Virginia Tech
In the last 2 years, we have only scored more than 24 points against Power 5 opponents 4 times:
2017 WVU (31)
2017 UNC (59)
2018 Duke (31)
2018 Georgia Tech (28)
Since the beginning of 2017, we have scored between 20-24 points in 59% of the games (10 out of 17) against Power 5 competition, and we are 5-5 in those games.
Since the beginning of 2017, we have 24 points or less in 76% of the games (13 out of 17) against Power 5 competition, and we are 6-7 in those games.
We are now ranked at 83rd in the country for points per game this year with 25.8 points per game - tied with Miami.
I understand that there are other phases of the game that have to work in our favor to pull out a victory, but we lack the firepower for our offense to carry the team if needed.
NC State
NC State a similar record to us last year, and similar completion with us in both years,
Let's look at NC State (2017: 9-4, 2018: 6-3)
In the last 2 years, NC State have only scored 24 or more points against Power 5 opponents 13 times:
2017 South Carolina (28)
2017 FSU (27)
2017 Syracuse (33)
2017 Louisville (39)
2017 Pittsburgh (35)
2017 Clemson (31)
2017 Wake Forest (24)
2017 UNC (33)
2017 Arizona State (52)
2018 UVA (35)
2018 Boston College (28)
2018 Syracuse (41)
2018 FSU (47)
Since the beginning of 2017, NC State has scored between 20-24 points in 12% of the games (2 out of 17) against Power 5 competition, and is 0-2 in those games.
Since the beginning of 2017, NC State has scored less than 24 points in 18% of the games (4 out of 17) against Power 5 competition, and we are 1-3 in those games.
UVA
I feared the worst when comparing to UVA.... The second stat is telling of the differences in our defenses - in low scoring games, we've had more success with winning because of our defense, UVA loses more) However, their offense and our offense, from a 'points perspective' are almost identical.
In the last 2 years, UVA has scored 24 or more points against Power 5 opponents 6 times:
2017 Duke (28)
2017 Georgia Tech (40)
2017 Miami (28)
2018 Louisville (27)
2018 Duke (28)
2018 UNC (31)
Since the beginning of 2017, UVA has scored between 20-24 points in 19% of the games (3 out of 16) against Power 5 competition, and we are 1-2 in those games.
Since the beginning of 2017, UVA has scored less than 24 points in 63% of the games (10 out of 16) against Power 5 competition, and we are 2-8 in those games.
Comments
I see this get thrown around a lot, but I have a sneaking suspicion it might be like our record against top 5 teams: it gets thrown around to make a point, but when taken in context with other team's performance, we're actually not particularly out of line.
How does the rest of the ACC perform offensively against P5 competition? For that matter, how does all of the P5 do against P5 competition? Without that context, I don't know what to do with this data.
Stand by - I'll pull some comparisons around the ACC today.
I added NC State as a comparison for now - it's highly manual and I've got some errands to run :)
And now I added in UVA...
Go ahead and argue that the VT offense is "good" in 2018 ... I'm listening.
How in the world do you extrapolate from a comment about not having sufficient context for data that I'm somehow saying our offense is good?
" when taken in context with other team's performance, we're actually not particularly out of line." - Not out of line, implies that the offense falls within whatever standard you are using. It does not fall "out of line" with peer offenses? that's what I thought you meant. Unless you are saying NC State and UVA also suck on offense- which I would agree with.
Did you read the thread you're responding to the first comment of? UVA and NC State data was added after I commented that I didn't know what to do with the data without context. 4VPISU actually crunched the numbers for a couple other ACC programs (like a boss) and demonstrated that we actually are behind the curve on this metric.
3 of those are wins. How many times did we win the TOP?
It is hard to score points when your underclassmen led defense can't get our offense back on the field because they are letting the opposing team drive the length of the field...
Offensive play calling has hurt a bunch but Willis has looked pretty good. A large portion of drives that have stalled also had a catchable pass dropped. Just food for thought before the Willis is trash play Hooker or QP the rest of the season TKPers come out of the woods
Your first point is off base. Quite a few teams score points in bunches with defenses that allow the opposing team to drive the length of the field with regularity. UCF, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Oregon, Ole Miss, Oklahoma State, Purdue, Georgia Tech, just to name a few.
It's easy to just think about this year, but this is from the beginning of 2017, when last year we had a pretty damn good defense. I know the counter point will be, we had a good defense and didn't need to score more points. But the underlying issue is we have an offense that no matter what the defense is doing can't consistently get the job done. We have played very bad defenses this year and can't score more than 28 points.
Counterpoint: in 2017 we were starting a redshirt freshman Josh Jackson, former mid range 3* recruit with limited P5 offers and recruited by Loeffler. We lost our top 3 offensive playmakers early to the NFL and in 2016 had had the 8th best class in the ACC after the coaching change. Also our best WR (Cam Phillips) and arguably only remaining playmaker was injured most of the year. So to sum it up, nearly all the best offensive players left before their eligibility was completed (potentially in part due to breaking tons of offensive records and massively over performing compared to expectations) and we were forced to play extremely young players whom weren't particularly well regarded as recruits nor originally evaluated/recruited by the new staff.
Yeah I can't imagine why the offense wasn't humming. Except that we are in year 2 of a complete offensive overhaul and essentially only 3 out of 21 recruits from the 2016 class will have made any type of contribution on offense over the past two seasons (Jackson, Kumah, and Patterson). The cupboard looked bare but if we looked closer it was also covered in mouse feces and infested with roaches.
And the last 7 against GT was in garbage time against their second team defense
That's true, but if we're going to throw out garbage time scores for us, we have to throw them out for everyone.
13 out of 17 games against P5 competition with an offensive yield of less than 24 points is completely and utterly unacceptable. The fact that we've won 6 of those games speaks volumes to how much we rely on the defense to bail us out still, and they have a pretty high rate of doing so. The one most deeply burned in my brain from the Fuente era is 2017 GT game. We scored 22 total points against that shitty defense... and Stroman had a pick six.
Let's keep in mind that we aren't in the SEC West either. Most of the P5 teams we play do NOT have defenses loaded with blue-chip recruits. This 17 game sample isn't a murderer's row of defensive juggernauts. Miami, Clemson, Notre Dame, and FSU are the only teams who have more than a handful of blue-chip prospects, if any at all, on their defensive two-deep.
The UVA comparison leads this in the direction of being true - they've struggled on defense and in games of less than 24 points on the board, they lost more games that we did.
I hate to keep harping on the offense, but there is no reason why we shouldn't be putting up 30+ points per game this year. We have failed to put up the average allowed by our opponents 4 out of 7 games vs. Power 5 this year. Aside from Notre Dame, these defenses are nothing special, generally speaking.
Against Power 5 this year:
Suggestion: one simple way to make your table more legible would be to toss
into your table tag. There are probably other types already defined within the site CSS, or you could manually add all the formatting you want to the table tag, but that's the one I usually use.
Thanks man! Done!
why are we hand picking the stats from a year and a half of Fuentes term and not including the rest of his body of work here? 2017 we started a freshman QB, and 3 freshman WRs with really cam our only returning skill guys. sure there have been times when play calling was bad, but play calling can often be based on what you trust your players to execute correctly as well. we give bud all the rope in the world for his youth and inexperience but fu none. also id like to know how many times those teams you compared to were putting up garbage points in games they weren't close to winning. its a known fact that we had a pretty good defense last year and we played offense to cater towards that defense. this year to me is more of an anomaly than the standard that I expect to see from this team in the future on both sides of the ball. this whole season has been a shhhh show. stats aren't going to look good no matter how you look at them. I prefer to focus on the score board for the rest of the year and hope that our guys keep fighting and find a way to get some Dubs and finish on a strong note. recruit our ass off over the summer (which weve offered about every juco DT in the country from the looks of it) as well as coach kids up and develop the younger guys, get healthy, stay out of trouble, and make a run at things next year.
GO HOKIES!
I feel that we're in a trend of poor performing offense, which is why I looked at the last 2 years only - especially with some of Fuente's recruits now in the 2-deep. But there is no reason why we shouldn't be putting up more points from offense - we did it the first year, why can we not the 2nd and 3rd years? Is there that much disconnect with building a game-plan that adapts to the talent that is available? Not expecting answers, but just questions I ask.
the 2 things that IMO contributed to the offense being successful Fuentes first year were 1. a one read system in which Jerrod excelled at throwing and ford and bucky excelled at catching jump balls, and 2. jerrods rushing ability when the play broke down. last year we didn't have the wrs to make those 1 on 1 plays nor the running QB. this year we have the wrs to make the plays but in Jackson we didn't have the accuracy, arm strength, and touch to make those throws and in willis we don't have the run ability needed when the play breaks down. willis has been serviceable when running for his life but hes no evans. the ability to extend drives with his feet is sorely missed. when you cant extend drives you cant score points.
the fact that Jerrod evans led our team in rushing with 846 and avg 4.1 a carry compared to last years team and this years teams leading yards mcclease 530 and this years peoples with 546.
for contrast here are the QBs rushing stats from last year and this.
josh Jackson 324 2.9 avg
willis 282 3.9 avg is on pace to rush for FAR more yards than JJ last year in way fewer games played says about all you need to know about what kinda makes this offense work effectively like they want it too.
I've said that JJ has cement in his shoes when he tries to take off.
I feel that HH gives us the best option for a run threat, just wish they would give him more of a shot in the game with his arm to really see if he has picked it up. You never know how the kid will play in the game until he - well, actually plays in a game.
The point is clear: our offense is underperforming against expectations. This is partially due to personnel (leaving earlier than expected), but there's also a play calling issue.
The frustrating thing to me is that I think we're seeing an improvement at every position group, but we're not seeing an offense that can perform greater than the sum of its parts (I'd argue we performing worse than the sum of our parts). An offensive coach as highly regarded as Fuente should not struggle to score above 30 points against most teams.
I can't agree we're seeing improvement at every offensive position. Definitely OL and WR. We haven't really upgraded RB, despite Peoples playing balls out the season. At QB, Jerrod Evans >> JJ ≥ Willis.
I was comparing to pre-Fuente, not 2016. But I think our QB depth is WAAYYY better than any time since 2008.
While RB is not where it needs to be, I do believe that senior year People's is the best back we've had since David Wilson IMO
Oh I gotcha. Yeah, no doubt QB depth is vastly improved under Fuente. Still, in year three we have the worst QB out of three different starters. (Not worst by a mile, honestly JJ and Willis might be about on par, but still.) Fuente's scheme lives and dies by the QB's decision making, so I'm really not surprised to see the offense not firing on all cylinders under Willis. What will be concerning to me is if the offense sputters with QP, who was hand selected by Fuente to be his QB for his system. Like it or not, every QB we've had since Fuente got here has been a stopgap in one way or another (Evans a JUCO transfer, JJ Lefty's recruit, Willis a walk on transfer.)
As for RB, I'm high on Peoples this season, but we really, really needed Devyn Ford and we just couldn't close the deal. Hopefully we can find a viable replacement for Peoples next season, but McClease's disappearing act this season hasn't been encouraging.
Yea I'm on the same page. The Devyn Ford fallout was more about PSU killing it than us dropping the ball. But hey, maybe USC will hire away Franklin this offseason and Ford will wind up signing with the good guys. One can dream.
Or... Franklin announces the move to USC the day after Ford signs with PSU
Yeah I'm not one of those who froths at the mouth when a blue chip target goes elsewhere. Fuente and co. did literally everything they could to land Ford. If we consistently exhibit that effort toward our top targets, we're going to land a considerable number of them. At this point I'm just hoping that Keshawn King or Tahj Gary are criminally underrated
I'm not saying he is a blue chip but he pretty good.
Seems like an accurate description. He showed a lot of promises at the end of last year. This year he averaged 5.8 yards per game between the Notre Dame and Florida State games. And that was against big P5 defense of lines. I'm still hoping he returns to that form plus some development next year.
It's got me wondering about a possible undisclosed injury issue.
#nosauces
It's not undisclosed it's been talked about by Fuente.
Well shit, I must have been tuned out on that one. Leg, Fireman.
Is Hooker considered one of Fuente's recruits?
Hard to argue otherwise. Didn't commit until March of 2016.
I wasn't sure because you didn't list him along with QP when referring to Fuente's guys.
Was it an oversight or is there a reason Hooker is one of his commits but not one of his guys?
It's not so much an issue of QP being one of Fuente's guys as it is QP being the guy. No knock on Hooker, but the hype around QP is that of being the anointed one. For better or worse, Fuente has tethered himself to Quincy's star. If QP is a bust, I think that will be enough to sink Fuente's career. If QP doesn't produce at Andy Dalton/Paxton Lynch levels, Fuente's seat will get hot quick.
Got it. I didn't pick up that distinction earlier (probably new daddy brain messing me up).
We only scored more than 24 points 3 times in 2012, 2 times in 2013, and 3 times in 2014. That was with Logan Thomas as a Jr/Sr and Michael Brewer as a rJr. In 2017 we had Josh Jackson as a rFr and 2018 has mostly been Ryan Willis as a rJr (backup walk-on transfer from the worst P5 program).
I get that the last two years have been disappointing on the offensive side of the ball but the offense has had to completely reset since 2016.I can't imagine why there would have been very high expectations for last year and the expansive list of things that have gone awry this season have been well documented. I feel like the offense has been in a situation where the the QBs aren't super talented or ideal QBs for the system, the RBs aren't super talented or ideal RBs for the system, and the OL and WR groups have gotten much deeper but are very young. Ultimately I think the staff deserves another season to get things working with the understanding that it's crucial to see marked improvement with the offense next season.
If we are not putting up more than 24 points in a game consistently in year 3, then we're back to Loeffler as our OC. He had the same expectations - change our history of mundane offensive production and put more points on the board. I fear we may be on the same path with Corn. There's no reason why we shouldn't be putting up 30+ points this year. Shouldn't a good coach be able to recognize that we do not have "ideal" people in key areas and adjust plays accordingly? Not limit plays, but adjust.