Saw this come up on my LinkedIn feed of all places.
They think starting a Freshman QB against their 3-3-5 is our biggest disadvantage, since Qb's rarely play against the scheme.
They think their running game is their biggest advantage.
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TL;DR: You're going to have to watch the game to see who wins.
Interesting. So because we're starting Jackson or Hooker, WVU has the advantage, and if Grier plays to half his expectations, they'll win easily.
Wow
As soon as I read this I had to stop. There is no way to take a beat writer serious when you are blatantly bias and not being objective at all. That's the same reason why I don't read any of "small man's" articles about Hokies Basketball
Edit: guy has no idea about tech if he thinks Motu is gonna be the biggest threat. I like him but I can name three guys in front of him that will be more of An impact
I'm not sure we should expect anything other than the writer being a fan of his team.
McFarlene is tech beat writer and isn't as obvious as this guy. Man I'm glad we have him
Andy Bitter is a perfect example of a beat writer who doesn't do the homerism thing. He's got dogs in the hunt, but doesn't let that overtly influence his take, it seems to me.
Well that's the thing, he is not a VT fan. If anything, he's a Wisconsin fan (his alma mater).
I think he has grown fonder of VT in the last year or maybe two, but that isn't to say that he is now a "fan" per se. There has been a staunch difference in his tweeting and articles over that time frame. He came in on the downslide and probably got pretty annoyed with our fanbase during a time where many fans he interacted with were angry/entitled by our past success and not handling the downslide well, coupled with our very boring and uninteresting offense during that time period. It seems when Fuente breathed some new life into the program, it brought some more fun/enjoyment into the job for Andy. Plus, I'm sure over the years he built more relationships with other local writers/staff/media and some good friendships can make any job way, way better.
I could be totally wrong, but this is sort of the vibe I've gotten from him of late.
I think Gobbler Country is the VT equivalent. I think any of the writers for GC would qualify as obviously biased (as they should be, since it's a fan site).
McFarling works for a newspaper. Authors on fan sites do not equal professional news reporters.
Edit: I just clicked on the Smoking Muskeet's author info and read this:
So yea, not the same. Nor should he be unbiased in his opinions.
That "author info" tells us everything we need to know, in case we hadn't guessed it already.
What this guy is doing is fine. When he writes for the local paper, impartiality is necessary, when you write for a FAN and community blog, a little bias is part of the fun.
Yea this is just crappy research. Basically he saw that Motu lead the team in tackles last year (as a good Mike typically will) and figured "welp, he must be important and stuff."
Talks about the LPD and DBU but no mention of Pre Season AA Greg Stroman. smh
Um, yeah: no mention of our secondary at all.
If they're not worried about our secondary, hahhahaaaa
PS: cannot waiiiiit to introduce Will Grier to our depleted defensive line. Motu probably will have a big game, Rick Walk & Big Time Timmy Jim eatin' blocks like turkey legs
The writer should know we aren't the same team.
The last time we played in 2005, Stiney was our OC and with his horrid offensive scheme we beat the ugly cousins.
We have a REAL offensive scheme now and can light up the scoreboard to pair with LPD and DBU. I reckon we gonna keep that black diamond trophy when the game clock strikes 00:00
FACT
Read this article yesterday. Guy's a complete clown. No doubt he had a few brews in him when he typed out this piece of misinformed nonsense.
I actually didn't think it was that bad of an article. He didn't really spew out bullshit, or say WVU was a clear winner.
The question mark at QB is our biggest question mark for sure. I feel like we found some replacements at WR during the Spring game.
The crap about their QB is where he lost me, and for the most part, that was at the end of the article.
I think Mook is the guy they should be the most concerned about.
Since I'll already be in Vegas that weekend, I invite him to put his money where his mouth is, since his journalistic integrity has already been compromised.
I'll add that I thought for a WVU article the writer wasn't too far off. The strength of WVU's offense is rushing, so if Motu has a good game, makes correct reads, and tackles well then he is in fact a key to success for the D. WVU thinks that Grier will be the heisman winner so playing to half that expectation would mean a solid year, don't know if that alone will beat us but he is the biggest question mark for them.
He wasn't far off with respect to the keys to the game being our defense being able to handle the running game and Grier.
The other key is whether our offense can move the ball.
I firmly believe if we can score more points than our opponents, we have a great chance to win the game.
I dunno man. We scored more points than Michigan, and look how that turned out.
Edit: I should really refresh my screen before making an obvious reply to the Captain.
* I'll add that I thought for a WVU article the writer
wasn't too far offused too many words and not enough picturesDid I forget that we've spent the whole offseason talking about how the D-Line is going to be awesome as long as they stay healthy? (that our starting 4 should be good to great?) Seriously, it's possible that I'm making up reading that on here.
Whelp, seems to me like game 1 (in 60 days, 2 hours and 43 minutes) would be the time when we can be confident (dear god knock on wood) that the front four will be healthy. On another, totally unrelated note, we've held the black diamond trophy since I was a junior in high school.
To me this is supposed to be an article to help the toothless learn about the teeth their team will be thrown into, but is written by someone who doesn't seem to know much about our team.
Is our defense ever considered a 4-4? As far as my limited knowledge goes Bud prefers the 4-2-5 with a nickel type playing near the line or a 4-3 with a whip or a down LB type. If I am correct this seems like a major oversight by a writer intending to inform.
Bud was probably playing a 4-4 last time we played WVU. Seems like that's the level of research that was done for this.
Its not incorrect. The Whip and the Rover are interchangeable. They are both considered outside LBs and neither one is considered a safety. Add in that we stack the box in 46 bear front as well.
The 90's defense (through 2003 or so actually) was a base 8-man in the box defense. 4-4-3. Of course two of those linebackers were hybrids.. the Whip and the Rover who were slightly different blends of DB and LB. The Whip was basically a LB/Safety hybrid who frequently played zone - even regularly took a deep half in Cover-2, while the Rover was a LB/CB hybrid who manned up on slot receivers or played underneath robber zones.
In 2004 or 2005, we switched up the scheme a bit in response to the way offenses were starting to attack us, and the Rover became more of a Safety/CB hybrid, dropping into deep zones as part of Cover-2 or Cover-3, while still frequently playing slot receivers heads up. Meanwhile the Whip became more of a LB/CB hybrid - staying close to the LOS, playing underneath zones, and depending on the match-up or personnel, picking extra receivers up in man coverage. Thus our base defense became more of a 4-3-4. The current evolution of the Whip is the Whip/Nickel where multiple players (Reynolds, Shegog) with differing abilities can emphasize certain roles of the Whip against various offensive formations.
Ultimately though, Foster almost always puts 8 men in the box at the snap or immediately following the snap to squeeze the running game. Even if we're showing a 4-2-5 personnel group you can bet that on 2nd and 5, Reynolds and either the FS or the Rover will be fitting against the run, making us into a 4-4 style defense in execution if not in alignment pre-snap.
"If the Hokies win this game, it'll be because Bud Foster's 4-4 defense shut down Dana and Spav's offense."
Ignoring the obvious mistatement of Bud's defensive scheme, his analysis seems to imply that it's a given our offense will struggle, their offense can score, and that we'll only win if our defense plays lights out.
Personally, I feel the onus is really on Will Grier. If he plays lights out, they have a shot. Other than that, it feels obvious to me that we're the better team up and down the roster.
Grier will not be the problem. He could be the best QB since Joe Mantegna, but is he going to have any blocking (or time to throw) and will his new WRs actually get open and catch the ball?
Grier will have a lot of time to get Settled on his ass on the turf.
I said Joe Montainya.....You owe me 50 Bucks!
That's kind of my point yeah, he'd have to be pretty darn good to make up for the fact that we're more talented across the board.
At this point, I'm mostly just curious about how Will Grier is going to play. It's just such an interesting situation. Has there been another QB who has had to sit out so long and then come in with some pretty high expectations?
That almost sounds like the Vick we don't like to talk about.
It's interesting how both sides seem to think that if everything goes according to plan on their side, they'll win easily. There is no "we're going to need a few bounces to go our way and do everything correctly win."
WVU fans are feeling a little high after their 10-win season against a relatively weak Big 12 last season. They have a new quarterback who is supposed to win the next two Heisman trophies, and Dana Holgersen is the greatest coach in college football at the moment in their eyes. What they don't seem to understand is that:
a) Will Grier will not have taken a snap in an actual game in nearly two years. We very well might be the best defense he sees all season as well. I believe he will have no problem with WVU's system because he had all of last season to learn and seems like a smart kid, but he is surrounded by a lot of question marks aside from running backs. Their offensive line is young, and our defensive line is not "depleted." Sure, we don't have a lot of depth up front, but, in the first game of the season when injuries haven't really taken an effect on a team, it's not as important. Our front four is one of the best in the ACC.
b) I would say a majority of WVU fans wanted Dana Holgersen fired at some point in his career after their last year in the Big 12. They got destroyed by Syracuse in 2012 finishing 7-6, went 4-8 in 2013, went 7-6 again in 2014, 8-5 in 2015, and lost to the 3 best teams they played last season by a combined 62 points. He hasn't recruited very well, and he tends to have a complete meltdown anytime his team isn't playing well which won't exactly help his team in a hostile environment if we were to jump on them early.
WVU's defense was good last season because they were experienced. Tony Gibson's first two seasons as defensive coordinator didn't go as well. They lost seven starters, so I believe they will be where they were in 2014 and 2015 defensively, and if Justin Fuente can turn our offense into what he did overnight, I have no doubt that we'll be able to move the ball against them. WVU has two fantastic defensive backs, but other than that, they're average at best everywhere else. I think the Hokies win this one by 17.
best gif of the thread
Those of you that are college football junkies: has WVU's defensive staff changed all that much or can Coach Mitchell be an asset in this game? Or would all of his inside info only be related to players individual strengths and weaknesses and CornFu would likely be able to glean off of film anything Mitchell would tell them?
This might change the closer we get to game time, but I'm just not worried about QB. It is a question mark in the sense that it'll be someone new stepping under center, but I trust the Corn Fu so implicitly that I just don't see it as a question mark in terms of performance.
I'm not expecting JJ/Hooker/Bush/whomever to play like Gators-era Will Grier. But I don't think the gap in quality of play between our starter and WVU will be as big as expected.
Besides, last time I checked, it's not our QB vs. their QB. It's their entire offense stacked up against our entire defense and our entire offense stacked up against their entire defense. Maybe we've just had better training in knowing that even a crappy offense doesn't mean you'll lose the game if you've got Bud Foster playing chess on the sideline. And I highly doubt we'll have a crappy offense.
I don't think Grier + WVU offense will be nearly as effective against our defense as JJ/Hooker/Bush + Dragon + Peoples + Cam + the rest of the offense will be against their defense.
The Dragon is our secret weapon
I can't really be the only one who thinks it's funny how high WVU is on their Oline can I? 2 Redshirt Seniors and Juniors, replacing the left 3/5s of the starters (http://www.wvusports.com/page.cfm?sport=football&show=roster&orderBy=pos...) and our Dline is "depleted" (http://www.hokiesports.com/football/players/) LOL. The front will be better against the run, and should be able to squeeze the pocket and control running QBs better too. Gaines/Hill and Mihota at DE, Settle and Walker at DT, for a Dline at over 1100 lbs. Motu finally learned how to fill with some decisiveness, Tremaine is a beast, and Bud gives the safeties and/or nickel sight lanes to the runner. My only worries defensively are depth, and whether or not the corners can hold in man outside, tall receivers and all...
I'm glad all you guys are so confident. They are used to playing assignment based D, like Syracuse or GT, and I feel like we will need to beat them in one on one match-ups to move the ball. With so many young play-makers, and a new QB, I can see a repeat of last years nuetral site opener. Too many mistakes to overcome. I do not think they will score much without help from us, and think we will pull it out, but a 3-7 point line seems about right to me. Really hope you guys are right though.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Caleb Farley.
If we were starting new people at RB, I would be worried. I think we have found some good WRs to replace what we lost. QB is the biggest question mark, but honestly I am not that worried about the replacement. Fuente will pick the right person, its just the most important player on the field, so of course that is always going to be the biggest question.
"OH MY GOD THIS ARTICLE WRITTEN BY A WVU FAN SITE IS SUCH A BIASED CROCK OF BS" says the person commenting on a Hokie Fan Site.
via GIPHY
I think it's more the complete lack of analysis or depth that is russlin' some jimmies. Bias is expected in sports, at least for team sites, to drive traffic there.
I think to expect every article written about VT to be of the same depth and detail as is covered here is quite silly. Even more so when said article is written by a source so focused on a completely different team. Nothing in that article is egregious.
Believe it or not, not all football fans care to submerge themselves into all the X's and O's that French and others cover so well.
via GIPHY
I didn't ask for any of that. I didn't ask for X's, O's, W's, or L's. I don't expect things to be as depth as they are here when it comes to covering VT. I'm just looking for a writer to at least watch a game or two from last season before writing up an article.
I could just as easily say the keys to the game are Will Greir and VT's defense shutting him down. The problem is you can say that of any game. Hell, just take a wheel with positions and "plays well" or "plays poorly" and spin it a few times.
Bare minimum, walk through the matchups at each level if it really is a "Know Your Enemy" type article. If this was written more like Foerensics, hell yeah, have fun, they may be my favorite articles on TKP.
I would normally agree with you, but the article is titled "know your enemy", so I don't think expecting it to be accurate or show a little more in depth knowledge of the team is setting the bar too high. Hell FifthFuller provides more accurate and in-depth knowledge than this clown.
Fair enough. I'll just say that if articles get too wordy, it can sometimes cause people to just move on. Sometimes short and sweet is the way to go. Especially early in the year when there are so many unknowns.
I mean goodness, WVU may be one of the biggest question mark teams in all of CFB this year. You could write a piece about each individual matchup and what could go right or wrong either way. I don't think you can say how much or little the writer researched this. Maybe he is just trying to be as brief as possible based on his own opinion.
I don't think the issue is the bias so much as the inaccuracies.
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
I saw a lot of opinion, specifically about who they key players would be on each side, but no information that was erroneous.
Getting flustered because he called our defense a 4-4 and not a 4-3-4 or whatever is just silly and the specific defense we play was never the point of this article anyway.
It just dawned on me that next month will debut the first ever FoeRensics TKP has ever run about WVU
oh boy, that should be fun
TFF had better start
drinkingresearching now.Why not both?
(I think the joke is that his "research" is drinking)
We all know TFF is drunk. I'm saying imagine what he could do with drunk research.
This is the follow up: a full spread on how bad the writer thinks the offense is.
https://www.smokingmusket.com/2017/7/2/15910186/a-closer-look-at-the-vir...
You know, I get it that its a fan rag, but fucking hell, that article is garbage.
No WR outside of Phillips. Our QBs are garbage. Our running game is trash.
And this right here is why I want no business of travelling to this game. Its not that I don't think we'll win, I do, but the WVU fanbase is that delusional about this matchup that when we play like we have shown we play under Fuente, they're going to be pissed. They think we don't stand a chance and they're spending all summer spouting off nonsense in an echo chamber where their published articles assuage this viewpoint, and when we do, that's a recipe for some ugliness in the stands and in the lots, especially with that fanbase.
He keeps calling any QB a freshmen, like he doesn't know one of them is a redshirt.
I just hope we unleash hell on em like we did to ECU and UVa last year. I want to see us closing in on a 50-burger by the end of the 3rd quarter. I want to see their side of FedEx vacant before the Hokie Pokie. I want to hear them mock-cheering the garbage time first down they get when their starters are able to make something happen against our 2nd and 3rd string.
People thought we weren't going to amount to anything last year as well. They learned fast. I suspect these hilljacks will have to be taken
backto school as well.He also cited Juice as a key runner, but Juice hung up his cleats in January.
He also had this to say about our QB competition this year...
Last year we had three QB's in a somewhat similar situation to this year with a true freshman (Jackson), a returning redshirt senior (Motley), and an incoming JUCO transfer (Evans) and last season turned out pretty well. If last year's reports are to be treated as gospel, Jackson had a legitimate shot at beating out Evans last year. I'm confident CornFu will have either of these guys ready to go come September. The writer also doesn't understand that a lack of clarity about the starter is because Fuente likes to keep things close to the vest. Lastly, the "none of them were graded highly by scouts" is a load of crap. 247 shows Hooker and Jackson with offers from WVU and a whole host of other D1 programs.
I was in agreement with this snippet up until that last sentence, but the key thing he seems to miss about the QBs is that Josh Jackson redshirted in the system last year. The thing that keeps reminding me that the writer is a complete homer (and rightfully so for a fan blog) is that he seems to think that Will Grier, with a sit out year and 5.5 games under his belt, will be a stud but Josh Jackson with a redshirt year will be a complete deer-in-the-headlights incapable of completing a single throw. Vastly different results for two similar situations.
Should we really be taking this article this seriously?
Nah, but we like to talk football and it's the summer.
I have to say I agree on the WR point, all of our WRs except for Phillips are entirely unproven. I think they will show up this year and I think Fuente will scheme around them if they struggle in practice before the season, but I couldn't make a confident guess at the depth chart past Phillips.
This is actually a really funny article to read if you don't take anything he says seriously. Now if you do, he doesn't realize the Marshawn can't medically play anymore, Caleb Farley is going to roast their crappy Big 12 defense, and the only "green" our D-line is going to associated with is the number of grass clumps per game the opposing QB's helmet averages.
Although at FedEx, it's more green painted dirt.
This blogger's articles are like Russian Nesting Dolls of terrible. Each article is worse than the last. Cannot wait to see how bad his opinions are of our defense.
I'm genuinely curious what their response would be if I went over and pointed out all the things that they got wrong here.
Couches, bags of piss and batteries will all be thrown at you.
I'm guessing the people throwing them won't look like that.
I am actually impressed with how far she threw that chair. Cocaine is a hell of a drug!
DO IT!
After reading the intro, I actually thought it was an entertaining and reasonably well-written bit. Pretty much everything written there seems about right from a rivals' point of view and I'm sure we'd likely take the same shots. They can have all the homerism and betting advice they want; we'll see how our nonexistent QBs and receivers fare in a couple months.
As long as they stay supremely overconfident, the better the tears will taste.
No question that the longer article was biased and ill-informed, but I did chuckle slightly at the Bucky Hodges pic and caption. There, I said it.
That Bucky bit was shockingly on point.
I see your homer WVU article and raise you this:
2017 is a rebuild year for West Virginia football. Top-25 hype isn't quite fair.
If the cousins go 6-6 they will run him out of town.
Bill C's opinion goes a lot farther then just about any other guesser. And for what it's worth, his S&P+ projections have us ranked 25th.....and WVU 69th. Good for a 63% chance of victory for the good guys.
This just in! Fan thinks team he supports is going to win!
Fan thinks his team will win if everything goes their way.
Remember when everyone FREAKED OUT about this post? This is mild AF and not that poorly done.
Mrs. lwyr: "Why do you hate woovoo so much?"
smlltwnsthrnlwyr: "batteries and ziploc bags..."
Mrs. lwyr: "...ziploc bags???"
smlltwnsthrnlwyr: "...full of piss"
Mrs. lwyr: "eww fuck really...gross"
Let the hillbillies talk. Talk is cheap. Lets do our talking on the field.
Looks like WV will be without their leading tackler from last year.
WVU LB David Long out for Sept.