The Tipping Point

The dragged out offseason will end in a few days when Tech kicks off the year against my hometown team, William & Mary. Despite all the talk about the coaching staff and the players being worried about the quality of this I-AA opponent, let's be honest, if Virginia Tech shows up and plays like a I-A team, they should have no problem handling The Tribe.

I'm most interested in watching Saturday to find out what the Hokies will look like this year. The last time I saw them play was in the spring, before Isaiah Ford or Shai McKenzie or even starting quarterback Michael Brewer started balling. For the most part, we know who the Hokies will be defensively (an athletic and attacking front-seven backed up by the best secondary in the country). Offensively though, how will Loeffler's unit fare?

We can all agree that the offense has been underwhelming the past two seasons. The running game, the passing game, on third downs, in the redzone... nothing has looked good. Will that change in 2014? Will the offense finally get back to "middle of the pack" status? Can a fan dare to dream that maybe it break into the top 25 =? I'm not sure where the Hokies will rank in total offense at the end of the season and, frankly, I don't care all that much. All I care about is seeing an improvement in the on-the-field product, and I'd be surprised if we don't see one.

Actually, considering all the talk of the playmakers on this offense, I'd be surprised if the offense doesn't improve dramatically.

Explosiveness and Efficiency

Recently I read an interesting article titled The Five Factors: College Football's most important stats. It tried to boil a team's chances of winning down to five key "factors". It looked at explosiveness, efficiency, field position, finishing drives, and turnovers. The article measured these factors by looking at the yards per play, success rate, average starting field position, points per trip inside an opponent's 40 yard line, and the turnover margin. The thing that caught my immediately caught my eye was how BeamerBall strives to win all five "factors".

When thinking about BeamerBall, we often think of defense and special teams. On defense, attempting to create negative plays and force turnovers when opponents are forced into passing situations. On special teams Frank Beamer's goal has always been to control field position. In the past that meant blocking punts but nowadays, with more teams moving towards cautious punt protection schemes, he's focused more and more on setting up favorable returns.

Too often we forget about the offensive philosophy for BeamerBall. A strong ground game which allows the offense to stay on schedule, hold onto the ball, and convert in short yardage and goal line situations has been key. A vertical passing game complements the strong ground game by attacking overly aggressive defenses. With the recent collapse of the running game, Frank Beamer's winning formula (and percentage) has suffered.

Big Plays Through The Air

If we look at how (un)explosive the Hokie offense was in 2013, we start to get a clear picture of why it struggled. Virginia Tech averaged 5 yards a play. Good for 107th out of 125 teams. With a lack of a true deep threat at the wide receiver position, it's not surprising that this squad struggled to pick up large chunks of yardage at a time. Loeffler does a good job at putting his players in positions to make these explosive plays down the field, but didn't have the personnel needed to win those battles consistently.

Here Loeffler gets Knowles in a one-on-one matchup with a cornerback. Knowles executes a nice double move to beat his man. Logan Thomas makes a strong, confident throw away and Tech picks up the easy touchdown. Despite the poor YPP average from the offense, it wasn't uncommon to see players in one-on-one battles down the field.

Here Knowles again finds himself in single coverage. The cornerback wasn't playing tight coverage so Knowles doesn't have the benefit of getting behind his man, however he does get deep and has inside position on the corner. Without great height or leaping ability, Knowles is at a disadvantage against the corner and loses the jump ball. This theme (pass plays getting players into one on one coverage down the field ending poorly) appears time and again, especially early in the season.

Now I don't want to appear to be picking on Demitri Knowles, he's certainly not the only player who couldn't capitalize on explosive opportunities in 2013. He was just the one that was targeted most often down the field. None of the wide receivers (Knowles, Stanford, Byrn) were the prototypical down field threat. After a couple of games, Loeffler eventually stopped looking to stretch the field as much and started throwing underneath more and more. Even though playing to the wide receiving corps strengths yielded easier completions, it did made for less opportunities to rack up big plays.

The passing game wasn't the only thing that wasn't explosive in 2013. The disease spread to the rushing attack which averaged a mere 3.17 yards per carry. Only eight other teams managed to do worse. If an offense can't count on getting large plays through the air or through the ground, it will quickly find itself suffocating. Runs that may have gotten four to six yards will start getting stuffed at the line as linebackers and safeties start flying forward at the slightest hint of a run play. This is why its so hard to separate a team's "explosiveness" from it's "efficiency". The two are intertwined.

If a team can't run consistently, it can't force a defense into coverages which present explosive opportunities. If a team can throw the ball deep, it can't force a defense into soft coverages which make "staying on schedule" easier... which makes it harder to run... which makes it harder to throw deep...

It's a never ending loop that can only be broken when a player shows up who is talented enough to change the equation.

Looking Forward

I've written plenty of times before about this lack of explosiveness/efficiency in 2013. This article is meant to be about 2014, and why I think the offense will be a major reason the Hokies get back to 10 wins.

A constant this offseason, from spring until today, has been the talk by everyone around the program about how promising the young skill position players are. Marshawn Williams, Shai McKenzie, Isaiah Ford, Cam Philips, Bucky Hodges, Ryan Malleck... none of these players played a single snap for the Hokies last year and all of them seem to be poised to make significant contributions in 2014. Factor in the benefit of experience that players like J.C. Coleman, Trey Edmunds, Willie Byrn, Joshua Stanford, Demitri Knowles, Carlis Parker, and Kalvin Cline will enjoy and there's no reason to believe this team shouldn't have more success.

Whoever Loeffler chooses to target down the field in 2014 should have a larger chance for success, either because they're more athletically gifted or because they have more experience. If that pass into single coverage is even 20% more likely to be completed, defenses will either change up coverages or pay the price. The same can be said of the running game. Not only are Trey Edmunds and J.C. Coleman coming back more experienced, but freshmen Marshawn Williams and Shai McKenzie are truly talented. If that group can manage to improve its yards per carry, then the playmakers out wide will see more favorable coverages.

The Tipping Point

There are no longer structural issues with the offensive scheme in Blacksburg. Loeffler's play designs and overall scheme aren't magical though, they do rely on his players to go out and make plays. The offensive staff has done an excellent job recruiting new talent recently and I don't think we'll have to wait that long to see the effects. Football is both a complex and a simple sport. The tactics that an offensive coordinator uses to isolate a receiver in one -on-one coverage down the field might be complex, but the question at the end of the play is a simple one. "Did the receiver catch the ball?" "Did the running back break the tackle?" "Did the lineman make the block?" Once these answers start becoming "yes", we'll see those offensive rankings change. Quickly. And once those rankings change, we'll see the Hokies winning percentage change. Quickly.

Let's take one last look at that article cited above. Those five factors (explosiveness, efficiency, field position, finishing drives, turnovers) all determine the likelihood that your team wins a game. Good coaches realize that they don't have to be the most explosive offense in the country to win games. They just have to be more explosive than their opponent . That's why defenses win championships. If you have a defense that limits opponents to 4.5 yards per play like Foster's defense did last year (good for fourth in the nation), you have the luxury of waiting for the ideal moment to throw the ball down the field. You don't have to force the issue.

That's why I believe Frank Beamer's team is poised for a big year. Being the most explosive or most efficient or least turnover prone team on the field is pretty easy in Blacksburg. After all, you are not the one who has to go up against Bud Foster. Heck, the Hokies won eight games last year even with some really bad numbers on offense. Adding a handful of players who can get an extra few big plays or yard per carry could have huge implications. A moderate improvement in offensive production should lead to a drastic increase in the team's winning percentage.