After last week's big win against the then No. 8 Buckeyes, Frank Beamer's squad is back in the national conversation again. With a defense capable of making game changing plays on any down, and an offense that looks at worse average, the Hokies appear poised to have a big season. What are they really capable of though? How good is this defense really? Will this offense manage to remain productive throughout the season, or will its third down and red zone magic run out at the least opportune time? A lot of questions will be answered on Saturday when Virginia Tech hosts always-tougher-than-expected East Carolina.
Will The Offense Mature?
Loeffler had a very solid game plan on Saturday, one which focused on limiting OSU's opportunities to create a big play on defense. The matchup against ECU could be the first chance for us to see what Loeffler's vision is for the offense moving forward. He can't just rely on throwing comfortable passes to tight ends and running backs in front of linebackers against ECU. Virginia Tech has a young offense with fairly inexperienced playmakers, but as the season progresses the offense will need to find ways to be more explosive than it is currently.
I've written before about how great offenses are both efficient and explosive. They manage to stay ahead of the chains and pick up first downs while also stealing large chunks of yards from their opponent when the opportunity arises. On Saturday, the offense played it safe and focused on being efficient, and for the most part they were. They ended up converting on 9 of 17 third downs and scored on all four of their red zone trips. Lost in all the celebration after the victory was that Virginia Tech struggled to move the ball for much of the second half. Matter of fact, they didn't cross into OSU territory until the go ahead touchdown drive following Brewer's third turnover of the night. The Buckeye's were able to squeeze the space in the short passing game while basically shutting down the running game (especially on the interior).
Now, a lot of that has to do with the conservative play calling that Loeffer used while he had a lead. As soon as he needed to score, he was able to dial up some nice plays (double reverse fullback pass for example) which got the Hokies back into the endzone. Against ECU I hope to see him have that same sort of aggression all game long. ECU doesn't have an elite unit that Loeffler needs to scheme around like OSU did. He should be able to trust his players to match up one-on-one all over the field against ECU's defense. The whole playbook should be available to him and it'll be interesting to see how Loeffler decides to proceed.
The pieces seem to be in place for this offense to be more explosive. The offensive line definitely held their own in pass protection against a very good pass rush. Coach Searels has to feel good about their ability to give Brewer time to throw down the field. The receivers looked good on routes down the field as well. Malleck and Bucky both got completions on long corner routes and Isaiah Ford ran a perfect out route on a third-and-long deep in Tech's own territory.
01:06:26–01:06:57
Getting the ball to these players will prevent the Hokies from having to be perfect on so many third downs while also opening up the shorter routes that they're excelling at right now.
On The Ground
The running game already looks better than it did last year, but if this team is going to be an ACC title contender it needs to continue to develop some more consistency and diversity. The two freshmen running backs (McKenzie, Williams) are very talented and both have the ability to break off a long run. Incorporating them into the game plan more will wear out the defense, increasing the likelihood that those yards after contact appear in the run and pass game. This team hasn't operated from under center much this year, but if it starts establishing something on the ground it will open up my favorite part of Loeffler's playbook, the play-action. Getting Marshawn Williams and Shai McKenzie going will be vital to opening up big play opportunities.
Third Down And Red Zone Magic
As good as the Hokies have looked on third down this year, I think it's safe to say that they won't operate with the same success the remainder of the year. Michael Brewer is a good quarterback, but he's not going to be able to pull third-and-long conversions out of his hat time and again like he did on Saturday. There's a reason why the best scoring offenses have the best yards per play rates every season. If you rely on long drives to move the football, eventually you'll shoot yourself in the foot. Penalties, drops, missed assignments... something bad is going to happen. In the red zone, those issues are even more common.
Most important stat of the game, red zone td%... Freshmen will have to make big plays for the O— Mason Naumann (@3rdand31) September 6, 2014
The freshmen definitely came up big for the Hokies in the red zone. Williams, Mckenzie, and Hodges all got in. The reliance on red zone conversions always makes me nervous though. If Virginia Tech had gone just two for three in the red zone, the game could have gone totally different. This offense needs to find a way to get easy scores against ECU. Luckily, the pieces appear to be in place. Hopefully the puzzle comes together on saturday.
Comments
That route by Ford on 3rd-and-17 was one of my favorite moments of the night. Of course, I wish the distance hadn't been what it was on 3rd down, but what a response in that situation.
After watching him throw that pass, "We have a QB."
DITTO! AND he has some playmakers around him.
4FSS
And how quiet the stadium got after that play... That was sweet.
That was a HUGE throw in a bigtime situation, feet on the goal line. Not sure about you, but my gut was in knots
I felt the same way. I was almost panicked when he threw the pass, praying it wouldn't get picked, then I saw Ford right there. Great route, great pass, great timing, first down. I agree with Jsketch, too - my initial reaction was, "wow, this Brewer guy is for real."
Certainly plays over 15 yards should be deemed explosive, wonder how many we had Saturday. I feel like there were several on the jet sweeps, etc but only a few throwing and generally dictated by down and distance.
The few deep balls we've thrown looked to be slightly under thrown. Hopefully that's not an arm strength issue and the reason for the more shorter/ intermediate stuff. I did notice once we broke the 50 we got really aggressive offensively. That lines up with the risk management article yesterday and I too hope they open it up a bit against the Pirates. Getting the run game going should allow us to take more shots.
Newsome had one run of 24, and Sam Rogers had one of 17. Brewer completed passes of 18 (Ford), 18 (Byrn), 16 and 15 (Malleck). That's all the plays that went 15 or more yards.
There were also:
13 plays of 10-14 yards (nine passes, four runs),
9 plays for 5-9 yards (two passes, seven runs),
23 plays of 1-4 yards (four passes, 19 runs),
9 plays for 0 to -5 yards (two passes, seven runs)
Where did you find these stats? Do you use a website or rewatch the game to find out?
Maybe he's the Rain Man of VT Football.
"Time for Roth. Definite, Definitely time for Bill Roth."
I skimmed through the play-by-play on espn.com.
Besides fantasy games, that's one thing they're still good for.
Agree the running game needs to be a big factor in this game. I think they are capable of achieving that as well. Probably faced the best or at least one of the best DL's we will see this season. Although we couldn't run on them the OL held their own and wasn't dominated by them. I expect one of either Shai or Marshawn to get at least 100 yds this week.
Running game needs to get going. 200 yds or so a game from Brewer works as long as we are getting the yards slamming that rock in the hole. Lets go Hokies!
Count me in for Team Run the Ball.
I would be very satisfied with a win over ECU on the back of the running game.
Going into conference play, I think that would give opponent D-coordinators nightmares.
we haven't tried to just line up under center and run the ball this year very much. ecu has a solid run d. I wonder if well keep running mainly out of shotgun and pistol formations this game too. I'm just happy if it works and we move the ball. I think shai and marshawn are great weapons so I'm glad their in our backfield
I saw this today on SI from Andy Staples in his DearAndy column:
We should be very familiar with ECU, we play them annually from now until the Apocalypse
They have been a fine addition to the ACC
It's seriously time to relegate Wake for ECU
Ouch, poor Wake.
No it's not.
Yes, especially if Wake can't afford to pay their players the full cost of school. They've already said they may have to drop football if it comes to that. Wake's best years are behind them. Plus smaller fan base and stadium compared to ECU. And ECU has fantastic Eastern Carolina BBQ joints in the area. #TeamVinegarSauce
Agree, but...
UNCheat aside, academics matter. And ECU's academics are lacking.*
I want to see some real pressure on Notre Dame to get them in the fold. (I know, they have their own academic scandal.)
* I can say this with confidence because I read it on a message board somewhere.
Yes, ECU's academics are bad, worse than UConn's academics bad.
Notre Dame isn't becoming a full member until the CFP dictates that only conference champions will be allowed, no independents. Then BYU will jump to the PAC12 with someone to go to 14.
I can't imagine ECU's academics are any worse that FSU's but I could really care less. I just want to see them totally destroyed this weekend by a balanced and productive offence working in tandem with a solid defensive performance. One thing about the Pirates- they always had some HOT co-eds which, many years ago, I enjoyed plundering! ARG
Are you saying UConn's academics are bad? UConn has a very solid academic reputation and would reside very solidly in the middle of the ACC from an academic standpoint.
This is true, by many metrics.
Growing up in NC, everyone referred to them as EZU. It was the backup school for everyone who wanted to go to one of the big state universities but couldn't get in. Now things may have changed in the last 25 years, but I highly doubt it. They will always be the little step-sister to UNC and NC State. I seriously doubt that they would ever be a serious ACC candidate. But they used to throw one hell of a Halloween block party! (I think I heard that Greenville finally decided to clamp down on that little (big) festival...)
Then the Academy schools will jump too.. Navy will prob come to the ACC. Army to B1G and Airforce to Big12?
I believe the Air Force Academy is in the Mountain West.
The football conference, I mean, not just geographically.
Gotta get up early to get B's on a Saturday!
Remove Wake.
Add ND, Navy, PSU
True story: my roommate (not a big NCAAFB fan before college) thought ECU was in the acc until our junior year because we played them so much
Not gonna lie, I also thought this until my junior year.
I'll only start to be concerned with the power running game, if we can't run against substantially weaker defensive fronts.
That was disturbing indeed. If the Hokies have that kind of performance going forward, a team with an offense is going to make them pay.
Despite the 35 points, we're currently 83rd in the country in yards per play. Granted we've played two decent defenses, but we're not exactly Oregon here. What has been promising is that we've been efficient.
Converting third downs has helped immensely, but we've had 32 3rd downs already this season - on top of that, we've often had long distances to cover. Conversion % will not stay that high unless we can reduce our average yards to go.
The third down % isn't sustainable, but hopefully the running game makes its return this week and we can minimize the number of third downs we face...or at least make them much shorter.
Pretty small sample size so far, I'd like to get through the first month to identify what we truly are.
At least a good running game can hopefully shorten up the yardage needed.
We had 25 sets of downs against OSU (excluding touchdowns and turnovers where the set of downs wasn't completed). On 17 of them we went to 3rd down. You'd like to not need so many conversions to keep the sticks moving.
Exactly, need to find a way to get some "easy" points on our offensive possessions. It's only a matter of time before series get derailed because of penalties and such.
Actually the offense only scored 28, but either way, 35 isn't a lot these days. We led the nation in scoring offense in '99 with just over 40 PPG. That wouldn't get you in the top 25 right now (although it will tighten up as the season goes on).
If someone can put up a lot of points on Bud's D then it will definitely force the offense to respond. However, I'm gaining much more confidence that the offense will be able to respond in that situation this year. VT had bad field position and a 2 TD lead for much of the second half and you saw much more conservative play calling as a result. That isn't reason for concern, that's smart coaching/playcalling. When OSU tied it up you saw the staff open the playbook up again and immediately answer with a TD as Mason pointed out.
VT did a great job of answering big drives from OSU throughout the game. That's something we haven't seen consistently in a while.
AND, that was one LEGIT D!
I'd like to think that establishing the running game is going to be big in this matchup for us. ECU wants to run fast and sling it around so we are going to need to keep our D off the field to get some rest. If ECU really is trying to throw more stuff down the field that and Carden is holding the ball longer then it could be a long day for him since it doesn't take this DL long to get to the QB.
Good point about keeping ECU's offense off the field.
The main reason that ECU hung around with USCe last weekend was because USCe's pass D is horrendous right now, and ECU stayed on the field. If #DBU shows up for us on Saturday, we should be in control. That will allow our offense to operate efficiently.
In VT v OSU game, VT held the ball for 33 mins. The offense Loeffler executed last week was good enough to win the time of possession by 6 minutes, allowing the D got enough rest. General rule, T.O.P. success goes hand in hand with 3rd down success. However, a dominant running game capable of getting first downs, would definitely amplify the success. So, I just hope Loeffler finds a way to get VT 1st downs. If they happen by running the ball, that's just frosting.
Is there ever was a way to define a trap game, Saturdays game against East Carolina would be it. A noon kickoff, against an opponent with a very different and very effective offensive approach that does not fear Lane Stadium or the Hokies vaunted defensive reputation, less than a week after one of the biggest, most emotional wins in school history. The Pirates have a history of upsetting teams, and their team plays an aggressive, tough style that keeps them in games.
Some things remain the same for East Carolina. The Pirates will play their Air Raid offense and throw the ball over the field. Shane Carden and record-setting receiver Justin Hardy will be back, and both have the experience of facing the Hokie secondary from last year fresh in their memory. They will play the same 3-4 defense with a jack linebacker lined up on the line of scrimmage crouched down in a funny looking squat. They will run around, hit everything that moves, and be a general nightmare to play against.
In watching the film of the Pirates close loss to South Carolina, ECU very easily could have been ahead 28-7 early in the 2nd quarter. ECU moved the ball up and down the field and then had a couple of drops in the red zone that derailed drives. So much of the Air Raid offense involves quick screens and throws 10 yards or less down the field, but against the Gamecocks Carden held on to the football a little longer and threw a few more routes oriented to the sideline. Hardy spent almost the entire game against the Hokies last season in the slot; this year the Pirates move Hardy all over the field, including to the boundary split end position. Still, East Carolina wants to line their outside receiver wide, and work those deeper routes like posts and slants back to the middle of the field. Their slot receivers will work curls, screens, and wheel routes back to the outside, but those throws will rarely be deep down the field. They also can run the ball, but they will run even when not successful because they love to get big plays down the seam on skinny posts off play action. South Carolina played right into that strategy by playing soft zones. Often, the Gamecocks aligned a deep safety over the slot receiver. The safety was often so deep that it left the corners alone against the receiver and a blocker on the quick wide receiver screens. It also meant that the corners didn't have any inside leverage help on inside slants and skinny posts. Time and time again, Hardy would align as the boundary split end, run a post, and there was no help on the inside to help the corner.
I fully expect Bud Foster to have whoever is playing on a slot receiver to press cover those players. The boundary corner will also press, and the field corner will likely play off man or a quarters alignment. I am not sure if Bud abandons the big blitz looks that were so prevalent in week 1 and 2. If he does, expect to see Bonner, Clark, and Facyson forming a triangle of coverage to the field side, with Kendall Fuller on an island to the boundary. Deon Clarke will align on the edge, with Jarrett and Williams in the middle. If Bud thinks he can get to Carden with four guys, Clarke will move back to backer, and Jarrett will likely slide back to deep centerfield/boundary shaded position.
Also, expect a healthy dose of the 3-3 look, with DiNardo replacing one of the defensive linemen.
My two biggest questions this week:
1) Paging Luther Maddy- While the Hokie defense has been lights out, Luther Maddy hasn't been as dominant as I expected for him this season. Part of that could be a slower than hoped for recovery from his sprained knee, and part of it could be that Maddy is drawing the double teams that Derrick Hopkins got last season (which frees up his teammates.) With Marshall's health a bit of a question mark, the Hokies really need great pass rush from Maddy, especially if the Pirates passing game forces Bud to blitz less.
2) I don't think East Carolina is as good up front as they were last season. Nose tackle Terry Williams decimated the Hokie interior offensive line last year. His preferred technique was to attack through the back shoulder of the zone blocker (usually the center) to take away the anticipated cutback lane on inside zone runs. Williams was suspended shortly after the game, missed fall camp, and will be returning to action this week. Williams weight ballooned to 350 pounds
and reports indicate he will play a limited role Saturday.
Without Williams on the field, the ECU front 3 got pushed around by South Carolina, and jack linebacker Montrose Overton isn't as stout a pass rusher as stud Derrell Johnson last season. ECU's secondary got picked on by a neophyte Hokie passing game last season. The Hokies should be able to throw the football, but I want to see the Hokies establish more of a running game this season. A key for me will be to watch Marshawn Williams and Shai McKenzie on zone plays. ECU's 3-4 is susceptible on the edge, but Williams and McKenzie for the most part have looked for seams inside on zone plays. I want to see better running lanes form, and I want to see Williams and McKenzie both looking sharper at finding the correct holes as they develop instead of always taking the lowest risk bubble near the middle of the line.
I was thinking about this earlier. I saw how Maddy was lined up as a 0 Technique and that it was unfamiliar to him against OSU, but there's been so much more ink dedicated to Dadi, Marshall, and our LBs than there has been for Maddy who was expected to be the anchor on our defense. Maybe teams are scheming to stop him, but I don't know exactly why we haven't seen him tearing it up.
I don't know. I'd say taking away any interior run game in an option style offense is pretty well tearing it up. If OSU didn't run up the middle much, it's in no small part because they never saw it available.
I guess I mean more stat wise. Big Lu had 1 tackle against OSU but without him, our entire line and LBs wouldn't have had the success they did. You just didn't hear his name being called out as much as I hoped. I'm not saying he needs to be an Aaron Donald, but I'm just curious if he's being doubled or just isn't as productive.
Not everyone's contributions will show up on a stat sheet. Particularly with the defenses that Bud dials up. So if Maddy's assignment was to clog up the middle, causing OSU to run primarily outside, then he did his job.
Sorta like the CBs that we've had in the past that ended up only getting a couple of INTs a year. It wasn't that they were underperforming, it was that they played their part so well that the opposing offense stayed away from them.
Maddy played both the 0 tech and the 3 tech, depending on which side featured the passing strength. He did a terrific job jamming things up, but we didn't see him in the backfield making plays (Marshall had several tackles for a loss and a sack that was taken away by the Dadi Nicolas facemask penalty.)
So far, big Luther has only been credited with 1 tackle and 1 assist on the season. He isn't playing badly, but I expected to see him putting people on the ground more often. I am guessing a big part of that has to do with his recovery from the injury, but with Marshall hurt, they need someone to collapse the pocket on the inside with most of ECU's throws being quick ones.
Hokies had 7 sacks last year. That will be tough to replicate without Luther destroying the middle.
Didn't we have 7 sacks against OSU?
Yes, but that number is a little inflated by the fact that OSU went into "comeback" mode and completely abandoned the run game. We only had one sack in the first 3 quarters, had 6 in the 4th.
dunno, I'll take 6 sacks in the 4th quarter every game over 6 sacks in the first 3 quarters. It downright demoralizing when it happens in the 4th. It creates momentum and puts our offense on the field for the go ahead or the comeback.
Isn't that the point, though? If OSU had had the lead in the 4th they would have been running the ball and we wouldn't have had the sacks. So the 4th down sacks wouldn't have contributed to a go-ahead or comeback, because if we needed to come back, the sacks wouldn't have happened, right?
Am I the only one who thinks our running game will open up the more teams see consistency with our passing game?
That was my theory leading up to this season, but both weeks 1 & 2 it looked like the secondary was well off the line playing cover 2/4. It seems like teams are daring us to beat them with short routes, and so far we've obliged. So now I don't know what the hell we're supposed to do to get the run game going.
As long as they keep forcing us to pass, we'll show them that "hey, we can pass better now." It will take time for coaches to actually catch up to what's brewing in the 'Burg.
Unintentional pun.
This is a bell weather game. The guys handled w&m fairly easily and passed the test against osu. Ecu is a game against supposedly "level" competition. An easy win lets us know we're in good shape, a tight battle tells us there's more work to do.
Time to pillage the pirates.
Aarrrrgh! Bring me some scalps, ears and eyeballs!
Captain obvious' observations:
1) After watching the OSU game again today, thank you TKP, I noticed that the game was much closer than I initially thought on Sunday morning. Had there not been a miscommunication between Jarrett and his WR during the final minutes of the game, OSU could have tied the game. Donovan Riley was beat. Now, why am I throwing ice water on the fire? Because I can see ECU beating us this Saturday. I hope I'm wrong and Brewer talks some sense into the team and that they are prepared for them Pirates because I'm not ready for the party to stop just yet.
2) Obviously we need to establish the run, but if the passing game is working for us, let us pick them apart until ECU starts committing an extra defender to assist their DBs and thus allow our run game to get started.
3) I was really impressed with how well our O-linemen performed against OSU in pass protection. Hopefully we will see no drop-off in pass protection while improving the blocking to open holes for our RBs. Besides a few quality runs, OSU stopped us cold.
You are correct, captain obvious (which should be obvious).
Thank you. And nutz, Mark May just put us on upset alert. What a smart Jerk. :-D
I'm not so sure about part 1. It certainly appeared that Riley was playing more of a zone and reading the QB's eyes, as he was looking into the backfield almost the whole play. Barrett threw it right to him not because he was beat and was just daydreaming in a random spot on the field, but because Riley was reading Barrett's eyes and knew where the football was going.
For a minute there I thought we were talking about Kysheon Jarrett instead of JT Barrett, the OSU QB.
Whoops, I was tired. My b.
Fair enough and I did not mean to say that Riley was lost in the Defensive Scheme and out of place.
What I meant with my first observation was that Riley made a gamble. Because he was definitely behind the WR when he made the play on the ball with at least 4 yards of separation between himself and the OSU WR. Had JT Jarrett taken another second, he might have seen his WR streaking down the sidelines with Riley playing catch-up. Again, just an observation on my part and I am in no way an expert in these matters.
If Riley plays in the ECU game, we will have more samples upon which we can get a better picture of his abilities.
I still am questioning this as well. I really can't tell if Riley was playing short or there was a blown coverage and we got lucky. You're right that it looks like he was in zone and reading the eyes of the QB, but the receiver was 10 yards down field and our safety (Jarrett) was also close to the the ball and Riley, so it looks like he was playing short as well. NO ONE was on the receiver.
Also most of the night the corners were playing press coverage running with the receiver and not looking back at the QB at all. Instead looking at the receiver's eyes and making a play when they made a play. So playing zone or short on this one play well into in the 4th seems a strange call when the game plan was not this for 90% of the game. (90% is not an official stat)
So I still think there's a chance it was a blown coverage by either Riley or Jarrett and we might have gotten massively lucky.
I'll have to go look at the film again, but where was Bonner? He could have been playing CF and Riley could have been playing an underneath zone.
Riley played it perfectly, and had his eyes on Barrett the whole time. ESPN briefly shows a replay of what happened on that play, and its completely on the WR/QB that the INT happened.
http://youtu.be/w83iQP4GiEA?t=2h39m39s
Riley has his eyes on the QB the whole time. At the snap, he's backpedaling to keep pace with the WR, but has his eyes trained on the QB. As soon as Barrett makes the move to throw, Riley was had positioning on the WR to continue deep if need be, but as he had his eyes set, he broke coverage and got the easy pick. And on second look, Jarrett doesn't even appear to be in pass coverage on the play, as he's completely spying the QB, ready to take away anything underneath, including getting the QB if he should break the pocket.
Watching the ECU Sakerlina game, it looks like the ECU D opens up in the middle nicely for inside qb runs. I think the Hokies could have some success this week with some Wildcat Bucky keepers.
I can't shake it. I am more nervous for Saturday's game than I was for Ohio State.
Me too. I was watching some footage of the South Caroline game. They are dangerous.
They're always dangerous.
Exacerbated by the fact that USCe is bad on D.
I'm worried about our linebackers in coverage. The first 2 games they've pretty much gone untested in coverage and ECU was exploiting that against South Carolina
Since ECU runs a spread, I expect to see a lot of nickel in case they lack in coverage. As fast as our LB corps is, though, I don't predict that to be as much an issue as it was in the past.
I know, right? Even Chase Williams is lickety-split for a white dude.
But can he jump?
Probably because we had nothing to lose last week. Now that we beat a highly ranked team and are ranked ourselves, we now have more at stake.
Not to mention that ECU is a decent team, whom we shouldn't have to play every single year, because it's a no-win situation. No one is going to look at that game and use it as an argument for strength of schedule (it's ECU...).
^ This. Trappygame plus this.
Justin Hardy is the real deal. He's catching the ball in traffic with dudes draped all over him.
I think our offense will be the key to this game. If the Hokies can sustain drives and keep Carden-Hardy off the field, they should be fine. Last year the main problem was the Hokie offense couldn't stay on the field for any amount of time.
Defense just needs to play the bend - not break game. ECU is going to get yds, but their style of offense tends to stall in the red zone.
Another strike against the Hokies on the Karma side...
Yeah, the Tar Heels wore these bad boys while they were being raped by ECU last year. Don't they look familiar?
Oh, boy.
Yes but was Sam Rogers wearing one then? Didn't think so. Critical difference.
I see the TEs and Sam Rogers playing a significant role in this game...again. They're going to present the ECU LBs and Safeties with some challenges that I think are going to create opportunities elsewhere for the VT offense.
Klein wasn't really a factor yet at this stage of the season last year and caught just 1 pass for 4 yards. I think we'll see the TEs targeted until ECU commits to stopping them (which could be early). When that happens, the play book opens up.
Not sure if it's been mentioned, but the weather (likely rain) could play a part. Sure tackling will be crucial. Let's pound the rock and win this thing the old fashioned way.