Everyone, please, take a deep breath. Calm down. Relax. Maybe have a cup of tea. Feel better? Good. All I'm hearing is a bunch of doom-and-gloom about the spring game. It's annoying. Yes, Logan threw three picks. Yes, the running game was underwhelming. What do you expect? It's been 15 practices since the end of VT Football's worst season in 20 years, with new coaches and only a fraction of the playbook installed. So, my message is this: chill out and have some patience. Things will get better. Here's what I saw out of the spring game.
1. Logan Thomas will be the starting QB, and he deserves to be. I counted 5 throws that were just not good throws. 3 were poor reads (1 completion, 2 pick-6's) and 2 were high (the other pick and one more towards the sideline). For the most part, I thought Thomas looked much improved mechanically and with what I've seen from him today and in scrimmages, I think he'll be just fine in that department this season. I have full confidence that his mental issues will get worked out once he's no longer focusing so much on throwing the football.
2. This defense is good. Tariq is back, the secondary (for the most part) looked solid, Jack Tyler is Jack Tyler and the defensive line is scary.
3. Dadi Nicolas is VERY good at getting to the ballcarrier. He was incredibly explosive off the ball and was consistently the first guy there when the play went his side. Now, he just needs to work on getting said ballcarrier to the ground once he gets there.
4. On a similar note, Josh Stanford is very good at getting to the ball. He's just gotta.... y'know... catch it. However, Corey Fuller had a small issue actually catching the ball over the middle this time last year, and he turned out fine. So I'm not too concerned right now.
5. This offensive line is getting better and will continue to do so. 15 practices can't undo an entire career of poor coaching (read some French if you want to know the results of poor coaching), but Grimes is doing a heck of a job anyways. Today, I saw some pretty good pass protection on most plays and mediocre run-blocking, with a few plays with some very impressive push off the ball. They'll get there. Might take a year or two, but they'll get there eventually.
6. We have a darn good punter. AJ Hughes was adequate last year, but he looks like he's gotten even better over the offseason. He'll get us some hidden yardage this year, no doubt.
7. Limited carries for the tailbacks, but no one really stood out to me in a bad way. I see Holmes and Edmunds as the two guys battling to be the every-down back, with JCC being incorporated as a playmaker somewhere in the offense.
That's what I've got. Please, people, relax. From what I've heard, the '99 spring game didn't go so well either. Neither did Bama's spring game this year. Don't take too much from this. There's work to do, but this is far from the team that we'll see on the 31st and this team is heading in the right direction.
Comments
Now recovering from my 2nd night at TOTS, to this post I say:
Yes. Considerably. We'll know when it's time to panic. Summer will make or break this team. Even then, Uva will still lose its 10th-consecutive Commonwealth Cup.
Somebody posted the speech clip from Miracle a while back, and after the spring game I'm seeing a bunch of parallels.
1. New coaches bringing a new philosophy (in his case toughness) as well as a new system, and the initial product is sloppy.
2. First big test and the good guys look a mess (in '80 team USA played the Russians in a test match before the Olympics and got smoked by like 10)
3. The staff are single-mindedly focused on beating a hulking team that's bigger, faster, and has been winning championships consistently in recent memory. Single-mindedly means damn what everyone else thinks - coaches might not have even wanted the scrimmage to go extremely well in order to get the fanbase hyped up about being better than Bama. More likely they are focused on bread and butter and where's our next growth area; and we always do better as the underdog, right?
Anyway, look.. Am I saying it's aliens?
Yes.. Yes I am.
I only posted that video for motivation purposes, but the parallels you point out are very intriguing.
Great movie, great parallels. Let's hope for the same result.
Well I don't even have to write a column this week. Well said for the most part, especially about Logan. Everyone just drink a rail and mellow out (I hope I made at least two people's hangovers return after reading that sentence).
Well, thanks. I don't often write stuff like this, so if you have any constructive criticism, I'm happy to hear it.
I think the offensive player that surprised me the most as far as doing well unexpectedly was Daniel Dyer. He quietly reached #2 for both Rushing Yards and Yards per Carry going against the 1st team Defense behind the 2nd/3rd team line. I think they were mostly on 2 or 3 carries in the 2nd half, but I remember them standing out as the white teams best running plays watching it live.
I believe the same was said about him last spring and then he only played in the Austin peay game.
I don't expect him to play very much, just that he did better than I would have expected. I expected Chris Mangus to be the best RB on the white team.
I would expect a RB depth chart of 1. Edmunds, 2. Coleman, 3. Gregory; unless Holmes has a speedy and positive resolution to his felony charge and/or Harris qualifies and is very impressive in the fall.