ESPN ranks the Hokies T-No. 6 in its way-too-early power rankings. Too high, too low or is it just right?
t. 6. Virginia Tech Hokies. Receiver Isaiah Ford and running back Travon McMillian are back, giving the Hokies a great start for new coach Justin Fuente. But who will be the quarterback? And how will a rebuilt defense fare with three new starters up front?
1. Clemson
2. Florida State
3. Louisville
4. North Carolina
5. Miami
T-6. Virginia Tech
T-6. Pittsburgh
T-8. Duke
T-8. Georgia Tech
10. NC State
11. Virginia
12. Wake Forest
13. Boston College
14. Syracuse
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Comments
I don't mind being in the middle of the pack. Plenty of room to move up when the players and coaches exceed expectations.
It's a safe list playing to the hype. Picked both division champs to be repeats, a hyped Miami team (which is every year), and somehow left GT low on the list. This will be topsyturvy by late September.
I would say this is right. At this point, we have a lot of unknowns that put us in the category of high ceiling/modest floor in terms of forecast. I think Bud will figure out how to improve the defense and/or scheme to compensate for deficiencies. If Fuente's offensive system clicks, look out ACC, even with a moderately successful defense. Depends on a lot of "ifs," though.
The crazy thing is, even with our defense the past two years not being up to what were used to, its still in the upper half of all teams and in the ACC behind Clemson and BC who are 2,3 respectively Louisville at 14 and FSU at 22:
ESPN Defensive Efficiency Rating:
2015 - VT Ranked 36 overall and 5th in the ACC
2014 - VT Ranked 9 overall and 3rd in the ACC
In the playoff game the announcers had mentioned Alabamas record against Pro Style offenses, which was something crazy like 60-1, dont qoute me on that, I have no idea what the actual number they said was, but it was pretty surprising.
That leads me to, I wonder what Bud's efficiency rating is against Pro Style Offenses, Option Offenses and Spread Team offenses, someone should get on that haha.
We could probably formulate something close without needing all the drive data based on opponents punt rate, turnover rate, Opponent Offensive TD/Kicking scoring rate; you'd probably only need turnover and Opponent scoring rate, and total drives and you could get something close?
Paging joelestra
Someone help me out, I dont know if these are necessarily right:
If you google ourlads.com and the team you're searching for, u can see what type of offense they have along with their roster.
http://www.ourlads.com/ncaa-football-depth-charts/depth-chart/virginia-t...
Ayyyeeeee. good lookin out.
More data would improve this, I only went back three years:
But, Surprise, our defense doesnt fair as well against spread offenses.
Three Year Simplified Rating:
Also noteworthy, I ran teams with rushing QBs vs without and got about the same as above. Not really surprising. So, is it a case of rushing QB's give us the most problems? Is it the spread formation? Is it a little of both? I dont know.
As a reference, this is ESPN's Defensive Efficiency Rating for VT over the same three year periods:
ESPN Def. Eff -
2015 - 63.8
2014 - 82.0
2013 - 82.1
*Simplified rating just looked at sum of(punts,offensive TD,turnovers,kickAttempts) as total drives and used the reciprocal of drives ending in opponent offensive scores. Its extremely simplified but without going through each drive, multiplying by team ranking factors, its probably pretty close.
Have you considered that two of those games against the Spread were against OSU? I think that's a huge outlier in a very small sample set. Would be interesting to see the results when we only analyze the middle two quartiles, or just dropping the two extreme values.
Yeah, its not exact for sure, but I figured, two games against an elite spread could be evened out by the rest of the spread teams not elite, ex. William and Mary, Western Carolina.
But its pretty clear our worst defensive games are against Spread offenses:
'14 Ohio State - 45.1
'15 ECU - 58.3
'15 Tulsa - 53.8
'13 UCLA - 61.8
The Pro team weve struggled with the most is Miami:
'13 Miami - 73.4
'14 Miami - 60.1
'15 Miami - 69.8
It might not be as insignificant as I thought: its based off 479 total drives, thats more than I thought as I was running through it.
The Hokie in me says we should be third. The reasonable fan in me says this is an ok spot and that this list is meaningless anyway haha
Can't argue with that. So many unknowns coming into this season...
I do think Louisville is a bit high though
Louisville feels like the "new Miami". They are always over valued and under perform.
Louisville has several NFL caliber players returning on D and a hot shot QB, assuming he stays healthy they could do well on the flip side they have to play Clemson, FSU, and Houston
That kinda just strengthens my "new Miami" argument...
So the Lou is back?
I've missed him.
It feels low but we could probably be preseason ranked anywhere from 5 to 9.
Top 3 teams aren't on our schedule. Bottom two teams are our cross-divisional games.
Balanced division set:
Home division games: Miami, UVA, GT
Away division games: Pitt, Duke, UNC
We need to take back Lane Stadium. Win those three and the two cross-divisional games, take 1 of three on the road, that's 8-4 overall record assuming we lose the two top 10'ish OOC games.
And how will a rebuilt defense fare with three new starters up front?
I think we have a way to SETTLE this!!!!
My expectations for next season are pretty close to this. If we can win the Coastal and be competitive against Clemson, I'd call it overachieving and be ecstatic.
I'll be happy if the Hokies ever beat Duke two years in a row again.
"Way too early."
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For the last 1-2 years I have thought that 2016 would be a really good year for us.
Now I am not so sure. Hopefully we have a great spring and build off of that.
This is about as meaningless as a pet rock.
Wow! Are you anti-granite?
Are you saying my jump-to-conclusions mat is meaningless as well?
Next you'll tell me that the turkey legs accumulated on this site won't get me anything.
You better hope they mean something. :-)
I'm sure you can redeem them in a fashion similar to this
Assuming you are referring to all other rocks, save for Hokie Stone.
Of course. You are probably not old enough to remember the pet rock craze.
Correct - I am not old enough to remember, but I know of the craze through the legacy. Tamagachi's and pocket pets or whatever the heck they were called were the equivalent craze for our generation. I never owned one.
As part of freshmen "orientation" (hazing) at Benedictine I was required to have a pet rock with a name and full backstory.
Hokie Stone is its own rock and doesn't submit to anyone as a "pet."
I am impressed with the evolution of a preseason ranking post into sub-thread about pet rocks.
Well done sir.
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Few thoughts:
1. As usual, UVA is ranked way too high
2. I don't get the hype around Louisville. I want to see them accomplish something before they become a perennial top 5 ACC team.
3. New QB. New Coach. Some talent at skill positions. I think our ranking is reasonable
A good metric for teams that should improve the next year is close losses. Louisville had a very rough schedule with close losses to Houston, FSU, and Clemson (and Auburn back when people thought they were good) and return like 96% of their offensive and defensive starters (iirc). If they played in the Coastal I think they would challenge for 10 wins and a championship game berth every year.
We proved this one wrong in 2013
We sure did :(
Looks like its time to surprise the shit out of people
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Just found this one, had to include it:
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Well done commenters!! Nothing wrong with a little crystal ball viewing. Being an eternal optimist, i really like our chances of putting a good year together. Hmmm, where is that J?
I really expect Georgia Tech to have a bounce back year. It was an awful season for them but they lost a bunch of close games and Paul Johnson's never had back to back losing seasons as a head coach. GT seems like the Oklahoma of the ACC...they suck when they get hype and do well when no one expects them to.
If they can get their horrible pass protecting o-line together (back to where it was 2 years ago), they can cause problems for people. Justin Thomas was a Heisman dark horse coming into this year and I don't think he got awful overnight. I'm sure CPJ is working on his
gameplansindex card as we speak.Agreed, they will be back to being a pain in the side next year. Hell, they were a pain in our side in 2015.
They're usually more of a pain in our knees.
This is bullshit. We got rid of everything that was holding us back. We should easily be ranked 1st in the ACC if not the whole country.
/s
List looks good to me. Gonna be a long off-season this year.
I think Pitt will be in top 2 again in coastal. Returning a second year starter at QB. Return both the ACC offensive and defensive rookies of the year. Biggest jumps usually year 1 to year 2. ala Ford this year. Definite top 2 if All American Connor makes comeback.
Who is UNC's QB next year? I thought Williams was a senior. If he graduates UNC being that high would be my only issue with the list..........
Mitch Tribusky(sp?), who is widely considered to be better than 'Quise.
Mitch Trubisky, you might remember him.
Didn't think Williams was all that great tbh
They would have likely beat Clemson by two scores if he could have hit the broad side of a barn during that game. I think he was something like 5/22 at some point in the third quarter and some of those were legitimate pressures but a lot of them were just missing throws that he had time to make.
They would have beat South Carolina if he hadn't thrown 2 INTs in the endzone but Fedora didn't want to give Hood the ball inside the redzone. The ACCCG was very close to being the squaring off of two undefeated teams.
I think as the Baylor game showed UNC wasn't a top 10 team
My how things have changed -- who doesn't remember a lot of 2014 chatter (on this board and elsewhere I'm sure) about 2016 being THE year?
Why isn't Notre Dame included? Aren't they part of the ACC?
/s
They are part of the ACC in all sports except football. They just have an agreement to play ACC teams.
VT seems about right - give or take. UNC and maybe Louisville are a little too high. Maybe Pitt and maybe GT are a little low.
Two teams tied for 6th and two tied for 8th is just lazy. This is a preseason ranking put out in January, nobody expects Pulitzer-winning work, just flip a coin and go get a danish.
I think that's exactly what they did but they used the Green Bay-Arizona coin flip.
6th is pretty optimistic IMO, especially since we will either be breaking in an entirely new qb or one with limited experience in Motley, a new offense, and a defense that lost some of its best components. Not to even mention a great punter. I hope I'm wrong, but I think it will be very similar to the past couple of years without drastic improvement on the offensive line and linebacker.
Basically what he's saying is bust out the ACC wheel of destiny for any game with two teams from the coastal.