Miscues and Big Plays Halt Hokies in Heinz

Hey everyone! My name is Jeff Beyer, former QB at VT (2006-2009, depending on the year, you'd see me wearing No. 15 or 16). I was the one with the headset on the sideline relaying the play calls in to the QB (either Sean Glennon, Tyrod Taylor, Cory Holt or Ju Ju Clayton). When Joe asked me to contribute to The Key Play, I couldn't have been more excited. Even though I live on the other side of the country, Hokie football is always the most important part of my fall Saturdays, so being able to share my thoughts on the web beats trying to convince anyone out here in Oregon to listen. I hope you guys enjoy reading what I have to say, and I look forward to contributing every week!

It's a bummer my first film review has to come after a loss. It's easy to point fingers and identify screw-ups. However, nothing constructive comes from that. While any film review will highlight the good and bad, what I think is most important are the teaching points. Being able to identify what was wrong, and how it could have gone differently. My goal with my film reviews/highlights is to bring some sort of teaching aspect to the scene. I'm not setting out to pick on players and call them out individually. Rather, I will attempt to explain why something may have not worked out, or what I think should have happened, or what I think the idea behind the call was. I hope to share whatever knowledge I may have gained from my 4 years of watching other people on film. Although I may have slept through some of it (sorry Coach O'Cain), I'd like to think I picked up on a thing or two during that time.

To start off, I think the big letdown defensively with this game was execution. I don't think we were out coached, or that Pitt was more physical, or that we didn't want it enough. I just think we did not execute on a high enough level. Simply put, we did not make plays when we were put in a position to. This was evident on their scoring plays, as well as the big plays that led to them.

Pitt's first touchdown is a great example.

This isn't a poor defensive call. We were set up in cover 1, man underneath with a safety playing center field over top. Knowing this, as a DB, if you're going to get beat, you want to get beat to the inside. Fuller takes a technique that allows him to maintain outside leverage. If the receiver breaks to the inside, Fuller is thinking he has help from the safety. In fact, initially, Jarrett is well positioned for a) an INT or b) a big hit on the WR. However, he appears to misjudge the throw and whiffs completely, leading to the TD. Great setup, poor execution.

Leading up to Pitt's second touchdown, Voytik completed a long corner route on 1st-and-20.

We were caught up in a very loose man defense, and the large cushion gave Voytik plenty of room to fit in a well-timed pass. This big chunk of yards allowed Pitt to recover from the penalty on first down. They scored two plays later on a 3rd-and-3 run up the middle.

We had two defenders in position to stop the running back short of the first down, and a third in position to stop him before a score, but were unable to make the tackles. If we make the tackle here, Pitt has to settle for a FG instead of a TD, and it's a 10-3 game.

With Pitt's final TD, it was again a situation where they made a big play with a large chunk of yards, and then scored shortly thereafter.

This is a simple inside zone read option play. Voytik is reading Ken Ekanem (No. 4). If he sees Ekanem turn his hips and crash he pulls it, otherwise he gives it to the running back. Ekanem followed the fake a step too far, and Voytik capitalizes on it. Give Voytik credit here though, he made the correct read, and his deceiving speed turned this into a huge gain.

On the next play, Pitt scores a TD.

Same story for our defense, we had a player in the hole in a position to stop the RB at the line of scrimmage, but we missed the tackle. Pitt does nothing exotic here, their RB and our safety met in the hole, unfortunately their RB made a great cutback and our safety missed the tackle. Just a matter of execution.

There were a few third down stops we should have made to force a punt. Instead, Pitt converted to keep their drives alive. Take this one for example.

On 3rd-down-and-5 Voytik ends up scrambling for a first down. The man coverage locked down the receivers, but also opened a lane for Voytik to take off down the field. At the snap of ball, our safeties were 15-20 yards off the line of scrimmage. I'm not sure I agree with having them both that far back. At that point, we had lost starting middle linebacker Chase Williams and Voytik had been successful in some designed runs and scrambles. I would have thought we'd pack the box a bit more, especially due to the short yardage situation. Credit goes to Pitt for spreading us out and capitalizing on Voytik's athleticism. I can't quite tell if Bonner (No. 8) is spying the QB for that reason or not, but he drifts a bit far and out of position. That play could have easily been stopped short of the first down to force a punt.

Of course, there were certainly some bright spots during the night too. Chase Williams made a lot of great plays in the middle before he got hurt. Andrew Motuapuaka came in and had some flashes of brilliance. I was very impressed with his play at times, and think he could be a special player for us in the next couple years. Specifically though, I'd like to highlight this INT by Corey Marshall.

This is a very clever defensive design by Bud. He ends up only bringing 5 rushers, but pre-snap it is very unclear who is coming. Voytik is probably thinking he'll have man coverage underneath, and so the crossing route will be his quick read if the blitz gets through. Bud also knows this. He has the DTs take a step or two up field, then drop to cover the underneath zones. Although it's quite clear on replay that there are defenders in the way and Voytik should not throw this ball, based on his pre-snap read he had every reason to believe the crossing route would be open. He doesn't immediately recognize the DTs dropping into coverage because he doesn't expect to see them there. Great design and great execution.

Overall, I don't think we played a poor game defensively, it was more just a lack of execution on a few plays that really hurt us. Honestly, this is nothing new either. Coach Foster has an aggressive defensive approach that relies on everyone completing their specific task. This gives him tremendous flexibility in what he can do, but also makes us susceptible to the big play if it breaks down somewhere.

On the other side of the ball, it appears that the offensive strategy for the passing game was to attack the edges of Pitt's D, and try and catch them in man coverage with underneath crossing routes. It seemed Pitt was pretty content to keep everything in front of them and not allow us to beat them deep. I don't think they had any respect for our run game, so they didn't feel a need to pack the box. The injuries at tailback affected our offensive capabilities, mostly when we were backed up against our own goal-line or in short yardage situations. This drove us to attack the edges with quick passing routes, specifically flat/go combo routes. Multiple times we saw some version of an inside receiver breaking to the flat while an outside receiver continued down the sideline. Early on versus zone coverage, this yielded a wide open WR downfield.

Here, Brewer reads the CB to determine if he is jumping the flat route or running with the fly route. The DB did a decent job making it unclear what his intentions were, causing Brewer to hold on to the ball a bit longer than he'd like. When the CB breaks to the underneath route and the safety delays running with the go route, Brewer realizes he may have a big play on his hands. I think he made this decision at an awkward point in his rollout, so by the time he sets his feet he can't get enough on the ball, resulting in the underthrown ball out of bounds. Unfortunately, by holding on just a bit longer, this led to an incompletion and him taking an unnecessary shot after he threw the ball. You'll also see Cam Phillips (No. 18) wide open at the first down line coming from the backside drag route. My guess is he is the third or fourth option on this play. Brewer is looking at the flat/go combo first, then probably the checkdown or the drag. I don't mind this throw down the sideline, but it needs to be a stronger throw.

A bit later, we see this route combination again, also versus zone coverage.

This time Brewer hits the out route quickly for a gain. Instead of reading the DB for too long, hit fits a hard ball in to Hodges. The very next play, it seems we run a similar concept again except this time versus man coverage.

I don't like this call into the boundary on 3rd-and-8, especially versus man coverage. The clear route should allow the quick out to get open, but then you have your receiver running towards the sideline and short of the first down marker. Even if he catches it, I don't see him having space to turn up and get the first before going out of bounds or being tackled. This concept is a lot less successful against a press defense, especially into the short side of the field.

It's a letdown Brewer was a little off with executing the passes that we've seen him make before. The announcers praised him for being able to throw soft, catchable balls even though he doesn't have the strongest arm.

On this throw, we have a wide open corner route over a quick stop (smash concept). Even though it was brought back from a flag, you need to make this pass. This is nearly identical to the throw Voytik made leading to Pitt's second touchdown. If you watch that clip and compare it to this one, you'll see how Voytik steps into his throw, while Brewer throws flat footed. As far as the penalty, something like this kills you. I understand Beamers frustration here. This is not a call that gets flagged very often, and normally it has to be pretty egregious for the linesman to flag it without warning the lineman first.

To attack man coverage, crossing routes and rub routes are a great way to create separation from defenders. Here we have a nice man combo route into the boundary.

Isaiah Ford is set up to rub Byrn's defender as he crosses the field. This route combo will only work versus man with a good rub, otherwise it's an easy defend for the defense, and requires a strong throw from the QB. Ford needs to make his route go through Byrn's defender, to at least make him change his path to cover Byrn. Pressure affects Brewer though, it appears he wanted to go to the field-side first, although I can't see what sort of routes they ran over there. However, I don't think he really needed to scramble here. When he comes back to the boundary, he may be able to throw it to Byrn before he has to scramble if there's a bit more separation from the DB.

With those crossing routes, the announcers were giving us a hard time for how they were all run short of the first down line. To some degree they are right, but I don't necessarily believe crossing routes have to go past the first down marker every time. If you are running something like a comeback, where you are stopping and turning your body back to the QB, then yes, you need to get past the sticks because you have no momentum to take up-field. But for a crossing route, if you're running against man coverage and have good separation, you can catch it in space and turn up field.

On this third down I think we have a good play call that was just poorly executed.

We get an okay rub from Byrn, where DB has to adjust his path. What I don't understand is why Phillips appears to slow down. He may be looking to see if there is a defender out in front of him in which case he will cut his route down? Either way, his hesitation gives the DB a step to catch up. Couple that with a ball thrown slightly behind Phillips and the tackle made immediately after the catch and we end up punting. With a bit more separation and a ball thrown out in front, the WR will have space to turn up-field after the catch and get the first down.

Brewer did make some good throws throughout the night, and this out route was one of them.

Brewer threw the ball before the receiver looked, and to a place where the receiver didn't have to try very hard to catch it. I'd like to see a lot more of these timing routes. Completing a few of these in a row can really help to get your QB in a rhythm and move the ball down the field.

Another great throw and catch was the play with Hodges along the sideline.

This play was designed to attack the play-side safety and make him choose a receiver to run with. Brewer recognizes nicely how the safety shades slightly more towards Malleck, and drops a nice pass in to Hodges along the sideline. You have to wonder why the playside safety shaded Malleck, especially because the backside safety was there to help. My only guess is that either the feint at the out route by Hodges was enough to make the safety shift more to the middle, or that the safety thought the CB would run deeper with Hodges. Either way, great route and great catch.

As I mentioned before, we really missed McKenzie and Williams in our short yardage situations. Without them, we had to rely on the wildcat with Bucky (which sort of gives it away) or the passing game. Maybe we should line Bucky up as RB? Anyway, on this fade throw to Ford Brewer and Ford actually connect on a nice little throw and catch (albeit out of bounds).

The defender did a good job to push Ford out of bounds for the catch. You'd like to see Ford keep his pre-snap spacing such that he gives Brewer somewhere to throw the ball in bounds. I know it was close, but a little more room from the pre-snap alignment makes that a touchdown versus an incomplete out of bounds.

Speaking of pre-snap alignment, this illegal shift penalty is a function of just that.

Rogers adjusts his spacing relative to the QB at the same time the motion man is coming across the formation. Since the ball is snapped before the motion man becomes set, we get flagged for having two men in motion. With Rogers stepping in as RB, there's a chance he's still thinking of all the little things like alignment just a bit longer than normal. Brewer's head is turned signaling to the motion man, so he probably didn't even know that Rogers had re-adjusted. Boom, another pre-snap penalty and 5 more yards in the wrong direction.

On our 4th-and-2 play early in the fourth quarter we tried to run a clear out for Byrn.

The outside WRs were to come in and try and pick Byrn's defender. This is the exact play that Notre Dame got flagged on for the TD-that-wasn't versus Florida State. It's tough balance, to run into a defender, but make it look like you're running your route. In this case, we didn't execute it. It's a shame too because we had them in man coverage, so I really like the play call. The pick just didn't materialize. Good play call there, just not executed.

Towards the end of the game, Pitt settled down into a cover 2-man with minimal pass rush. They were running with our receivers underneath and kept two safeties over top. We actually moved the ball pretty well against them in this defensive alignment. If only we could have moved the ball this well against the base defense earlier on... With time to throw and a little improvisation, Brewer was able to move us down the field quickly. He made a nice throw on the TD that brought us back into the game. On our final drive, I really thought we were going to march down the field and score. What killed us there was the sack on 1st-and-10 from our own 46.

Having to burn the timeout wasn't a big deal, but the loss of yards really put us in a bad position. I think Pollack was spot on in saying that Brewer really needs to step up in the pocket there. The right tackle did a great job pushing the speed rush of the DE further up-field, it just happened to be where Brewer was setting up. Follow that up with an incompletion on second down, and we were really put ourselves into a hole that we couldn't get out of.

Ultimately we need to be better offensively. Injuries have certainly decimated us at running back, but we have to find a way to create some sort of run game. Otherwise, teams will continue to sit back on us and take away most chances at big plays. They will be content to give us the underneath stuff, knowing we are struggling with conversions on third downs.