have on a team.
And we had no recruiting relationships with schools/HS coaches, and probably not with younger players and parents. That makes it that much harder to turn things around.
And as for people's perceptions of Bowen. He had the most challenging job here given what we had left on offense. And sure, we can question his play calling, but, well, I could explain, but that's probably a three page post as to why that can be difficult.
The point being, as many other people on here have said - we can't expect us to be GOOD right now. Instead, we need to look at the incremental improvements. I'd say we are far better from multiple perspectives than we were last year 2 games in. And I'd say our recruiting is looking a hell of a lot better. Keep looking for improvements...
When Bowen was hired, the initial (and fair) reaction was "wtf, this guy has no major OC experience and the offenses he did work with were 'less with more' Penn State Ricky Rahne offenses of 2018, 19, 20." Of course with a new hire positivity takes over and everyone finds their own way to defend the move, but now do we really have a good explanation for why that hire ever made sense. To me it's not the least bit defensible.
Another thing I personally got a lot of flak for saying on here is that raising the salary pool means nothing if we aren't hiring better coaches. We went out and hired an offensive staff of similar quality to the previous one, and paid them twice as much. I was told it was both crazy and wrong to think that would produce similar results. Well it looks like I was probably wrong. The offense appears to be much worse than it ever was under Fuente or Cornelson.
I will give Pry props for his defensive hires, Marve seems pretty good and Cheetah Priloeau and Sean Quinn seem to also be doing well. Fuente gets credit for the Price hire. But I will add that it's not illegal for us to go get a proven offensive coordinator. Or to bring in transfer portal players at the biggest position of need
Don't forget Pry was mitigating Bowen's lack of experience with the two experienced guys under him. Bowen is supposed to be a big picture guy, relying on the details/experience under him.
The two experienced guys who are now out of the program...odd
Well, at least he got guys other teams wanted. Our previous coach may have had a tough time even if he offered to pay their salary at the other school for the first year.
Name 5 realistic (read not $2 million) OC candidates with P5 play-calling experience that we should've hired.
Here's one of my post from right after the Pry hire where I named 7 OC's we could afford (at the time):
I hope that Brad Glenn succeeds. But, why hire him as QB coach but not OC? I just don't get the TBo hire. And the more Glenn succeeds at Cincinnati and TBo fails (withouth Glenn in the box with him), it will be looked at as a major gaffe for Pry.
I really wanted Kittley. Getting Glenn would have been better than Bowen, evidently. I was pretty perplexed that we hired an OC with no experience and he hired a qb coach who had more OC experience than the oc hiring him. Like, how the fuck did we screw that up? Only VT could do something like that. We're just not meant to have competent offensive coaches, I guess.
I mean take your pick of any of the current top 40 offensive coordinators that were promoted in the past two years.
Good example is Miami hiring Shannon Dawson, it looks like they knocked that one out of the park. Duke made a great hire with Kevin Johns. Robert Anae was available in the 22 offseason. Zach Kittley was breaking records at Western Kentucky and was scooped up by Texas Tech in the 22 offseason.
And there's probably 30+ others who would've been good prospects who weren't just "Pry's buddy from Penn State"
I don't think anyone would argue with this. Everyone wanted the first time HC with a defensive background to hire a proven (if not experienced) OC.
I mean, inflation in the CFB coaching market is insane. Here's a list of CFB assistants, last updated 12/7/22. Bowen was the 70th highest paid coordinator and Marve was the 83rd (at public schools - this ignores ND, USC, Baylor, TCU, Miami, etc). Cornelson went 4 years without a noticeable raise. If we went to market with that level of pay, we would've gotten an even worse coordinator (than Cornelson).
As far as the Cornelson comparison goes, I think Bowen is a better coach, but I know he is a significant better recruiter. Much happier with Bowen than Corny. I wouldn't hate it if Bowen was replaced, but I think he gets 3 years.
I think you're right. I have been pretty vocal about how much I didn't like hiring him to begin with. I think he'll get more time, unfortunately. I think this offense is destined to finish at or near the same place it did last year, marking two of the worst offenses we have seen in 30+ years in consecutive seasons. If that happens (likely, imo) and his seat isn't on fire then I will completely lose faith in our program. I fully expect one of two outcomes by 2025. Bowen proves me (and many other doubters) wrong and is actually a very good oc, or he proves us right and is canned and replaced by a proven oc with legitimate experience.
The pass play to Tuten for the TD shows that Bowen watches film and has no problems adding in wrinkles from other teams. He watched the Fresno game and took a play that worked. He then brought it out at a great time. That alone puts him above cornelson. I'm not sure he makes it to 2025 but he's better than Cornelson.
Not to trigger but that is a low bar. Minimal consequence - and more importantly that one play was great. And. Then the entire game BT got very few looks
I fully agree with you. Finding ways to get Tuten the ball should be one of the most important things the team works on this weekend.
Can we afford to waste another year on a likely failed experiment? What if Bowen is just an okay coordinator who's ceiling with our players is the #60 ish offense. Do we keep him if the offense is #70 in the country next year because it's showing improvement?
Yeah we can wait. It's Colorado's year. Also duke. Let's coattail that
Priority #1 is recruiting until 2025. Skill positions are improving. Talent on the OLine needs to improve. When I'm not a Bowen fan! I think it's premature to call this a 'failed experiment.' Bowen seems able to recruit. As long as we're not so bad that we can't recruit, I don't see a need to ax him.
Bowen has a 3 year contract if I recall correctly. Last year we had a 125ish ranked offense (per SP+), most of us expect a top 80ish offense this year. If we have a top 60ish offense next year AND recruiting continues to improve, then I'm fine keeping him for the 2025 season (which is the first season we can reasonably expect to be in the running for an acccg berth)
What's recruiting if you can't turn it into points? There are offenses out there that absolutely would score a lot more with the talent we have.
If the offensive line sucks and it's because of lack of talent, that's 100% on Pry and Bowen. They're the ones who can change that through the portal
Pry has said he thinks it will take until 2025 to get the roster in a good place
Agreed - I acknowledged above
I think you're oversimplifying it a bit.- We went after 2 other offensive lineman from the portal and lost - but I don't disagree.
Do you really think this offense will finish in the 80's?
VT has played two games, and was playing with a gimped QB in the Purdue game, so it's a bit tough to assess that, don't you think?
Is it too early? The competition only gets tougher, particularly over the next four games. We won't have our top 2 WR's for who knows how long and our running game is averaging 1.8 yards a carry. Add that to fact you bring up playing with a hurt QB...why was he allowed to stay and risk further injury when he wasn't even playing well? I'll gladly come on here and admit I'm wrong if the offense makes strides, I just haven't seen any signs they will.
Yes, two games in is a little early to assess things.
That said, I get the "Not great, Bob" comments. So far, it hasn't been pretty.
You're right. It has the potential to be much worse, we just lost our two best players and competition will get much tougher.
Rutgers, Marshall, Pitt, FSU, Cuse and NC State all have good defenses.
it's definitely too early to make a full assessment. It's not too early to see the early signs of utter failure, though. Bowen's offense doesn't make any sense. Our top offensive playmakers are hurt. Our defense has had a very shaky start and appears to be worse than it was last year (although, to their credit, they did shut down Purdue for 2.5 quarters after the rocky start). I have more faith in our defense improving than I do in our offense. But it's marginal.
And we just played a couple of pretty ugly, unconvincing games against two of the weaker defenses we'll face this year. Fresno State absolutely torched Purdue's secondary - they won't be the last to do so either. The most frustrating part is that we didn't even take advantage of our strength (passing) against their weakness (secondary). We ran the ball 22 times for -2 yards. The screen was open all night long and we didn't go to it more than 2 or 3 times. When we did, we got first downs and and TD. Then, we inexplicably went away from it and continued trying to run it up the gut for no gain. Over and over again. Our offense probably will not reach 28 or 30 points again until we play UVA.
Seems to me that they don't have as much faith in Drones as we had hoped.
Before the season I said we could have a better team and finish with the same or worse record than last year, and it's holding true. Our competition this year is much tougher than what we played last year, so anyone relying on seeing improvement in the game by game stats is going to be in for a frustrating year.
Honestly, all of this hand wringing right now just shows that not enough people realize just how bad of a roster that it was that Pry inherited and how difficult it is to fix key spots, like OL, in the portal. If you're looking for us to look like an oiled machine and to be competitive in every game, it's probably worth taking a break from the team and checking back in a few years.
I didn't see us get simply out talented on Saturday though. We still have a way to go to building the roster up where it should be at every position from a talent and depth perspective, but I didn't see Purdue as being more talented athletically than us. The defense adjusted and held up admirably throughout the game until the end. We aren't where we need to be at LB and in our run fits, but they gave us an opportunity to win. The reason we lost this game is because 1) something is schematically just broken about our run game on offense, and 2) Wells is not consistent enough throughout a game to sustain drives without a run game behind him.
To point one, there is something going on schematically and/or something opposing defenses are keying on. They know the run is coming every single time and there is consistently a wall of defenders there. We may not be a great run blocking team physically, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. We should be able to pop a few runs here and there. We have gotten absolutely nothing and refuse to adjust what we are doing on the ground. As Pry alluded to last year, our run game was too vanilla and too easy to get a bead on, and it's the exact same result this year so far. Defensive coordinators are picking something up on film and anticipating the run perfectly, and it's not being fixed.
To the second point, Wells is a known quantity at this point. The skill position talent around him is better, and that is noticeable. But he is just far too shaky and inconsistent from drive to drive to sustain an offense over the course of a game. His accuracy goes from really good to wildly bad very quickly, and he takes too long to commit to running when he has the opportunity to pick up a first down and takes a sack or tackle for short gain. If we're going to struggle to run the ball this year and know what we have in Wells, give Drones a shot. He has two more years of eligibility after this year and we should give him the chance to show what he can do. He might not be crisp in his understanding of the passing game, but there's no way for him to get experience without playing him. I think he is also built better for the read option/RPO and that could help spark our run game a bit more. He's bigger and a bit more of an imposing runner. If we're talking about potentially getting boat raced by Rutgers, I see no reason to not at least try something different.
See, I don't think its quite this. I think opposing defenses just don't respect the pass, because....
If you're a defensive coordinator, why would you scheme to take away a passing attack that the QB can't execute. Key on stopping the run, make VT a one dimensional offense that needs to rely on Wells' arm, and rake in the wins. Pin your ears back, rush the backfield every play and know that the odds of the QB making you pay in any given play is slim to none.
To your points, I agree that we should give Drones a chance. At this point we should be building to 2024 and 2025. If that means giving Drones and Pop Watson the majority of snaps to get them in-game experience, then that's what we need to do. Thank Wells for his service, but I don't see where having him get the majority of snaps anymore helps us in either the short term or long term. We're probably going to lose a lot of games anyway, so why not lose them while playing with as many of next year's players as we can to make the future better now.
Our QB has been "hurt" low key in every game since the 1998 temple game apparently. If wells is fucking hurt, and brewer can't lift his shoulder, and Willis is beat up, and Jerod would have made that throw but he has a nagging leg, and hooker can't fucking move his arm, etc etc etc etc etc etc PLAY THE FUCKING NEXT GUY. FUCK
I guess the key is to HAVE a next guy who can throw the ball.
VT is usually restricted to 0 or 1 QBs who can throw the ball, with a back up who can run, or rather, COULD run if we had an offensive line, which we also seem to have problems acquiring.
What are you talking about? We didn't play Temple in 1998.
I actually do. Based on what I've seen, and my understanding of how SP+ is calculated, I think so.
I'm hoping to dive into the advanced box scores and make a longer, nerdier post about it this week.
Because he's doing a good job recruiting. At very minimum he's filling the coffers with good players and not the opposite.
Is he, though? Elko turned around their o line way faster than Bowen is turning ours around. He's not a dud of a recruiter like Cornelsen was but he's not some ace either.
Good yes.
I never claimed an ace. So, we agree.
fine
but I think he's lagging behind with the Oline, which is critically important. Duke went all in on totally rebuilding the Oline first and that has paid early dividends.
I cannot argue with that, for sure.
Maybe Duke and its recruiting staff actually had relationships with high schools in and around NC that Elko could leverage? That would have made it way easier for him than the time Pry and Co. had when they first got here.
ODU won their second game, so that's a positive!
I think its a lot easier in hindsight to say Wells was gimpy from the ankle and should have been replaced by Drones at half, but if we came out with Drones in the second half after Wells just led us to 17 straight points and appeared on fire at that point everyone would be like what are we doing.
To be fair it made sense to give him a couple drives and see if we could repeat that second quarter success. I think it should have been clear after that failed 3rd and 9 towards the end of the 3rd quarter where we were at the Purdue 40 and there was nothing but a field of grass in front of Wells to run for a first down but he just like fell into the DT for no gain that Drones should have come in. After that play we only had two more drives total, so if you ask me I think Drones came in one drive too late.
I dont think Drones is going to be some savior as it seemed evident in his small sample size that he had some happy feet (just watch his drop back on that last deep ball to Felton, it just looks wrong), but he seemed to have better touch on his few passes, his obvious mobility advantage, and again it was his first drive and they blitzed the hell out of him so it would be understandable for him to be a little skittish.
Lets be honest, Wells will more than likely start the Rutgers game just because it is much easier to start him and then have "drones come off the bench for his package" but then just leave Drones in or go back to Wells depending how he plays, rather than it is to start Drones and go back to Wells if Drones is awful.
I think our qbs' mechanics look all out if whack because our qb coach is a former lineman. But that's just me
I'm already done with Bowen... his inability to adjust and his massive stubbornness to run the same fucking slow developing inside run (WHEN IT CLEARLY ISN"T WORKING) is so mind numbing... Aren't we trying to run an upbeat offense? All we fucking do is clap once in hopes the defense will show something and then look at sidelines for 15 seconds. Call a fucking play and go. Don't let them get a breather. Have them adjust to our game plan, not us to their defense.
And I am done with the Wells and the Wells apologetics. Almost as bad as Fuente apologetics. This dude has no dog in him and not a P5 player. People tried to combine his couple year's of stats at Marshall to try to convince themselves he's a good QB. He's not. Average at best... Oh, and the dude can't help himself in throwing an absolute piss missile every fucking throw.
Put in Drones or Pop and see what we have, especially with Jennings and Lane possibly out for a long period. No reason to play Wells when results will most likely be the same. He's gone after this season, which is clearly not a win now season. Play the young talent to get them live reps and experience.
I'm not sure why people think Drones is any kind of better than Wells. We want another runner behind an oline that can't run block? That seems like a bad idea. We pass block decently enough, having a QB back there can make throws is what's keeping us alive in these games so far.
We don't have some great All-ACC qb on our roster. We need to stop pretending like the next guy up is Hooker or some undiscovered talent that will excel immediately.
Keep wells going this year and next and go to Pop after that.
I'm fine with Bowen and Marve. We need to build our lines and depth to be good. We have freshman and sophomores all over our oline two deep. It's all we talked about all off-season. Everything in football starts on the lines and we've known for years that our oline is not deep or experienced. It's going to take another two years for our oline to have that depth or experience to be good. Until then, acting like our offense ineptitude is on a single coach or player is just dumb.
Better every week is what I'm looking for at this point.
You make decent points. I do think the criticism of Bowen is warranted, though. He should know that the oline is a huge liability. Why does he insist on running plays between the tackles? He's not doing them any favors. A good oc doesn't just run the plays he wants to run regardless of the pieces he has. A good oc builds an offense around the pieces he has. Bowen isn't doing that. He wants to run between the tackles and he's doing so stubbornly despite the fact we don't have the kind if oline to run behind.
There's only so many things you can do when your oline is a liability. I think it's a pretty big miracle that we can pass protect as well as we have so far.
At some point the oline is going to have to win their battle and block properly. That hasn't happened in week 1 or 2, hopefully by week 6 they start winning some. Yeah, we should try to pop more to the outside...we'll see some jet sweeps or wr screens to try to stretch the defense and open things up, but I can't imagine that it's going to help a ton given how our oline has just been mauled the first two weeks.
that's just it though. How can you be so confident that we will see these...if we haven't yet? Pounding it into the line over and over and over when it hasn't been there all season doesn't seem like the behavior of an OC who has any intention of trying to stretch the defense out by challenging the outside. He hasn't really challenged it yet.
I think he HAS made these adjustments..I just don't think our oline is good enough to execute on them. There were definitely multiple attempts at outside zone or WR screen or stretch read and none of them worked because the oline couldn't move quick enough, or blew an assignment or something.
The oline, is BAD. I'm not talking "bad" in the sense of just need a lil coach me up and they'll start playing well. I mean "bad" as in they are young, unexperienced, don't execute with confidence, and slow. Recruiting and coaching up solves these things but it takes years to get those results.
French's review backs this up.
It's easy to assume that shitty results come from shitty play calling. Every team with a bad offense assumes they have a bad offensive coordinator, and we very well might. However it's a gross oversimplification to say "well he should just do something that works". He may or may not be a good OC, but he also doesn't have a lot of effective tools to work with. Football isn't generally a sport where one player can come in and bail you out, it needs all 11 guys on the field executing at the same time most of the time.
And I'm sorry, but saying "well it's on him to get better players" shows a total lack of understanding. It just isn't that simple or everyone would be doing it.
To be fair, it worked for Randall and Tyrod, and its very much our DNA to lean on a mobile QB to take pressure off a subpar OL.
What we really need is a guy behind center who is capable of improvising when the blocking inevitably breaks down. We get that, and we might have something that can work with this offense. Unfortunately, that is the one thing that we know that Wells is incapable of doing, and we're only fooling ourselves if we think that we can make any marginal progress with him back there. Not that he can't be good, I think on the right team he definitely can be, I just don't think we are that team.
yeah, I think calling for Drones is more about "We know what we have with Wells and it's not good" than it is "Drones must be a lot better than Wells"
I think people want to see what Drones can do - plus, he's got more eligibility than Wells so we might as well get him some game experience now so that, hopefully, he can be a serviceable QB for us in the future. There is no better teacher than experience.
Personally, I'm not really that invested in one QB or the other. I know what we have with Wells and I know we can't win by using him the way we're using him. I think Wells is limited but he's not the main reason our offense is stuck in mud again this year. Bowen is stubbornly refusing to adjust the offense to the players he has and is insistent on running the offense he wants to run regardless of the talent available. His argument, I guess, is that once he gets his guys the offense will work. But that's not a winning approach. Good OCs are adaptable. They can evaluate the talent they have and construct an offense to mitigate those weaknesses and highlight the strengths. Our OLine can't run block. No good OC in his right mind would run 90+% of their running plays between the tackles when they know that they're working with the OLine we have. The best players on our team are WRs and Tuten. A good OC would figure out ways to get them the ball in space. Wells is very clearly limited but he is also absolutely serviceable. A good OC would scheme plays that are easy for Wells to execute to build his confidence and get the team moving down the field. Bowen isn't doing any of that. It is maddening.
Our offenses were completely different when those guys were here. We relied on a top 10 defense and ball control to win games. Randall didn't have a good season til he was a senior (his TD:INT ratio was close to 1:1 before his senior year). Tyrod was a phenomenon talent that was basically a 5 star recruit. There is nobody close to Tyrod's capabilities on this roster.
There are so few mobile QBs that can actually improvise when the line breaks down and even if you find one, they cant do it for a whole game. Thinking that just because one QB is a bit more mobile than the other one is going to save us in any way is setting yourself up for disappointment.
For starters, keeping the defense honest. If Wells is never going to keep it himself and/or give the threat of running it, then what's the point?
You're correct, we don't know how good (or bad) of a passer Drones is, but what I do know is Wells overthrows over 50% of his passes, whether its too high and/or too hard (especially the 5-10 yard passes). This isn't a win now season. There is literally no point of playing a 6th year graduate QB who's not P5 quality and gone after this year.
Jennings broke his leg
Ooof, maybe he gets a waiver and opts to play next year? Damn that sucks so much
He was in college during Covid, thus he has unlimited eligibility- no issues
He has a
covid yearplus I am fairly certain he has never redshirted, and, even if he has, he would qualify for a medical hardship waiver. He can definitely come back next season if he wants to, but I doubt that was in his original plans.EDIT: I think 2023 is his covid year actually
fffuuuuuuuuuudddddggeeeee. dammit, that really sucks for him and us. Do we know how bad a break it was?
Not yet
Got sauces? Can't find this anywhere yet in the VT Twitter(X)verse...
Himself
that's about as good of a source as you could get.
Well- 2 games in, and we aren't good. At all. And that is a fact. I can live with it. I had low expectations this season- it takes time to build 3 star talent into a winning team in this era. We were basically the same type team as ODU- a mid sunbelt team- for 3 plus quarters. And Purdue showed you on their first drive - i.e. - doing what they wanted with VT's guys covering air and nowhere near the play - that every aspect of this team/roster has issues. For the most part Purdue dominated us on both sides of the line of scrimmage. When that happens- if you win, its luck. If you can't run the ball or stop the run, unless you are Mike Gundy's better teams, you aren't winning. We are not good. And that is OK for this year. No, Drones is not a miracle savior, no the OL is not going to miraculously move people downfield, no the defense is not going to suddenly defend the run better. My thing is the off-season. If we are 105th in offense and 12th in the ACC in run defense, and Pry makes no changes- well we are fucked again. another shit show admin on the sidelines. So I'll be patient and wait for that.
I have said it before. If we end the season at 4-8 but the offense improved from 116th to anywhere between 75-95th I will be happy. That is improvement.
If we end the year with a sub 100 offense, I think Bowen will need to be shown the door.
Is it really mostly the talent though? From watching these first two games - coaching on all fronts is my biggest concern.
Fuente still managed to win 6 games in 2021 with several members of the current team playing meaningful snaps. Is the rest of the talent beyond the players who overlap really that much worse? Do we look like we can win 6 games right now? No.
Marve's defense looks terrible. The alignment, the strategy, situational play, repeated mistakes, etc. Do they not realize teams are just going to keep running the ball? Are they blind that our LBs can't play zone? Why do our players look totally unprepared?
Bowen's offense looks terrible. Predictable play calling, nobody blocking, limited creativity, and teams will just keep stacking the box. Bowen ran a speed option late in the game with Wells when he clearly couldn't run on his ankle. He keeps running the ball inside - into a stacked box - and it has zero influence on the defense. They keep stacking the box because they know he doesn't have the nuts to throw the ball 10 times in a row to force them to adjust.
Pry is good for the brand - but there is still no evidence he can coach. Not putting in Drones when Wells could barely walk, it was tied, and the offense was stalled is exhibit A. Allowing a defense with capable talent to look like they have the first two weeks - as a defensive coach - is just insane.
Drones is the only option right now going forward. Without Jennings and a potentially injured Lane - they need a mobile quarterback for any production. Drones isn't a savior - but he does present some sort of hope that can be built on.
They don't have an NFL player in the trenches on either side of the ball. There isn't one in the two deep at linebacker (I'll grade Woodson as incomplete.) Quarterback. And as highly as I think of Delane, I don't see he or strong making plays (the INT vs ODU was a gift bad throw.) The talent is a huge issue. I have seen videos showing what Crook is coaching. It is sound. He is trying to get blood out of a turnip right now.
Also, for as much crap as Bowen gets, and I have been there dumping with most of you, he tried to do different things. They tried to get outside. They tried to run more option. They tried to run the receivers off instead of flowing them into the middle of the field. They tried counters. The OL, TE (man that blocking was horrendous), and QB couldn't execute any of it. This is a talent issue. The worry about coaching is, what player has this staff had for two seasons that has noticeably improved since week 1 last year. I can't name one. The players who look like they can play relatively big boy football (APR, Jennings, Lane) are all transfers.
Eye would upvote this mo'... if I only could. Truly.
Spit truth to the power.
As try as they might... the FIREbug coaching chickenhawks cannot make chicken salad outta Owens Dining Hall chicken-(bleep). Looney tunes indeed... in, spades.
'cause if they do admit that you and I are Talent, right?
That means this is a looooong row to hoe.
💯
b.street
That's the coaching conundrum....
Pry etal could come out publicly and say: 'I haven't EVER had this bad of a roster' but to what effect?
Piss off the team and potentially lose them?
So, coach speak happens: 'we're getting better, love these guys, it's an execution problem, etc'....
And I do think our players and coaches are working their asses off. (Can they make better game decisions, etc? Of course)
But, why do you think Pry came in and out the gate was PREACHING recruiting?...Either he just loves to travel the state to every tiny school and kiss ass, or... he knew better than almost anyone what we don't got....
So, as a fan, alum etc I can't do crap except be disappointed in the decisions leading up to this mess, and try to be supportive of the current Hokies busting it to get better, and be hopeful we can replenish the roster.
Sucks, but there we are.
If this is a talent issue, I assume the coaches know this. Why then didn't we hit the transfer portal harder for OL/LB? That's the immediate cure for a talent deficiency.
They do.
But it takes two.....
This speaks to my fear. Maybe they hit the portal/recruiting HARD, and we just couldn't get what we wanted/needed.
It's been discussed Ad nauseum before, and I LOVE VT.... but not everyone does.
Some of it may be reparable (high school coach relations, perceptions, game day experience, facilities etc) but some isn't (location, conference alignment, etc)
I think we did, but OL I think are few and far between on the portal that are any good.
I'm late on this - but isn't it part of a coaches job to maximize the talent you have? Yes Bud is a legend - but I also saw Brett Warren, Purnell Sturdivant, Jack Tyler, Lyndell Gibson, Jeron G-W, Barquell Rivers, Rayshard Ashby, Cam Martin, etc. be solid LBs in solid defenses. None of these guys had elite talent - but they were put in positions to be successful.
Marve was an LB - Pry was/is a defensive coach. The defense should be much better given the talent they have.
On offense - I can generally agree. The OL talent is rough and that will be hard to fix.
FWIW - CC on the TSL Podcast that just dropped saying it sounds like Wells could be out for Saturday's game due to injury.
I don't like that we didn't match Purdue's compete level at the start of the game. The team was not ready to play.
Tuten will be an NFL player, good size and speed, good receiver out of the backfield.
The passing scheme / route spacing is good. Two games and WRs are getting schemed open.
Wells footwork breaks down after the first read, his decision making is not consistent enough.
OL gets no push / can't execute. Its a talent issue. Zone runs seem to be too complex for our OL's talent level.
The defense isn't executing, lacks discipline. Purde's OL was dominating the DL.
Probably should have hit the portal for OL.
Elko's rebuild with Duke seems to be off to a better start than Prys'. I know its going to be a long rebuild but I don't have to like it.
Any "long" rebuild is 4 years tops. We're almost halfway through it.
Most successful coaches have their largest jump in year 2. A smaller amount have it in year 3. We'll know what we need to know soon enough
Most successful coaches come into situations where there is enough talent in there to cobble together something that can work by the end of year 2.
Our recruiting was so bad under Fuente that we just don't have that. Its going to take time just to build up the foundation to allow that step to happen, let alone actual tangible growth.
Just say Offensive Line dude because that in no way applies to the rest of the team. We have talent all over the place elsewhere, we have a lot of young talent that is contributing well enough to help us win games.
QB is bad too but we really can't complain. Had all offseason to bring in a Hudson Card, Spencer Sanders, Luke Altmeier, or Tanner Mordecai.
I've said this so many times on TKP it might as well be my signature: The end of year 3 is a good time to look at the data and get a pretty darn good prediction for whether or not the coach will work out
I see we are rounding up to get that "halfway" through it. Pry hasn't even coached a full football season schedule yet.
He's had two full offseasons and in a couple months two full seasons. We're almost halfway
We have played 2 of 12 games. 16% of a season. We are most certainly not almost halfway. We also didn't play 100% of a season last year.
Be ready for scorched earth in the film review. I have been writing columns here since the Hokies played for the ACC title in 2011. There have been some stinkers. But, that was the single worst performance, tackle to tackle, by an offensive line since I started watching them closely to write my column. As a fan of the art of blocking, it was as abhorrent a performance as I have watched.
Also, please no more Alan Tisdale. There is no point to rolling him out there.
Ouch...that is quite depressing. I mused on this in the game thread but after a horrible early performance last year, we moved to less zone concepts in the running game...why do we keep trying to bash in a square peg if we don't have the personnel to do it?
Couldn't agree more on Tisdale..its time to put him on ST. We obviously aren't going to be good this year, focus on finding out if the younger players have promise and if not, how deep we need to go Portal-diving this offseason. Same re: Wells--start thinking about '24 and on and stop trying to pretend like these veteran guys can be something they have repeatedly shown us that they cannot.
If you put me on a lie detector, I would tell you that they don't have the personnel to run on anyone above an FCS team outside of the running back position. Chaplin maybe, but he is inconsistent at best. Clements... I don't know how he could block people two years ago and now can't. And the Moore brothers are the exact same players they were when they entered the program. There is no growth... no improvement. You can't teach feet, and they don't have them,
It is perplexing how VT is having these talent and development issues continually. I tend not to be superstitious, but this program just seems snakebitten. I mean to lose your top WR for the year on the first offensive drive in the game after such a promising start, and likely serious injuries to your other top playmaker at WR and your starting QB in what turned out to be a giant cluster of a game and the longest weather delay on record. What in the world.
Snake bitten is right! We quite literally cannot even buy an offense. It's really aggravating to see basically anyone else build an offense in an off season but for VT we have to wait 5 years before we are supposed to see results. It's bullshit and I'm tired of seeing teams like Duke and Colorado turning around faster than VT and being told that we just have a talent issue and we should be patient. We've been patiently waiting for a competent offense for 12 years and we haven't come close
I think the long mounting frustrations with VT being unable to find an offense are really boiling over. I was shocked to hear the TSL pod call out Bowen like they did. The frustration in the tone was noticeable. I think people are really getting fed up with this same old song and dance.
I know this was meant facetiously, but maybe we should try it sometime
I think there's a fundamental difference between being a Bad Team and a Bad Program...I think most of us (myself included) thought we were the former...turns out we're firmly in the latter category.
The Adelson article really laid it out without saying it explicitly...detached AD who is more comfortable in non-rev sports, de-facto head of FB who just wants to do things the way he always has, and just now starting to catch up on things we should have had in-place 10 years ago.
If this is true, then you have to have a difficult discussion that maybe Beamer wasn't as good of a coach as we thought and left a rotten program ready to fail the second he hung up the whistle.
Oooor, Beamer was a much better coach than given credit because he managed his achievements in spite of an otherwise rotten program
Sigh...I have to agree here. We were built around Beamer, his way of doing things, and a very small circle around him. And I think that is our only perspective as a program - we don't know how to be a winner in today's college football world. Take nothing away from Beamer, what he did was nothing short of amazing looking back. But it was a very fragile ecosystem he built. If you fit in with the Merryman crew and Blacksburg country club, it's good for VT. Increasingly becoming aware of this and think it's very true.
The last few years were objectively not great. Much to his credit, despite being behind on facilities, recruiting and many other aspects he still managed to be average to above average year after year.
We laughed at Clemson when they announced a huge investment into football facilities when we were still beating them regularly. Then 2011 came and they wiped the floor with us twice...nobody's laughing anymore.
It's clear that elements of the Beamer years of doing more with less didn't leave with him. From Ballein not being able to work with Fuente to players having to beg for equipment...we thought we were just a few players or a good offense away from being back atop the ACC. The problems were much more systemic than that and I'm not convinced we've fundamentally changed that yet.
To expound more on that--this is part of what worries me with Pry and his vision. He wants to recruit the doors off--great..fully agree. But what next? It's like the longterm plan is just that we will have more talent then replicate what they did at PSU....ok....maybe. With inexperienced and unproven coordinators on both sides. I just feel like there's still someone in Prys ear telling him that the infrastructure is just fine, he just needs to bring the players.
Faaaantastic.
Well he just got moved over Keller on the depth chart 😬😬
(Also sidenote, does embed not work for twitter anymore. Hasn't for me in over a week.)
It seems like it's been an issue for iOS users for a few weeks now.
Whit needs to get this straight or go. Hires a 1st time head coach, and lets him get a first time OC and DC. Dumb idea. Should have cut pry's salary and made him hire two established coordinators. Pry doesn't like it, he can go back and coach at pedo state.
Tech is a football school- start acting like a football school and fire someone's ass until it is right. That's what everyone else that is worth a shit does.
Nebraska has done it for decades.
Florida State did it until it appears to have worked.
Everyone needs to go listen to the latest TSL podcast. Chris Colemen rolls out some stats with some emotion (as much emotion as Chris Coleman has)... It is sobering...
Basically there are a ton of other teams out there with talent disparities playing teams way above their talent level and none of them (with the exception of Corny's Sam Houston St, which is putting up a whopping 80 yards of offense every week at the FCS level) are putting as poor a product on the field.
Sam Houston St is in CUSA now. Averaging 120 yards per game is still horrendous (80 vs Air Force, 185 vs BYU) but at least it's low level FBS? So glad he's not our OC. I'm not happy with the current offense, but imagine if it was coordinated by Cornelsen!
Wait, Cornelsen was actually offered a job as an OC?