Virginia Tech's Gutsy Play Earns Glory Over Rival Virginia

Man, did that win feel good. There were definitely mistakes, screw-ups and errors, but the players exhibited a lot of heart, passion and pride. Even from my La-Z-Boy view at my Dad's house, I could sense a different level of intensity from both teams. That's what you get with rivalry games in college football. That's why I love college football. This game was fun to watch, and no doubt it was fun for all those guys to play. As French mentioned, reviewing every aspect of this game would take a novel. No need for that. I picked a few highlights and plays with some interesting teaching points to analyze.

I don't have to tell you that our defense played great. Consistently throughout the game, we were able to pressure Virginia quarterback Greyson Lambert (No. 11) with an equal or smaller number of rushers than UVA had blockers. This gave us the advantage in both coverage downfield and at the line of scrimmage, which led to a great night for our defense defending the pass and the run. Specifically, we saw great play by our defensive line and interior linebackers. The defensive line got penetration and generally made the play, but if not the linebackers were there to clean up. It was certainly nice to watch another team's offensive line fail at blocking 4 rushers with 5 linemen for a change.

For UVA's first 7 plays (spread over their first three drives), we had 8 different players make/or assist on the tackle (listed out below). That is a solid indication of everyone flying around the ball and playing hard.

Play 1 - Kyshoen Jarrett
Play 2 - Kyshoen Jarrett
Play 3 - Ken Ekanem / Dadi Nicolas
Play 4 - Corey Marshall / Deon Clark
Play 5 - Detrick Bonner
Play 6 - Derek DiNardo
Play 7 - Chase Williams

That being said, the only let down for our defense was the few costly big plays UVA was able to muster up that kept them in the game, one of which occurred late in the first quarter.

Chuck Clark (VT - No. 19) signals to Kendall Fuller (VT - No. 11) that he (Chuck) would be picking up the motion man (UVA - No. 4). With Derek Di Nardo (VT - No. 41) matched up on the up-back, Fuller and Detrick Bonner (VT - No. 8) were left to cover the tight end / support the run. It's hard to tell for sure, but my guess is that Fuller was still covering the tight end, and Bonner was playing run support. However, once Fuller's tight end blocked out on Bonner, Fuller needs to fill that gap and make the tackle. With Bonner's outside leverage on the tight end, Fuller should play to the inside, rather than doubling up on the outside as it happened. This gave running back Kevin Parks (UVA - No. 25) a large hole to explode through up the middle.

In contrast to the previous play, Fuller does a much better job here.

At the start of the play, Fuller and Kyshoen Jarrett (VT - No. 34) are lined up in an inversion alignment, meaning the corner (Fuller) played off the ball while the safety (Jarrett) lined up at the line of scrimmage opposite the tight end. At the snap of the ball, the tight end engages with Jarrett, leaving Fuller to fill the gap to support the run. He steps right up, and makes the tackle at the point of attack.

Another one of UVA's big plays came midway through the second quarter on a long pass to Taquan "Smoke" Mizzell (UVA - No. 4).

In the second view, you see that Bonner falls for a good fake thrown by the receiver. It's a tough thing to fall for when you're in man coverage, but it happens. My reason for including this is not to show Bonner getting beat though. Rather, I'm a bit confused with what is going on with the middle of the field. Jarrett, Fuller, Chase Williams (VT - No. 36) and Di Nardo all find themselves in pretty much the same area covering two receivers. Generally you don't want to see this many defenders clumped into one space. I'm wondering if maybe Jarrett was responsible for more of the deep middle of the field? Hard to say, but it looks like after he reads pass, he tries to drop middle, but then becomes aware of the crosser/short route that is already picked up by his teammates (Di Nardo/Williams). I wouldn't be surprised if a slight misunderstanding of the coverage responsibilities contributed to this play breaking for such a long gain. Even so, our defense did a great job preventing the touchdown and forcing a field goal.

Although the following play results in a third down conversion for UVA midway through the 3rd quarter, look at the play Bonner makes.

UVA runs this out of a trips formation, that causes some confusion for our defense. DiNardo and Donovan Riley (VT - No. 2) end up running with the same man, leaving Smoke Mizzell open across the middle. Bonner recognizes this from his deep safety position and makes a GREAT play on the ball. You'll notice he's not even in the frame when the ball is snapped. Bonner makes a solid tackle right as the Smoke catches it, and preventing Smoke from picking up speed. In fact, Bonner stops him right in his tracks. If this tackle is missed, it's likely a touchdown. On the other hand, a lot of times you see a hit like this jar the ball loose. I know the Smoke was able to stretch for the first down, but this is still a great read and great open field tackle by Bonner.

The final defensive play I want to comment on is the touchdown UVA scored to go up 20-17 late in the fourth quarter.

You'll notice at the beginning of this clip we have a high safety playing centerfield (Bonner). However, it appears that most of our defense is cuing on the motion across the formation because once that occurs, Bonner presses up. This leaves Di Nardo one-on-one with tight end Zachary Swanson (UVA - No. 49). Di Nardo's technique is to jump the outside immediately, so I wonder if he is playing the sweep or thinking he has help over the middle. It seems Di Nardo never thinks it's a run, so I bet he's thinking he has centerfield help. This may have been an adjustment by UVA, recognizing how our defensive backs were jumping the jet sweep motion, so they put in this wrinkle. You have to give them credit, it was a good adjustment late in the game.

After that score, I was worried. I didn't have a whole lot of faith in our offense moving down the field quickly to score with so little time left. Good thing I was wrong. With the help of a roughing the passer penalty, the long pass to Hodges' and a pass interference call near the goalline, we moved down the field very quickly, and scored hitting Hodge's on a slant route. Although UVA made it interesting towards the end, our defense was not letting another score happen. We gave up some chunks of yards sure, but we avoided succumbing to the big play.

Offensively, it seemed we tried to attack UVA's defense with a lot of 4-wide and 5-wide spread formations. On top of that, we looked to throw more quick hitting routes to take advantage of UVA's softer coverage. I think the play of VT quarterback Michael Brewer (VT - No. 12) can be summed up as gutsy. He didn't make all his throws and got pummeled, but he stayed in the game, didn't get shy in the pocket and improvised when he needed to.

With regards to Brewer's decision making, I wanted to highlight three incomplete passes (yes incomplete passes). Early on in the game, we see our offense line up with trips to the top of the screen.

This alignment sets up nicely for a bubble screen, which is what initially happens as the play starts off. However, Loeffler throws in the twist of having the "blocking" wide receivers release downfield after a count. I like the added wrinkle. If UVA prepped for bubble screens like we've shown throughout the season, maybe they'd jump one and we could beat them big early on. Unfortunately, corner Tim Harris (UVA - No. 5) stays in his soft coverage and doesn't bite on Isaiah Ford's (VT - No. 1) block, so Brewer throws this ball away. I like the call of looking for the big play on first down, and am equally happy Brewer chose not to force it.

The second incompletion was a long pass to Bucky Hodges (VT - No. 7) down the sideline. The announcer rips on Brewer for putting this ball out of bounds, but I don't think it was that poorly placed.

Look how close Hodges was to catching it in bounds. Sure it could have been slightly better thrown, but this toss was a stark contrast from one I highlighted last week. In that clip, Hodges got down the sideline from the slot, but the ball was underthrown and thrown more towards the middle of the field, causing Bucky play defender on the pass. In this week's clip, the ball is thrown well away from either defender, allowing Bucky to focus on making a play. He catches the ball cleanly, and only barely missed getting a foot in bounds. Great improvement in ball placement from Brewer here compared to last week.

The final incompletion happened on a third-and-two midway through the second quarter. Unlike the first two clips, this is indeed a poor throw by Brewer. However, I think he made a good choice on where to go with the ball. There was at least a chance for a catch instead of a batted down ball at the line of scrimmage. When I first saw this play, I was really curious why Brewer didn't throw to Cam Phillips (VT - No. 18) in the slot instead of Ford at the top of the screen. Both receivers had a pretty large cushion, and for just 2 yards why not take the shorter throw. However, I think the pressure up the middle made Brewer work to the outside. Sure the throw was high, but look at the lane he had to throw the ball out to Ford. If he throws it up to Phillips, chances are it gets batted down. Good decision, the ball just got away from him some.

To make sure I'm not only highlighting "good" incompletions, I do want to point out a great throw Brewer made towards the end of the third quarter on a crossing route to Phillips.

Although Ryan Malleck (VT - No. 88) doesn't set a pick, it doesn't matter because OLB Daquan Romero (UVA - No. 13) did it for us. This gave Phillips enough separation for Brewer to drop a pass right in there. My props for Brewer's throw here isn't only because it was well placed, but also because he remained calm in the pocket and delivered a strike after getting crushed multiple times in the previous drive. Great showing of mental and physical toughness by Brewer.

However, even though he put on a very tough, gutsy performance, I can't let Brewer get away without at least asking, "whyyyyyyyyyy?" on one play. Maybe I'm being a bit nit picky here, but I am curious what made Brewer choose to work the slant versus the corner fade on this next clip.

Two points to make:

1. Hodges has a favorable matchup (as he does almost all the time).
2. If you look at the technique of Tim Harris (UVA - No. 5) matched up on Phillips, you'll see he's aligned to create inside leverage. This puts him in a good position to jump the slant route.

I think we may have been better off taking our chances with the fade here.

In past reviews, I've highlighted times where a called rollout out of the end zone has worked and times that it hasn't. I think more often than not, it's a good play call when you're backed up near your own end zone because it gets your quarterback quickly outside of the tackle box in case he has to throw it away. With this play, we have a half roll that allows Brewer to set up and throw from a half rollout position.

He delivers a strike to Phillips, who runs a great route. Instead of sitting and waiting for the ball, Phillips comes back towards Brewer hard, maintaining the separation between him and the defender. Some may argue he loses some yardage here, which he does, but it's second-and-11, and a completion matters much more than a few extra yards. For a freshman receiver, this is a route that shows maturity. In fact, we see it again a bit later. In a very similar setup, just to the other side of the field, we have a little half roll by Brewer and a great toss out to Phillips who again, comes back to the ball for the completion.

Seeing this development for a young receiver like Cam Phillips is certainly an exciting prospect for seasons to come.

My final clip is a teaching point.

I think Brenden Motley (VT - No. 9) is a bit premature in his decision to vacate the pocket. On top of that, he escaped to the side of the field where he had no receivers running routes (we ran a bubble screen to the top). It doesn't look as if he was reading the bubble pass at all, so his focus was strictly on the go route run by Ford. Unfortunately this is run into a soft corner, meaning it's going to be a tough throw. His best bet here is to throw the bubble, or if he is uncomfortable with that toss because of how strongly the UVA defender played it, then sail it over Hodges' head. Rolling out to the bottom of the screen really put him in trouble. This is something he'll learn over time and with more reps.

Ultimately, it was a great night of football for those who support the Maroon and Orange. Watching the game, I was very proud of our players, coaches and fans. Of course I was excited we were able to keep our win streak going versus the Cavaliers. It was certainly an up-and-down regular season for us, but the reward of a bowl game for the players was well earned. I can only hope that the Commonwealth Cup was filled and drank (or spilled) from many times throughout its trip around downtown over the weekend, and that drinking (or spilling) from the cup continues to be a Thanksgiving tradition for the Hokie faithful for years to come.