http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2015/6/19/8801673/virginia-tech...
Thoughts:
Great article, and I basically agree with everything he says. This is THE year to rebound, there are almost no question marks in any of the key positions as we return almost everyone. We have the weapons, we need to trust the offensive staff to utilize them properly, something we had serious trouble doing last season.
I have nothing to say about the defense since we know it's going to be great. Bud is a genius.
Forums:
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Comments
I know it's kinda John-madden-obvious to say, but one of the differences between a good team and a great team is depth. We showed how great we can be with no injuries agaisnt Ohio, and then shat the bed against WF when we were utterly decimated with injuries.
So yes, this may be the year, but we need DEPTH at several more positions before we can safely say we're back to 10-win seasons. Injuries are inevitable in such a contact sport, so I'll believe it when I see how well our back-ups do.
(yes yes we have an aweseome 2nd string DL - but that's a known quantity. Let's see how our other areas fare).
Nope...there is no excuse for losing to WAke Forest except bad coaching
Teams that beat WF by more than 7
FSU (Duh)
Clemson 10-3
Utah State 10-4
Louisville 9-4
NC State 8-5
ULM 6-6
Syracuse 3-9
Duke (Rival game)
Lost to BC by 6
Teams WF Beat
Army
Gardner Webb
VT
Even injured, a well coached VT team could beat half the teams that beat WF
Also
Win expectancy vs GT - 76% and its a loss.
Sorry, I still disagree. It seems that you're of the opinion that VT, no matter how badly injured we are, we should've beaten WF regardless based on....reputation?
It's not that I don't think we could've done a better coaching job, but injuries do take a massive toll on how well a team plays, and quite simply we didn't have the talent to overcome those injuries. If this was back during the Tyrod Taylor era, then we most likely would've had the talent and depth to beat WF, but as been widely noted, we didn't recruit jack shit uptill recently, so it's no suprise that seeing how decimated we were at positions that we lost.
I think I said this in another thread, but I agree that we could've lost to Wake Forest with how injured our team is.
However, 0-0 end regulation is unacceptable and something that should NEVER happen against a team of a calibre like WF. It's not the loss that hurts me, it's how we lost. It was extremely humiliating.
Well, yes, it def sucked. And it NEVER should happen again - but unfortunately it did. My point is that I don't think it was just coaching (if at all). It's never just one thing anyways.
The next week that same decimated VT team put up over 400 yards on what had been a pretty good UVA defense. They then kicked the crap out of Cincy despite all their injuries. So yes, VT should have beaten a dogcrap Wake team despite their injuries. Injuries aren't why VT lost that game.
....that's why I said it's never just one thing. If you think it's only because VT wasn't coached properly then you're sorely mistaken.
And the comparison was initally showing a healthy team that beat OSU vs. what limped accross the finish like to 7-6.
I bet you're fun at parties. How have you managed to be a football fan this long if one shitty game (they happen) is enough to keep you ranting for months? Stop acting like the team owes you something and enjoy the game. Sheesh.
Madden, you say?
I don't think injuries played nearly as big of a role as people think. Based on the game notes on Hokiesports, the major differences in the depth chart between the games were:
OFFENSE
LG David Wang to Center, replaced by Wyatt Teller
C Caleb Farris to RG
RG Augie Contie replaced by Caleb Farris
RT Johnathan McLaughlin OUT, replaced by Wade Hansen
TB Shai McKenzie OUT, replaced by JC Coleman
TB Marshawn Williams OUT, replaced by Jerome Wright
FL Joshua Stanford OUT, replaced by Cam Phillips
DEFENSE (which obviously was not the problem that day)
DT Luther Maddy OUT, replaced by Nigel Williams
LB Chase Williams OUT, replaced by Andrew Motuapuaka
CB Brandon Facyson OUT, replaced by Chuck Clark
Most of the changes on offense were shuffling the line as a result of McLaughlin's injury.
From the Ohio State game, the starting lineup of Gibson, Wang, Farris, Conte, and McLaughlin remained intact until the Miami game when Wang replaced Farris at Center and Wyatt Teller replaced Wang at Left Guard.
That did not work so well for us, but that line remained intact until McLaughlin's injury, with Wade Hanson taking the spot before the Duke game; this was also when Caleb Farris took over Conte's spot at Right Guard.
It's important to note that this lineup of Gibson, Teller, Wang, Farris, and Hanson was the same group that started against Duke. In spite of the fact that we won, the offense was flat in both games. The two defenses we played were both comparable:
Duke gave up 21.8 ppg (24th Nationally) and 399.7 ypg (67th)
Wake gave up 26.4 ppg (61st) and 369.3 ypg (40th)
Both games we lucked out in regulation and had the field goal kickers miss. In fact, Duke's Ross Martin missed his only two kicks of the season against us. Wake's Mike Weaver? His only miss outside the Virginia Tech games was a 54 yard attempt against Clemson.
The big difference was turnovers. We won the turnover battle 3-1 against Duke, but lost it 1-3 against Wake. All three turnovers against Wake were pretty much on their side of the field (at the Wake 32, Wake 28, and the 50, to be exact).
I think the biggest reason we lost games last season was because we didn't take care of the football. We finished 89th in the country in turnover margin. Here's the list of turnovers:
OPPONENT
William & Mary: EVEN
Gained: 2 FUM; Lost: 1 FUM, 1 INT
Ohio State: EVEN
Gained: 3 INT; Lost: 1 FUM, 2 INT
East Carolina: LOST
Gained: 1 FUM; Lost: 2 INT
Georgia Tech: LOST
Gained: 1 FUM; Lost: 3 INT
Western Michigan: EVEN
Gained: 1 FUM, 1 INT; Lost: 2 INT
North Carolina: WON
Gained: 3 INT; Lost: 1 INT
Pitt: WON
Gained: 1 FUM, 1 INT; Lost: 1 FUM
Miami: LOST
Gained: 0; Lost: 3 FUM
Boston College: LOST
Gained: 0; Lost: 1 FUM
Duke: WON
Gained: 1 FUM, 2 INT; Lost: 1 INT
Wake Forest: LOST
Gained: 1 INT; Lost: 2 FUM, 1 INT
Virginia: LOST
Gained: 1 INT; Lost: 2 FUM, 1 INT
Cincinnatti: WON
Gained: 1 FUM, 2 INT; Lost: 1 INT
TOTAL:
Gained: 8 FUM, 14 INT; Lost: 11 FUM, 15 INT
We only have to exceptions to the rules of win the turnover battle and win the game: Pitt, in which we won the turnover battle but lost the game, and UVA, where we lost the turnover battle and won. We also finished 92nd in penalty yards per game, which didn't help either.
We just need to be a more disciplined team. While the injuries did hurt us, we still should have been able to beat Wake. The turnovers were what cost us.
I don't disagree with the turnover part, but the injuries definitely had an impact. Are you kidding me?
First of all, that was our starting five offensive linemen almost by default. Two of our most experienced linemen had to give up football before the season started (Shuman, Benedict)- wouldn't that have helped when McLaughlin went down? Or with the nearly constant mental mistakes during the first 11 games? It could be argued that Conte and Wade Hansen were thrown out there too early. Even having the competition helps.
Remember that Trey Edmunds was hurt for a large portion of the season as well. For the Western Michigan game, IIRC, the RB depth chart went- Marshawn Williams, Shai McKenzie, Trey Edmunds, JC Coleman, Jerome Wright, and Joel Caleb. HAVING to give your #4, #5, and #6 running backs carries just two games later is not a good place to be in. Those turnovers you mentioned against Pitt and Miami? 3 of 4 were committed by those backups. Even when JC Coleman came on, very admirably I might add, in the last 4 games there were times where he was clearly gassed and could have used a breather.
The defensive replacements struggled even more. We had to replace two all-conference performers from a year before and neither were the same even when they did play. Moto struggled some while Chase Williams was out. Nigel Williams struggled a ton during the Pitt, Miami, BC stretch as the lack of a true 1-tech hurt against bigger offensive lines last year. Also, Donovan Riley (who was the one who received much more playing time because of Facyson's injury) was a weak link in the secondary all year and gave up several touchdowns.
Given how close most games were, last year's team would've been a different animal if we had been healthy. While the turnovers were definitely an issue that needs to be addressed and fixed, the injuries definitely played a role as well.
Injuries certainly had an impact. I think I should clarify and say I just don't think they made as big of a difference as some people think.
In spite of the fact that we lost two O-Linemen prior to the season, the line we did have was good enough to beat Ohio State. That same line was intact through the Pittsburgh game, and we were 4-4 at that point. The thing to point out is our rushing statistics in those games.
Over our first 8 games: in wins we averaged 206.5 ypg (though this was only 148 ypg against FBS programs). In losses we averaged 91 ypg, the highest being a 127 yard effort against Georgia Tech. Taking the whole season into account, in wins we averaged 197 ypg (159.75 ypg against FBS). In losses the average was 90.67 ypg (103.6 ypg if you exclude Pitt, when we gained only 26 yards).
There' s the graph of our rushing offense against the opponent's average yards yielded. We are below in pretty much every game against an FBS team except UVA.
While the defense did struggle, they certainly did well enough for us to win every game but Miami, which was a complete team failure. Certainly the ECU game could be argued, but I still think a decent offense should be able to put up more than 21 points against ECU.
My argument has always been that the team that beat Ohio State remained largely intact through the next 6 games. There was shuffling on the defensive line and the secondary, but still the team was largely enough the same.
Page 22 of the game notes for the Cincinnati game has the breakdown of starts:
http://www.hokiesports.com/football/notes/20141227.pdf
Bill is amazing. He does one of these for every D1 team.
It's really remarkable...while you might say a national football writer would know more VT players than a lower tier C-USA team, the difference in profiles he does isn't much. Aside from compiling the statistical tables (which I'm sure is at least somewhat automated) he takes his time to research every team.
I'm impressed with his analysis. Not often do I walk away from a SB Nation article satisfied.
However, I look at the 247 composite value for Joel Caleb, and even though he still has time to change it, I can't help but get the feels:
I really hope he has a chance to shine before he leaves...
Bill Connelly is without a doubt one of the college football gems of SBNation (along with the impeccable Spencer Hall). I think their basketball coverage is stronger on the mothership, but the Hokies coverage on SBNation is pretty awful since Furrer4Heisman and ChicagoMaroon stopped posting there.
I think Bill Connelly statistical metrics are absolutely groundbreaking. Dude seriously deserves to get more plaudits and attention.
Its a shame that Gobbler Country is so awful.
This is exactly why I don't think the OSU game should be pointed to for our offense like a lot of people suggest. We came up in big moments, but that kind of play isn't sustainable
I first read the author as Billy Connolly
Not to get completely off-topic, but numbers guys like this should be picking teams for the playoff. I don't understand how people think a selection committee with athletic directors is a good idea? Give me a couple of Phil Steele's, a couple of Bill Connelly's, and a handful of MIT statisticians.
Seriously.
"Hey, I got an idea: let's have some guys with no real interests in the outcomes and who can look past the logos on the helmets and popular opinion to see who has actually performed the best against the competition placed before them with clear, objective, transparent rationale."
"Nah, that's moronic. Let's put some peeps who don't have time to watch the games and have significant conflicts of interest in charge of the whole thing."
TL;DR
That makes WAAAAAAYY too much sense
Not to be contradictory to your point, but aren't the committee members required to watch the games?
Yes - but you're getting a bunch of people who are experts in money/business (with ulterior motives nonetheless) making a sports decision. Recipe for corruption IMHO.
In my opinion, teams shouldn't be selected based on how they appear, or how they look; it's too subjective. They should be picked based on their on-the-field results. Just my $0.02.
It was my thought when they first announced the playoff that it would be the top 4 of the BCS. I was completely surprised by the decision to go with a committee, seeing as the BCS was supposed to balance the human error of the polls; instead they just cut the number of humans.
Where did the cents button go on the keyboard?
I actually get a real kick out of ESPN's bits during games when they do a blind comparison between teams. Like Team 1 has beaten 4 top 25 teams, 3 of them on the road, with 2 victories over top 10 teams, while Team 2 has beaten one top 25 team, at home. And the "worse" resume is always the higher-ranked team.
Not saying that's how we should choose playoff teams, but I'm also not saying that isn't how we should pick them....
And unfortunately, apart from a handful of exceptions, the ones who typically understand the game the best (coaches and ADs) and therefore would, in theory, be most qualified to be on any selection committee, have gigantic financial conflicts of interest. Mucho sadface.
Technically yes, but 1) they don't have time to watch all the games, only ones played by major contenders, so they can't really know how good a team is compared to another team based on competition level, and 2) the bigger issue is the conflict of interest. On top of that, you can't take bias or deep-rooted preconceptions out of college football. All else being equal, Ohio State and Alabama will always "beat" NC State or Colorado, for example.
I mean, comparing OSU/Bama to Colorado/NCST is fair right now and is just a huge hypothetical. Although comparing them to TCU/Baylor would have been a better comparison, although the choice wasn't as simple as a legacy pick.
Yeah, that's a better comparison, but for the sake of argument I decided to go for a bigger perception gap.
Not to support the current system (it's kind of moronic), but it's really not that cut and dried. The thing that engineering/science based people (like I'm sure many of us Tech grads are) don't often grasp is the underlying flaw that objective measurements favor things that we can measure. Just because you can measure something doesn't mean that we are adequately representing a system. The idea that you can represent a game as chaotic and complex as football (or any sport) is ambitious at best, arrogant at worst. There's way too much going on, and while slapping a number on something gives us warm fuzzies inside, it doesn't necessarily mean it's a perfect measurement.
On top of that, we're talking about building up models where we don't actually know the outcomes. In other words, we're trying to assign numbers to identify the best team, but have know way of knowing if our models are accurate, because "best" is impossible to find given the extremely small sample size of one football season.
I also wouldn't count out subjectivity completely. The human brain (especially one that's been trained to be an expert in a specific field) is very good at picking up on cues and forming a conclusion without being able to tell you why. That's not because it's nonsense, it's because the subconcious is extremely powerful but doesn't always work how we expect it to. It's important to remember that "subjective" is often the term we use when we simply don't have the stats to tell us something, but our subconscious has figured it out on its own; ie. a gut feeling.
Ideally we'd be able to balance the two approaches, and have the human element come exclusively from former coachs/real experts with no internal biases (maybe impossible?).
Any models can be 'tested' against previous years. If it predicts the similar results
Teams shouldn't get a bid based on a gut feeling though. If you can't say "Team X should get in for reasons A, B and C" then they shouldn't get in.
My idea was always to keep a BCS ranking system in place, and take the top 4 conference champions from the top 6 highest ranked teams. If there aren't 4 conference champions in the top 6, at large bids are given to highest ranked non-conference champions until all playoff spots are filled.
Not if you don't know the results of the previous years either. All we know is who the flawed system crowned champion. The whole point of this exercise is that our previous methods aren't finding the best teams, so any system that tests itself against those years would be similarly flawed.
This isn't about a gut feeling so much as the eye test. A good coach can watch a small amount of film on a player and tell you with some degree of certainty whether or not they're a good player. It's basically the eye test, and despite the lack of metrics, when done by experts it still has merit. I'm not saying just anyone should be able to say "Team X gets in just because". I'm saying that subjectivity still matters because we simply lack all-encompassing objective metrics. The trick is hiring experts, not former athletic directors and etc.
Your idea is essentially what happens anyways, just with an asterisk that says a number 6 team with a conference championship can squeak in some years. Personally, I think until all conference champions get in, there will be significant griping. Even if you fill out an 8 team playoff with 3 at-large bids, the ones outside looking in still had a non-biased shot at making it through their conference championship and can only blame themselves.
I've always thought that by year end, the BCS rankings were very accurate. I don't think a playoff was added due to the wrong teams being selected; I think it changed because there weren't enough selection spots (see Auburn 2004, BSU 2007, TCU 2011, etc). I think it's fair to test against previous seasons' year end rankings.
This is exactly my concern. A team that can win ugly should get a bid over a team that looks great in a loss. For example, at one point the previous season, Notre Dame was getting a lot of national attention because they looked so good in a loss to FSU. I just don't think that teams shouldn't get a bid because of how they look, but because of the end result.
Additionally, you're talking about coaches using the eye test. Let's look at the selection committee:
If you want to argue that unbiased experts have the ability to make a correct selection and make a judgement call, I will disagree, but admit that it's a reasonable opinion. However, (in my opinion) less than half of the committee is remotely unbiased and less than half of the committee qualifies as an expert. Not to mention that the 'voting' is done by secret ballot, so there's not transparency.
Well first, if we think that the BCS rankings were very accurate, then why change anything? Just have a 4 team playoff selected by the BCS. If people weren't upset about the outcomes produced, we wouldn't have changed anything.
But yes, totally agree that the current committee is in no way shape or form the right one to make this decision, or that I think any selection should be done purely by that measure. I'm just defending the general premise as not totally out of line if done in tandem with an objective approach. There's merit to both sides (objective vs. subjective) and they should both be incorporated, but it needs to be done the right way.
Allowing a BCS or BCS-style formula to pick the top 4 teams is, in my mind, ideal and what they should have done.
How many times do you think the BCS got it wrong? The biggest gripe that I always saw was that there may not be much (numerical) distinction between, say, positions 2 and 3, so why is #3 left out in the cold? The BCS factored in polls, which have a human element to them (e.g. coaches). People didn't like the secret formula, but I never thought it was really off. The question was usually put in the context of access, not accuracy. Top 4 BCS in the playoff, sounds pretty perfect to me.
Isn't that the BCS though?
Key words: clear, objective, transparent.
If we introduced advanced metrics though, and teams knew what they were, couldn't we see teams purposefully gaming those metrics?
And again on objectivity, it's simply not that easy. The game can't be boiled down to metrics alone because our metrics are inherently flawed. Anything based on those metrics seems cut and dry, but is really just throwing out all the information that we can't measure. Just because we can quantify a system doesn't mean we're modeling it correctly.
If you're good enough to game the metrics, I vote you're good enough to play for a championship.
And no, teams shouldn't be evaluated solely on metrics, but having a committee come out and say, "we think these are the 4 best teams" isn't exactly my ideal situation either. I'd at least like to know how they come to those conclusions.
In reality, we traded a secret formula that was based on objective metrics for a secret panel of people who have conflicts of interest who secretly decide on who the best teams are. Winning?
Yeah, totally agree. I'm mostly just playing devil's advocate here since I think it's easy to get carried away wishing for objectivity when it's much more difficult than it sounds. The current system is ridiculous as well, but they all have been in some shape or form.
Better yet, have those statisticians develop an algorithm that ranks teams based on objective measurements that aren't made public, and then use those results to decide who plays for the championship. No way people would have a problem with that.
FIFY Bill
I'm guessing Clark is our 3rd best? Or is it Riley?
Surprised this was missed:
"If a replacement Tech coach went 15-0 and won the national title for 15 straight years, he'd still be six wins behind Beamer."
Care of SB Nation, I own none of the music rights contained within.
Impressive statement.
Ten?
I noticed he said that Shai was gone. Did I miss something?
He's probably just going based on the indefinite suspension. Shai still has legal issues to clear up; until that's settled I think we should all assume the same. I know talk has loosened lately based on the fact that he's working out and still around the team, but until stated otherwise by Beamer or Whit, he's not playing.
He had Nijman still on defense too. A minor oversight, but still.
Ok good. I thought for a second that the news broke a while ago and that TKP had missed it somehow. Then I realized how stupid that thought has and watched some VT football highlights to make up for it.
Wow. Great writeup. My favorite quote:
"Tech had a transfer at quarterback, a freshman running back, and three freshmen leading the receiving corps. That's rarely going to produce a good offense, no matter the coordinator.
So we can say Loeffler gets a double-mulligan for the way his Tech tenure has started. But the slack ends this year. "
"Greg Stroman didn't show much explosiveness on punts"
I'll raise an eyebrow with this one. I think Stroman is a hair away some serious highlight films. He has me on the edge of my seat instead on the verge of covering my eyes.