First off, I have to say since I've been watching VT football (fall of 1995), I've never screamed at the TV in frustration. What I was watching in the first 3 quarters was absolutely pathetic on offense. And for Fuente at half-time to say everything is fine is just ridiculous.
The decision-making is very poor. Knowing we are on the road, down 7-3 and we have an easy field goal to make, I would rather be down by 1 point then taking the risk. and then going for it twice for 2-points left us 5 total points on the bench and guess what, we lost by 6 points, had we scored those 5 points, the game is different, the sequence is different. GT has to play different.
The switching of running backs when we have momentum is killing us. Early in the game Bush and MacMillian had something going, all of a sudden they bring in Holston and things slow down. Speaking of which, almost all of our plays were slow developing, there is no rhythm to the play selection from one to the next. We sometimes run outside and just gain 1-2 yards, the blocking is poor and Josh seems lost at times. I never understood even in the beamer days why we don't go hat on hat and get a push to gain yards. All this running and pulling takes times and if one guy doesn't do his job, we get knocked down in the backfield. I did like the contribution of both Travon and Jalen but I think they need to be in on the whole drive unless they are really burned, every time new backs come in they are cold, give each one their own series.
On some of the play calling, GT was giving us a cushion in the slot, but Josh always looked to his right to throw in the flat, seems like that was predetermined, you throw to the cushioned receiver onto the left side and get at least 5 easy yards. The you have 3rd and 1 and 4th and 1 and you risk throwing it deep...in fact I was more surprised on the 3rd down play. GT was tired of defending the run and we were having a good push at the time, this is just one example of many where the play-calling was questionable.
I'm not giving the defense any lee-way either. We give up 2 big (almost 3) plays to an option offense when we have some of the best secondary players, its unacceptable. I do give our defense credit for shutting down GT as much as possible in the first half, I think after our offense was getting off the field with very little possession, i think eventually our defense will give up some points. Overall, i put this on the offense, we can't be having these slow starts and this is not new to this season, going back to last season, we've had to make up ground in the 3rd and 4th quarter - well that kind of Sh*t doesn't work against GT, you have to put them behind with the opportunities you have.
After seeing this same crap again, I'm not a big fan of Cornelson. Yes we scored a lot of points in some games but we're not looking good as an offense. Its his job to prepare the team and I see that he is doing a poor job. And lets not sugarcoat it, we didn't bring in Justin Fuente to just make it to bowl games, we brought him here to have a solid offense that will carry us to the playoffs or Maybe NY6. Things don't look too different from the beamer years...oohhh win 10 games,,,have some pride...I mean whatever....I want us to win the ACC championship. If this repeats next year, I would rather Fuente leave for the so-called big job that everyone is naming him. I'd rather put my faith in Bud Foster as a head coach if it ever happens. And while i want to keep Bud here, he deserves to be a head coach, I guess it'll be somewhere else. And all this really tells me is that the big jobs are really based on recruiting, something we haven't solidified either.
We just threw away our best chance of getting into the Chick-fil-A bowl or Citrus bowl. Now its back to the Belk bowl or maybe Music City. At this rate we don't deserve a NY-6 bowl, I guess we all will be happy with wins.
Comments
I'm not as upset with the defense, although Mook needs to figure some stuff out. Settle and Walker were awesome today and played their ass off. The defense was gassed because of our real problem... Cornelson and Vice... our Oline is fucking horrible with the exception of Teller (who I could coach cause he is just an absolute monster). Our play calling sucks and we have no offensive identity. Sad day for hokie fans... maybe we could get Buzz to come tell Fuente how to run a successful program.
Thats not a fair comparison (Buzz and Fuente). Buzz hasn't produced a team that has ever had a little number next to it greater than the 20's (maybe high teens). Expectations of BBall have been vastly lower or quite sometime.
Buzz also inherited a literal basement dweller with almost 0 talent.... Fuente got a team that was was at least upper middle of the pack in the ACC... Buzz has done sooo much with so little. So I think it's more than a fair comparison
Buzz is and his staff are much better
Holston looked good running and blocking. The common denominator in the run game struggles is Jackson (not a knock on him) because he simply isn't a run threat.
Holston is the only guy who makes defenders miss... Holston gets out on the edge and actually blocks... He isn't all world, but he did make a defender or two miss today and that is more than any other RB on the roster can do.
I know I might get hate for this, but the more I see McMillian play, the more and more puzzled I get on how much he has seemingly regressed or underperformed over the years. Time after time after time today he made the wrong cut behind the LOS, or allowed himself to get sucked up and into the hip of the OL, bringing him into tackles. Every time he gets the ball on a short yardage play run up the middle, he throws the brakes on as soon as he gets the ball, killing any and all momentum at the line, usually leading to a loss. On his returns, at least once or twice I watched him make a cut that effectively brought him into the coverage team for an easy tackle.
Its frustrating to watch, because the OL is creating holes to run through, we just don't have guys who are making the correct reads. Between McMillian doing all this and Jackson running like he's spinning tires in the mud, we just look slow and plodding, and we've become straightforward and easy to stop. It was bad against Miami. Its incredibly concerning against GT.
I agree with you. I'm wondering if we should just focus on running to the outside more with a toss and maybe throw in a few dive plays here and there in hopes of simplifying the game for our running backs
Not sold on Zohn Burden as RB coach at all. Travon hasn't shown any development under him.
So you want Shane and the broomstick hands again? I'd argue the backs coached by Shane also showed no development progress. We haven't had a featured back since David Wilson.
Yep, I'm sure that's exactly what he's advocating for.
Edit: LOL@ pointing out this ridiculous argument catching me a DV.
We could do woise?
Wasn't me with dv
When Holston turned a 1 yard gain into a 6 yard gain by beating the free hitter on the edge I was about the happiest I was all game for a non scoring play. We haven't seen that out of anyone except maybe McClease all year.
There are a lot of bad decision-making issues on the coaches right now, I know we can't do miracles with the personnel that we have but we do have good kids that can play, and we've shown that against decent teams like WVU, but what we saw in the last 2 games says we cannot beat big teams and we will have at least a few let down games. This offense needs to score a 100 points in the next 2 games.
This game almost wasn't close either. Take away Kumah's magic reception that lead to a TD and Stro's pick-6 and.... yikes!
And when you roll the dice before you actually have to roll the dice. Man, we shoulda won that game.
What gets me today... Fuente said in his post game comments that the reason he went for 2 early was because he thought points were going to be precious in the game, and he had to take what he could get.
He says this after going for 4th down in field goal range when the game was 7-3 GT.
The low percentage play calling and the the avoidance of high percentage point grabbing is what has me completely baffled. This is bad coaching, there is no way to sugarcoat it, Fuente can be an offensive genius, but if he doesn't take the stance that points are necessary when they are there and fully available, I truly have to call into question his ability to coach in a power 5 conference. In G5 you can get away with these mistakes, in the ACC, every point counts, cause every team brings it, every single week. I'm not saying Fuente is a bad coach, I'm just saying he needs to go back to the basics and realize that poor decisions lead to outcomes like this.
I think this is an often overlooked aspect. Fuente is a young coach. We're used to Beamer, who NEVER turned down a field goal. Probably because he learned during his younger years in similar situations. Hopefully Fuente learns from this game and in future years kicks the field goals while we can.
Let's not forget how inconsistent Slye has been this year.
On a few occasions, we have gone for it on 4th when around the 35, and Slye has struggled mightily from 40+ this year. That made some sense.
The reason WTF about today is that we gave up Chip-shot FG. Youth or elder statesman, that's a bad call, esp. against GT.
Considering how we have been executing on 4th down the last couple weeks, at least by kicking the FG, even if we miss, the opponent would have worse field position
Slye made a 50 yarder against Miami, I'm not saying he's been automatic, but I keep going back to percentages, what gives us the highest percentage to win, more points when given the opportunity to get them, not by going for low percentage 4th downs when the offense wasn't able to convert in the prior 3 downs.
Slye is 1-4 this year from 40-49 yards..far from a sure thing.
Again, I don't think today's decision was smart, but understand some of the rationale for going for 4th down.
Now, have our 4th down playcalls been any good? That is a different question.
In the post game presser CJF said that Joey's been dealing with a hamstring issue. That may have had a lot to do with the decision. That aside, the play call wasn't fooling anyone and did not put the offense in the best place for success.
Did notice in his kickoffs. He seemed to be "short-legging", kid of punching the ball. Don't even think he had a touchback.
Joey didn't do all the kickoffs today.
...there you go. Leg.
So two vent threads weren't enough?
I could stand another.
i need to vent, When I started to type this, the other one wasn't up yet and since I typed a lot by that time the other one went up...lets call this the Vent Against Coaching thread, the other one is just the venting thread for the loss.