Every business, generally, has a Continuity of Business about what happens next when the standard operation has a hiccup. From personal experience my employer has one. It's got a plan for everything and that plan is reviewed in quarterly meetings to make sure when something happens Local and regional support knows what to do.
That hiccup for the Hokies was the injury to Brewer. Yet the Continuity wasn't there for the Hokies. There was no plan on how to play the next player.
There was plan to play Nij on offense line (whether that's due to poor play and a Continuity plan I wonder) but no plan if the quarterback goes down, or throw 3 interceptions or overthrows all night. And then no plan for who is up next on quarterback as the new 2nd string
Just seems poor management of team operations
Comments
I think where at least the perception comes from is that none of our backups share enough in common with the starter. The only one who seems like a traditional quarterback is Lawson, but there's a huge dropoff in experience.
During Tyrod's last year, we had Logan as the backup. True, they were different players, but not different enough where you had to consider looking at a completely different chapter of the playbook.
And I think that is where all of the freaking out, discussion, and debate is coming from this week.
And Logan's first play in against MIami when Tyrod went down was a 3rd down rocket for a 16 yard 1st down when we had to have it....
Our next QB has to have that moxie and deliver like that.
So far, its unproven.
I'd kill for even one game with Senior Tyrod and Senior Logan on the same team.
marc leals 1st throw against BC went for 80yrds and TD to marcus davis fwiw. (although that was in a blow out)
I think lefty had a great game plan for brewer. when brew went down 1 of 2 things happened. either motley wasn't up to speed on the playbook which considering his time in the program seems ridiculous or lefty didn't trust mot to run the playbook effectively which seems more likely because it was CLEAR that the play calling was scaled back dramatically once mot came in.
Option 3: Rather than a trust issue, we conceded the game for fear of losing our first and second string QBs to injury. Scaling back the offensive playcalling doesn't necessarily imply a lack of trust.
I agree with you. No offense to Durkin but I think he would have a real deer in the head lights looks if he went in.
off topic: LT3 had a catch for a TD against Wake earlier that year too. not a qb play, but both were awesome
As has been said many times, when Brewer goes down the air went out. If Motley, or whoever is the next guy that can roll with a play action pass, or draw play, or even slants for a couple a plays for a touchdown then boom the momentum is back. The lack of any offense played in to the lack of momentum.
Yea it may be a different chapter but we're talking chapters 1 and 2 here. And a 3rd year college quarterback, how many practices have you gone thru not to have atleast spent time with the 1st team WRs and practice passing. There was a lack of moving on and restoring the confidence
We have had a strange string of almost zero depth at quarterback. Which isn't too surprising, our offense hasn't screamed "grooming NFL QB's" for the majority of these recruits lives.
edit: Very excited about Lawson, It would seem he isn't ready yet though. But who knows how the season will play out.
We have been recruiting QBs pretty heavily
12 Michael Brewer r-Sr
16 Jack Click - Fr.
13 Chris Durkin - r-Fr.
2 Dwayne Lawson Fr.
9 Brenden Motley r-Jr.
We aren't a QB destination but that a good load of them. With that kind of depth of scholarship players we oughta play them and coach them to be ready. We have had back to back, back up QBs on scholarship that have not been ready for the next man up stage, seems pretty bad for coaching ability. And player scouting/recruiting and player development/BeamerWay
its hard to develop 2 true freshman in a month and another R-Fr in a year. Leoffler has brought in QBs since he has been here. 1 transferred and 1 might be our best RB. Those things happen.
QB development happens in the offseason and Leoffler was tasked with getting all his QBs up to speed on a pretty detailed system. He obviously spent the larger part of that effort getting the #1 guy ready which is what you would expect a coach to do. There are only so many reps to go around and even fewer first team reps. Motley was 3rd string and dinged up last year which means he got very few reps. Leoffler was given a very bare cupboard to work with and the staff has done a really good job of restocking it but we are young and some positions are not conductive to playing freshman.
Agreed, but perhaps it was not clear that I was referring to the quality of our backups. We have had many years where the backup was a JuJu Clayton or Mark Leal type talent.
edit: By quality I mean currently a quality backup.
lot of QBs, not a lot of high quality
we've had but one QB who played like a 5*****
he took us to the mnc game
We had one QB who played like a five star. He took us to the Orange Bowl against Stanford.
We had one QB who revolutionized the college game. HE took us to the BCS championship game.
EAT THE PIG, ZIGGY PIGGY!
After 1 week of football...
/s
... and hopefully after Saturday:
Different movie but i felt it might go well here
Hokie fans at halftime...
Or Motley is just not as good of a QB as Brewer and the other guys are as young as they get and not ready to play at full speed. There were plays where Motley had wide open receivers but he was very late seeing them. The coaches can only work with what they have. The back up plan was likely a scaled back version of the playbook and that is what we saw.
I am willing to bet that 80% of the teams in CFB would struggle when their starting QB goes down and even more would struggle when their QB goes down against the #1 team in the country. Having a stable of QBs is rare given the required reps it takes to be a successful QB at this level. Bringing in the backup while losing is never a good situation. How about we wait a game or 2 more before we make any drastic accusations.
When the coaches can practice these guys 40+ hours a week like your employer, I will buy in. If you look back over the last 2 decades, virginia tech has been unusually successful at the qb position when compared to other similar programs. A second string qb just isn't going to win many games coming in cold off the bench with a limited playbook. Add that to the fact that it was the best team in the country and I'm not surprised at the outcome we saw.
What's your basis for the claim we had "no plan on how to play the next player... no plan if the quarterback goes down... then no plan for who is up next on quarterback as the new 2nd string"
Where's the proof they had no plan? Looks like a magnificent leap to an unsubstantiated conclusion.
Guess what? Sometimes the game plan has to hinge on one or two players. Oftentimes, the quarterback is one of those players. How far up a creek would Stanford have been without Andrew Luck a few years ago? Or Baylor without RG3? Or Oregon without Mariota? Or OSU without... well... bad example, but you get the point. The OSU game plan revolved around being able to hit timing routes to the TEs and FB, which Motley evidently wasn't very comfortable with. So no, we didn't have a great plan for if Brewer went down, but few teams in college football will look very good playing OSU when their starting QB goes down in the 3rd quarter. Unfortunately, that's a spot where you kinda just have to say, "hope he hangs in there." Center is another one. No amount of planning made Chung as good at setting protections and snapping the ball as Gallo on Monday, when he had to come in for a play. As a coach, you work with what you've got. I'm not sure why you're looking for problems when there are clearly bigger problems.
Couldn't agree more that it looks like little thought went into the "what if" for a loss of the starting QB, but what was all that hubbub in August about working guys into the rotation on the offensive line? Weren't we debating here about what Searles was doing playing Nijman and Osterloh with first teamers? Seems at least somebody knew what could happen and it worked out fairly well. But I'm a little disappointed with Beamer, especially in light of his comments directed at Leal after UCLA, that he didn't stress to the OC and his backup QB that if called upon, be ready. Loeffler and Motley too were around then so they need a swift kick too.
I agree it "looks" like there was no plan. But that's because the lack of a player to implement a plan and having no plan tend to look very similar.
That said, the original comment said unequivocally, "There was no plan."
No plan "on how to play the next player... no plan if the quarterback goes down...and then no plan for who is up next on quarterback..."
seems more than a tad unfair
I'm sure it has been pointed out, but probably needs to be pointed out AGAIN that Motley scored a TD against OSU, which was more than Wisconsin did last year in four quarters.
Yea, it wasn't pretty and could have as easily gone bad, but he got the TD. I'll be expecting more from him this week, after a focused few days of Scott Loeffler lovin'.
I'm at the point where I don't believe in redshirts anymore.
I know there is a good reason for them. I just don't care about them anymore
How about that comeback by Notre Dame with a back up QB.
Is that what a back game plan looks like, I think I heard that was a true sophmore that came in as back up
Just curious but you seem to be equating OSU with UVA.
In my opinion, there's a bit of a difference.
No, more about game management for any team. QB went down with a half of football remaining and 2nd team QB comes in and manages the game well.
As for OSU game, we lost our QB and the defense gave up 42 points. Those aren't related except by game management. My entire point is that there was no plan when the QB1 goes down. If Motley is the next guy up then there seems like there should have/has been lots of time for him to learn and be ready as next man up. If he's not ready then Lawson or Durkin should have been ready. Motley is a runner and that should have been what the game turned to if Motley is going to QB1. Couple of pass, lots of running; Jet sweeps, run weak side and strong side hand offs, and another wild turkey play
We were down 21-17 when Motley came in. It was still a close game
Unless you're on the coaching staff, you don't know this.
Is that what that game looked like though, that, that was a back up plan?
More importantly from everything read on here and heard from the coaches this seems like wing it to surviving til Brewer comes back
"It's going to be interesting to see Motley with a week's work," Beamer said.
So why wasn't this planned earlier and worked on
I'm not really understanding what you expected? Give Motley all the 1st team reps to make sure he is ready? You seem like a guy who thinks the glass is shattered on the floor no matter how much water was in it.
Well having a plan for what to do when the glass you are drinking from shatters, did you buy a 2nd glass, or paper cup.
It's crazy that the coaching of a 4 year player hasnt made him or the coaches ready for when QB1 goes down
Maybe the skill set just is not that great? Why is this have to be something wrong with the coaches?
Motley spent a while dealing with a back injury a year or two ago, and missed significant practice time last year due to a class conflict. That factors in big-time.
If you want to tell me that you're dissatisfied with the plan or its outcome, I'll agree with you. It wasn't that good. But to declare that "there was no plan" implies that you know with certainty that the coaches said, "it'll be fine, Brewer will never go down." Given the shots he took last year and how close we were to throwing Andrew Ford into the fire against UVA, you bet I don't believe that for a second and I doubt most people would. I think the plan was "Brewer is QB1 because he's clearly head-and-shoulders above Motley, who gets a limited package while he progressively learns more about the offense especially on the mental side," and unfortunately going against the national champs that just ended up looking bad. It was clear to me that Motley had a case of nerves and the close game quickly became...shall we say, not close. At that point, the plan changed into "get the hell out of here alive." Because in the grand scheme of the season, that game isn't terribly important and our odds of winning it were low purely from a talent standpoint. Beamer wasn't going to go all-in to risk an even worse season to make one game matter and then have to throw a true Freshman in as QB1 for the rest of the year if Motley goes down. It doesn't make any sense.
Just because something didn't work doesn't mean there was absolutely no plan. As the saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men...
Thats it exactly. Motley has been here long enough to give everyone a chance to have him and game plan back up ready. Motley and JC coleman have been on campus the same amount of time. Beamer saying that one week will make all the difference after being on campus 4 years is where i really lose it
He didn't say it will make all the difference. He said it would be interesting to see how he does with a week as QB1, which is something that had not happened with Motley yet.
Yeah, Notre Dame's backup QB led a come-from-behind victory against powerhouse UVA, and our backup QB can't get us a win against a pushover like anOSU? What a joke.
...wait, I think I switched something there.
As an independent, ND must treat every game like a conference game. There's no conference championship path to the NY6 bowls. They don't have the luxury of saying, eh, this game doesn't really matter, let's just get out of here in one piece.
Maybe Whitt should point that out to them and push them into getting all in.
Geez is it time to get the pitchforks out already? I haven't even sharpened mine yet! Welp, let's get this out of the way: Fire Beamer, Fire Loeffler, Fire Foster (he should have told them they were being bad managers, so equally his fault), Fire the HokieBird (his jowl didn't hang correctly in the game....in that case, Fire the HokieBird clothier as well).
I don't think they would have gotten as much practice to Motley as you've got to pretty much go all in to beat OSU.
knowing that after that you've got a couple teams to use as real time scrimmages.
You pretty much need all your best guys to beat OSU. As far as a backup plan for playing against an out of conference game like that is, once you can't win, don't destroy your team losing.
To beat OSU, VT had to have its best players play their A game. And IMO the coaches prepped for the game and developed an offensive game plan under this assumption -- particularly at the QB position where the starter and the backups have completely different skills sets right now.
I firmly believe that once Brewer went down and VT failed to score on the following possession, the coaches basically played for the remainder of the season and just wanted to not let OSU beat them more than once by possibly getting Motley injured too. They knew Motley could still win games for them against lesser opponents, but Lawson or Durkin simply aren't close to ready to put the team on their back.
Tough talk guys may not like the idea of retreat, but sometimes you live to fight another day.