Offensive Line Ineptitude, Poor Tackling in the Secondary Sink Hokies Against Pitt

Last season, the common refrain from Frank Beamer was, essentially, "just wait until next year."

Frustrating early season losses to ECU and Georgia Tech had Beamer quick to point out the youth of his team, and tout the team's promising future.

Yet the 2015 season is in full swing, and many of the players the Hokies' staff were counting on to step up were key culprits in the team's 17-13 loss to Pittsburgh.

"I know they're young, but they need to start growing up," Beamer said after the game.

Injuries and attrition have forced young players into key roles at some points spots on defense, but there are plenty of veterans on both sides of the ball, with each bearing some form of responsibility for the team's first conference loss.

Offensive Line Crumbles

One spot on the team that does not have a terrible amount of youth and inexperience is Tech's offensive line. Eric Gallo is the youngest of the bunch as a sophomore, and yet the group was whipped by Pitt's defensive front.

The Panthers notched seven sacks, the most by any team against the Hokies since the Maryland Terrapins matched that total in 2013. That's in addition to 11 tackles for loss.

That understandably is prompting some serious questions about Tech's offensive line, which completely hamstrung QB Brenden Motley's ability to get anything going in the passing game.

The team didn't have much of a running game either, managing just 33 attempts on the ground in total for a net total of just nine lonely yards. Motley once again led the team in carries with 17, and Travon McMillian was a distant second with six.

Offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler said after the game that they knew what Pat Narduzzi's defense hoped to do and, given its similarities to Ohio State's defense, had spent plenty of time preparing to attack it. Yet Loeffler's unit failed, as he put it, "miserably."

"We've been prepping for this defense all summer long," Loeffler said. "This is Ohio State's defense and at the end of the day, we knew we had to come in and run it well enough. What they do in the back end, we had to protect, and if we could protect, we had major opportunities for not big plays, touchdowns."

The Hokies could hardly take advantage of Pitt's propensity to allow chunks of yardage. With Motley constantly harried behind his offensive line, Tech's longest play of the whole day was a 28-yard catch and run by Bucky Hodges on a crossing route.

"The disappointing aspect is, you get your quarterback hit, you take sacks," Loeffler said. "The defense is built to take shot opportunities, we had those shot opportunities and we couldn't get the ball off and once that quarterback started getting banged around, you start making decisions you generally don't make and that's what happened."

Motley was knocked around so relentlessly that it's fair to wonder what changes the Hokies might make on the line. Beamer vowed to consider "personnel changes," and given the way the line performed, that unit could see a shakeup.

The team continues to start Jonathan McLaughlin at left tackle, but still rotates in Yosuah Nijman fairly regularly. Neither seemed particularly effective against Pitt, but the team lacks options at the position, with highly touted prospect Austin Clark just a true freshman and former tight end Darius Redman seemingly a last resort given his short history with the position.

That prompted questioning from reporters after the game. Mike Barber of the Richmond Times-Dispatch pressed Beamer on what changes he envisioned, asking "When you say personnel you're going to look at, what options do you have, particularly on the offensive line?"

Beamer's reply was more than a bit opaque.

"We've got a freshman over there that's not ready to play, but he's a talented guy, so we'll look at that," Beamer said.

Seemingly, that would be directed at Nijman or possibly even Clark. But Beamer has never been one to stick strictly to the contents of a reporter's question, and the query's construction could allow room for him to be speaking about QB Dwayne Lawson.

Tech's athletics communications staff identified the quote as being "on the offensive line" on a quote sheet handed out after the game, but the issue remains unclear. It's certainly not unreasonable for the head Hokie to weigh changes in the trenches, but if that statement is directed toward Lawson, it could indicate that he feels a change under center could help resolve at least some of the offense's woes.

Replacement DBs Struggle

Kendall Fuller's season-ending injury and C.J. Reavis' dismissal from school have certainly forced young players onto the field in the secondary.

Freshman Adonis Alexander started at rover once more, and not only did redshirt freshman Terrell Edmunds get the start in Fuller's place at cornerback, but sophomore Greg Stroman and true freshman Mook Reynolds both got plenty of snaps against the Panthers. While the group largely played well, allowing just 110 passing yards in total and holding Tyler Boyd to five catches for only 48 yards, they still left a lot to be desired in terms of allowing big plays.

"We're not playing very well," said defensive coordinator Bud Foster. "But experience is the best teacher and right now we don't have experience and it's catching up to us right now."

Indeed, the Hokies did allow a number of explosive plays in the game. The defense gave up five plays of over 20 yards (three rushes and two passes) to further sink down the national leaderboards — the Hokies are now tied for 111th in the country in plays allowed of that variety.

None of those plays were more damaging than the back-to-back long runs by RB Qadree Ollison to start the second half. His 43-yard dash and 25-yard touchdown run provided the Panthers with their last score of the game early in the third quarter, and left Foster struggling to offer answers about yet another series of busts by his defense.

"We couldn't be in a better defense, but we missed a tackle," Foster said. "It comes down to guys making plays and fitting in their position and playing their position, but it's disappointing. We gave up too many chunk plays on fundamental things and that's disappointing."

That's an explanation that Foster has had to offer a lot recently, this time blaming the tackling issues on those two back-breaking plays on the inexperience of the younger players playing increasingly large roles in the secondary.

"It was young, young defensive secondary guys not fitting properly," Foster said. "You saw when we executed, they came back and ran the same exact play and we hit it in the mouth. That's what should've happened the very first play that they ran. The next time a guy got outside, it was an outside backer edge guy spilling it when he was supposed to hammer, so it comes back down to guys executing their position and we practice that play."

That criticism aside, the defense undoubtedly got better as the game progressed. The Panthers gained 95 of their 276 total yards in the first quarter alone, and couldn't manage a single play over 10 yards in the fourth quarter.

The defense also managed the most productive pass rush of the season, sacking Nate Peterman four times for a loss of 35 yards, even Foster would like to get more aggressive as he develops trust in the new members of the secondary.

"Our guys up front did a nice job and we were able to get some edge pressure," Foster said. "We got a feel for what they were doing but we've got to get a little more pressure. We still have concerns about a young secondary and how they're going to hold up and we kind of got into that in the game right there."

The Hokies were also successful at containing backup QB Chad Voytik, who tormented the defense last season at Heinz Field. This time around, he only carried the ball five times for 37 yards, with 26 of those coming on a long carry in the first quarter.

"When Chad came into the game they changed their front," Narduzzi said. "We did go back to it in the second half a couple times, it just didn't give us much."

In a game with few silver linings, Foster did have some kind words for the middle Edmunds brother in his first extended action after Terrell finished the game with five tackles and a fumble recovery.

"He's a growing kid, he's got good range, good speed, good hip flexibility and he's going to continue to get better and better," Foster said. "I think he's a really good prospect for us and I'm really excited about his future. We want those guys to be better sooner than later."

Fighting Through Frustration

Beamer's comments after the game betrayed his feelings of frustration after yet another lifeless loss, and the players largely echoed that sentiment.

"Today was a tough loss, especially knowing that we have so much potential and so many great players, it's frustrating," said DT Luther Maddy. "The team's not executing right now."

That feeling of unrealized potential seems to be spreading among players on the other side of the ball as well.

"It's just frustrating because we are a lot better than we're playing," Motley said.

These are tough sentiments to hear from a team that seemed so optimistic just two weeks ago, and the coaching staff will have to lead the charge to turn the tide of the team's morale.

Beamer's tough talk surely seemed to have the players taking notice, with Maddy observing that he hasn't often seen the head coach so frustrated in his time at VT.

"We go as the coaches go, so all we can do is give effort, know our assignments and the coaches will put us where we need to be," said WR Cam Phillips.

With yet another short week of preparation ahead, the Hokies won't have long to re-focus before returning to Lane Stadium.

"We can't dwell on this one, this one's gone," Phillips said. "We have another ACC opponent coming up, we need to get back on the practice field, get the game plan on and get better."

That ACC opponent in question didn't have the best week either ahead of the Friday night matchup. NC State also lost at home, falling 20-13 to Louisville, but the Wolfpack still present plenty of problems for the Hokies.

Not only is NC State 16th in the country in points per game, with an average of 39.6 per contest, but they're also proficient at the making the type of big plays that have so vexed Foster's bunch — Jacoby Brissett has keyed a unit that's currently tied for 41st in the nation with 24 plays of 20 yards or more.

"They're a talented football team," Foster said. "They have a lot of skilled kids. We have to play really well. We'll regroup. We have to be efficient. We have to execute better. If we do that, we'll give ourselves a chance."

The Wolfpack also rank highly on the defensive side of the ball, coming in at 11th in the country in scoring defense, allowing 13.6 points per game. They're also allowing just 80.2 yards on the ground per game, a mark that puts them sixth in the nation, and they come in at ninth overall in pass defense with 145.6 yards allowed per game through the air.

The level of competition may be questionable (considering the Cardinals were by far their best opponent of the season so far, unless the likes of Troy, Eastern Kentucky, Old Dominion and South Alabama turn things around) but Loeffler will certainly have his work cut out for him this week.

"We have to watch this tape and get ready to go," Loeffler said. "There's not too many other options."