This article does a great analysis about what the Virginia Tech Hokies have to do this season to win 10+ games. It confirms what TKP members have been suggesting for a while. It is easier said than done, but at this stage of the season everything is possible. I personally will not give up hope of a 10 wins season until the year is over.
http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/6/20/5825106/virginia-tech...
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1.Find a QB that can use all the weapons properly
2. Not force the ball and make mental errors, im ok with a couple int's but 13 no way
3. Find a FG kicker thats not into drugs and hope to god he can make 40yarders and in
4. Keep Bud Foster
5. Find a solid running game ala Miami game last year
"Score more points than their opponents at least 10 times." -- John Madden
just dont turn the football over!!! we would have been a 10 win team last year if we take care of the football.
Easy solution (frequently posted here and always true)!
This gif was my first multi-leg post. Such fun. Very memory.
But yeah, you're right. Play to win, not just play to not lose.
I'm still trying to figure out LOLUVa's approach
"YOU
PLAY TO WIN THE GAME!!"The same thing we try to do every season, Pinky.
demoralize LOLUVA
That shouldnt be too difficult with London still in charge.
The receivers have to stop dropping balls.
that's only a tiny big of the problem and it was solved from week 4 on. WRs looked much better towards the end of the year
They have to pick up where they left off last year and keep getting better.
for sure, you can't get comfortable in your position or else someone will take it. We have some good WR talent coming in this year and I'm sure they would love to have that spot.
I think all we need is a QB that has a sharp mind, quick release, and is on the same page as our "TE-centric" OC. With Malleck coming back, the immense potential of Hodges, and the now proven commodity of Cline, we are going to be awfully tough to deal with on O, IMO, if we can just find our guy at QB.
I really have high hopes we are going to have a breakthrough (okay, insert a big "relatively speaking") on O this year, and I know we have heard this ad nauseum, but it is the TE situation that really has me intrigued. Not only do we have the weapons, but we have an OC that thrives on using them. TE's, especially what amount to power forwards in disguise like Hodges, are almost impossible to defend in today's game, IF you have a quick and accurate QB.
And really, how much of an improvement on O do we really need to notch a few more wins?
I honestly think we could easily win 10 games, maybe even 11. Heres my breakdown...
W&M (W)- We aren't losing this, well at least we shouldn't (ex. JMU)
@Ohio St. (L)- I think we could win this, but right now I think they are the better team. Get revenge in Lane next year.
ECU (W)- Im tired of playing these guys, they do play us hard everytime, but with this being at home, I don't see our defense letting us lose this one.
GT (W)- We are at home and it's not off a short week, so that should give Foster's D more than enough time to figure out GT's offense, then again, it seems like we always do.
Western Michigan (W)- We don't lose to directional Michigans
@UNC (W)- Nobody likes losing to UNCheaters, very winnable game even if its away.
@PITT (W)- As long as our QB isn't air mailing his passes to their defense (cough cough LOGAN cough cough), we should beat them. Plus its a Thursday night game, and we seem to play better on Thursdays.
Miami- (W)- Play like we did against them last year and again, Thursday night game at Lane, enough said.
BC (W)- Don't see us losing to BC again after the starters they need to replace.
@DUKE (W)- VT is not losing to Puke again.... ever.
@WF (W)- inferior team to us, even with their 50 redshirt seniors.
UVA (W)- #LOLUVA #elevenstraight
So there you go, 11-1, but I am not crazy. I could see us go 9-3 or even 8-4 if we start playing down to our competition like we have done in the past. Hopefully times are changing. Go Hokies.
we beat UNC last year... i dont see us losing 3 in a row to them either
but i agree with your #s shouldnt be that hard to win 10-11 games this year everyone on our schedule is beatable if we can score more than 17+ points a game.
You are right about UNC, jumped the gun on that one.
UNC could be a pretty good team this year especially on offense. I wouldn't be surprised if they beat a young Clemson team the week before they play VT and are ranked.
I think VT wins 9 games with losses to OSU, UNC, and Pitt. VT always has a tough time at Pitt and their power run game against our smaller front line could be a problem.
i think clemson is going to have a hard time replacing boyd! i think they finish with 3 or 4 losses. unc game will be tough i def agree but im still not sold on their QB play yet. i expect us to get after him and create turnovers like last year and now with out his fav safety outlet ebrum? (the TE) i think he will have to really improve his game.
pitt worries me too! but these are teams we are better than and should be. take care of the football get stops on 3rd and longs and make makable FGs if we can do all those things consistantly or atleast at a good % we have a real shot of playing FSU in the ACCCG and even they are a team i think we can beat. eagger to see what famous jamies does this year.
i got faith in VT though to improve on O and not be abismal on special teams so i think 10 wins and maybe a BCS bowl is in the making this year. i guess it should be noted i was saying the same things last season but hey what can ya do.... H-O-K-I-E-S-!!!
There won't be any BCS bowls this year, but I get what you are saying. The schedule lines up for a good enough record to get VT into a higher level bowl game.
As for the UNC-Clemson game, that will end up being a shoot-out. The first team to score 50pts will probably win.
60 might be the true number.
do i have a 70?!
Maybe, Clemson has set that precedent.
zing
If Da U drops 70 on some poor FCS school, are they still not yet back?
"Da U is not Back" is just too good of a punchline to ever surrender it willingly. Kind of like everything that is Cavalier Football.
They play football?
UNC dropped 80 on Old Dominion last year didn't they?
I agree with all of your statements and predictions, but did any of us think that we would lose to Pitt two years ago? Or Duke last year? There's always those inexplicable games that VT has and they will surely rear their ugly head again this year with a new QB/entire offense. UNC and Duke are not gimmies, and with that said neither is Miami, even if it is at home. GT, Pitt, BC along with the rest of the #goacc crowd shouldn't be strong at all this season, so I'd say 8-9 wins is what we should expect.
ECU could be a trap game, especially if we barely lose/win to tOSU. If it's a blowout either way I won't be as nervous.
We're breaking in a newbie QB with a fairly young (albeit very talented) offense.
Every game is a trap game this year.
I wouldn't call our offense fairly young. I'll give you the newbie QB even though of the two IMO who will get it one has what seems like 10 years with the program and the other has very little playing time in another conference, but more than the one who has been with the program since CFB had dark hair.
IT was a combination of both. IMO. VT played well and Miami was overrated.
ECU has really handled our offense well the last few years. That's the missing ingredient to that matchup, can we score against ECU?
Similarly, Paul Johnson has had a good plan for our offense more often than not.
This is part of the reason I LOATHE this ECU series. Anytime you schedule a long annual series with someone who legitimately cares about the game more than you do, the lesser program is going to get a long-term advantage, because they're going to know the ins and outs of the higher program, and will be able to keep games closer than they should, just because of how familiar they are with them.....
Get a lesser program in a legit rivalry with a big boy who WANTS to kick their ass every year, and you get the Decade of Dominance.
A trap game? Why, because the whiners notice it is near a game against a real opponent? Some pretend we are 'justthatclose' to elite status, while they also fret about whether we can defeat the likes of ECU. It amazes me the disconnect... Either we should & will defeat ECU soundly, or we are not within eyesight of being an elite team. There is no twain...
So am I a whiner now? I've never said we are at an elite status or close. We were at one point and even then ECU played us tough. I guess in 2010 JMU wasn't a trap game either?
No, JMU was never a trap game, despite the revisionist apologism. JMU was a result of us still being focused on losing to Boise when our coaching staff stayed obsessed with getting beat. They didn't move on, and granted rare midweek interviews focused solely on the Boise loss, when they should have been dispatching an extremely inferior opponent.
Ok, gotcha. Because what you just described sounded an awful lot like a trap game.
Only to those who don't really understand the term 'trap game'. Every game against an FCS opponent can be labeled a 'trap game' to the fearful among us. Doesn't make it true. W&M isn't a trap game any more than Western Mich. is a trap game. Should we shake in our boots at both? Since we desire to be an elite program? Should we, really?
What is your definition of a "trap" game?
i've always been interested in people's interpretation of a trap game. for me a trap game is a game against a team you should beat, the week prior to a "big" game. you get caught looking ahead to the important matchup and forget to prepare for the team you should beat. i think what he may be saying is that WMU, W&M, JMU, and teams like that are so bad that they should never be the trap team. even if you overlook them, you should crush them based on talent alone. so i guess, if i understand him correctly, the trap team has to have a minimum quality to their team to be considered a trap.
i'd say JMU was a hangover game. a trap is pre big game. a hangover is post big game.
I agree with your assessment. Most CFB columnists, analysts, and broadcasters would agree with you too, based on the context within which "trap game" is most frequently used.
Real-life example: in 2003, Miami was the big game, but we got caught in the trap that was WVU. Pitt that year was either a hangover or a letdown, I'm not sure which.
Yes, the JMU loss was in part due to the coaches and players still dwelling on the Boise State loss instead of focusing all of their energy on the next opponent. However, the biggest factor in the JMU loss was the fact that the team was still physically and mentally worn out from a very physical game that was played way too close to the JMU game. Micky Matthews (JMU's coach at the time) even said it in radio interviews after the game that he knew that they would be too tired from the previous game and the short week, so he installed an option heavy offense that would make VT run all over the field. Keep in mind that they did not run that style of offense much before that game, so the already tired defense was also caught off-guard. It was a perfect shitstorm of exhaustion and poor scheduling that led to that loss. If the Boise St. game is played on the previous Saturday instead of late Monday night, VT does not lose the JMU game.
That's a nice excuse if you pretend that VT is only the equal of JMU, and not vastly superior, which defies logic. There was no way we should have lost even if we only had one day of rest, which most apologists seem determined to pretend was nearly the case, anyway.
Your "one day of rest" comment shows a gross lack of understanding of the physical toll a football game takes on the players. When Mickey Matthews himself said it played a huge role, I will take his word over yours. To act like fatigue is just an excuse, despite the words of the winning coach of that game stating otherwise is what "defies logic". No, the players that took the field for JMU were not on the level of the players that took the field for VT, under normal circumstances. But under the circumstances of that particular game, the disparity in talent was evened-out to some extent. With a normal week of rest (not including Thursday night games) that particular VT team ran train on the rest of the conference. Are you implying that that VT team only lost that game because they dwelled on the Boise State loss?
In 2009 Florida State needed fourth quarter heroics (less than 3 minutes left in the game) to pull out a win over FCS Jacksonville State because they played them on a Saturday following a late Monday night game against UM. Florida State was "vastly superior" to Jacksonville State, yet they too almost lost. That game was at 6:00pm. The JMU game was at 1:30pm.
Michigan was considered "vastly superior" to Appalachian State, yet they lost without having any fatigue issues to point to. Your idea that FCS teams are so inferior to FBS teams is truly antiquated and the gap is much smaller that it used to be.
I am by no means an apologist, but judging by many of your posts, you seem to go out of your way to be the exact opposite extreme. A blameologist? I agreed that the failure of the team to move on from the lost played a factor in the loss, but your failure to acknowledge the effect that fatigue played is bordering on being willfully obtuse.
Again, for emphasis - an FBS program that claims to be 'near elite' vs. a usually upper tier FCS program. Played in the FBS home stadium. Sure, find the excuse for losing. Pretend it could ever be close without a gross miscalculation by the superior team. No problem. Whatever it takes to assuage the guilt of not meeting the most minimal of challenges. Yeah, because we're supposed to believe both these at the same time - VT is a top national program in football & We should fear not having enough time to prep for an upper level FCS program that we've constantly dominated throughout the decades. Whatever excuse you choose to use to pretend we didn't drop the ball...
"an FBS program that claims to be 'near elite' vs. a usually upper tier FCS program. Played in the FBS home stadium. Sure, find the excuse for losing. Pretend it could ever be close without a gross miscalculation by the superior team. No problem. Whatever it takes to assuage the guilt of not meeting the most minimal of challenges."
This can be applied to both the FSU and Michigan examples I mentioned. The gross miscalculation was the "superior" teams thinking that the FCS team was "the most minimal of challenges". For FSU and VT it was underestimating both the time it takes to recover to a level sufficient to dominate an FCS school and the actual level of play of said FCS school.
"Yeah, because we're supposed to believe both these at the same time - VT is a top national program in football & We should fear not having enough time to prep for an upper level FCS program that we've constantly dominated throughout the decades. Whatever excuse you choose to use to pretend we didn't drop the ball..."
Are Florida State and Michigan not top national programs? Do the top national programs never lose a game that they are supposed to win? How do you define a top national program, top five, top ten, top twenty-five? At the time of the JMU loss I believed VT was still a top twenty-five team. Are we now? I'm not sure, I will believe it when I see it. (Yep, that totally sounds like an apologist.*sarcasm*)
You keep using the term "excuse" without giving any credence to the very real factors that contributed to VT losing that game. Notice how in recent years teams that play Memorial Day games now schedule the following Saturday as a bye week. Other FBS teams have seen how playing games so closely together is detrimental and they avoid it. I have agreed with you that dwelling on the Boise State loss affected the outcome, but you seem to want to ignore the other, more tangible factors. Instead of reflecting on the situation using logic and reason to learn from past mistakes, you seem to favor frothing at the mouth, looking for someone to crucify.
With all that being said, Virginia Tech should not take William & Mary lightly. Upsets are common place in college and professional sports .There will be no excuse if Tech failed to win. The last thing the team needs is to start the season on a bad note.
Not only do we need to win, anything less than a 42 point score is going to shower serious doubts on any offensive progress.
I know that Beamer doesn't like to run up the score, but he need to let free the offense to score as much as possible to get their confidence up.
Couldn't we have made the same 10 win prognosis last year? Did anyone look at Duke and BC and (honestly) say that we were losing both of those games, maybe B.C. but people were counting Duke and Maryland as close to in-the-bag wins as you could get by mid September. Based on the last two years, anything over 8 is a step in the right direction, and capping it off without shitting the bed in the bowlgame is a windfall.
Story of VT since 2000, IMO.
Except 2010, I think it was.
We need to execute on offense the way we did during last year's Miami game, all season long. And the defense can't afford too many growing pains.
On a tangent -- what happened that Miami game that allowed us to rush so well? Did we play phenomenally well or did DA U just suck so bad?
IT was a combination of both. IMO. VT played well and Miami was overrated.
Agreed. Also, AJ Hughes happened.
Miami was probably one of the most overrated teams in recent memory last year. I actually delved into their 2013 season about a month or so ago, and the absurd weakness of their schedule is appalling. I don't remember the exact stats, but it was something like, every team they played and they beat, finished in the bottom half of their division, and every team they played who finished in the top their respective division beat them. Of their wins, only 2 or 3 of the teams finished the year with more than 3 wins. At the end of the year, they were a mediocre to bad team that benefitted from playing a ridiculously easy schedule to run out to that 8-0 record before getting wasted by Florida State (41-14) and Virginia Tech (42-24) in back to back weeks. In fact, of all their losses last year, Duke and VT tied for the closest game, at an 18 point spread.
wow i knew they had an easy schedule but i never realized it was THAT bad. is Al Golden's seat getting any warmer? remember when he was like THE HOTTEST coaching prospect on the market? forreal though turkey leg for you for that stat
The teams they beat last year
Teams they lost to
Average margin of victory - 20 points (mind you this was skewed drastically by a 77-7 win over 1-win FCS Savannah St.
Average margin of defeat - 22.5 points (lowest Margin of loss was 18 points vs Duke and VT)
On average, the teams Miami beat finished 6th in a 8 team division.
All of the teams Miami lost to finished 1st or 2nd in their division or conference.
So... was Miami a good team? At this point, from what I can see, the stats show they weren't. They were a paper tiger that played a very soft schedule that lost BADLY to every single team they played with a pulse.
But imagine what would have happened if they finished with 2 loses. one to FSU and one to either VT or UofL.. They would be a top 10 team and the U would be back... just goes to show how bad the ranking systems are
i know they won a lot of close games and I'm currently at work and want to look busy....soooooo what would happen if we took out that 77-7 win?
Average MOV drops to exactly 14 points
If you remove the wins against UVa and USF (the 2 teams with only 2 wins on the year), the MOV drops again to 10 points
This exercise practically screams that Miami played to the level of a .500 team last year, that could beat down the truly BAD teams and played everyone hovering around 6-6 very close (5 point win over 4 win UF, 4 point win over 7 win UNC, 3 point win over 3 win Wake)... but as soon as they stepped on the field against a team in the next level, they got the shit kicked out of them (27 point loss to FSU and UofL, 18 point losses to VT and Duke)
I like that were a team in the next level! but really, the only reason they even sniffed a ranking that high is because they are DA U and because florida was incredibly overrated when they beat them. screw preseason rankings
The U sucked. Their highly ranked athletes took us for granted, which is really common with the U teams since about 2002. They have extreme talent, and virtually zero discipline. For a while, their coaches harnessed the talent and instilled discipline, but since they haven't, the U has been down - or in the words of ESPN, 'reloading'.
Scot Loeffler spun his wheel of "Which Offense To Run This Week?" and ended up on the correct piece of the pie.
Vandy takes game 1 against the Boo Hoos in the CWS finals
That made me so happy. I sincerely hope they choke a big one the rest if the series.