Well, where should I start. First and foremost. Very proud of the D-unit. They gave us a chance. They busted at times and made up for it. I'm going to leave that at that.
Now, the O-unit?!?!!? Mannnnnn I'm solely putting this on the coaches here. I have many reasons why as well. I do tip my hat to Josh, buddy was standing in the paint taking shots.
I digress. Brad and Justin. Justin. Brad. Get your head out your asses! I understand trusting in your scheme and beliefs within the system. For ex. Playing two qbs. You guys certainly don't mind playing multiple backs because one offers a different skill set.
So, how could you guys not have been scheming a way to get A.J. involved with the offense by providing him with his own packages?!?!!? I just knew we were going to have something up our sleeves with him this week. Knowing that one of the keys to win this ballgame in front of a juiced up crowd and defense was to sustain drives by any means. We were very conservative as to how we were against Clemson. Thought that was lesson learned, obviously not. Miami threw everything and the kitchen sink at us tonight. They had to. THE COACHES knew that. OUR COACHES (offensive of course) were simply out coached. I mean it's obvious we don't have the run game we want. I personally would have loved to see A.J. have some kind of role this game. Run and pass. I believe he would have took some pressure off of Josh and the O-line. I'm no D1 caliber offensive playcaller but I damn sure knew were going to have to get tricky tonight. We don't have all the weapons in stock yet to play straight up with an athletically elite team. Athletically elite. Had to say that twice. Hold on.......(Athletically) elite. Ok third times the charm. Lol. Thought I'd see a shit ton of RPO on first down. With the TEs HBs and TBs. There are many ways we could have run the rpo to expose what Miami was going to give us. When we did we were successful. I'm going to leave with saying this. I for one am proud to be a HOKIE and will be sporting my Vt jumpsuit head held high as I walk into work and sit at my cubicle. We have many things to be proud about as Hokies.
***Drops the Mic*** booooooop.
I have a few things Id like to say
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Member the "does recruiting ranking matter" throws from last week or so?
Nothing like tonight and the Clemson game make it very obvious that yes, recruiting rankings matter. They out skilled us tonight. We made mistakes tonight.
Blows my mind people still believe that shit.
Yes I do. They do matter. Gotta start bringing in those 1st option guys
They made mistakes too, but our two bad 4th downs and fumble in the redzone were killer, and eventually a couple other bad turnovers were not something we could overcome. The gameplan might have been too conservative, similar to the lackluster starts against Clemson and WVU, but we made mistakes that against a very talented team we could not make up for.
This game was more about preventable mistakes than a recruiting discrepancy. There were some basic execution problems (people out of place, can't pitch and catch, can't hike the ball on 4 and 2, don't pick up a block) that were pretty costly.
I think it's more fair to say that Miami also has talent, and if you made a mistake, they'll make you pay for it.
Miami has an accurate quarterback, and their defense has a lot of speed. VT was making the same mistakes we've seen in other games. The difference was that VT wasn't going to out-talent Miami in order to recover from them.
Also, I thought we'd been playing "vanilla" all year. Turns out that's our offense.
I think you're BOTH correct.
Yeah, probably, but one of those problems is a lot easier to fix.
Ok. That's a fair point and I can certainly perceive that.
I said this before the Clemson game, and I'll say it again. We're not intentionally limiting the offense just because it's not a "big game". That makes no damn sense, it's just what the fan base wanted to believe.
We have a scheme that, if we execute it perfectly, it can take an undertalented team and make them competitive in any game. But that's only if it's executed perfectly. Where we need to get is to bring in enough top end talent and depth to turn that to where the talent is there to start swinging things in our favor even when things aren't perfect. At WR we might already be there for the future with the players who aren't playing this year, and we all know how set we are at QB.
But like always, our Achilles is the OL and until that improves, tires will continue to spin in the mud.
There are a hell of a lot of things to criticize the coaches for. Failing to get the backup QB in the game should be about last on that list.
Well said.
Well supposedly A.J. is one of the most athletic players on the team. Why keep him on the sidelines?
When the team is having trouble with things like "snapping the ball correctly" and "not messing up timing on jet sweeps," putting in more wrinkles is probably not wise.
I get what you're saying. Those are things that should be cleared up by now.
This. And apparently Bush throws a lot of INTs in practice.
The 4th down play calls were way too cute and they both ended badly.
Pre snap motion is a stable of the offense how is it cute?
Think he's referencing the result (lackthereof).
Glad I didnt read all that rambling
Yes agreed. If we are going to acknowledge early in the game that we have no passing game, then bring in the running QB.
Wow you got us.
Those were my intentions
LOL. I thought a mic dropping would make more of a clunking sound than a "booooooop."
Regardless, I do enjoy rants.
It was a freshman game by some very important freshmen tonight, and that's okay. In the grand scheme of things, this game will not matter. We probably weren't going to win the ACC Championship, and games like this are important for those young guys.
Savoy will cover that ball that he fumbled with two hands when he sees the hit coming. Jackson will be more confident and won't panic in certain situations (as long as the coaches don't get him killed, but I digress). We will get more experienced.
With that being said, we do need to bring more talent in. Miami was far and away more talented tonight. During their down years, they still had the pitch of their tradition. During our down years, we didn't have much. Fuente has moved recruiting in the right direction, but it's going to take time. It did with Clemson. It did with Florida State. It will with Miami. It will us too.
Tonight's game will not break our program. A win would not have catapulted us into superiority. Tonight was a program still trying to get to where they want to be getting exposed by a more experienced and talented program, similar to what we did to them last season. 10 wins is still realistic, we are going to a bowl game, and we still have the annual win against UVA ahead of us. Everything is okay.
I might go as far as to say that we probably have *enough* talent and maybe even the *right* talent, but in year 2 of the Fuente era, all of the guys we are going to rely on in the future (on offense) are pretty much freshmen (redshirt or otherwise).
I *would* like to have more talent/depth because who wouldn't, but tonight we looked like the less experienced team and Miami looked much more cohesive than we did.
Parker osterloh is not a freshman, but it sure seemed like he was making freshman mistakes last night.
He was making the mistakes of a guy who has been around for four years and hasn't earned much playing time.
He is what he is. Miami DL played hype and exposed him (and Chung).
Osterloh is what he is: a career backup (probably not even that at more talented schools). That goes back to the need to recruit more talent. Left tackle is arguably the most important position on the offensive line (right tackle if your quarterback is left-handed), and I'm sure Fuente understands this. Like I said, this will be only his second recruiting class, and his first was barely his as well. We just need to give it time.
It was a frustrating game for sure.
- I did not like some (all?) of the 4th down plays. I also thought that Slye could have gone out there to kick. He DRILLED his FG.
- Too many mistakes. Savoy's fumble was huge. It was a helmet right on the ball and that's tough, but we had some momentum late in the first half.
- Jet sweep snap into the helmet? REALLY? This isn't game 1. That was awful. I believe that was 4th down and I was hoping for a quick slant.
- The pitch over McClease...was that 4th down also? Herbstreit said it was the right call, but a Miami player was about to blow it up. Another bad call.
- MISSED tackles. We had 3 INTs but there were a lot of missed tackles. Motu did not have a great game and I don't think Tremaine did either.
Just really poor execution and not the best coaching tonight. It was disappointing for sure.
We need more talent, but without the bad mistakes last night we are in the game. Players like KJ Henry, Dax Hollified, more OL, and a stud RB would help!
The pitch had a Miami player there because the slot receiver missed his block. Again a called play can be a good call and the players not execute it. Do you blame the coaches for the multiple dropped passes or the fumble?
Of course not.
We have also missed a lot of blocks this year and that seemed like a low percentage play. We did not run a lot of slants and screens, which was surprising
That was a four down drive, going to go for it on on 4th.
The mistakes last night reminded me of the battle of Bristol
Absolutely not. Those 4th down calls that failed definitely hurt. Everything. Momentum decreased. Confidence decreased. Etc.
The main problem with our O last night was the O-line. Jackson never had time to throw because their ends ran right around our OTs on every single pass play.
I recall Herbstreit saying at one point that it was a 3rd string DE who ran right around Osterloh for a sack. The line did a horrible job of giving any time to Jackson and late in the game Miami was pinning their ears back and getting hits on Jackson.
We are 9 games into the season. The coaches need to take the training wheels off the offense. I know Fuente hates turnovers but the vanilla offense in the first half was like watching Stinny calling plays again.
The defense played like it did during the latter Beamer years where they would give up big plays, miss tackles, and on some plays looked like they were giving 0 effort. We could not stop their run game which kept their playbook open all night.
Time to move on to GT!
I thought the same thing....Stiney had returned and kidnapped Corny. Can someone please explain how our so called "offensive genius" constructs such a bland game plan? I want to be a Corny fan but good grief, the play calling seemed like blind dart throwing. Does Fu need to resume play calling?
It's hard to have a coherent game plan when your offensive line can't block anyone.
And I'd like to say the tackling last night left a lot to be desired. And it really is not just a one game or one season thing. Who do we talk to about that?
Foster and Wiles. I mean just look at the ratio and percentage of linemen and backers getting drafted to the pros compared to DBs. It's not even a comparison. Gray and even both the DBs coaches now are ahead.
BIG DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT SAYING THEY SHOULD GET FIRED (although a part of me feels like Wiles is a liability). Just saying that Tech has not loosed a proportionate amount of linemen and backers to the NFL compared to the DBs. I think tackling techniques (and lackthereof) are safely considered a factor.
VT has been an excellent tackling team all year.
Emotion plays such a huge part of this game. We didn't match Miamis emotion as they didn't match ours last year. Last night, Miami was far superior in WR blocking, breaking tackles and rushing the passer. Those are all emotion, effort and execution plays. Last year, with a banged up DL, we sack Miami 8 times. This year....once?
There is a lot of talk about conservative game plans and recruiting, which are all valid. But to me, we didn't match their heart and that's the primary reason we are on the wrong side of this one.
There. FTFY
I do agree with you that Bush ought to be on the field in some capacity, if even very limited. Even if it is to run the ball and the whole world knows it, hell we ran it to McMillian over and over again how many times in the first half? If he is possibly the best athlete on the team, and this team is seriously lacking athleticism on O, it cant hurt. Even if for one gimmick play. I thought the play calling kind of sucked but I think it was because they dont really trust the O to do much else. We dont have a threat at TE, McMillian while a burner is just not a complete back, Cam is very good but he is a #2 receiver on a championship team. Or if he is a number one there better be somebody else that can stretch the field, we have nobody. We have a lot of receivers on the roster, and none of these guys with scholarships can get open and catch the damn ball? Jackson is just a step slow to be a serious threat with his feet. It was obvious pretty quick last night that we couldnt protect the QB either.
My concern on defense is pass rush. The ends are non existent, Walker and Settle are playing their ass off. When we are good, we have ends that can get to the QB, that doesnt happen this year.
I blame this loss on Joel who said we were like LSU and Miami was like Troy.
We were doomed from the start
After watching the NCSU vs. Clemson game, the problem is twofold:
1) We simply aren't as talented or as deep as the really good teams. And yes, that includes Miami. Even though the game was close for a while, we were never really doing much last night. They were simply a more talented team.
2) Youth. The NCSU seniors were making some bad a$$ plays yesterday, and that is what Keith them in the game (a much different game than our matchup with Clemson). We simply do not have that on the offensive side of the ball.
We have some good players (that aren't great) who work their butts off, but sometimes get outclassed. No shame in that. And we have some really good players (here's looking at you Savoy) who are young and brand new to D1 football.
This is still a good football team... And BTW, they may lose next week as well. Are we going to be ready to fire everyone if they do?
I'm not calling for anyone to get fired. Just for Brad and Justin to get their heads out of their asses. I think we could called the game to at least use Miami's dline against them. Like the rollout throw back pass play. A play or two like that without even converting much on it. Would have put them on their heels just a bit
Meh I don't like the idea of a 2 QB offense. I see what you're getting at, but if the coaches thought he was better he would've been the starter game 1 and I don't think JJ has done anything to be unseated. The o-line was a hot mess last night, plus lots of missed blocks and catches. Having an inexperienced QB come in every now and then would've made it worse most likely.
Agreed, but they left JJ out there to get bodily obliterated. Putting AJ out there for the final half of the 4th qtr may have thrown off Miami's defense and made the score smaller.
Josh doesn't even have to come off the field.
I'm sure they could have snuck him in their at wide receiver for a throwback to Josh. There are ways to keep our starting qb in the game and using our backup.
Yes I do blame the play calling, we didn't do any misdirection or pop passes or enough jet sweeps. From the mistakes and drops we had, it's becoming more apparent that we need a solid improvement in our supporting cast, whoever is the qb, if the guys around him can't make easy plays, we can't compete with the big boys. Cornfu needs to get more 4 and 5 star guys on the offense
there was tons of misdirection in the running game (and good success, especially with inside zones off jet sweep fakes)
the lack of play action off that foundation- that is damning though
THIS. We even had pretty good success with just the jet sweep.
I've been wondering, why haven't we been getting the ball out of the quarterbacks hands as fast as last year? JJ definitely has more the skill set to scan and throw downfield than Evans, But last year Evans was getting the ball out way faster, usually on one read, and was playing behind an even worse offensive line. I'm not sure the numbers but it feels like our offense was doing way better last year, and we were scoring on good teams just as well as bad ones.
So the question is: when the line is as bad as last night, why not just go back to last year's one read offense and get the ball out quick?
Great question. A dynamic running quarterback Is what is going to make this offense gel.
If you can't handle losing, you should probably stop following sports and save yourself a lot of heartburn. Virginia Tech will probably lose at least one game every season for the rest of your life, with very rare exceptions, most seasons it will be more than one. Learn to cope.
I'm coping. I'm very much so a realist. I dream of undefeated seasons as well as 1 loss seasons. I know that we weren't going to set the world on fire this year. Fuente is just in his 2nd yr. Got blessed inheriting those guys in yr 1. Now had those guys not left we definitely would be having a different convo.