In the last two weeks, we've watched a roller coaster of Virginia Tech football games.
In one, we watched our QB throw for almost 300 yards while dominating time of possession by over 13 minutes. We frustrated them into over 100 yards in penalties. Our defense held them to only converting 5 of their 15 third downs, and made them punt more times than they have in a single game in two years.
Then in the other we saw our offense struggle, not only getting outgained but unable to break even 200 yards passing with a paltry 5.5 yard average. Worse, we could only muster 3 yards per carry on the ground and committed over 100 yards of penalties ourselves. Meanwhile the defense allowed 7.6 yards per pass and saw four different opposing receivers haul in 20+ yard receptions.
The first game was East Carolina. The second was Ohio State.
When you're good you're never as good as you think you are, and when you're bad, you're never as bad as you think you are. Take a deep breath everyone.
While all of us entertained fantasies of shocking the world and running the table this year, the overwhelming majority of us were ready to take a 2-1 start to the season and set our sights on the ACC Championship, knowing you can only take so big of a step in one season. And here we are. It may not be how we pictured it, and beating Ohio State certain made those undefeated fantasies feel a little more realistic, but we're right where most of us expected to be.
We are 2-1. We are 0-0 in the ACC. That changes Saturday. Start jumping.
Comments
I'm not too down on that loss. I see way more good things to come from this team down the line, plus I'll take a win at a highly-ranked Ohio State any year!
Nicely done!
Interesting stats.
There is a lot of "luck" in this game, but not in the easy to dismiss type of way. I guess its more like making a handful of plays swings a game. I thought of Brewers atrocious ECU interception and thought of the same pass he threw against OSU but the OSU defender was a step slow. Switch those interceptions and you may switch the games. Same with the handful of deep balls ECU caught that OSU didn't. Or the swing pass to Montre Wilson that was just overthrown, even though there wasn't anyone within 40 yards of him and he's the best open field guy we see all year.
We do have some concerns, but the same concerns were there a week ago. We need to run the ball. We need to not put so much pressure on our DB's. We need to get healthy. We need Brewer to protect the ball (he's on pace for 30 turnovers himself).
People have way too little appreciation for luck in the game of football. Stats are good for taking the "luck" component out of the game.
Look at Auburn's last two games before the championship game last year to see how much can turn on just one fluky play. Smart call to have a guy back to return the FG, but he still has to cross 109 yards of field without being tackled and have the field goal come up just short.
As much as I love stats, I often make my picks based more on momentum and more ephemeral factors like "letdown" and "norming"
For instance, GT's defense was atrocious in the 2nd half versus GSU. Lots of missed tackles, gave up a 35-10 lead. They will tackle everything in the world this game, especially in the first half. Just like VT dropping all those passes. We will have minimal drops this week. BC won't rush for 450+ yards this week. That's gotta norm (and I think they play Maine).
Gotta love some perspective! I hope to see an ANGRY team come out against the Jackets.
As an added comment, I'm amazed at the perceived drop-off by Brewer. His efficiency was virtually identical between the two games (as was his rating) and due to passing more, he accumulated 100 more yards against ECU. And yet there's this perception that he came back down to earth or something. ECU contained better and he took more sacks, but that's not on him.
Not just about Brewer either. I am always frustrated by the crowd that thinks we are world beaters after games like OSU and cellar dwellers after games like ECU. Never as high, never as low...some folks need a good deal of patience and maybe even a measure of perspective about our team and the game in general.
srsly tho
ECU got a ton of pressure with simple 4 and 5 man rush. Eerilly similar to what we did to OSU where we have 6 or 7 guys dropping back in coverage and giving the QB no clear looks.
350 pounds of man in the center can do that though. Have to double team him rather than cover a linebacker
That guy looked like Vince Wilforks love child. Big man in the middle there.
The love child of Vince Wilfork and Cee-Lo Green to be exact.
I made a comment about seeing a drop off in Brewer's play. Maybe that was not the right focus. However, after anOSU, I also said Brewer had every lucky play go in his favor. That changed against ECU. That lob to Sam Rogers in the middle of 37 OSU defenders that should have never left his hand, but Rogers made a hell of a catch. The throws to Roger's wrong shoulder Saturday were not. I felt like the receivers made some catches to bail him out 2 weeks ago that they didn't make Saturday, and even had a few drops that they shouldn't have. The line protected him on 3rd down vs OSU but couldn't dial up that protection against ECU. So I may be guilty of putting too much on Brewer's shoulders, but that's what the QB gets. I think we saw more of an issue of everything going right vs (most) everything going wrong. What's great is that when so much went wrong, we were still in the game.
Thanks for this Joel! I needed that jolt of reality after reading some of the more depressing things around here the last couple days
I never thought this, not for one second. Didn't even comprehend it, been watching this team and this sport for way too long.
Maybe that's why I wasn't devastated on Saturday. We got out of Columbus with a win, and it was a landmark win for the program...but that didn't change who we are as a team. There were a lot of issues clearly on display in that anOSU game that we won *Despite*, the planets aligned and it worked out for us.
There's going to be more losses this year, we just all need to hope it's the right ones so we maybe have a crack at the ACCCG this year. The OL has a long way to go for that to happen, though. Everyone needs to take deep breaths.
Anybody else wonder what happened to our hurry up offense? We were taking a lot of time on Saturday, huddling at times, and constantly shuffling new people on and off the field. I thought the point of our new offense was to go faster and just shuffle the players on the field for at least a couple of plays in a row?
Pure speculation here, but they needed to keep ECUs offense off the field so I doubt the hurry-up was in the game plan. Later in the game Malleck was banged up some my guess is that took a lot of the hurry up, shuffling players around plays off the table.
When you are averaging 1 yard/per play; you take a little more time to try to get everyone on the same page.
I'm sure if we were moving the ball, we would have been faster.
In the second half we were moving the ball decently, but still going very slowly. Especially in the fourth quarter down 14 and taking 30 seconds to snap the ball.
As the chronically unhappy VT fan (or so he said), kept yelling in my ear.
The guy was bitching about everything and was a real doggie downer.
It was all I could do to keep from turning around and asking him to stop yell-bitching in my ear.
His wife did laugh when I balled up s wrapper and put it in me ear on his side. He was embarrassing his family and some of his friends moved a couple seats away.
I wondered about the hurry-up as well. An accelerated pace would have helped keep that 350lb man-mountain on their defense winded or on the sidelines.
Fire Joelestra!!! Put Leonard in!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU6m5UqLx9M
Beat GT!
Foster is going to have his boys ready for GT. Something about a Fuller abandoning coverage and patrolling the line like Polumalu in his prime gives me the smiles.
We are still going to win 10 game this year, take that to the bank!
Only if you are going to FDIC insure it.
Ok, put it under your mattress.
Now, that's just crazy talk.