David Hale from ESPN's ACC Blog wrote an article that puts into persepective how bad we were offensively last year, especially on third down.
By The Numbers: Hokies Third Down Woes
Qualitatively speaking, it was obvious we weren't a good offensive team, but I don't think I realized how bad it was.
These numbers make my stomach hurt.
"In 2013, the Hokies ground game converted just 37 percent of its third-and-short attempts for first downs...No other team in the country converted less than 40 percent....Only 17 teams (out of 125) nationally converted less than 50 percent."
Hale then goes on to attribute it all to poor offensive line play, which I think is an over-simplification at best, but I digress.
I know many of the reasons the running game struggled have been discussed at length, but I'm having a hard time understanding, let alone justifying, how this happens to a program with Virginia Tech's talent and resources.
Comments
Answer: Newsome.
Are you referring to the lasting damage that is Newsome's recruitment? Because Newsome wasn't the coach in 2013.
Thank you for that news flash.
The lasting damage refers to both recruiting (IMHO, he failed to bring in even a single full class of true OL during his entire tenure) and also the piss-poor coaching the older guys received under his tutelage. Seeing Farris going backwards like he was on roller skates, especially in the RAB, was embarrassing. Then you had guys who couldn't even play with proper pad level or head position - things every freshman OL is taught in high school. When Grimes was hired, he was essentially tasked with taking a bunch of mismatched linemen (in terms of strengths and athletic ability), who were all essentially 18-23 year-old freshmen for all practical purposes, and turning them into a legitimate ACC offensive line.
I will never forgive Newsome for stealing his salary from VT for 7 years.
While I agree with everything you said, I don't think it answers my questions about why our 3rd and short conversion rate was so abysmal, at least not completely. As French has pointed out numerous times, the O Line play last year was fundamentally better than in 2011, despite any setbacks Newsome's stint may have caused. Whatever the problem is, it seems like it's more systemic than that.
To be fair, there was a reason 3 coaches were axed and one moved to another position (which, IMHO, is absolutely perfect for him and he should stay there for a very, very long time). However, a solid offensive line can mask all kinds of problems, as shown by Stanford this past year. Could we have had better receivers? Better QB play? Better RB play? Maybe a playcall here or there that Lefty would want back? Sure. But if you have a good line, all other problems become less visible. If you have a bad line, all other strengths become less visible.
Yes, I understand all that, but I don't believe the offensive line was that bad. That was a serviceable line. There are a many reasons that partially explain why we had a down year running the football, but we weren't just bad at 3rd and shorts. We were literally the worst in the entire country by a wide margin. Virginia Tech should never be "worst in the nation" in any offensive metric. It's kind of mind blowing to me that we were even able to accomplish that.
Well, when you start freshmen at WR, TE and RB, and on top of that you're putting in a brand new system, yes, you'll have issues at places other than the offensive line.
This. If you blame Newsome, you're suggesting that you could replace Wang, Farris, Benedict, and Miller with any of the other O-linemen in D-1 football and would ascend to the mean. Newsome is only a small part of the fault.
Freshmen tight end
Freshmen fullback
Freshmen running back
Three first time starters at wide receiver
This has a lot to do with it.
This sounds like a bad plot for a sports comedy. Insert Adam Sandler as the coach and rob Schneider as Caleb Farris and you have yourself a Hollywood joke!
#BlameNewsome
Probably a combination of things. Running game struggled, yes. But it's not entirely reflective on our offense. Once we got the underneath passing game going, we were frequently renewing our downs before we even got to third. You could theoretically win the national championship and have the worst 3rd down percentage in the nation.
I'd love to see the ground and pound be more prominent, though. Not much get me more excited than lining up at a defense that knows you're going to run it, and plowing them over for a fair gain.
This year perhaps with Rogers, Williams, and 3 TEs we will see the advent of:
3rd Down and BEAST MODE:
Typical ESPN analysis:
[looks at stats]
Okay, so there's 11 guys on offense, but this stat was only because of these five right here.
If only 3rd down performance was the one thing wrong with the offense last year...
I found it interesting that we were far below national average on 3rd & short, almost exactly on average for 3rd & med., and well above average on 3rd & long.
I missed that, but that it is interesting.
Dat IN Route.
Well, the way I see it, we're currently undefeated in 2014, have yet to commit a single turnover, have not failed on 3rd down in over 4 months... shoot, we haven't even logged an incomplete pass this season and Bud's defense has yet to surrender so much as a yard, let alone any points.
The article has several key mistakes in the write up compared to the data they actually used. Look at the chart they provided. The numbers are significantly different than what was written.
The most telling stat to me in that entire article on why our offense was bad was that 55% of our third down tries were from Seven+ yards. That says that more than half the time we reached a third down, we had failed to gain three yards in first or second down, and in many cases went backwards. (The article incorrectly says it was 55% from ten or more yards) I am pretty shocked that the national average for this is 47%. Just doesn't seem possible that of 123 teams in Division I, that almost half the time they fail to gain three yards in a set of downs.
Our biggest discrepancy with the rest of Division I was actually converting from 7-9 yards. We converted only 13.7% compared to a 31.3% National Average. This was the stat in the chart that shows why we were bad offensively.
We were last nationally in third and short? Or is the article again incorrect because the chart they used show that we converted 41.3% of our third down and shorts which was far below the National Average of 58%. But that was only 23% of our tries. That is more the issue than how many we converted. Only 1 in 4 drives that reached third down were from 3 yards or less to convert.
I thought the same thing about the chart at first, but finally realized that the low % they cited was running plays, and the chart was for total 3rd down plays
The reason we didn't convert many third downs was because we played LOLUVA, who had the "best" third down defense in the country.
A lot of it falls on the coaches imho. We had a 250lb quarterback and instead we opt to throw fade routes and hand the ball off to our smallest back on 3rd and short. That's just horrible playcalling right there.
LT actually converted at a lower % than the other backs... he was only 4 of 12 , I don't blame them for trying to mix it up and try a few different things. I believe a lot of the problem stemmed from running predominately out of a shotgun formation
This drove me batsh*t crazy all season especially inside the five yard line
Why didn't they use Sam Rogers on third and short?
If y'all are really interested in the reasons why the offense didn't operate from under center and why Loeffler didn't pound the rock more often, I recently wrote an article on that exact topic!
http://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2014/march/31/schematic-reboot