Slept On It: Pitt

My wife and I sat in silence for a solid ten minutes after Pitt took their game sealing knee. We were bewildered. My wife broke the silence and the therapist in her came out. She said, "Every day I have conversations with my clients where, following a discussion about a successful outcome in their lives, I ask them what worked in that situation? What was successful? What clicked? Let's take that, generalize it, and use it to improve."

After watching the Hokies' offense do seemingly so little right Thursday night, I wasn't so sure there was a point in conducting that exercise.

Thursday night's game was arguably the most discouraging performance we've seen this year. Following 11 days off to heal, review, regroup and prepare for the stretch run, Tech appeared lost at times (maybe the best example was by Kyshoen Jarrett, playing centerfield on Tyler Boyd's long touchdown reception).

We're all well aware of the adversity this team has been forced to overcome 7 games into the season: Thin at defensive line and without their senior leader (Maddy); decimated by injuries at the tailback position and down to their 4th and 5th string rushers; quarterbacked by an enigma; young; young; and young.

Coming off of a bye and all that it entails, I expected more from this team. I wanted to see the performance we saw last year on the road from a less talented squad against a dangerous Georgia Tech team. In that game we saw a perfectly scripted offensive game plan. The Logan Thomas-led offense came out of the gates firing, everyone was in a position to succeed despite intermittent success in the preceding four games. And that came after a short week of preparation.

Thursday night against Pitt, in a similar setting with a similarly inconsistent offense, we failed to see the ingenious offensive gameplan of a year ago. Instead of a decisive quarterback looking to attack a Pitt secondary that wasn't as good as its stats indicated, we saw hesitation and repeated six-yard throws to the sidelines. The running game was putrid, with little inventiveness and few rushing lanes.

I wanted to see our defense lock down the Panthers' two playmakers and make them as one-dimensional as possible. I had yet to see Chad Voytik prove that he could beat a team with his arm, and the thought of Dadi Nicolas, Ken Ekanem and Corey Marshall harassing him all night with our defensive backs feasting on wounded ducks made me salivate. In some respects the defense achieved this. Although it took until the second half, and James Conner still got his. Who would have thought Chad Voytik would repeatedly burn us with his legs? Anyone? Even as the game rolled along, did Bud Foster?

Coming into the season, I had this three game stretch (UNC, Pitt and Miami) circled for a variety of reasons. Regardless of their records, UNC and Pitt historically play us tough on the road; The U is The U and is always a big game; add in a bye week and back-to-back Thursday night primetime games and you've got a tough stretch on paper before factoring in player matchups or win-loss records.

During the bye week, I was quick to voice my concern over how the Hokies would perform after eleven days rest. Would we be prepared for a battle and ready to roll from the onset, or would we repeat the performance of two years ago and get knocked on our heels? In the end I suppose we saw neither. The Hokies weren't so much going through the motions as they just looked lost at times.

Not only were Hokie fans stunned when Voytik starting carrying the ball as much as Conner, but on television it sure looked like the team was as well. An adjustment never came or didn't work, and Voytik continued to crank out yards on the ground throughout the game.

Yet despite looking almost listless at times, the game saw a number of strong individual performances from guys like Corey Marshall and Bucky Hodges. Andrew "Say My Name" Motuapuaka stepped in for an injured Chase Williams and proceeded to notch two quick tackles. Isaiah Ford and Cam Phillips again made phenomenal catches in traffic and along the sidelines. It's beginning to sound like a broken record, but even following each of the three losses, it has been hard not to smile when thinking about the young talent oozing from this roster.

Which brings me back to my wife's comment. In order to move forward and learn from the numerous mistakes made by this team Thursday night, it is imperative that the coaching staff take a solution-focused approach. Coaches and players alike can talk all day about what went wrong, but if they talk about what went right, they can attempt to make that happen more frequently.

When you remove all of the horrid drives the offense had, there were a notable few that saw them move the ball almost effortlessly down the field. Why? Despite little or no prior success in the game in similar down-and-distance scenarios, the Hokie offense was able to efficiently matriculate the ball downfield and set up scoring chances.

Let's take a look at the Hokies' fourth quarter touchdown drive. Brewer threw on all nine plays, went 6-of-9, and his only incompletions were on first down throws. After each incompletion, he followed them up with passes of 11, 11 and 19 yards to move the chains. In all, the drive went 80 yards in two-and-a-half minutes. With each completion you could see Brewer get dialed in, and he fed off of that confidence, picking up the pace of the offense to try and maintain the positive momentum.

Aside from the third quarter drive that included the long completion to Bucky Hodges, Brewer rarely showed any of the confidence that we gushed about after the Ohio State win.

Following a series of up-and-down performances, Brewer almost appears to have over-corrected his approach. The team found early success against teams like Ohio State because of his fearlessness and gunslinger mentality, but in an effort to minimize costly mistakes that killed drives against ECU and Georgia Tech, Brewer has become so hesitant that he is late delivering the ball to wide open receivers. I counted at least three plays in the first half where Brewer had an open receiver downfield, only to hesitate and allow the previously-beaten defender to recover and break-up the pass.

Given the lack of options at tailback and the youth that surrounds Michael Brewer, how does this offense move forward with him as its leader? I am of the opinion that a quality coordinator has the ability to recognize both the strengths and limitations of those available to him and reconfigure their system — if need be — to work with what they have.

Seven games into the season, Loeffler should be able to recognize what his quarterback is and is not. His strength may be as a rhythm quarterback who thrives on stringing together successful plays in sequence. Similar to how Loeffler put Logan Thomas in a position to generate some rhythm and confidence a year ago at Georgia Tech, I would love to see Lefty do the same against an athletic Miami defense.

At the same time, Brewer has lost that moxie we all loved. Instead of tempering his fearlessness, he has become fearful of making a mistake. Both extremes have cost the Hokies valuable points over the last five weeks, and in order for this team to get back to winning, Brewer and Loeffler might need to grab their fishing poles, head down to the New River and have a deep conversation about how this offense can move forward.

For better or worse, the current state of this offense dictates that this team goes as Michael Brewer goes.

With another key primetime matchup against Miami on the horizon, it will be important to see how this staff and team react to their most recent performance. When the team reconvenes this weekend, maybe they should spend some time talking about what went right. It's time to get away from the negativity, focus on the positives and close this season strong.