What happened? The dline was lauded as tops in the country. Turned out they were no where near that level. Was it fundamental technique? Effort? Anyone got any ideas?
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Big surprise seems like a talented bunch. They didnt perform that great for a veteran group. Even Maddys All ACC season seemed underwhelming even with it being a thankless job. Im not a fan of the three man front that removes a DT from the field. (at least with that personell group) DT was the strongest position on the D and removing one on numerous snaps seemed counter productive at times. Made the D even smaller and didnt seem to increase speed and athleticism.
I dunno, but I think the DL coach should get a pay cut over it...
Hell, let's go all the way. New head coach, I say! New OC, too!
Injuries to our star player did not help, and a weak LB corps and injury ravaged secondary kind of left them on a island. I. Am actually more amazed they played as well as they did
I agree about our linebackers, but our defensive backfield did great. We were 20th in passing defense and 37th in pass efficiency defense, with a front four that consistently failed to get pressure without blitz help.
The D line just wasn't very good this year, without pointing any fingers at other positions.
Anyone got a guess at the starting line next year?
VT -17.5
Intelligent smartassery is the best by far.
That was great
Hopefully we don't Settle for anyone less than the best...
I think some new blood will be welcomed there. I think that whole senior bunch wasnt at 100 percent for any of the season. Maddy did not play his best ball, or didnt make as many big plays as in the past. Even as a true freshman he showed up on the field. Dadi's hand injury or some other factor limited him, Marshall wasnt healthy, they were just a veteran group that was banged up.
I dont know what the end situation will be next year, but Walker, Settle, and a few of the new faces on the interior should be pretty good. I have seen it with our teams in the past even at other positions, when you have a group that is all seniors, they dont have the miracle season that is expected for whatever reason.
Last year was the perfect opportunity to try the "ManBearPig" zone blitz scheme; 4 DT, 2 DE, and 1 LB.
I would have liked to see that package a few times with the thin LB core and how mobile Dadi is.
I wrote about it all year. Versus power blocking, guys were fitting their gap and then wouldn't fight back across the down blocks to get back in the play. Foster and Wiles, when interviewed about players during spring/fall practice, always talk about kids completing their assignments, and then going and playing football. Too often the DL, especially Dadi Nicolas and Luther Maddy, would fit their gap and then just keep riding away from the play instead of fitting and then finding the football. It happened so many times that it got tiresome to write about the same thing every week.
So effort was an issue then? That is disappointing to hear.
I honestly believe this has become a byproduct of Wiles refusal to rotate if he isn't 100% certain a player can play Wiles' style of football with technical proficiency. If you know you aren't going to get benched, why put your ass on the line every play? I think Wiles might be becoming the new Billy Hite of this program. One thing I hope happens is, if the front four start slouching, Fuente comes to Wiles and says, "So who are you starting instead this week?" If the coach won't put pressure on the players, the HC should put pressure on the position coach.
In the smaller sample size of my lifetime as a Hokie, preseason hype doesn't usually work out that well for us.
But I will say I am always impressed with Maddy's unselfish play. I haven't seen it mentioned on here, but please go watch a clip of Dadi's final sack against Tulsa. Watch the subtle move Luther makes to give Dadi space. Unheralded and unselfish play. Wish they were coming back next season.
When one player regresses, it falls to the player. When the whole unit regresses, it falls to the coaching, players, and program. Last time this happened was 2012.
With the program reboot, we can only hope this will go away and players will get consistently better from year to year.
I think Dadi ended up being slowed down a lot by his hand injury. Obviously that was only part of the problem.
The defensive line was certainly overrated, as were many other aspects of this team, IMO. Dadi was obviously affected by his hand(s) injury for a majority of the year which affected his production, but I'm not sure what happened to Ekanem and Maddy. French said they weren't completing their assignments, so that may be one answer. I might get attacked over this next statement but I think it's fair to say that given the scheme Bud and Wiles run, you have to be a really special player to be a star defensive lineman at Tech. Since 1995, Cornell Brown, Corey Moore, John Engelberger, Darryl Tapp, and Jason Worilds (all defensive ends) are the only players I can think of that were star players a large majority of the time, contrary to the secondary who seems to have a star almost every year.