I would first like to say that I thought our offense played pretty well yesterday. I thought we moved the ball very well and it looks like having the TEs, and a formidable running back tandem really helped open up the offense. It's also nice have a WR like Ford out there.
Now on to the bad...
1) I thought we looked sloppy on offense. After the game I felt like we left some points on the field.
2) JC Coleman should be used only on obvious passing downs, cause he is terrible with the ball in his hands as an actual RB. I know a bunch of you are sick and tired of watching him try to get our 3rd and Shorts/Goals.
3) Brewer needs to tighten up his play. Couple of throws yesterday, that if he made them against Ohio State, they would not have been completions or they would have been INTs.
4) No RB rotation is needed. Shai should be our starter, he had a much more natural feel to his running and finding the right holes, and putting on the juice at the right time. He is much more comfortable in the zone scheme then many of our other RBs. Williams should spill him, and JC as stated before should be our obvious 3rd down back.
5) Our line didn't get push when we needed it. Obviously referring to not being able to punch the ball in on the goal-line. Seems like Shai is better suited for goal-line hand offs, but we should have been able to get a better push off their defensive line down there.
All in all I think it was more good then bad. We just need to tighten everything up before the big game this weekend.
Comments
1) A few false starts in the first game. no big deal.
2) I also am not big on JC, but only passing plays? I think pass pro is maybe the worst part of his game.
3) A couple of tipped passes in the first game. No big deal.
4) Just because he had the best stats yesterday doesn't make him the obvious starter. Shai, Marshawn, and Trey (when healthy) should be the three in the rotation. You can't run one guy all game.
5) Frank said that goal line stall looked awful. Good film to learn from. First game. It will improve.
Summary) It was the first game. Obvious improvement from last year on offence. Relax.
Note that "starter" and "play all game" are not equivalent. You want to put your strongest back(s) out there at first to wear down the defense, either by using a battering ram or a guy that the D will have to chase for a couple quarters to tire them out.
I think moreso than wearing them down early, its important that we put the best squad out there first drive that gives us the best chance to get on the board early and get a little momentum.
Yup, all of this. Yesterday, we saw much more good than bad from our offense, especially for the first game. Were there things to tighten up? Of course. Was everything perfect? Nope. Overall, everything went better than expected. As for Brewer, he was outstanding. A couple tipped passes are nothing to worry about, and he did a very good job taking care of the football and making good, accurate throws. Nothing I saw yesterday made me cringe and think we got away with one. Shoot, Bucky's TD catch easily would have been a pick last year, but that's just because we simply didn't have anyone who could go up and fight for a jump ball. Now we do, along with plenty of other weapons. As the year goes on, I think we'll see even more improvement. Keep in mind that all but 3 guys (Coleman, Stanford, Byrn - and of those only 1 was playing significant time down the stretch) played the same position last year as they did on Saturday. This is a young team that's only going to get better and there's plenty of reason for excitement.
I agree on most all points. I would have to think the goal line mishap would be different if we didn't have our lightest back on the field and run him right into W&M big boys...
the goal line stand had Williams in. Even the commentators mentioned that he needed to be a bit more decisive, which was true in that case
I agree that our O looked much better. Shai should get the majority of carries, because out of all the backs he looked the most comfortable in the zone scheme. He had patience to let a hole open up and when it did, he hit the boosters. McKenzie seemed to look for contact.
Shai had 9 carries for 106 and a TD...over 11 yards avg. I'll take it!
Brewer needs to tighten up his play a bit I guess but he looked darn good for his first start. I will take 77% completion percentage and 250 yards all day.
Yup. Every QB could always do better every single game. Still, you can't ask for much more than what he gave us yesterday. I'm excited to see the entirety of the passing game later in the year. We didn't see a whole lot of seam/vertical routes or a lot of stick routes either. I think the next couple weeks, it's gonna be fun to watch the passing attack evolve.
Except this game.
Bro
If you really wanna nitpick it, he had a couple throws that require Coale/Roberts to go down and get 'em. But no, you really can't expect more from any QB than that. That was awesome.
He did a great job of throwing the ball away and not forcing throws when it wasn't there.
Must be all the snake he eats!
Like I said it was mostly good, but there were definitely a couple of throws that he will not be able to get away with against tOSU.
I think you're really looking for problems where there are none. I just watched the game again to make sure, and there wasn't a single throw that made me think he "got away with one." He did a great job putting balls behind the corner and in front of the safety (and his receivers did a good job sitting down in that little hole too) and he consistently made nice safe throws that were very low-risk. Every single throw, whether to the middle of the field or to the end zone, was put in a spot where either his guy caught it or nobody caught it. That was an excellent game from Brewer.
the only one that comes to mind for he was Bucky's TD, it ideally would have been higher, a better defender may have grabbed a INT on that one... but that's the only one that I could even question, Brewer was on target all day
Maybe a bit, but still, that's one that's just a chuck-it-and-let-him-get-it throw anyways. Those don't have to be perfect, you just have to get it closer to your guy than to the other guy.
Particularly if it's a high, leaping ball to a TE against a corner where your TE will be stronger and have a less awkward position to wrestle and fight for it.
It wasn't a good throw. Bucky made a better play than the DB, but a more talented DB probably would've picked it. Kinda reminds me of the lucky Byrn TD against Marshall last year.
To TechHokie's point, that throw was on a LB and not a DB. Much safer throw as LB's don't generally have the ball skills DB's do. Could have been thrown better, but with that match up it wasn't a bad spot.
.
!
?
(Come on, Joe, let us use special characters!)
,
I think a big concern for me this wknd will be our ability to maintain balance in our O game plan. Its gonna be an insane and hostile environment for not only all these freshmen that will be playing, but the vets as well. I think I read somewhere that this will be the biggest crowd to ever witness a VT football game. It could be easy to get intimidated in that kind of environment. That could easily lead to stupid mistakes, which could cause us to fall behind early and as a result, have to go away from our gameplan. We had the benefit of being in Lane yesterday.
I know Beamer always says that you make the most improvement between the first and second weeks of season.
I hope he has these guys on point. We really need to get up there and play lights out, and shut the naysayers up!!
I just happened to be perusing 11W earlier. I saw a few Buckeye fans giving us some props for our D..........BUT, there were NONE that had any respect whatsoever for our O. They said we were "inept", uneffective, and nothing to be concerned about." They really expect a blowout this weekend.
I just hope we play composed, with a sense of urgency, and opportunistic......on both sides of the ball. They think they have the "second coming" in their new QB. I hope Bud comes up with a plan to bust his ass.
I think death valley is bigger than the horseshoe
Nope, smaller by about 2500 seats.
LSU 2007. 92,400 seats. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Stadium_(LSU)
OSU 2014. 104,944 seats. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_Stadium
I almost went with that comparison, but chose current numbers (subconsciously influenced by eshiben's use of "is" instead of "was," I suppose). Good call, though.
My opinion of the false starts was that they were the effects of working out a new offense in the first game. If you noticed with our new no-huddle offense every time we came set at the ball, Brewer would do a hard count, read the defense reaction, make checks if necessary and then call for the ball. All the false starts were occurred after Brewer made a hard count. I think this is something that can easily be cleaned up. The couple illegal formation penalties I believe were a result of so many different players lined up in so many different formations, especially young guys. Also can be easily cleaned up.
As far as the running game goes, I agree that Shai hands down looked the best. I don't believe that the coaching staff wants to run him 20+ times a game at this point in his recovery, however I think our best offensive game play to win next week would have to include him running the ball 20-25 times.
We still need to work on our red zone offense. The interference on Bucky allowed us a few more chances to run red zone plays, but we still settled for a field goal on that drive. I truly do not understand why we play with a tight offensive set along the line instead of spreading it out. Obviously, the defensive sees this then stacks the box. We also ran the same running play each of our red zone possessions (handoff to running back who goes in the A gap). It wasn't effective the first time, so we should've opted for another look. If we're committed to punching TDs in, we need to give our RBs some space.
My best guess here is that the coaches wanted to see if we could punch one in when everyone knew what was coming. I think that film will present some awesome learning opportunities for our young linemen and backs. In a real game, I think we go to play-action or a counter or a sweep or something else pretty quickly after first down, to punish a defense for selling out against that dive.
I thought the same thing. Is it just me or what, but I thought an ideal play at that time would've been to spread'em out and use Sam Rogers as a lead blocker through the A gap. Id love to see the power run back in Blacksburg utilized effectively by someone other than a QB (LT3) last year. I know he was really the only effective power runner we had last yr, but we have a lot of talent in the backfield now. I hope we can improve on that this year. Its depressing in goal line situations when we try numerous times to punch it in only to fail. We've kept a lot of points off the board. We cant afford to do that anymore. We've had too many close games and settling for field goals has really cost us. IMO.
I know this is off topic but if this doesn't get your blood pumping, this is one of the few comments on our game planning around MSU defensively to play OSU. Snagged this off eleven warriors
I read a bit through the comments. The hilarious amount of confidence from them basically saying the game is "dependent on VT's _____" is hilarious.
We are Ohio State. This game will be handled by us and we will smoke them. This will be a blow out and it won't be pretty.
We are in control, you will know what it feels like to have a score ran up on you and get embarrassed.
This game does not depend on what your team does. Ohio State will be the deciding factor of this game and will be in complete control.
Ugh, Michigan State at least had a top notch defense and a reason to be confident. They have no chance.
OSU, meet Bud Foster. Bud, OSU.
Huh. I found a photo from Bud meeting Brutus. It appears to have went about how you would expect.
I especially like the comment that said Navy is better than us
Yeah, saw somewhere a guy saying we should just look at what happened any time Navy dropped back to pass... I just let that one go.
Are they sure they have a university there (THE university)? Cause that's a pretty dense comment. Wonder what he thinks of GTs passing attack?
That blog produces some good analysis, but those posters. Woof, not good.
I noticed that this particular comment seemed to be from before the Braxton Miller injury, but still. That no one even responded to the guy with some moderation, just a 'yep'. Particularly telling, "Michigan State at least had a top notch defense," this is what made me head to 11w to see it with my own eyes.
After the injury, and particularly after the Navy game, nobody will be smoking anybody.
Correction: we'll be smoking some turkey legs then whooping that Buckeye ass.
Yeah I understand there's gonna be a bunch of homerism within any fan base. There's a comment on there about how we struggled against William and Mary, and in the same breath talked about how Urban held back on the offense. Yeah since we were losing for 3 quarters of our game. Oh and that VT never threw a pass over 10 yards, I wonder what the chances are Lefty dials up a 35 yrd+ bombs early in the horseshoe.
I definitely think we'll stretch the field a whole lot more than we did on Saturday. It's going to be darn near impossible to sustain a drive in the 'Shoe if we're just trying to dink and dunk our way down the field. I'd look for Lefty to try to stay in front of the chains, and if we get in a 2nd and short (3 or 4 or so), to start taking shots to try to quiet the crowd.
I haven't seen a compliment to the O coaching staff yet, so I will chime in.
I thought that going no huddle was brilliant. Obviously, you want to work on W & M's lack of depth and wear them out - but when have we ever seen that as a VT strategy? We still want to keep our D off the field and play ball control/eat the clock on O. So I don't think wearing out W & M was why we did it.
I think our staff realized that we have a ton of freshman talent and wanted to get as many involved as possible, and wanted to get in attack mode with the O right off the bat.
I had this similar strategy coaching little kids, when you are pressed trying to get everyone playing time. Going no huddle gets you more plays, gets more guys involved, gets more guys some glory, and just builds confidence and team camaraderie.
Sweet strategy from that angle - especially heading into anOSU the very next game.
We now have a ton of new guys that are amped to go out there and do it again, instead of still wondering if they really have what it takes.
Yes, this. W&M was the first live action we've seen with the new QB, all the freshmen/newcomers, and the adjusted system. Looks like the O has been putting in work this offseason.
So, do you think then that we will go back to our more traditional style offensive scheme, or keep it faster paced like we did yesterday?
BTW, I know its gonna be loud as !@#$ up there. I wonder which style would be easier on our youngsters in that environment. God help me if I see us implode again and have all those pre-snap penalties.
It's going to be interesting about the no huddle, that's for sure. I'm going to stick with my theory that it was installed to get the O revved up/confidence/experience/splash the ball around to the new guys.
I would have to bet we go the opposite direction this week: huddle/snap the ball with a few ticks on the play clock/ shorten the game/ keep our D off the field/ don't expose our limited depth.
But running anOSU's D line to death would not hurt my feelings.
If the frosh rbs can pound on the ground and the coaches have the confidence to keep up the pounding then dink and dunk to move the chains, our defense will be stellar.