Mike O'Cain is our new Offensive Coordinator*; Replaces Bryan Stinespring

Isn't this a little puzzling after Stinespring comes off his most successful season to-date as an offensive coordinator?

All I can come up with is... EMOTIONS.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am an incredibly indecisive person. So it should come as no surprise that I am simply conflicted about all of it.

This is a lot, you guys. Not just Stiney-for-O'Cain, but the whole mess of it. Beamer took the etch-a-sketch displaying the renderings of VT football and shook the hell out of it.

Hite/S.Beamer: Lets be honest with ourselves here - theres no way Hite is thrilled about this "elevation". That guy loves the team and wants to be on the field, in the dirt, working it out with those boys no matter what. Hite has dedicated DECADES of his life to the team, and one would (idealistically) hope that he would be able to determine his own exit strategy. The whole thing seems forced. Buuuuuuut I am thrilled to have Shane back in Black. He's going to do wonders for us in terms of recruiting, and I think this is the start of a long and happy marriage. So, I'm conflicted: Hite isn't ready to go, but its exciting to have Shane on the sidelines, regardless of who his father is.

Cav/Brown: I don't even need to get into this. Rumors are already going around that Cav is pissed about his own "elevation" and will reject it to go coach elsewhere. Can't blame him. Again, I'm excited about Cornell Brown coming home, as he has a decent resume and I think the D-line could use an infusion of new, young ideas (in terms of coaching; Jesus knows we've had our share of youth in the players). In the end, Cav is an incredible mind and we'd be exceedingly lucky to keep him in any position with the team, but it doesn't look good.

O'Cain/Stiney: UGH. YOU GUYS. LOOK WHAT YOU'VE GONE AND DONE. FireBryanStinespring frequently makes me want to dropkick kittens. YES, FINE. Stinespring can be predictable and unproductive and everyone hates him. Got it. But I believe he made significant progress this year - he became less predictable, threw out some new fun and most importantly SUCCESSFUL plays, and generally looked like a competent OC. And all that progress just had a big brick wall set up in front of it. I know most of you don't agree with me and think Stinespring is the devil incarnate, but he certainly held it together this year*. (*"This year" does not include the Stanford game, as there is far too much suck involved for me to dissect the OC's performance specifically).
As for O'Cain, I know Tyrod loves him but I haven't been entirely impressed. He was handed a significant amount of talent in Tyrod, and I think more could've been done with him. We had a shakey few years there, and had a tough time getting Tyrod both mobile and throwing well at the same time. That would have been O'Cain's job, y'all.
Perhaps this was done as a way of tailoring the offense to a new QB. The change from Randall to Glennon was significant, but the change from Glennon to Tyrod really wasn't all that drastic as they had been sharing playing time anyway. The change from Tyrod to Logan is going to be a swift kick in the nuts compared to what we've experienced in the last 8ish years (fuck I'm old). Optimistic HokiESQ hopes this is a way of getting O'Cain - the one with the greatest exposure to and most intimate knowledge of Logan's abilities - involved in the offensive play structure. Pessimist (realist?) HokiESQ thinks this is another way of pleasing the bitchy, whiny boosters.
And whats this business about Stiney probably retaining the title of OC while O'Cain is conducting the play calling?? We have figureheads in the coaching staff now? As the BF said, if we really wanted a new OC, we should've called up Kevin Rogers before BC got to him. This decision is a half-step... I haven't decided if it's a half-step back, or a half-step forward.

At the end of the day, as I said on Twitter, Beamer has done what you all bitched and moaned about for the last few months/years and has completely shaken shit up - especially with this Stinespring change. Absolutely no bitching or moaning will be accepted if it doesn't work out the way you hoped, because they were largely YOUR IDEAS afterall*.

*I will continue to remind you of this throughout the season. Ask the BF, I NEVER pass up the opportunity to say "I told you so." You should probably just go ahead and unfollow me now.

Look, it's pretty safe to say there was a general saltiness towards Coach Bryan Steinspring's play calling. Had it gotten better in 2010? Sure. But, aside from the OL, he was working with what I felt was the most talented offense in VT history.

Overall, I lost my sh** too many times just watching our offense sputter and go in reverse.

So, come on down, Mike. Let's see what you can bring to the table.

If it doesn't work, we'll hire Mron Woch - Norm Chow's evil twin.

cav's potential exit is the only negative. the only one. all-due-respect, hite has been on auto-pilot for at least a decade. ocain for stinebaum is, at worst, a wash. newsome is/has been the issue...and to give him more rope is crazy...and stow all the recruiting crapola; on balance his recruiting capability isnt more valuable than his coaching ability. pls remind me why beams let kevin rogers get away?

this seems like a backup plan once fridge fell through, could even be a 1 year holding plan(i'm speculating, no info)

i thought stiney had his best year as an OC last year, and i had fallen off the fire stiney bandwagon. however he is our ace recruiter and this allows him to focus on bringing the best talent to blacksburg.

i'm not a big o'cain fan after the whole sean glennon debacle, but he help turn tyrod into one of the greatest hokie qbs

i really thought with hite leaving it would allow stiney to open up the offense, with o'cain i don't see this happening.

going to be an interesting spring and fall

This isn't a pro O'Cain rant by any means. However, this excuse of why fire stinespring after his most productive season is a bit silly. Did no one remember the atastrophe's from the years following up to this. Tyrod was a senior, had a stable of RB's, mediocre line, and experienced receivers this last year. it wasn't until half way through he realized Danny Coale could get open on a slant and that every 3rd and short need not to be a draw. The team as a whole broke down with the JMU and Stanford losses. Coaches were at the top of the debacle so I don't pinpoint anyone in particular but in the Stanford loss we couldnt get any TD's in the second half. Even a FG? Many of our wins came after the half. Thank Stiney all you want for adjustments but credit is namely due to getting into a rhythm and feeding off turnovers. To his credit outside of gamedays the man is hands down our best recruiter in one of the best pipelines in the country, va beach area. Will Mike cause our O to explode? probably not. As a QB coach he's been decent. Maybe a B grade. Tyrod, with all that talent, could have been stellar but we're not here to coulda, woulda, shoulda like everyone else. I just think Stiney worked more with what he thought the QB and O as a whole could handle versus challenging them with a winning gameplan. Chalk full of adjustments and diversity. Let's just see how year one as OC goes with greenhorn LT goes before we clamor against him. There'll be hiccupps i'm sure.

"I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin." -Neo

I have been reading about all these changes and I can see that there are a lot of mixed emotions among us Hokie faithful. My take on these changes is that its been past time to make them, alot of these should have came right about 2003, thats when we would start out hot and dive the last 4 games of the year. There were alot of 8-4 years after we played for a national title. I personally think we are gettin back to the basics of Hokie football, great special teams, a lockdown defense and a pretty good offense. Our teams of the past would have never lost to JMU or anybody even close to that, theres a few games that were a little to close for comfort along the way as well, against subpar competiton. Also our national title team rarely lost to top 10/ top 5 oppenents now we didnt beat them all but we did win the big games that we needed to, except the natl title game, and 2001 against miami. But we showed up in those games, scored some points and shut down some pretty damn good offenses along the way as well. I am excited for these changes, as all of you should be. It is time to stop bottom feeding and getting beat by the sec and everybody else, its time for the Hokies to put the ACC back in the top echelon of college football. Its time to get back to Beamerball, and scoring points on D, blocking kicks like crazy and making noise in the top 5 and in the BCS. Its time for the Lunchpail, its time to fear the Hokies....!