It seems a bit unbelievable that the Hokies' defense could give up 572 yards to the Buckeyes, and somehow that wouldn't be the biggest story to come out of the game, yet it seems that's exactly what's happened.
When quarterback Michael Brewer went out for the game (and likely the next one to two months) with a fractured collarbone, all the attention turned to Brenden Motley, the team's new starter.
That's an understandable phenomenon, given the potentially catastrophic effect Brewer's absence could have on the offense's potency this season, but Bud Foster's group certainly has some questions to answer as well.
"I firmly believe we're better than what the score showed tonight, but we've got work to do," said Frank Beamer after the 42-24 loss. "Too many long plays, too much lack of execution, we've got work to do."
Despite some adjustments that clearly kept the Hokies competitive in the first half, the Hokies concede that they didn't do what it took to slow the Buckeyes' prolific attack.
"We were pretty sure they were going to change it up," said DT Luther Maddy. "I'm sure they were preparing for the 'Bear' (defense) and they did. They schemed us for a little bit in the first quarter into the second quarter. We adjusted, but we didn't execute. Coach Foster had a good plan for us, he adjusted and we didn't execute. That's what it came down to. They got the better of us and they deserved to win that game."
From rushing the passer to tackling in space, the Hokies had plenty of troubling moments on defense that they'll need to address before Saturday rolls around.
A Big Goose Egg
There are plenty of ugly stats that accompanied the lopsided loss to OSU.
Foster's bunch gave up 360 yards rushing, for an average of 9.7 yards per run, and things weren't much better through the air: 212 yards passing allowed, with an average of 21.2 yards per completion and 11.2 per attempt.
But the ugliest stat is a simple one: Tech couldn't manage one single sack after bringing down J.T. Barrett seven times a season ago.
Foster was hard pressed to find answers for that outcome after the game. One solution he offered was Cardale Jones' ability to elude would-be rushers through his combination of brute strength and balance, neatly mimicking Pittsburgh Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger.
"We got some good pressure on him early, and kind of like he has with everybody else he's played, he slung some guys off of him and just a big, dynamic kid," Foster said.
That's backed up by the numbers. Although the Hokies couldn't manage a QB takedown, they were able to hit Jones four times, and ESPN's David Hale was even able to show that they were among the best teams in the country at pressuring the passer.
Highest rate of pressure P5 vs. P5 teams in Week 1:
Auburn - 42.2%
Notre Dame - 40.6%
VaTech - 38.1%
UCLA - 36.8%
Nwestern - 35.9%— David Hale (@DavidHaleESPN) September 8, 2015
But even though players like LB Deon Clarke and DEs Dadi Nicolas and Ken Ekanem were able to find their ways into the backfield with some regularity, Jones' stubbornness and athleticism often kept him upright.
"He was a big guy, we knew he was a big guy," Clarke said. "But we were going to come out with the same game plan whether he started out at quarterback or not. Give credit to him, he's a dynamic player."
Beyond Jones' nimble feet, Foster also credits the Buckeyes for changing up their blocking scheme.
"They did some unique things blocking-wise against us that we had not seen," Foster said.
Foster notes that the Buckeyes used "very little slide protection," a type of zone blocking scheme, when the Hokies were expecting to see it "quite a bit."
"They actually didn't do as much slide protection as we thought they would," said DT Corey Marshall. "They moved the pocket around, got those guys comfortable. I think when they did go man, we were comfortable in a lot of situations and we actually did get pressure, but they've got some playmakers back there, I give them all the credit in the world."
But perhaps the biggest issue at hand was that Foster called the defensive staff "overly concerned" with the athleticism of OSU's backs and receivers' potential to run slip screens and draws, and that led to some more conservative calls on his part.
"Instead of releasing their back, they were really aggressive blocking our mike," Foster said. "We were thinking more (about) all their guys out on quick screens, and we probably outsmarted ourselves a little bit from that standpoint as far as not getting edge pressure a little bit more."
As it turns out, Foster's fears over the dangers of OSU's athletes in space weren't entirely unfounded.
Burned by Big Plays
The one similarity between this year's matchup with OSU and last year's for Tech's defense was a propensity for giving up big plays.
Last season, the Buckeyes managed 24.3 yards per pass completion, which looks awfully similar to this year's 21.2 average. Additionally, OSU burned Tech's DBs for passes of 53 and 58 yards.
This time around, the Buckeyes also found plenty of success through the air, completing six passes of 20 yards or more, with none more disheartening than Jones' connection with QB-turned-WR Braxton Miller for a 54-yard touchdown to open the second half.
"We knew they were going to make some plays, they're too athletic," Foster said. :I think this probably the most athletic team we've played in here in a long, long time."
Miller's immediate excellence was downright shocking so quickly after he made the move to the new position. Yet he proved on Labor Day that he has more than enough athleticism to succeed at the new spot.
"No matter where you put him on the field, he can make plays," Clarke said. "Even though he wasn't at quarterback, (Foster) told us he'd be at wide receiver and to watch the double pass, so when you have a player like that on the field, he's going to make plays no matter what."
While the Buckeyes didn't end up trying any such trick plays, Miller was more than dynamic enough to burn the defense. His spin move on his 53-yard TD run in the third quarter will likely live on in Twitter infamy for some time.
"Looked like from down on the sideline that a couple guys missed him, but he did a lot to make you miss too," Beamer said.
Clarke is quick to accept some culpability for the long run, as he was blocked out of commission as the play developed, even if it was a remarkable feat of athleticism.
"I didn't see it at all, but I came back to the sideline and everybody told me what happened," Clarke said. "I think that was my play too, (Foster) told me on the sideline 'you can't get out that far' but he's a dynamic player. He's got a lot of tricks up his sleeve."
That wasn't the only running play to present challenges for the Hokies. The Buckeyes allowed six running plays of 15 yards or more on the night, including both Miller's long scamper and Ezekiel Elliott's 80-yard TD dash in the first quarter.
Elliott ran for a total of 122 yards on the night on 11 carries, for an impressive 11.1 yard per carry average, and his talent level was not lost on Foster either.
"He's a dynamic player," Elliott said. "When I saw them, their offensive line got better last year, he got better. And he got better and the offensive line got better, and those two, the line and the backfield worked hand in hand."
Many of Elliott's runs were helped along by struggles in the middle of the defense, particularly courtesy of mike linebacker Andrew Motuapuaka. Safeties Chuck Clark and Desmond Frye frequently had to come up to make the tackle on running plays, leading to the pair tying for the team lead in tackles.
But for all of his unit's missteps, Foster is quick to credit the talent level of the Buckeyes, particularly when considering the absences of suspended skill players like Corey Smith, Jalin Marshall and Dontre WIlson.
"I know they've got a couple guys out, which makes a statement, but they're a tremendously talented team," Foster said.
Next Steps
Moving past the OSU loss, the Hokies will undoubtedly be confronted with a less intimidating opponent in the Furman Paladins of the FCS.
Even still, the Hokies can't go to sleep entirely next week — memories of JMU aside — because the Paladins have proven they can move the ball through the air. They lost their first game of the year against Coastal Carolina, but not before throwing for 365 yards in the 38-35 shootout (although it is important to note that they gave up 328 passing yards as well).
But perhaps the toughest hurdle to overcome is the frequently discussed challenge of the short week of preparation ahead of Saturday's game.
"We're going to look at the film and come out to practice and try to get better and get ready for Furman," Maddy said.
That may be easier said than done, given both the pain of Brewer's loss and the ignominy of such sizable defeat on such a large stage.
"It's going to hurt no matter what," Clarke said. "Once the clock hit zero, it started hurting. It still hurts now."
But Marshall has a healthy attitude about both of those losses, using both the record-breaking viewership numbers of the grisly loss and the rapidly approaching ACC schedule as motivation for the coming week.
"The whole world saw this," Marshall said. "When your signal caller goes down, nobody's going to feel sorry for us. Nobody in the ACC is crying tears for us tonight, they're looking to take us out, so we just have to understand that and focus and understand that."
Comments
Coming out of this game, everyone, and rightly so, is lamenting Brewer's injury. But that injury did in fact overshadow what was a pretty poor performance defensively. Running the Bear with press coverage has its risks. When it works, and everyone does their job, it absolutely shuts down the offense. And yes shutting down the run is priority number one. But one missed tackle or one missed assignment and there is no one to back anyone up. And the result is a big play.
Sure the OSU guys are talented and athletic. But this same thing happened last year, all too often, with teams that were less athletic. We had this problem last year, particularly in the Miami and Boston College games. I just hope this is not a predictor of things to come. Let us trust this is not a pattern developing.
the similiarity in those games.....AM....I'm concerned about him and that position.
Very disappointed with defensive effort. We have some issues with our inside linebackers and our corners flat out got smoked. I thought the offense has made some strides so far but with Brewer going down, this is a huge set back. What I saw from Motley wasn't very impressive. If the playbook with him at QB is going to be reduuced severly, teams will start pinning the ears back and bring the house every time. I truly hope they look at all options at QB, even it includes playiing Lawson, because what's important now is winning.
Let's pump the brakes really quick on the defensive criticism. Yes, they gave up a lot of yards and points, but let's look at their opponent. On every snap, the Buckeyes had 2-4 skill players that will likely be drafted on the first day, definitely within the first 3 rounds. Jones, Elliott, Miller, Thomas...they are all elite talents. How many teams can say that they have 4 Heisman candidates on the roster and one of them is on the bench? This doesn't even count the All-American offensive linemen. The sky isn't falling. It's the first game against the best team in the nation.
Agreed. The box score looks bad, but the details reveal the truth. We have real questions at the Mike spot, but I have no doubt that our defense will return to its normal performance over the next few weeks and into conference play.
Absolutely we have questions but saying things like "Our defense is disappointing" or "We can no longer count on our defense to keep us in the game" is a bit of an exaggeration after 1 game.
Yep, absolutely. A single point does not a trend make. We'll see this one as an outlier, I'm sure.
Everyone needs to tap the brakes a bit on the defensive issues. Nothing happens in a vacuum and momentum is a huge thing to consider in these types of situations. When Brewer went down, it became apparent that we may not be able to score again in the game. This puts tremendous pressure on the defense, and likewise eases the pressure on the anOSU offense....both from a play-calling perspective and from an execution standpoint.
If Brewer stays healthy, the threat of scoring alone could have drastically changed the outcome. We likely would have been able to keep the game close, therefore putting much more pressure on the anOSU offense. If that happens, maybe there is a dropped pass or fumble, a poor read/pass leading to an interception, or different situational (maybe more conservative) play-calling from the coaching staff. Momentum and the pressure associated with the scoreline (and the threat of scoring) matter!
Something tells me our defense will be fine (actually pretty damn good).....In Bud We Trust!
It was more about the lack of execution and poor tackling. I can definitely agree with the passing game they were going to make plays with us asking the DBs to play on islands all game, but we had some shots to stop them for short/no gains quite often and had guys whiffing on tackles or overrunning their gaps.
It was still a poor defensive performance even against the No.1 team. Everyone was hyping up how good our defense vs their offense matchup was and how their offense played to our defensive strengths. Truth is that our defense broke down, some due to pure talent from their end and some due to plain poor play on ours.
No one is saying the sky is falling but you can't chalk up a poor defensive performance to 'the other team has too much talent' considering we are to have one of the elite defenses in the country. There was some very poor tackling and coverage all through the night that needs to be addresses over the coming weeks.
If you're referring to Alex's report, it's not a criticism. Rather, it's an accurate account of what happened to the defense, based on first hand accounts from Foster and the players. I love Bud and think he's the best in the business, but Urban Meyer and Ohio State got the better of him and Tech on Monday—and that's exactly what was conveyed.
No no no, not to Alex at all. More a general observation that was hit right away with the first 2 comments. Bud was beaten by Urban. I agree on that point, but no need for doom and gloom because of one game.
It's worth analyzing and fixing.
We can't fix it if we pretend that the problems on defense were solely because Brewer was injured. They weren't.
Hey, it was a tough assignment. Nobody is going to fault VT for not winning it. But if you're going to claim to be a top-10 defense, you have to be able to hold up against a top-10 offense, which I believe OSU to be.
Problems on defense were not because Brewer was injured. Never said they were either. Bud got beat. He got beat by scheme and our players got beat by superior athletes. Mistakes were made, but we were also going against a better team. And no, #1 defense vs #1 offense does not result in a stalemate. They are not directly related. We held our own though until we lost our drive and desire, then fatigue set in.
OSU was able to get their playmakers in space, and we were outmatched when they did so.
Furman will not have the ability to get those guys in space, and our guys are likely more athletic if they do.
We should not be too worried about the Hokie defense.
Agree, against Furman, we shouldn't be too worried about the Hokie defense. Against Furman. But again, I do believe at the end of the year, we'll have a highly ranked defense once again. Nobody shuts everybody down completely every game all year long.
Coming out of spring, we all knew, in the back of our minds that we were weak in the middle of the field. AM continues to struggle. Add this with our struggles with our new safeties, and you have a recipe for a bad year, defensively.
We are not going to be able to rely on the defense to bail us out this year. Add in the loss of Brewer and suddenly our high hopes turns to dread.
I think you may be jumping the gun a tad bit. Our competition was the best team in the Nation. There was no way we were going to stop them from getting yards, I think CBF's plan was to try and contain them enough that the game did not become a blowout and to give us a chance to stay even with them. Worked in the first half for the most part. If the defense looks bad against Furman and Purdue then I will start worrying, but watching CFB over the years I have no doubt he will use Ohio game as a strong teaching point and have the D firing on all cylinders by the time conference play starts.
It's not like we face anyone of serious competition for atleast a month when 54th ranked pitt will play at Lane and they are without their entire offense in the same way with Conner out for the season. Then we get 49th ranked NC state.
Thru then we can manage and still up to my expectations. 6 weeks we play @Miami a loss i expected in the preseaon. Then we get in to a push game with Duke but tis 7 weeks since the injury and right back where we were
The only question on the schedule to me with Brewer missing is Duke and not by much even. 8 weeks out we have BC which is more a defense game than offense
The timing of the injury, in the game in a close game sucks but the timeline for recovery and the schedule makes it ok
Clark played really well so I wouldn't say safeties plural struggled.
I am looking forward to french's review of the D. My guess is that AM played poorly and was out of position a lot. I am worried that bc of his play, other teams like GT will also give us problems and we will continue to give up an abnormal amount of big plays
AM was out of position the whole game... but we had a ton of db issues as well, communication wasn't pretty
On Braxton's long TD we had 2 DB'S Facyson and Stroman follow the rb out of the backfield leaving Frye to cover the 5 yard in and then Braxton deep.. he was 3 steps late getting back to Braxton and you know the rest
I was pretty disappointed in Stroman. He didn't seem to have any idea what he was supposed to be doing. Fuller, Facyson and Frye were constantly directing him to his assignment.
Against OSU we needed our five best DB's on the field, and Riley is that #5 not Stroman.
Stoman got picked on early in the game, although he seemed to improve as the game went on. I thought Riley should have gotten more burn.
There were several times I saw OSU's back motioned out of the back field and the cover guy was running over after they snapped the ball. I think they converted 3rd down more than once that same way and another miss because of a drop.
part of this also has to do with our bear front.. because in a 4-3 the LB would normally flex out and cover him.. with the bear the "free" man has to cover that space..
The route concept that is run with that play also makes it tough for that "free" man to not get picked by either the ref or the wr.. a good wr is taught to break his route off across the middle as close to the ref as possible.
The play of the Mike linebacker was beyond poor it was embarrassing. Out of position, watching instead of reacting to plays, poor tackling. Bud has a major problem to solve. Pitt, BC, and that other ACC Tech must be chomping at the bit after watching this game.
He's already got the answer in Lydon. It's just a matter of if he goes ahead and pulls the shirt off of him.
the way I see it, we embarrassed their offense last year in Cbus and they returned the favor by embarrassing our defense in Bburg this year. I think that losing to us last year lit a fire under their tails and motivated them to elevate their game and take it to everyone left on their schedule. They knew that they had to make statements to even be considered for a playoff spot. I'm not saying that we deserve to be considered for a playoff spot if we win out, and I'm not saying that we're going to win out, but I will say that I'm not completely upset that they embarrassed our defense. I'm glad that they gave us a reason to push that much harder and strive for excellence. I expect Bud Foster to put his players through hell this week and I genuinely hope they take it out on Furman, and everyone else on the schedule. I'm hoping we can pull an Ohio State and use this loss as a tool to motivate the team to make a few statements on the way to an ACC CG appearance.
Hope that is the mindset as well. We have the perfect two games coming up to gain some experience for the young guys and try to get some issues fixed.
This...a thousand times THIS ^^^^^^
1) We struggled covering their H backs all night which was often Stroman.
2) Elliot's 80 yard scamper should have come back on a blatant hold in the middle of the field but there was still a huge hole that would have given him 15 yards or so.
3) We had them in 3rd down a lot and they made plays. Our guys struggled to contain Jones on the edge and he was able to burn us on that.
The defense we used was very different than what we will see a lot of the year I imagine. We will use the Bear but the extra adjustments Bud made (treating them like an option team) likely won't be there until we play GT. Our young secondary struggled but they will grow. We got exposed but the guys will learn from it.
On a side note, if Brewer doesn't go down and the offense could have continued to sustain drives, I believe we hold them to around 30 points (28 or 31) and it ends in less than a 10 point game. OSU had a lot of possessions in the 2nd half and that bit us in the ass.
They were 3 for 9 on 3rd down.
Ah, I must have been thinking of a few 2nd down plays. Was the PI call (not the TD) on 3rd down?
Possibly. They got 2 first downs from penalties, but I haven't looked up when they happened. Just looking at the stats from the game to find they were 3 of 9. Which basically means they just did their damage on first and second down, but when we had a chance to get them to 3rd down, we did pretty well.
3rd and 10.
That hold...It looked bad in person. It looked worse on the jumbo-tron. It looks even worse watching the clip on ESPN's game highlights page. Dadi has his whole body turned to make a play on Elliot if not for the lineman with two fistfuls of jersey tugging him back. Maybe we need to get Dadi a tear-away jersey so it will be even more obvious to the refs next time.
On a related note (and I'm not going so far as to say the refs cost us the game, because that's simply not the case), don't refs get graded on how many and which calls are missed after the game? Are these grades posted anywhere? I'd be interested to see how well they did from an objective point of view, since as a fan I'm only going to remember the really bad calls (it was a catch)
They are not posted anywhere, the ACC office keeps up with them, they're used to determine which "crew" refs the championship game, and pay raises/promotions. Studies by FSU in particular, bear out the facts that ACC refs prefer the home team in conference matchups, the visitor in OOC matchups, and the less favored team in extremely lopsided games. All of these preferences are about 6 fewer penalty yards per game, or one penalty. The ACC and Big East refs consistenly scored higher on these metrics. Since the end of the Big East, the BIG10 has happily decided to compete with the ACC for most biased refs, but again, the difference is one penalty, or 6 yards less.
http://www.sloansportsconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/SSAC15-R...
Bllomberg theorizes the NC/basketball bias is responsible for the football parity in the ACC...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-09/proof-that-college-foo...
Those kinds of studies are severely flawed though, because they don't account for uncalled penalties. Who cares if Team A gets called for 1 less penalty than Team B if they commit the same # of actual violations. The problem is when Team A commits 15 penalties but is only called for 7 or 8.
A great example is the holding that OSU got away with on several plays Monday night, including a blatant hold on Dadi Nicolas on Elliot's 80 yard TD run.
They made plays last year too - a big difference was that we were leading the entire game last year - the HEAT was on THEM - it was on US this year - they felt the heat and forced the passes last year. This year, we were ok on D I feel (I don't loot at stats) - they were not blowing us off the line by any stretch. They made the plays they had too, and got the ball in their best players hands more. Now there is no doubt we have some major liabilities (at least watching this game); those IMO are AM is a big step down from a Healthy Chase, and others may disagree, but RVD is a step down from Dinardo (who was a BEAST last year vs. OSU) - yeah, you can talk scheme and all that stuff, but at the end of the day, I didn't hear those guys named, if at all- that means they weren't doing it. Even clarke had some busts, but damm if he didn't bat 2 passes leading to an INT - HE causes issues - the other guys - not. Last point. REAVIS caused issues - he's gone - that one's going to sting all season.
42 points and an 18 point loss may be low-water marks for OSU this year.
I'm sure French is going to touch on this during his review, but did it seem like on OSU's option plays we had RVD/Deon exclusively playing the pitch man even when there was no one close to attempt to force the pitch? It didn't seem like either of them were even giving much thought to forcing the pitch at all.
we basically played it as elliot will not burn us and will be happy with cardale getting 10 yards per carry instead of another 80 yard TD by elliot with or without the holding..
That's how I read it, too. Other than one play (why do we always have to say that?) Elliott was almost harmless: 10 carries for 42 yards. the cost of that was the other 35 points. Not a good trade, in hindsight, but Bud doesn't get to design his scheme in hindsight.
That said, you can put me down in the "worried" column. I'm going to be on pins and needles watching the next four games, wondering about this defense. I don't want to hear how talented we are: I want to see results.
Heck look at Braxton, with the exception of the spin move play, he averaged 1 yard per carry.
Me too! But I bet they will be fine.
They took the pitch with "slow-play technique," so that Elliot didn't get loose. The idea is, force the QB dive, and beat him to the LOS with superior athleticsim...unfortunately, missed tackles.
I need to watch the game again (it'll hurt again) but I was almost positive we had a sack in the first half.
Seems like we've seen all the stuff that OSU threw at us before. To me the big difference was the NFL QB. Kid had a laser. Kid was Roethlesburgeresque (sp) in his ability to deflect our defenders.
When we play GT we don't take the outside pitch runner, we hit the QB. If we had taken the QB all night I'm not sure Cardale would have even flinched at the punishment... was he taking it or giving it?
I'd hate to see Paul Johnson try to sign kids like that at QB. The scat quick pitch and shuck and jive types are just too small to take the punishment we deliver.
They don't play Cardale and I think Bud's defense prevails.... maybe not with Brewer going down... but the D plays a hell of a game.
well, our pressure would've gotten to them, but if we took barrett on those options, Zeke is free on the edge...really think our D wins the matchup that way? I don't. MLB has to play aggressive to flourish, and we had to account for those fast slot guys, pulling the safeties out of position to make that play. The way you suggest is 20 yards per carry, zeke or barrett and our D is dead after the first half...
It's a small sample size but when JT ran that end speed option, he went for 40 yards while Cardale got 3 to 10. JT threw one pass for a TD. Game was decided at that point, so that plays into it. We will never know, but JT is an extremely efficient QB and accurate passer. I actually think Ohio State would have punted less and scored more with JT in there - but I could be very wrong. Cardale's size and strength allowed him to see over the defense and avoid sacks, so maybe he was the better choice for this particular defense. One opinion is as good as another.
I wouldn't draw any hard conclusions about the quality of the VT defense based on the yards and points. Ohio State is going to rack up ridiculous numbers and points against a lot of people. There is just too much for any defense to cover. They will get beat if they turn the ball over like they did in the 2nd qtr and a team has enough offense to take advantage. The Hokies needed those TO's to continue in the 2nd half, and they needed a healthy Brewer to continue to make plays.
I think Furman is in trouble. :)