I apologize in advance for any errors. I didn't get a chance to edit it before my lunch break was over. It will get cleaned up this evening.
- Clawson coached Pry during their time in Buffalo.
- No more 'or' designation at QB. Wells still coming back from injury, Watson would have been the backup last week.
- Peoples probably won't get to 100% coming back from his injury, but his snap counts in practice and in the game should go up if things progress well this week.
- Safety is still a mess. Jones' availability unknown right now, Delane still getting practice reps at safety, trying to bring
WillisWilliams along for increased depth. - During Sunday film review each side of the ball took their units through the entirety of the first three drives to point out opportunities for improvement.
- TE group still a work in progress. Missing Gallo's utility. Wright's run game coming along. Want to get St Germaine's snap count up.
- Clawson is very detail oriented and Wake's offense and defense are both sound groups. They beat you as a team and do their jobs well. Tech needs to execute what we do well and play complimentary ball to beat them.
- Homecoming and maroon effect this week. We always want to roll out the O&M carpet for the former players. This place is more their home than mine. Rich tradition here, especially under coach Beamer.
- Decreased transfer window should help with roster management and getting players on campus for the Spring semester. 25 man limit has been eliminated since COVID and staffs have been able to figure it out.
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Who is Willis?
Williams*
My bad.
Nicely done.
Should I be worried based on this statement from him?
No.
Nah. I wanted to add the full quote earlier, but couldn't get it all down.
"We always want those guys back, it's awesome when they come back. We try to get them around the team in the office. We want to roll out the orange and maroon carpet for that group. You know this place is more their place than it is mine and there's such a strong legacy here, particularly under Coach Beamer. Those guys coming back and talking about the Championships, the wins, and the standards and the expectations that's really healthy for our program, so it's exciting to think about them being back in town this weekend."
I mean he's right, those players built VT, Pry is just hoping to have a fraction of success that Beamer and Foster and all their players had. Until he makes it his by winning, he is just a care taker.
He's saying all the right stuff.
It's just good sense not to read the too much into that.
Wait a minute, calling plays that your players can execute help them execute? Who would have thought that.
It took about half the season for them to change the offense last year, 3 games this year, maybe next year we can start the season with a competent offense.
TSL pod has been wondering why we didn't just run the offense we are now starting in the spring for both Wells and Drones. You obviously would scale the pass:run ratio a bit depending on who was the starter, but we could've rolled the pocket/incorporated misdirection in the run game with Wells and probably helped him out a whole lot more. Him dropping back with a straight ahead up the gut run game did Wells no favors.
I think we're all wondering this. The staff just seems so deadset on being a power running team they have to fail before they'll get creative.
Which is incredibly myopic. At the end of the day does it really matter how we run the ball as long as we can run the ball? And at Virginia Tech, even at our ceiling, we'll push up against a team that has more athletes so we won't be able to power run on everyone. To punch above our weight class (right now and if we ever get better) we need to incorporate more creativity.
The coaching staff is struggling to self-scout in practices. That's been an issue since day 1. Whether it's the offensive scheme, the starters at DT, the need to get a P5-level LB in the portal, Wells vs Drones, punt returner, etc., they've been slow to figure it.
That's my feelings as well. The staff seems to come to a good/decent decision, but takes a while to get there.
I think the fact that the OL is getting better as the year goes on is eschewing history for some people. They weren't good enough early on to run the current offense. As said, they are the hardest working squad and are at least getting better in run blocking. Pass blocking still needs work.
I thought we were running the current offense because it's easier for the OL? It feels like they're the limiting factor for this side of the ball.
That's what I was thinking as well. Pitching the ball outside and running screens more because we can't get things going on the interior.
The optioned player would take the RB everytime if Wells was QB. He wasn't good at reading options because he would almost always hand it off. So, I agree that the QB at that time was not good enough to run this offense.
I hope Crook sticks around. They need continuity up there and one guy that can see what we have in terms of strengths and weaknesses. With the level of OL that VT can recruit in the modern era - i.e. not as good as the ones Georgia, Clemson and FSU can recruit- we need consistent coaching. Consistent. We don't need the best OL coach of all time- but we need one scheme/technique. Not going from "zone" to "man" etc.
Crooks is a solid Oline coach, he helped Cincy get to the playoffs, he had two really good years at Stanford and has coached at both Illinois and WVU. Any consistency there would help us but he can flat out coach and has shown that many different places.
My best guess is that because the wide receiver room was the strength of the offense, they wanted to build the scheme around that strength. Also, last year the OL was better at pass blocking than run blocking
But I agree - this scheme is better for drones and probably would've been better for Wells too. Frustrating that it took so long to reach this conclusion.
Jennings going down early changed the complexion of the offense 100%
💯
Physically made it back from Blacksburg, but it took a while mentally, spiritually lol. Here's my takeaways:
3:18 hes peacocking like a mfer over the rush d stats
As he should be. There are lots of things to be happy about this year but one of the biggest is our key downs and short. We have defensively stopped the runs and offensively pushed the pile. We are playing physically in those instances, and I don't remember the last time we did that even with the really good lines under Vice.