http://collegefootballnews.com/2016/post-spring-college-football-ranking...
CFN typically does a pretty good job on their rankings. These however fail to give any real insight or leverage any relevant information. But hey, we are in the dead zone so why not talk about how they missed it... Well at least with one team from the Commonwealth of Virginia.
79. Virginia (4-8)
2015 Final Season Ranking: 87
2015 Preseason Prediction: 5-7
New head coach Bronco Mendenhall is going to be in for a rocky first season. There should be a passing game, and there might be a few excellent players to build the defense around – Quin Blanding is one of the nation's best defensive backs – but it's going to be a battle for a while.
This one seems about right to me. I think things will take a bit longer than the LOLUVA fans care to admit. But Bronco needs to do a complete overhaul of that program, no least of which is bringing in some talent.
42. Virginia Tech (7-6)
2015 Final Season Ranking: 60
2015 Preseason Prediction: 6-6
New head coach Justin Fuente is about to infuse a better, more effective offense with eight returning starters about to improve the Hokie attack. The defense is going to be an issue, especially up front, but watch out – there's enough talent there for Fuente to do something special right away.
Looking through O&M glasses, this seems to be a bit low. Especially when you consider the reason given. "The defense is going to be an issue, especially up front..." Just an ounce of research, simply 60 seconds of digging and the blogger(s) could have figured this one out...
Comments
#42. I'll take the under (meaning a lower number, which is a higher ranking. Why is this so confusing?)
If they are including the LBs in "up front" then yes I agree, but strictly DE and DT I am not seeing the same cause for concern. I think Wiles and Foster will find 8 guys that can be competitive in the two deep. The DBs are now a concern with injuries and potential suspensions.
We thought that last season and they sure didn't.
DE is a pretty big concern. No one but Ken with any real experience and he wasn't very good last year. Hoping he breaks out this year and some of the young guys are able to at least be average players.
Mihota looked to be stout in the run game last year but we'll definitely need Hill or Gaines (oops) to provide some pass rush
With the question marks in the secondary this year we need to get to the QB as fast and often as possible. Mihota may be ok against the run he just doesn't have the burst like the other guys you mention.
Then again Baron has enough pass rushing skill for all three. The trade off is he gets trampled in the run game
Maybe move him to DE and put in Walker/Settle.
If he can stop the run and contain the QB and let the other guys get after it, I can live with that. Mihota will make some plays out there in the pass game. He will get his hands up and he has a pretty nice bull rush.
From what I have heard Dooley will be moving over to the left side, which is his natural side, and Wiles really wants to move Mihota back inside but that seems somewhat unlikely at the moment.
Both Dooley and Mihota have experience at DE. Opportunities abound for someone to breakout.
Rankings are pure BS at this point in the game. We haven't done anything to prove we are good, and we're ranked above UVA so I'd say the rankings are as accurate as they can be.
i have no problems with people underestimating us. working our way up from an underdog position sounds better to me than dropping like a rock from a highly-ranked position due to unmet expectations.
*thinks of all our BCS bowl games
I mean, we got an Orange Bowl win and a Sugar Bowl win. The only loss that really bothered me was the Kansas one.
Sugar bowl was pre BCS. 1-5 in BCS games
He's saying we beat Michigan, because it was a catch.
man we really need to get over that
Agree with you on that one.
Great!!! No bullseye. It will be good not to be a target. Should we beat UT, then look out.
After 2014, I'm not basing any of my expectations on beating a highly touted team in week two. This year it's all about winning the Coastal.
This year it's all about just going back to beating Duke.
Teams we should never lose to that would have drastically changed the last few seasons for us: Duke and Pitt. These are not more talented teams, these teams do not run difficult to defend schemes, there is no excuse. To get back to real VT football, these games need to go back to being gimmes.
You forgot UNC. We opened ACC play with at least a 5-0 streak against UNC.
I considered adding them, but the difference is that UNC has actually developed into a program with legitimate talent and a dangerous offense. Even when we lost to them in 2009 (which we shouldn't have) they were loaded with talent they recruited through less than reputable means.
If i were to add one I would say BC. 2013 and 2014 losses were NOT good losses. The 2014 BC team was far from terrible, but we still shouldn't have lost that game.
Also forgot Maryland. We should never lose to that awful school/state
Edit: of course they are no longer ACC and we won't see them anymore
I didn't include them solely because we only lost to them once in our era of decline, and while that loss was flukey and frustrating as they weren't really running an offense and returned a punt for a TD, it was after the much more devastating losses to Duke (who didn't convert a 3rd down against us and had 180 yards of offense) and the BC debacle.
Oh yes, I remember both of those games well. I don't think I've ever been so mad after leaving the MD game. Plus Fuller had FOUR Vlasic Pickles in that Duke game and we still didn't win. Sigh.....
I think 7-6 is a realistic and okay first season. I don't really care as much about the final record as much as is our team a team to watch. Are we improving? Are we moving the ball? Most importantly and we playing lowsy against teams we should beat and are we in every game. Do we look out of our league with some of these big games?
If we go 8 - 5 and lose close ones to Miami, Notre Dame, Tennessee, UNC, and maybe Pitt win a bowl game. I don't want to say that's the ceiling, but I'd say that's a really good first season. If we get blown out in any of those games or lose some upsets I think that's a different story.
I wouldn't be surprised if we get blown out in at least one game. I wouldn't even be overly concerned about what it could possibly mean for the future of our program. When you have coaching staff turnover you run into growing pains. Now if we get blown out in year 3 then you have to start asking the tough questions. For now just look for progress. I will admittedly be upset if we get blown out by Tenn but I wouldn't sound the alarms for the future of the program if that happens. That will be Fuente's second game as the Head Hokie. That will be our team's second game in a brand new offense with a (likely) brand new QB and several brand new WRs. Tenn has a dangerous offense with an experienced mobile QB and they are going against a Bud Foster defense which has historically struggled to contain running quarterbacks. Our brand new offense may not be able to keep up. You have to seriously consider the likelihood of us getting smacked down in that game and try not to get so upset about losing to them that you start calling for more changes.
Yeah. Tennessee is going to be a tough one.
I just looked back at their season last year. They only lost 4 games, and not one of them was by more than 5 points in regulation (they lost in 2OT to Oklahoma)...and they're returning 16 Seniors. I dont know their roster well enough to know how many of them are returning starters, but thats going to be a pretty good team next year.
yeah I seriously doubt we'll beat Tenn. I just hope it isn't embarrassing but I'm acutely aware that it could easily turn into a lopsided affair. They have been building for a few years now and they're going to be a very tough team to beat. Not just in the SEC, but in the whole country. They will probably (and should) be favored to win the East and play for the SEC title.
VT on the other hand is in the midst of a transition to a new coaching staff. New philosophy. New culture. New practice/gameweek structure. The timing just isn't great for us to play this game and come out on top. But those are the cards we've been dealt. Outside of Tenn and ND the rest of our schedule is pretty manageable. I think 8 wins is a reasonable expectation for this team.
I'm just glad ND is so late in the season. I feel reasonable about surprising them
it's kind of a double edged sword. ND has more depth than VT does. Playing them at the beginning of the season would benefit us because we are more likely to be healthy. It's a disadvantage because we aren't experienced enough to execute at a high level. On the other hand, playing them at the end of the season would be an advantage because we'd have a few more miles under our tires and should, theoretically, be able to execute at a higher level. However, if we get hit by a couple of key injuries, we just don't have the depth to keep up with a team like ND. So playing them early in the season versus late in the season could be a wash. They are a more experienced, deeper team right now and I don't think we'll surprise them without quite a bit of good luck.
Creating our own depth is the reason I feel better about playing them later. Injury concerns will always be there, but right now we have 2 WRs that have legit experience so I expect a handful of new guys to look a bit lost during the UT game. By late November I think we will have established a reliable receiving group. Setting the edge on screens is a huge aspect of keeping Fuentes offense moving. Its definitely a double edge sword, I just feel better about playing them week 11 than week 3.
yeah I guess I see where you're coming from. What if QB1 goes down to injury? Or QB2? Then who is going to throw those screens? Who is going to pose a running threat from the QB position to keep the Linebackers from cheating outside? Our WRs might be more experienced by the fall but somebody else might be brand new at a different position. I don't think the first year with a new HC is the year to dream about beating established programs (that's not going to stop me from dreaming, though, I promise) like ND and Tenn. I think if we manage to stay healthy then our chances of beating ND should better in November than they might be in the first month of the season. But they will also have more game film and will see how other teams try to defend us. What works? What doesn't work? We just won't have the element of surprise against ND that we might have to make the Tenn game interesting.
True. I'm just willing to bet we improve much more from Sept. to Nov than ND does, which should be a net gain for us.
This is an interesting point. We're on a steeper curve (since we're less experienced and have more opportunity to improve) so we should improve a lot more than ND over the course of the year. Just because we improve more doesn't necessarily give us better odds against them later in the year.
Look back at our win vs tOSU. I think having that element of surprise really aided us tremendously in winning that game. I don't think we would beat tOSU again with the same players later in the season after several other teams had produced film on how to attack the Bear Front.
Fuente's best chance at winning a big game this year, IMO, is the Battle at Bristol. (I don't think we'll win, but that's his best shot) I believe this because Tenn won't have much of an idea how our offense is going to look. I imagine our game against Liberty will be of little use to the Tenn Defensive coaches. Being able to jump out to an early lead (a la ECU vs us in 2014) by hitting them with stuff they haven't seen before might be just enough to get it done. I just think Tenn is too talented and too experienced to not fight back and win in that scenario. Dobbs has me seriously concerned. I think if Tenn were breaking in a new QB I'd feel better about our chances to beat them.
By the time November rolls around I expect us to look like a better, more consistent, team than we will be in September. However, I think we'll find it harder to move the ball against teams because they'll have film on how other teams defended our offense. I fear that we will lose a key player to injury (it usually happens) and we just don't have the depth to absorb key losses and keep performing at an elite level. I think ND has the edge there and I think they will be just as tough to beat in November as they would be in September. Especially if we no longer have that element of surprise.
I think you're over valuing the element of surprise. Yes the bear front definitely gave us an unexpected edge during the OSU game. But that wrinkle was only able to be added because we already had a well established identity on defense; the bear just turned up a notch.
We're still installing our offense right now and likely until ND. It isn't about being able to do things no one expects. Its about doing the simple things we expect from ourselves.
Many up-tempo attacks aren't very complicated. It's not about the complexity of the play it's about executing the simple ones consistently and putting yourself in a rhythm and ahead of the chains, coupled with tempo allowing less time to get pre-snap reads and taking advantage of fatigue. These things allow up-tempo offenses, with a tremendous amount of film readily available to opposing teams, to move the ball with relative consistency from game to game.
Looking around quickly, Tennessee is a 14-1 favorite to win the whole damn playoff.
Ohio State +700
Alabama +700
Clemson +750
Michigan +750
Oklahoma +1400
LSU +1400
Tennessee +1400
Yikes.
Well if history is any playing us early in the season should secure them a spot in the national title game and looking to win it.
JT Barrett was a mobile QB. Just saying......
Yeah, so was James Summers.
So was Denard Robinson
But then so was CJ Brown or whoever played at MD that one time
But then so were all those GT QBs
But then there was the JMU guy
But...
Cardale Jones
Can we never talk about that play again. RIP to JGW ankles...
Agree with this. Just want to see improvement all around. Also less penalties, which is still a concern because Memphis was one of the most penalized teams in the country I believe last year.
Memphis was 124 out of 128 with 75.1 penalty yards/game.
VT was 97 with 62.8 yards/game.
Memphis only had 3 more penalties over the entire season though. I guess Memphis had less 5 yard penalties and more 10 to 15 yard penalties than Tech. Memphis averaged 9.8 yards per penalty. VT averaged 8.5 yards/penalty.
Thanks for the stats. Need to clean that up drastically. We aren't talented enough, yet, to be that bad giving opponents free yardage.
I agree and it was a catch.
TN can be beaten. I saw Dobbs Play UK first hand last year and he is dangerous. But, our defense will have the benefit of practicing against a different offense all fall camp so I suspect Bud will be able to get the D better ready than we think based on history. I think ND is the game we could get embarrassed in because we haven't played a meaningful game in November yet that where weren't missing key guys. I think that trend continues.
I think Tenn and VT are similar right now in terms of trying tebuild, but they are just a couple seasons ahead of us. Because of that, I think they will definitely win, they really are a good team at the moment.
Fun fact to go along with that: Notre Dame is 6-7 in November since their undefeated regular season three years ago.
That is a cool fact! Thank you. I feel the sweep!
I think Hurd is the bigger concern. Once he's past the DL he's guaranteed 5 yards if AM is the one tackling him since he'll get dragged for at least 2-3 after contact and that's if he makes the tackle.
Hurd can run all the yards he wants as long as he no longer has the ball.