Last night I was scrolling the channel guide in my DC airbnb looking for a football game, any football game. That's when I saw the two purple and yellow schools that i wish were never on our schedule: JMU and ECU. As we all know, playing either of them is always a lose lose scenario for us. Win and it doesn't help you or (ptsd kicking in) lose and you just lost to ECU/JMU. Well this year the benefit of beating ECU will be less and the pain of losing will be even greater because they got handled by an FCS school. No last second field goal block return for a TD, just a regular 21 point loss where they gave up over 600 yards of offense and 400 rushing yards.
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#BringBackStinespring /s
I don't care what people said. Stiney was a great coordinator. He's not the reason why we sucked on O. Frank never lead in recruiting and we laughed because of it
No, he wasn't. I think he's a good guy and I don't have anything bad to say about him, but he was not a great offensive coordinator. If he was, we all wouldn't have been able to predict what play we were going to run the majority of the time.
BUBBLE SCREEN
Yeah if you could predict what we were going to call all the time then you'd be a college d coordinator. But you're not aren't you?
When we had the horses a la 2005 our O was excellent. But our recruiting sucked soon after and we couldn't do anything. Not good fault we couldn't get any o line recruits.
In 2005, VT had the #29 rushing offense, #91 passing offense, #57 total offense and #17 scoring offense. I wouldn't necessarily call those excellent results.
Under Stinespring we averaged #40 in rushing offense, #84 in passing offense, #66 in total offense, and #42 in scoring offense.
You're completely missing his point. The point that's being made is that "Stiney was so bad as an OC, that even I could predict what VT was going to do, at least 3/4 of the time, so a real DC would have zero problem doing so." This is the antithesis of a 'great OC'.
I'll bet you couldn't have predicted even 20% of the time what VT was going to do.
Too bad we can't go back and see, because I'd certainly take that wager. We basically ran 2 plays out of each set.
Not a fan of the logic or opinion. But you are entitled to share your opinion here. A leg to offset the downvotes, as I see nothing here to warrant them.
Yeah, I'm not getting the down votes. Those aren't for having a different opinion, they're basically for flagging in appropriate comments. Thinking Stiney was great, while not rational (to me, anyway) is far from what should qualify for a down vote.
Venturing a guess that
is being read in a condescending tone, whether intended or not, and is therefore being interpreted as uncivil and therefore warranting disapproval from the community.
He was not even a decent offensive coordinator. He is a good line coach and recruiter and a good guy. But a coordinator he is not.
If you're comparing him to modern day offenses then sure it's not even close. But for the era we were in he was. Look what he did recently as proof.
Wasn't Stinespring promoted to OC fairly late in Beamer's tenure? I think he actually held that position AFTER our offensive glory years
OC from 2002-2012.
"modern day" would have to include 2010 and beyond. Stiney was OC in that time period and didn't live up to the standard that you set.
Drinking early I see....
I hope you forgot your "/S"
- no one ever
Uh by definition I've said it, so no you're wrong. And quite frankly I'm not the only one who thinks that.
my bad, let me fix that...
- AXD1985 and no one else
I see you still don't understand how this works. Just because you think it doesn't mean it is so. Let that sink in for a while.
lol You take comments WAYYYYYY too seriously on here
Lol you take views that go against yours WAYYYYYY too seriously on here.
no I don't... you are in the vast minority and it shows on here. those past couple comments were me just joning on you.
I'll agree with you that we can get some groupthink going here from time to time but comon dude.... from a scheming perspective it wasn't a great offense. Take the Orange bowl against Stanford, I remember at one point on a crucial drive in the 3rd quarter to keep us in the game, Stanford blitzed both middle linebackers up the middle, sending 6 including their 3 down lineman both inside backers, and one outside back. this gave our inside oline FITS and tyrod had pressure in his face by the time the shotgun snap hit his hands. Now the obvious answer would be to leave a running back or fullback in to pickup the blitz (lord knows we didnt run empty so we always had runningbacks in there anyway) did we call a single play that involved a running back picking up blitzes? Hell no, we kept doing the same long set-up kind of plays and tyrod got murdered. I remember watching the game and thinking jesus christ how have we not adjusted to this? sure enough the next 2 drives we saw much of the same.
One of the most important jobs of an offensive coordinator is adjusting to your opponent and stiney just didnt. Dont even get me started about continually attacking the Aqib Talib deep with Josh Morgan when our running back averaged almost 7 yards a carry or the lack of creativity in play- calling.
The guy was a great tight - ends coach, a good recruiter, and an all around nice guy but I would not call him a "great offensive coordinator" hell not even an adequate one
I hear you, but I still disagree. You're taking one game and saying it's indicative of him as a coordinator? Heck the 2010 season showcased our best offense since 2005, and you pick on one game? Stanford that year was an incredible team, and harbaugh knew how to destroy our D and he did with impunity - or are you willing to forget how badly they ran all over us?
For the 2007 Orange Bowl against Kansas - yes we def should've run the ball more. I don't know why we didn't. Perhaps Frank didn't want us to? We'll all never know, but again, for 2007-style O he wasn't horrible and did what he good with a true-Frosh QB and a senior-QB rotating in and out. That's never easy to do especially when we don't have the kind of star recruits a blue-blooeded program is.
Keep in mind, I'm not saying Stiney is better than Fuente / Cornelson, or even the best coordinator during the time-frame he was a coach. I'm simply saying that you can't place all the blame at his feet. The era is different, and further, the recruits we have now are much better than what we had during our reclining years of 2006 - 2008. Stiney just walloped another team to the tune of 34-17 with "lesser" recruits against a higher-rated team, so perhaps we should all stop using him as the scape goat?
What team is that? You mean the 34-14 win in a game against ECU that they were favored to win? By the way, he isn't even the offensive coordinator at JMU right now, he is the "offensive line coach and run game coordinator", only responsible for a portion of the offense. You're grasping at straws here, and it isn't working.
Stinespring was JMU's tight ends coach last year and is the offensive line coach this year. The offensive coordinator is Donnie Kirkpatrick. So it makes very little sense to give him all the credit for last year's championship and "walloping" ECU this year.
Secondly, I don't think most fans place all the blame at his feet (Curt Newsome is on line 1, Mike O'Cain is on line 2). Also I can't believe we are arguing that the recruits are better now than in 2006-2008, when we had guys like Tyrod, Brandon Ore, Darren Evans, Ryan Williams, David Clowney, Eddie Royal, Josh Morgan, and Justin Harper. There was no excuse for our offenses to be so terrible those years. Even when Stinespring had better years we were only slightly above average, which hardly supports the idea that he was a "great offensive coordinator."
Even my mom knows Stiney was to much of a predictable coach
Edited since I missed the OP's comment below:
Seriously? Now you are treading into troll territory. You're actually suggesting that FB didn't want to run the ball when we were running the ball down the opponent's throat? He decided that we'd stop pounding them at the 20 yd line and throw it 3 times to settle for a FG, instead of a TD? Did you have a straight face when you typed that?
I am surprise IllinoisHokie hasn't jumped on this yet, because if anyone outside of French and crew, he would be able to itemize the litany of issues with Stiney.
Ultimately he was fired/demoted from that position for a reason. Forgetting the wins what's your answer to that?
Respectfully, go check offensive efficiency rankings. Billy Hite made Stinespring look good. When Billy retired, so did the offense. Go look at 3rd down conversion percentage broken by yardage to go, Stiney was unacceptably predictable. Go look at explosive plays, or better yet, look at the adjusted YPP without explosive plays, aka the stuff where he sees the defense knows what is coming and the junior/senior QB audibles to something to eat that up. Mike O'Cain was an epically bad QB coach, and that didn't help Stiney, but the stats that reflect entirely on the O-coordinator's vision and plan do not shine kindly on Stinespring.
Liberty beat Baylor as well, so there's a minor upside to beating them in coming years.
The thing that sucks about playing ECU is they're just good enough to be dangerous, just bad enough that beating them doesn't count as a quality win in national perception. If they can just be bad bad from now on I'm perfectly happy with that.
Maybe a few years ago this would be true of ECU - they were a bad program last year and one game in don't look to be much improved. They might even be worse, given their QB situation isn't settled yet. Duke transfer Thomas Sirk has been named the starter after splitting time with another guy in the beatdown by JMU.
Granted, JMU is a really good team and they'd beat a bunch of FBS teams (likely including some of the lesser ACC squads). I can vouch for that having seen them in person a bunch as my wife is a JMU alum and we have season tickets.
Mike London led Howard to a win over UNLV in the biggest spread upset ever. Yesterday was weird.
I thought App St and JMU were 60+ dogs when they beat some P5 teams?
...don't remember who they beat, just heard something about it...
I don't think they had official spreads on FBS-FCS games until recently.
I can't imagine Vegas setting a 60+ spread for any game. Once you get up by 49 or so, you don't really know how much further it'll go since you're putting in all the scrubs.
JMU was a 6 point favorite in this game
Anybody got the skinny on why they fired Ruffin? Just doesn't make sense.
They thought they should be winning P5 conference championships and competing for nattys. They forgot the prerequisite was be in the P5 or be Notre Dame.
They thought they should be the best program in their conference. The same conference that had Herman and Fuente wrecking shit before they got hired to bigger and better. So they volunteered as tribute.
Skinny, I got it.
I thought Montgomery was a good hire from the Cutcliffe tree. But they are a train wreck. Or ship wreck?
According to a couple people next to me at the game, some important alumni weren't satisfied with actually being good.
We all thought it was a dumb move at the time. And still think it was a dumb move.
Was just talking to an ECU fan (yeah, they exist), he said the AD was getting fed up with:
- Not winning conference championships
- Ruffin repeatedly asking for raises for his assistant coaches, who had a habit of getting poached (one of whom is now the head coach at Oklahoma)
- The last season they finished 5-7, which he felt was inexcusable for a team that hadn't had a losing season since 4 years prior
Don't forget that McNeil is at Oklahoma now, too.
So in otherwords, their AD is an incompetent idiot, right?
#ZEROExcuses
ECU remains utterly worthless.
Can't we just enjoy that ECU played like UVA ('16) last night? I'm going to this game in Greenville and now excited to expect nothing but a blowout.
UVA and ECU are basically the same school in my burn book.
Nah, we HAVE to play UVa. They're our in-state rival.
In spite of indications to the contrary, we really don't have to schedule ECU every year.
This is not the ECU we are used to. They bad....like very bad! I'm still gonna be nervous when we play them though because...well...ECU.
Yeah, butt hole will be puckered for at least a quarter.
Hopefully, it turns into a blowout like last year.
Good year to catch ECU on the road.
Loved the anecdote in the ESPN bottom 10 for ECU...
Where are the folks now who think ECU would be a good addition to the ACC?
Greenville.
Greenville, NC. No people in any of the other Greenvilles think so (fun fact: there are 30 cities named Greenville in the US).