I've graduated last spring so I'm still relatively new to Virginia Tech football so I have some questions. Would someone explain to me this style of putting our corners on an island we've been playing and why Bud Foster keeps resorting to it even after we've gotten beat the past two game? Has Bud Foster always done this? What type of defense does tech traditionally play? I'm just trying to learn and get an understanding of what we've done in the past compared to what were doing now.
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
It had worked much of the game when they tried to pick on Clark and (for some reason) Fuller. It drew the ire of the fanbase when Riley bit on that pump fake and made Foster look like he didn't know how to coach a defense.
We've done that against GT forever, as far as I can remember. That offense requires you to bring your safeties up to help defend the pitch man, or the B-back if he breaks the line. As French pointed out in his review, an inverted cover-2, with the safeties up and the corners deep, is a great way to let your safeties come up in run support without having a major bust on the back end. Until it was revealed that Facyson isn't healthy, we had the corners to pull that off no problem. But now that we're relying on Clarke and Riley.... not so much.
defense did not lose this game and the previous game. the offense did. plain & simple.
Agree. Bud's system is aggressive, and it is high-risk/high-reward. We have had an outstanding secondary for a long time and Bud can rely on his CBs and safeties to play well. A few busts because of things like falling down or a moment's hesitation and you get burned. When the offense does no favors by going 3-and-out late in a close game, or turning it over, it causes the defense to have to be flawless. Any flaw then becomes magnified, but the D shouldn't have been in that situation. We should have been up two TDs by the half and 3 TDs by the 4th quarter. Then those mistakes don't become as costly.
Bud Foster has not lived up to his billing as even a good defensive coordinator the past 2 weeks. His inability to adjust to what ECU was doing last week absolutely killed us, and his decision to bring a corner blitz for that last GT TD left their receiver wide open with only a backup deep safety covering. That is not smart football. These are things that you do not expect out of Bud Foster.
We shut down ECU for the better part of 45 minutes. Look at UNC - they're presently getting torched. I'd say he did fine. The problems were busts in coverage and Facyson playing on a bum leg and getting picked on. If Facyson is 100%, that entire first quarter is different and you'd be singing a different tune. Today, Kendall falls down at a key moment and then Riley reads the play wrong and gets burned. That's not on Bud, that's on his guys that he's counting on.
Yup. Kendall needs to keep his feet and Riley needs to trust his technique and understand the situation. As is posted on the door of the DB meeting room: if at first you don't succeed, try doing what your coach told you to do the first time.
Right, but when it mattered the D got burned against ECU.
Well, it's sort of an unknowable debate whether the strategy should have been different, but I still blame execution over scheme.
"When it mattered" is defined by the times the d got torched by ECU. It's a self reinforcing bias.
You're creating an unwinnable situation where the D must be perfect else they are failing "when it matters."
No. The offense tied the game and the defense had to stop them in the last minute. That minute mattered and they blew it. It happens. I'm not upset because that is a great football team.
I disagree with your notion that "good enough to win" is good enough for an offense in 2014. There were. 20+ points left on the board by the offense that would have made that one last second stand not matter.
Football games are 60 mins long. A point scored in the first quarter is worth the same as a point scored in the 4Th
If it is the 59th minute of the game and it is tied, it doesn't matter what happened in the past. That minute is what matters. There is a reason that players and coaches always say after a game that they are already focusing on the next. The same applies in the game itself. If all our guys worried about all the missed opportunities in the past, then they will surely miss all the opportunities in the future.
The problem against ECU was that Frank, his staff, and the players were ALL too busy reading their OhState press clippings to focus on ECU. The similar problem when we lost to JMU - Frank, his staff, and the players were ALL too busy whining about blown plays or officiating in the Boise game to take care of business. It is a recurring theme over the decades with the team. Point of emphasis, the players are only around 4 years or less. The coaching staff is the thread of continuity.
That being said, the loss is on the players as well as the coaching staff. It is the 2nd straight Monday-Friday loss, not a loss that just happened on Saturday. Cliched comments at postgame press conferences do not solve the problem. Work solves the problem. This was a conference loss, we can't use the OOC excuse. This one mattered. Waiting for next year gets old.
This is such a convenient excuse. Everyone uses it. It's wrong. Frank was on the field at OSU saying we had to be ready to build off the win and face ECU. Every player and coach shut down OSU questions after Monday of that week. It just doesn't hold water. We got beat because of failure to execute, not because we were patting ourselves on the back too much.
Just because he says it doesn't make it true.
"Lack of execution" is a great way for a coaching staff full of grown men to blame the kids. That's why you also hear that one all the time.
Thank you for saying it for me. Both points.
Yep. Our coaching staff has shown they can talk the talk very well. The problem is that none of what they've been saying has effectively transitioned into results on the field.
Hell, at this point, I'm not even convinced we were still looking back on Ohio St last week. This is 2 games in a row that mental breakdowns across the board have cost this team a win. This is 2 weeks in a row after the coaches said we needed to be focused that we have not been focused going into a game. 7 Illegal Substitution penalties in 2 games. That in and of itself just shows a team that is mentally just not there.
Those substitution penalties are on the staff IMO. 1 Ok, 2 eh, but 5 in one game?
I just continue to find it ludicrous that people keep using the "they weren't focused" or "too high on their win" excuse. Every player and every coach talked constantly about ECU, brushing aside OSU questions as best they could all week long. So either everyone on our team who spoke to the media is a bald-face liar, or this is a convenient excuse. We got beat. UNC just got trashed by the same team. ECU is good and they came into our house and took us to task.
As for the execution thing, I guess the film will tell. There were coaching mistakes, to be sure. The substitution penalties are one. The coaches have to get the guys focused on knowing who is doing what. The RB rotation still needs to be sorted out. The cute bubble screens need to get 86-ed when Shai is tearing it up. But beyond that, most of the big gains were busted plays - stumbling, reading the play wrong, missed tackle, etc. Our coaches do a good job of not blaming the players, not throwing them under the bus, but instead saying "hey, execution broke down but that's something we can fix." It's not for lack of talent, it's the little things. The real answers are generally never the easy ones.
This is fair.
Not saying anyone is lying about it.
But we don't know what is going on internally. Be that mentally or literally during practice. All we can go on is the results on the field, which have been garbage.
I suppose the 'fact' that every coach and every player was totally focused on ECU all week long is why ECU came out and scored 21 points in the first quarter. Because, you know, the coaches & team were SO focused in on the game.
Yeah, that's the ticket.
If we had safety help for a guy who was clearly not 100% for the game, there would be a different tune. It was VERY clear early in that game that Facyson had something wrong and was not running on full cylinders, but we kept him on an island in man to man coverage with no over the top help and allowed him to get picked on for 21 quick points in the first quarter before we did something to help him out.
That's not on Facyson. That's on the coaches for waiting too long to give him the help he needed in that game. With a proper adjustment to get him that help, or to pull the obviously hurt player off the field earlier in that game, we don't even get to the point where that last ECU score costs us the game.
No, Bud did not adjust against ECU. He said himself he didn't, but the last three quarters the defense only gave up seven points (unfortunately it happened in the last few seconds). His plan was fine, they just started executing. This week, well we shot ourselves in the foot too much.
It's actually funny to hear Bud respond to reporters when they ask about his adjustments. He always tells them outright "We didn't make any adjustments, we just started executing our original gameplan." He knows his gameplan is spot on, it's a matter of the players executing.
Bud is fighting a losing battle these days. Look at today's scores. 73, 70, 68, 66.......
Against today's offenses, the defenses are screwed. Bud seems to have adopted a high risk strategy. But when his cbs make it work, he's a genius. Without front 4 pressure, he seems stuck in this cover0. But look around, offenses are winning the war across football.
Some of those are against lower level competition (except UNC). Hell, we put up over 60 once upon a time on Cuse, 2X.
We were doing that all game, we were rolling the safety over to cover that receiver and bringing the corner.
False. Teams win and lose games.
A brilliant, yet simple concept.
Yes, Brewer's 3 picks were costly and the O shot itself in the foot way to many times today, but the D had its chance to hold and they didn't. Giving up that 4th and 15 late hurt.
If you are trying to run a defensively oriented ball control team, three bloody picks by the offense should be the end of the discussion when assigning blame.
You assume VT is trying to play defensively oriented ball control football, I think the fact that VT has more pass attempts than rush attempts in both the last 2 games might say otherwise
and FWIW, you still act like we have an elite defense, and so far the numbers don't bear that out, VTs D is ranked #41 in total defense
I think that first interception was the biggest momentum shift. We were up 13-3 and had 2 minutes left in the half and it really felt like we were starting to take full control of the game. I have no idea why brewer threw that instead of throwing it away or taking the sack. It was first down. That Georgia Tech TD before half really changed the mood of the game.
French had an overview of the different pass defense concepts that are commonly seen in the Hokies' secondary a couple years ago:
http://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2012/august/6/french-bench-pass-covera...
Specifically referencing cover 0, he said:
would say that the team is resorting to cover 0 so much now partially because it was necessary to place more emphasis on stopping the run against OSU and GT and partially because the secondary is the most experienced unit on the defense (all 4 starters back), with experienced depth (2 JR-Frye and Riley-and 2 SO-Greene and Clark-all but one of whom avoided a redshirt in the second string) before Frye was injured and before finding out that Facyson isn't back to his old self yet.