I have been re-watching some of the games from last year (the ones I still have on my DVR) and there are some things that stand out. I finished the Pitt game most recently,
1. Tim Settle is going to be a monster if he can avoid getting winded early in a series. He impacted a ton of plays last year when he was on the field. He did not always make the play but he stood up double teams, pushed OL into the backfield, and changed the direction of the runner a good bit.
2. I believe a more polished route runner can replace Bucky's production. Bucky made a lot of plays but they were usually on go routes where he was asked to use his body to beat the defender. It did not seem that he got open by running a crisp route very often. Our deep balls this year will come off double moves by better route runners (See Ford from last year)
3. Pat Narduzzi is an asshat.
I will keep watching and posting more things I have noticed. If you have been re-watching, share things you have noticed.
Disclaimer: I am not an expert and do not have the knowledge depth of others but these are what I have seen. They may be inaccurate. If you see something different, feel free to correct.
Comments
Let Tim Settle down Farducci
Rewatched ECU the other night. WR Jimmy Williams is their only returning weapon that I can recall off the top of my head, although they do have Thomas Sirk (remember him?) under center now.
Still, I'm pretty excited about seeing Bud and Co. shut them down again like last year.
Wasn't Sirk the Duke QB? Did I miss something?
Yes. You probably also missed the Benkert is our starter. Where have you been?
We need some way to credit Fireman every time we do this. Or maybe after 2-3 more times, it'll just go on the TKP meme familiarization page.
I really want to add it, but it is a relatively new thing. Let's face it, I don't have a hard and fast set of criteria for what goes on the list, but something that's been around for, what, a month? doesn't seem like it should make the cut.
Oh, I agree it doesn't make the cut. Yet. I just want it to continue to be a thing.
And I want some way for people to appreciate Fireman starting it. Give the man his due.
To be fair, I missed it too until I looked up their roster.
ECU had a lot of guys miss time due to injury last year, so they'll have a bit more returning talent from 2015
true but their defense os collapsing as if they were UNCheat
Oh yeah they won't be a defensive team with Scottie as their coach
So could it be that the best defensive team in NC is... Duke or Wake?
NC State. Their defensive line is probably one of the 10 best in the country. They've got some dudes in their front 7
Good call. Take your leg.
I -hope- the days of VT struggling to score 20 points on 6-6 ECU teams is over?? I really do. That is the thing that pissed me off most in the late Beamer era.. CUSA and BE teams going up and down the field on ECU's defense and we can't get a first down on them. Same with GT to a degree- Miami and UNC score 48 points on them and we get shut out at half, etc. Those days are over with Fuente, hopefully.
Evidently it was announced today by the ECU coaching staff that Sirk will not be their starting QB. He might take over by the time we play them but he is not for the opening game.
You can see a lot of old games here without relying on your DVR
https://www.youtube.com/user/hokietapes
The only reason I deleted them from my DVR. Tapes is doing the lord's work.
I almost exclusively watch college football all year. I had about 30-35 games on the DVR after the end of the 2016 season. I watched those then started on Hokietapes and watched another couple old seasons. I just watched the first VT-Ohio State game for good measure on Sunday.
Check this channel out. I've seen most of the Hokie games on this channel. Best part is the games are only 30 min long skipping all the talking and just showing the plays.
RTSportsUploads
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5uIs17v-d8P5SoorOop3Pw
Couldn't get to sleep Monday night and was watching a rerun of the Clemson VT conference championship game on ESPN. Funny, but the thing that stands out the most from the whole game was Kirt Herbstreit's comment about how bright the future looked at Virginia Tech under Justin Fuente.
I could also get cold just thinking about last year's Notre Dame game. Don't think I've ever been that cold before. I think the first half lack of production from the offense was due to the same cold shock I felt. The Notre Dame players were used to it.
The staff and players said it was so cold there, but it impressed them so much that so many Hokies showed up to support. Gallo said we were so much louder than the ND fans even when behind.
That makes coach Hilgart running around in a polo at that game that much more impressive.
The S&C staff all look like worlds strongest man competitors.
leg for Si reference/meme any day of the week
Who's the dude with the sunglasses looking hard in the background?
Pretty sure that is Jarrett Ferguson
Yes.
Can confirm. Was there. Froze my cake-loving nuts off all day tailgating. Crowd was surprisingly Hokie heavy but part of it is culture.
ND fans do not make noise. Like none. I think I traumatized a family next to me with two small children on our first defensive series when my brother and I went full gobble. They just don't do anything except boo occasionally.
Was also there and was told to sit the fuck down by ND fans I was cheering too loudly.
That's how you know that you're doing things right
So this is a little off topic but my best stadium fan experience was at Bristol last year, I was being my typical Hokie fan self and was as loud and excited as I could be and then when Tennessee started to pull away the lady beside me saw I was losing steam and handed me an airplane bottle of bourbon and said "Drink this, we can't have you losing that energy!" I have pancreatitis so I couldn't drink it but I've still got the bottle and the team spirit! That went way off track, but it's meant to say we have the best fans in the country!
I was with the group that filled 8 charter buses from Chicago for the game. The Notre Dame fans I encountered tailgating/in the stadium were mostly nice and noticeably an older crowd. I heard from numerous Irish fans that we showed up more than Michigan or Michigan St fans. Tech always travels well
The ND ushers after the game when we all went towards the field and we stayed behind sang etc said this was like nothing she had seen from opponents in ND stadium.
I still can't but give credit to both the ND Staff and fans both before and after the game as being some of the nicest people I have encountered at an away game. Going to Notre Dame to see any game was a bucket list item and being able to see my Hokies play there for the first ever meeting made it that much more special.
I have to agree. Everyone I encountered was extremely nice. One of the ushers thanked us for coming and congratulated us on the win.
I do think it helped that most of their fans didn't think they had a prayer of beating us going into the game. The 17 point lead got their hopes up before it all crashed back to earth for them.
Drove 9 hours from Nebraska with my 17 year old boy who bought tickets on line with his own money (yes...he is amazing).
Agree it was freezing and agree that the ND fans were nice and quiet...with the exception of the group behind us that told us to "start the bus and go back to the hills" when we were down by 17 points.
After we won, I turned around to share my hope that the walk back to their car would be pleasant. Shockingly they had already left.
I was in that group too, and I concur with your statements about the Notre Dame crowd. They were all pretty nice even when my wife and I forgot we were sitting in old folks section and kept standing and blocking their view (we were trying to be considerate and sit when play was on the far end or ND was on offense). But yes it was damn cold, so cold my hand and toe warmer packets were frozen.
We bought 4 hot chocolates one for each hand to keep them warm when ND ran out hand warmers to sell.
We had to go to four concession stands to find hot chocolate, most had sold out by halftime.
I found the lady in charge of ordering more, followed her to where she got more and to to stand she took it to first and bought it there.
I would have paid 30 dollars for the one I got at halftime.
I beg to differ on you not being an expert, I find you to be an expert at identifying asshats. Well spotted.
If anyone has 3 hours to kill and wants a good laugh they can rewatch Notre Dame @ NC State from last year. Quality football.
Might have to do that at some point
I was too busy trying not to drown in the UNC lots to watch. I heard how that game played out and have been meaning to catch it for its... uniqueness.
ND's center snapped the ball sideways at one point, so that was pretty unique.
Edit: By sideways I meant the ball skids about two feet to the left and stops, on a shotgun snap.
I (vaguely) remember watching that thing live on TV. I think there were some other games on at the same time that were much better, but we kept coming back to that one to laugh at the idiocy.
NCST / ND was utterly entertaining due to the rain and the field not draining as well as unccheats field. It made it fun!
Serious question, who do you think you are putting that as number 3. That should be everyone's first take away from last season.
Ok I lied about the serious question.
I rewatch Tech games all the time while doing some of my more mindless tasks (all hail HokieTapes). I must've seen the UVA game at least a half dozen times simply because it just never gets old.
Maybe one day I'll be able to watch GT/Syracuse again.... still too fresh.
I almost did it earlier this week (debugging someone else's code can lead one to a pretty dark place), but managed to pull myself together.
Serious Thank You to HokieTapes. I have rewatched all of our wins from last season (numerous times). Now I feel I need to watch the losses; I must endure the bad as well as the good to appease the football gods. Syracuse/GT will hurt. #littlestitious
I re-watch a lot of last yrs games as well. I can't bring myself to re-watch the losses, because I'll get way too mad and critical.
I still see a lot of mistakes in last yrs wins now that I'm more familiar with Fuente's offense, and they had a TON of production. Things like missed check-downs, bad read-options, backs hitting the wrong holes, etc. there were a lot of missed opportunities that this yrs team can fix now that they've had extra time in the system.
The defense was there even when the offense was spotty; The Pitt game started with 2 take-aways and a 3 and out and only 9 pts to show for it. The Liberty game was 16 to 13 at halftime, and Liberty scored a scoop 6. The BC game was the opposite, because everyone was clicking.
What really gives me hope is that Fuente had some other plays at Memphis that were rarely (successfully) run last year; TE screens and traditional screens with Linemen. I hope they can get those in the playbook, because this offense can get even more dangerous.
You know what gives me hope? A FB to FB passing TD!
Yep, crazy to say, but we left a lot of points on the field.
Tenn: Fumbles. Syr: poor qb play. GT: fuck PJ. We shot ourselves in the foot those games, and it showed on the scoreboard. What always boggled me, was our ridiculously slow starts to games. Tenn being the exception, but it seemed to be behind rather quickly.
We got off to quick starts against Tennessee, BC, ECU, and (at least defensively) Pitt. I can't remember how fast we started against UVA, but we went really fast once we got going.
I tend to agree with you on point #2. I think we will be pleasantly surprised with the production from the receivers.
I love the term asshat. LMAO. If he goes off again this year I think we should start using the term "ass bandit".
I have been checking the 30 minute versions on YT. Especially ND and Miami. One thing for sure, If a penalty is called for holding, illegal block or illegal receiver down field you can almost mouth it......Penalty...offense #57...Ten yards 3rd down.
Can we start the Hatin' on Dana H. thread?
We can start it in a few days. Patience.
If you want to feel good about our chances this upcoming year. Go watch the Miami game.