Individual mistakes by the Hokies keep the Eagles Aloft in Blacksburg

I felt pretty down after last week's game. I had a bit too much fun Halloweening the night before and we lost to Boston College in a very frustrating fashion. The former left me to make good on a bet made with my good friend Jess, who ran Cross Country at BC. I owe her some homemade guacamole and a bag of Juanita's tortilla chips. I avoided watching the game film on Sunday, and instead took a hike up Mount St. Helens. Monday evening, with my mind clear, I sat down to review the film preparing for the worst. The thing is though, I can't really say we played that poorly... as a team. I couldn't really point out anything that led to the loss in a systematic fashion. There was no barrage of absurd penalties (although for sure a few hurt us). There was no game-wide breakdown by the defense (but when we got beat, it was bad). Our offense didn't implode and found a groove at times (but we certainly could have done better when it mattered). Our special teams play kept us alive (but also led to bury us). Our play as a team, frankly, was alright. The sum of individual mistakes hurts us the most and is what led to BC leaving Lane with the W.

With that said, I didn't want to write a review calling out each player for every time I saw a considerable mistake. That's not fun to write, it's not fun to read, and it's not worth it. Although I will still comment on some of the miscues I noticed on both sides of the ball, I'm going to try and highlight a larger portion of the good plays I found too.

I think we're all in agreement the first drive of the game was pretty awesome. We had great tempo, created confidence for our QB and WRs, and alleviated some pressure from our OL with quick passes and zone reads. It's always nice when the TV broadcast has to cut their replay short to get back to live action. That means you're moving fast. We should do that more often. I really thought (like probably all of you did) that our opening drive, culminating in the TD, was going to set the tone for the entire game. I think it definitely helped to set the tone for our defense early on, who played very well for pretty much the entire first quarter.

I've analyzed this before, but here's another instance of our defense lining up in cover 1 looking to rush 6, but then dropping the DEs back into coverage. We've seen it help us greatly and also hurt us tremendously. In this case, it almost baits Boston College QB Tyler Murphy (No. 2) into throwing an interception. Both defensive ends (Dadi Nicolas No. 90 - VT and Ken Ekanem No. 4 - VT) sit in their underneath zones, and Nicolas almost comes away with the pick.

From the back end zone view, you see how Murphy thinks he has man coverage on the snap, and is expecting the crossing route will be a good hit. You'll notice he doesn't even look over to the side he throws it to during the drop back, so he never sees Nicolas peel off into coverage. The other thing to note here is where Kyshoen Jarrett (No. 34 - VT) lines up. The past two weeks, we've seen him playing 15-20 yards off the ball in this coverage patrolling center field. This week, it appears Bud has brought him up as a QB spy, to hopefully contain Murphy.

Another early first quarter highlight revolved around the play of Jarrett and Detrick Bonner (No. 8 - VT). Some of my reviews have come down hard on Bonner and Jarrett, but I thought they both played well during this part of the game. They were flying around, making tackles and communicating well. I think we see a great example of this communication here. As the motion man comes across, Bonner passes his man off to Jarrett, and then picks up the TE coming off the line. Jarrett then funnels his guy to Fuller, and runs with the deeper receiver. Andrew Motuapuaka (No. 54 - VT) is in a great position to spy on Murphy, who has nowhere to throw the ball downfield. Tech forces a coverage sack. At any point in this play, if the communication breaks down, somebody is going to be wide open.

Again, I think our defense played well overall. A series of individual breakdowns gave way to BC's success, mainly from Murphy running. Containing Murphy was obviously a focus of Foster's game plan (he had a spy on him most of the game). I just don't think it was executed correctly. In this first clip, Dadi Nicolas and Booner appear to be out of sync. Dadi tries to dive inside, which makes me think Bonner should fill the outside. Instead, they both go inside and give the edge to Murphy.

Additionally, a lot of the responsibility for stopping Murphy fell on Motuapuaka. I think he took on the responsibility well, and made some great plays. In this first clip, Motuapuaka does a great job "two-gapping" the defender. Essentially, he engaged the blocker in a neutral fashion, allowing himself freedom to get to either side to make the tackle on Murphy. Very great play in the hole.

In a different situation (Murphy's long run to seal the game for BC), Motuapuaka was again in a position to neutrally engage the blocker and allow himself to make a play to either side. However, in this case he shades a side, which happens to be the same side to which Jarrett is trying to fill. This leaves a wide open hole on the back side of the blocker for Murphy to seal off the game. If Motuapuaka plays it neutral, or feels Jarrett's presence so he drifts the other side, it's no-gain play. Give credit to BC though, this is a great play call at the exact time they needed it. Unfortunately for the Hokies, it was poor defense at a time we really needed it.

On another one of Murphy's long runs, we again see Motuapuaka and Murphy meet in the hole. Although Murphy got past Motuapuaka for a long run, I really think this is a missed holding call. The blocker was behind him with a hand on his back and an arm around his front side pulling/pushing him at the same time. It sprung the whole run, knocking Motuapuaka off balance. A bummer to have a missed call there, because I think Motuapuaka was in great position to make a play near the line of scrimmage.

In contrast to the first defensive clip I dissected, my last is an example of what happens when communication goes bad. Midway through the second quarter, our defense had been playing pretty great. BC was getting good field position, but we were keeping the big plays at bay and had only given up 1 TD. Unfortunately, it only takes one play to turn the game around. Here we have a very condensed formation and everyone is confined to the box.

The hokies are in man coverage, you'll notice both Kendall Fuller (No. 11 - VT) and Chuck Clark (No. 19 - VT) jump up to support the run when they see their TEs stay in and block. The responsibility of the up-back falls to whichever side he releases on, in this case Jarrett's. This leaves Bonner and Motuapuaka as the free men to handle the RB and QB. While they don't seal up the hole in too well, Bonner is probably still in a position to where he can make a play. The kicker here is that Donovan Riley's (No. 2 - VT) man cracks down on Bonner. This is the block that springs the whole play. Riley needs to recognize his man is blocking down, and be ready to fill that hole where Bonner no longer can. A split second hesitation is all BC needs for this play to take off.

Moving back to the offense, a big frustration of mine throughout the year has been when our offensive line is beat when the numbers are in our favor! In this next clip we see BC only rush 4 defenders to the 6 blockers we leave in protection, but still are able to get to Brewer for the sack / almost safety. Sacks will happen. Sacks when you have 6 blockers for 4 rushers should not. In this case, there is clearly a disconnect between what Augie Conte (No. 72 - VT) and Sam Rogers (No. 45 - VT) are thinking. Conte lets one defender through, and then focuses on another. However Rogers lets that same guy through as well, only casually throwing an arm out at him. I'm not sure why he does this, because Rogers is the last line of defense to protect Brewer.

This happened again at the end of the second quarter. Jarrett's great punt return put us in a decent position to get some points before the half. We had 32 seconds from the 24-yard-line which, even with no timeouts, is a reasonable amount of time to score. However, we really hurt ourselves with the first play. BC rushed 4, we had 6 to protect with, but again ended up letting a defender through free. The situation unfolded here in a very similar way to the play above. This time, Wyatt Teller (No. 57 - VT) allows one defender through, assuming Rogers will pick him up. Again Rogers misses the oncoming defender, giving him a clear path to Brewer. We need to have this rusher picked up. Brewer escaped nicely to throw it away and avoid the drive killing sack, but that took 9 seconds off the clock and we didn't give ourselves a chance to move the ball forward.

Brewer had to throw the next one away (no good view of the routes), but on third down Ford made a nice lunge to get the first down. This stopped the clock with 8 seconds left and Beamer decided to go straight for the field goal. I don't think this is the wrong call, but I do think we had enough time for one more play—maybe a fade to Hodges?

Another frustration of mine has been the performance of the offense deep in our own territory. This season there has been a large sample size of drives that have started within the 10-yard-line to evaluate, and we are very inconsistent at gaining yards when we're backed up. It doesn't appear that there is any consistently successful formula. We've tried running three times in a row. We've tried passing three times in a row. We've rolled Brewer out. We've kept him in the pocket. Nothing has seemed to work well for us. This puts tremendous pressure on our defense to defend a short field, not to mention the stress it puts on the punt team to execute a punt and cover out of our own end zone. Our defense generally bails us out, but we can only go to that well so many times. It's especially frustrating to see players confused about play calls when we're stuck deep. In this example, Byrn looks confused before the snap. He looks confused running his route. Something is off, I can't really tell what it is, but it really sucks this had to happen on third down and to the side of the field that Brewer had to work. We didn't give ourselves a chance to succeed there.

Brewer has shown himself to be pretty exceptional when it comes to improvising out of the pocket, especially with finding Rogers. However, Brewer missing a wide open Byrn left Tech to settle for 3 instead of 7, another individual miscue. Early in the second quarter, we were in the red zone looking to score to go up 14-7. On third down, Loeffler dialed up a nice rub route to find Byrn in the end zone. However, Brewer is unable to get the ball to Byrn. The only reasons I can think of as to why Brewer doesn't throw this ball are either his vision is blocked by the linemen, or he thinks Byrn doesn't get his head around for when Brewer wants to throw it. Brewers' footwork is not very convincing and doesn't provide much more information on his intentions.

I can't figure it out. Cam Phillips (No. 18 - VT) was never going to get the ball. The goal of his route his route draw away Willie's defender (which he did well). Yes there was pressure, but there was still time to make a throw. Ugh. I really have no answer for this one.

Another situation where Brewer held the ball when I think he had a good throw open came at the beginning of the fourth quarter. This play is a good example of Brewer just not looking comfortable when he has to deliver a hard throw and fit the ball in to a small opening. We see two stop routes by the receivers to the top of the screen. There's one defender in play here, (the guy initially lined up covering our second receiver in from the top). Both receivers are open in the sense that if you throw a good pass to them, they'll be able to catch it. I can't tell which receiver Brewer is looking at, but I think it is Ryan Malleck (No. 88 - VT) running his quick out. Regardless, I can't figure out why Brewer doesn't throw it.

The short drop indicates he's expecting to throw the ball quickly. Both receivers are open, he would just need a little more mustard behind the ball to hit the WR further out. Sure the protection broke down, but there was enough time to fire off a quick pass. Having the receiver tackled immediately after a 5 yard gain would not have been a bad thing, especially compared to a sack. Brewer needs to make these types of throws.

With our receivers, I think there were a few situations where some minor adjustments could have led to more productive plays. In this example, Malleck needs to recognize he is only going to run himself into more coverage on this route, and motor it down immediately after his break. I think Brewer needs to feel the flow from the linebacker, and really deliver this ball on the money to Malleck. His footwork is clean, but as he releases the ball it just doesn't have much velocity on it. I'm not convinced this would end up getting the first down, but I think IT can be a better play.

As a side note, I am curious why they chose to run this play with a TE split wide instead of having another WR out there. I don't see a whole lot of success hitting the in route to Malleck at 7 yards to get the 14 needed on third down. Brewer was correct to work to the top of the screen based on the coverage (To the bottom, the in route to Philips is covered up), but the way this one is drawn up I don't see much chance at getting the first down.

As a better example of what I'm talking about, check out this play with Ford. As Ford comes out of his break, he feels the pressure of the LB, so he sits down instead of drifting across and running himself into being covered. However, Brewer still throws it as if Ford was running across towards the middle. They need to be on the same page for this.

To that end, I think the next play is another example of Brewer and his receivers being on slightly different wavelengths. There are certain things you can't teach, learn or verbalize, they just come about from playing together naturally. On this screen to Ford, you see how he sits there waiting for the ball? The way this play is designed, he probably did exactly what he was supposed to do. However, BC rushes hard up the field, giving Hodges a tough block. Ford and Brewer, given time to work together, should both understand that Ford needs to work back to the ball to have space to receive the catch, so that Bucky can make his block. It's not something you can call, it's just something they need to feel out and pick up by being on the same page. It comes with time. If Ford makes that catch up near the top of the numbers, he's one on one in space versus a defender near the goal line. Not a bad position to be in.

Ultimately, individual mistakes cost us, but I saw some promising moments that we can build on versus Duke. I expect the coaches to focus on a lot of... well... coaching during the bye week. I think if they're able to address a lot of the individual mistakes that we saw, then we have a pretty good chance at leaving Durham with the W. I hope we see defenders playing their gaps a bit stronger, to help reduce the big plays that have plagued us throughout the season. I'm hoping that Brewer is able to feel confident in the pocket, allowing him to throw the ball with accuracy and intensity. I'm hoping our special teams can recover from the series of errors that really dug us into a hole a couple times. I'm hoping our offensive line will hold solid in protection, at least when we out number the defenders. Finally, I'm hoping there's still some drive and desire from the coaches and players to finish the rest of the year out strong. It's now become a 3-game season. We can still qualify for a bowl, and beat Virginia. I'm pulling for us.