Defensively, goes without saying. We couldn't stop anything. Worst defensive effort I've ever seen out of Virginia Tech.
Offensively, just plain ugly as well. Purposely handcuff ourselves by not playing Hooker for the entire first half and only giving Herbert one carry for the entire first quarter. Mind boggling personnel decisions based on how the game played out.
And 3 unsportsmanlike penalties with one ejection as the icing on the cake.
Just a bad, bad day in the office. Not sure where to go from here. At this point, I'm not mad at the result. I'm so disappointed that it's hard to be mad. This is what VT has become.
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Worst VT defensive showing since 1987. Against a team that scored 24 on offense vs. BC last week. Absolute garbage. 8 of 11 UNC possessions ended in TD's, not counting the last one, where they could have made it 9 of 12. Think about that; UNC could have scored 63 if they wanted to.
I know these aren't JHam's players, but that was a complete embarrassment.
Coach Fu said in a post-game interview that they were were down so many players that they had to put guys in who had not practiced this week. He clarified that he was not talking about not practiced at that position but that they had not practiced AT ALL. So they had guys playing out of position and without practice time. It is no wonder that the defense looked so bad.
^^^^this
Unfortunately, everyone that hates Fu, or Corn, or now Jham doesn't care about the facts.
Well, at least we confirm that we are much better with Hooker at QB. Defense...oh boy, what a shit show. Our linebackers are baaaaaad. Also, I don't know if the front 4 got pressure on the QB more than twice the whole game.
To be fair, Howell was getting the ball out so quickly, there wasn't time for pressure. Their OC called a perfect game against a defense that forgot how to tackle.
They worked us on offense. Either got it out of his hands immediately or their Oline handled our Dline. The tackling...oh lawd that was embarrassing. From the get go we didn't wrap up.
It's time for Dax to come off the field.
But damn it's obvious when your safeties and DB's are far down the depth chart and can't fill holes or tackle.
Dax is slow. He is terrible at tackling. I'm not sure what he actually brings to this defense.
He brings being out of position alot
Then let's not play him there then lol. I actively seems to hurt the defense out there.
Energy
He doesnt seem to bring that much anymore. He was all over the place his freshman year. Now he seems to always be on the ground watching the RB he tried to tackle sprint off.
And don't forget that Daz Newsome straight owned him blocking on the outside on a couple of plays
UNC's WR put on a blocking clinic. They busted so many runs thanks to them.
He brings a lot of talk that isn't backed up on the field
It wasn't the safeties missing all the tackles though. Everyone outside of the front 4 missed easy open field tackles, and we didn't get much help from the line on runs either
List of guys on defense that didn't miss a tackle:
they didn't miss they tackle, they were there they just could tackle, we played like our tackling dummies had covid.
Spot on with Dax. Wished it wasn't true but the tape doesn't lie.
Counterpoint:
Dax is overagressive and finds a guy and hits him. Instead of taking him off the field, move him to fullback.
The defense was clearly doomed no matter what.
If we didn't piss away a half inexplicably playing Burmeister (after he had already clearly established himself as not good last week) it might have at least been a back and forth shootout.
I'm still not sure what people were seeing with saying Burmeister is better than Hooker, maybe in the running game but even in the NC state game, i'm not sure if Burmeister could have hit those back shoulder fades like Quincy..*shrugs*
I think I agree with you there. People, including me, were saying that BB and HH were close at #1. Now I'm wondering if QP should be the backup QB now and push BB down to 3rd.
Definitely.
This is what I have been trying to say on message boards. There wasn't a single thing the defense could have done today to be better in my opinion. They just sucked. The offense on the other hand could have been better. Hooker should have started. Herbert should have gotten more carries in the first half. 45 points should be enough to win, yes, but why score 45 when you can and should have scored 60? Gameplanning continues to haunt this offensive coaching staff. Jerry Kill is somewhere smiling right now.
100%.
Heres what the D needed today to succeed.
-LBs who can read a play, pursue and get off blocks
-DT to be consistently disruptive and in the backfield
-safeties that can fill and tackle surely
-anyone in the Secondary who can run with Dyami Brown
3/4 things are not available on the Roster. The other was out with Covid.
Here's what the offense needed to do:
-give the damn ball to Herbert early and often
-have a competent passer (HH) in the game.
That's why the Offensive coaching ia fully deserving of every bit of criticism
I'm interested to see if French covers some of the defensive schematics today. I remember the safeties blitzing at the five yard line which seemed kind of weird, but other than that, what could they have done? I mean, they were just getting eaten alive. Completely outclassed.
Seriously? I finished grieving the second time we went down 21. Actually enjoyed the rest of the game somewhat, knowing we were going to lose but didn't give up.
Next time, can we please just bring the hooker/Herbert game to the very first snap?
Yeah, that third quarter was fun. But I knew as soon as we didn't get the first stop on defense we werent going to win. Ended up being fun to watch on offense at least.
Agreed, and to your point, corn looked — dare I say — creative at times in the third quarter. Unbelievable that it took us three-and-outing the game away throughout the whole first half to finally realize it was time to get to work
Yea this was me
We can win a lot of football games with 45 points. That defense was bad.
I'm just glad Hendon is clearly the guy again
I hope I am so wrong about this next statement.
I don't know when will be the next time we beat UNC. They are reinforcing with top talent from the last class and their current class, and they have the next QB lined up for Howell's likely departure after next season. I hope everyone enjoyed that 6OT win.
Silver lining: Hendon is clearly the guy and we got him warmed up for the rest of the schedule. I still think 2020 can be a strong season.
Same thing was said about Miami. These things happen in cycles. Mack is older than when everyone here thought Beamer was done. Things can swing wildly from year to year for non playoff consistent teams.
UNC is establishing an elite recruiting staff. It won't matter who the head coach is as long as they are able to continue with that.
And if they continue on this same trajectory, they will have their pick of whoever they want to come in after Mack.
I'll believe it when it happens man. But the same thing was said a lot of times in the past with UNC. Not saying they aren't doing good things, they are.
UNC is taking Clemson steps here. And they have the resources to continue the trend. I'm not sure where VT and Fuente go from here, but we aren't going to be on top of the Coastal Division with Fuente at the helm (this isn't a "Fire Fuente" post); after 5 years this much is abundantly clear.
Unfortunately, I draw alot of parallels between Fuente and Dave Doeren...
I was going to make a post after the Poole comittment to NCSU about how Doeren really hasn't accomplished anything other than having 1-2 decent seasons followed by Mediocrity. Then I thought about it and you really could say that just as easily about Fuente.
I think Fuente is a slightly better GameDay Coach, although his decisions in QB choice have not impressed me at all--so they maybe share that in common too.
I was hoping for more than modest levels of ACC success at the Fuente hiring....not sure we're ever going to see them.
What's funny is that most UNC folks I know view Fuente as the VT version of Fedora. They even see the same trends in the program, specifically with recruiting.
Edit: I think Fuente missed the window for elevating the program to a top level ACC competitor (I'm not even talking Clemson level). I'm not sure of the path forward for him. He's been dealt some tough luck along the way no doubt. But now that he finally has an offense that can score (albeit with some gross mismanagement at times), he has to completely rebuild the defense. I'm not sure he has another 5 years of
excuses, change that to reasons. It's not all his fault.He does after this pandemic.
When you look at how quickly guys like Mack, Mullins, and particularly Pruitt havw turned around Programs that were at a crossroads, the excuses for Fuente just ring hollow
Fuente is what he is. He is stubborn, limited Recruiter, and is going to stick by his guys even when there is overwhelming evidence that they aren't getting the job done.
He's and 8-5 coach...that's what we've got.
We have reached our ceiling under Fuente. UNC has surpassed us in recruiting and now outclasses us on the field. Forget about competing nationally or for the ACC, we aren't even top tier in the Coastal division anymore. I don't see that changing as long as Fu is at the helm, unfortunately. He's a decent coach but he's not going to take us to the next level.
UNC has resources and are using them...we don't.
I do, next year!
I hope you're right brother.
when is this team going to be fun to watch again?
I'm really frustrated because Mack has been in Chapel Hill for 2 years and he just took our coaching staff behind the woodshed. Why can't we have nice things?
you didn't have fun watching us against nc st?
this team is going to be fun the rest of the year. good? that's a different discussion, but we should still win 8 games or so
Not to mention NCSt is proving themselves to be better than advertised each week.
right, we should win our next 4...split miami and pitt, and i think we beat uva, that gets us 8 wins. one head scratching loss gets us 7 wins, but a surprise win gets us 9
Maybe when you lighten up
I'm sorry. UNC was trash a couple years ago. Worse than VT trash. And in year two under Mack they're already looking much better than VT in year 5 under Fuente. They are trending up and we are treading water. VT is stuck in mud and the teams around us are getting better. This is a very frustrating loss because UNC wasn't very good a couple years ago and they just got a statement win against us IMO. They clearly sent a message that they are here to beat our ass every year and, frankly, I don't see any reason not to believe them. They're building something over there that will make them a real contender in this conference for several years to come. And they're doing it much faster than we are. Why aren't you mad?
Everyone is frustrated when they lose. If you can't enjoy watching the team when they win then maybe you're the one with the problem and complaining on TKP just annoys everyone else.
Take away the scoreboard from today and still, our defense, the starters (not just the non scholarship Covid replacements), do not pass the eye test. We are slow and small and not strong. Bud's scheme really carried us. We're in for the long haul program falling apart if recruiting does not VASTLY improve.
Oh vent threads are back? Cool cool cool
At this point, Fu and Co. are what they are. Glimpses of greatness, coupled by moments of complete and utter incompetence. We are good enough to win against bad teams, but we will consistently lose against more talented squads because of our lack of recruiting and hot and cold coaching. This is now a 7-8 win max program each year. And there's really nothing anyone can do about it.
Whole defense was awful . I've never seen a defense this bad at VT
Proud of this team. Even with the folks that were out, we have to do better. Interested to see where we are in a couple of weeks.
This team didn't quit in this game. I hope we live up to our potential going forward.
Perhaps the thing you have to love the most about this team. They do not fold.
I think Dax might be one of the lesser talents in the ACC at LB, as much as it sucks to say. Never seems to be in the right place at the right time. Also, not a good look to at the end of the game when UNC could easily score again and we would deserve it.
What happened with him? 4 star and I thought he looked decent and aggressive as a true freshman. Most get better, not regress, once they get college coaching, weight room, nutrition, etc. Is it a confidence thing, trying to do too much, or what? Still, think he was far from the worst player on defense today.
Curious about this as well. In 2018 he was one of, if not the ONLY bright spot on defense. 2 years later and he's arguably the worst regular starter.
Maybe we've been surrounding him with better recruits. Sadly most of them didn't show up yesterday. COVID season is not a good one to fit to any existing templates.
Poor coaching by his former position coach resulting in him not correcting noted deficiencies?
UNC isn't supposed to be that good. So many plays that should have gotten bottled up by the line or near it, and went for long gains.
UNC is recruiting well enough to be that good. What we saw today could end up being the norm going forward. The talent gap between us and them is enormous.
That's the frustrating part. Mack Brown at a basketball school shouldn't be able to do that.
Mack Brown is good, but they revamped to put all their focus and resources on recruiting, like Clemson and it's paying off. All of their assistant hires were made with the focus on elite recruiting.
What are you wanting this thread to be? Nothing you said was particularly insightful, this is just an attempt to drum-up a shitshow.
Exactly .
Are we still saying that UNC and Ol' Mack won't be a threat?
They only get good Recruits because of their basketball program, you know.
They have nicer fans on Twitter.
Basically any run that got past the dline was gone. Linebackers got swallowed upon every play and our depleted secondary was left trying to stop their RBs.
On a positive note: LOLUVa lost again and I hit my over on our game.
It was disappointing to see so many runs get to the 3rd level without the UNC runner being touched. Our front 7 looked very poor today against the run.
I hate to throw cold water on this post...but we are probably fortunate this was our first loss.
Yeah, I have to agree with this. If we do this with BC or Wake, then we really got problems. Pack up the bus on to next week.
Exactly, you could see how leaky the defense was against Duke and even to some extent against NC State...UNC offensively is much better than either or those teams and they were able to expose us.
If we had been blown out 62-0, different story.
Would we be any happier with our defense had we won 56-45...I don't think so.
Watching our safety #30 was rough, looked very lost and hesitated constantly. Looked like a high school defense. I hope we can get Diablo back ASAP.
Doesn't matter who was at Safety.
A clone created from the DNA of Ed Reed, Ronnie Lott, and Troy Polamalu would not have helped us today.
The interior DL got decimated and the LB corps was utterly terrible.
The LB need to be completely rethought. I would not be at all surprised to see us attempt to bring in some Tarnsfers or JUCOs for '21.
Yeah, he's a walk on and it shows. Poor kid should not even be out there except on special teams. Question is, what about all those scholarship guys who looked equally lost?
Alright folks.
I agree with folks on the recruiting side, but I see this game so different than most on here.
We have a good football team. Playing with 3rd string dbacks, which needs to be a strength of our defense sucks. And they were getting no rest.
Here's a good question to ask yourself. Would we have gotten 3-4 more stops with all the starters in the game?
If we had started Hooker at the beginning of the game would we have scored 1-2 more times?
I think the answer is yes. And this game looks very different.
UNC also played a GREAT game. Everything fell into place for them. We didn't.
I've followed this board for many years and seems the same people freaking out 1 week and then walking it back the next. Early in the season. Lot's of things to look forward to.
- hooker back
- great oline
- great rb's
- dbacks are coming back eventually
We'll have a good year this year.
The fight was what gave me hope. At least someone on the broadcast recognized that.
Great post!
I think the thing that's frustrating to me is that today was a prophetic look into the future of the Coastal Division. Recruiting has fallen off a cliff at VT and there's no reason to think it will get a whole lot better. UNC, with the game today, planted their flag in the ground. They are the clear leaders in the Coastal Division (We'll see if UM is bak tonight) and VT is the little brother. Sure, VT can be a decent team and even a good Coastal Squad. But as stated above, we aren't beating UNC in the near future.
This game doesn't really have anything to do with VT's recruiting falling off though. These are all guys that came from our "good" classes. In fact this is the deepest team Tech has had in years. To see this kind of depth at every position, you need to go back to maybe 2010. Very few people are crediting Fuente for this
That's exactly my point. We are at the height of VT football under Fuente. We have a talented team. However...
Unless he gets some major recruiting victories in the next couple of months or suddenly becomes the best in the business at identifying and developing talent, the future doesn't look as bright.
Nice post and good points.
what do people expect from VT football? because in NBA, NFL, MLB, MLS, NHL, EPL, Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A, etc. money is generally an accurate indicator for results.
the ugliest part of this team today was our defense. now look up justin hamilton's salary compared to other names we were linked with in the off season. then compare cornelsen's salary with the OCs of our competitors
that's your difference
The closest analogue to college football is European football for sure.
I would argue that that most American professional leagues avoid a lot of the "money wins" stuff by having a revenue-sharing system, salary caps, and other measures that are built to create natural parity and prevent any one team from being too good. There are exceptions (MLB, NBA luxury tax stuff), and it's easier to get around in certain sports, but most professional sports in the US are very different in structure than college football.
yeah, was looking for a good american sport analogy...MLB and NBA are probably closest as you said. the point is that in european soccer there is an established group of 1-6 teams that can win the league title because of resources. college football really isn't far off imo; every year you can essentially count on:
bama/sec1, osu, clemson, ou, sec team 2, and a "team x" (wisconsin, uw, msu)
VT's absolute, best case ceiling is being that "team x" in my view, unless things drastically change in terms of money or playoff set up
I had to take my dog to the vet and didn't tune in until right before Hooker's TD and the following onside kick.
I was going to take all the credit for the comeback win.
WAS
I woke up and started watching live at 42-17 as well.
The dog okay, or just a checkup?
She blew her knee out. This makes knee #2. Bitch is getting expensive.
Our older little dog tore both rear MCLs in back to back years. I feel ya.
Our other dog only has three legs; so-far the "less moving parts" bet is paying off! God is he a loud-mouthed dipshit, though (hound).
I didn't think about lopping parts off to save money, but after around $3K for the last knee I am now. /S
We have 2 others that are hound/chocolate lab mixes. So, I feel you on the loud-mouthed dipshit.
Our last dog had a bum leg; ended up being cancer. He lost the leg, but by the time they finished all their biopsies, tests and amputation it had spread, so he didn't make it another year.
The biopsy wrecked that dog, and it was expensive AF. The amputation was an immediate, relatively cheap reset (even though the cancer caught up later).
The new dog had already lost his to a car as a pup, so he was adopted due to the wife's feelings on the matter.
Dogs don't need all four legs, they adjust well. We've always run with ours; nobody notices a 3-legged dog unless you point it out.
The only additional expense is we had to go buy a couple long runner-carpets (slippery floors are lava).
I'm all in on "amputate early and often" on a bum/messed up leg now.
On a positive take.
Fuente has fixed the offense.
That anyone is spending any time venting on the offense has me baffled.
I agree - through the first 3 games played (so excluding whatever happens tonight vs. Miami), we are averaging .3 points more than Clemson, and that includes 49 points for them against The Citadel. Just a little perspective.
Edit: we're also 2nd in scoring in the ACC behind Miami. If Clemson scores less than 42 and Miami is held to 38 or less, we'll be #1 in the ACC in average scoring.
As someone who has complained about that 4th &3 at the end of the first half you're definitely right. This was on the defense. I hope getting Deablo and Jenkins back (and hopefully starting Tisdale over Dax) solves some problems.
No complaints about the offense from me except I'd REALLY like to get our best playmakers the ball more. As has been mentioned, Herbert needs WAY more first half carries. He's had single digit carries in the first half every game, yet has averaged almost 10 ypc.
In addition, Tre needs more targets. Even if it's sweeps, he just needs the ball in his hands more. I know Mitchell and Robinson should get plenty of targets too, but 2 catches in a 45 point output isn't enough for Tre, and it's not because he's not open.
Lol right?! Hooker, Herbert, the Vice squad, and the TEs were solid. WRs blocked downfield and were better in the second half too
Offensive execution once Hooker and Herbert were in the game was excellent. And we are MUCH better when we are attacking downfield rather than moving the ball laterally. We have the ability to put up big numbers.
But there is absolutely reason to question some of the decision making when it took so, so long to get Hooker and Herbert involved.
It simply shouldn't take a 21 point deficit at halftime to get the QB who had a ton of success last year into the game if he's healthy enough to play.
And if he wasn't healthy enough to play then why did he play the entire second half? Fuente had clearly made another (poor) stubborn decision of his at QB and it took another complete failure of a game, again, to show him the light and force him to switch. Except this shouldn't have even happened because, again, were talking about a guy in Hooker who actually had success last year and not just "whoever the backup QB is."
I mean its a microcosm of what we dealt withast year when Willis was atrocious to start the season and took Duke whipping is to go with Hooker.
I like BB but he didn't show an ability to accurately throw this year. Hooker has proven it for us before. Why did it take that long in this game to go with a guy who already proved it here.
this so much. his QB1 decisions baffle me so much. also in the first half he took BB out of the game AFTER he led a solid drive and put HH in briefly only to take him out again, until the second half when we were down by 3 scores. It blows my mind, the offense is so much better with HH anyone can see that. The only excuse that I cabn acceptt is if HH's medical issues were pretty serious, and affected his conditioning.
Have to agree with Orlovsky, we could have folded today. We didn't.
I mean it wasnt as bad as the Duke or Pitt games. Yeah it sucks to lose to UNC, escicially in a game we feel like should have been closer.
But we aren't a great team right now. We're a good team. Until tech really goes all in on investing in the football team, or donors go big, we'll probably reside at the 8-4 level.
On defense? It was worse than those games. The game was only competitive at times because the offense was competent.
It's easy to get upset about this game (and there were obviously problems: not starting Hooker, pretty much everything about the defense), but a lot of it has obvious answers, and there were plenty of good things to hang our hats on.
Defensively, it's always going to be tough when you're missing your starting safeties, and one back-up, and starting freshman, and walk-ons, but getting those guys back should help clean everything up, especially on some of those long runs. Hamilton was calling his first game, so there are going to be rough patches. It's too early to make any sweeping judgements, especially against a UNC offense that is legitimately good. Am I happy about how things went? No, but it was always going to be an adjustment year with Hamilton, and COVID has made things even tougher.
It seems obvious that Hooker should be taking all the snaps if he was healthy, and ready, but who knows what issues he was working back from, and hopefully he'll have full control going forward. The play-calling is always going to be questioned when we don't score on every possession, but that's not realistic. Should we have run the ball more to start out the game? Probably, but UNC wasn't going to make that easy with Burmeister in there not posing a threat with his arm. That goes back to Hooker, but we don't know all the details on how his return has been in practice/medically.
All that to say, we've got a great chance to win the next four games, and go into the home stretch at 6-1, and a chance at the ACC Championship Game. This team was never going to go undefeated, and the UNC game was always going to be somewhat of a toss-up. Complain all you want, and there are legit reasons to do so, but I'm going to focus on the positives. This is a young team that has a lot of positives going for it, and plays hard. Are there longer term issues about recruiting, etc. Sure, but this team still has a chance to make some noise in a deeply weird season.
I appreciate this take.
Thank you. Trying to provide a counter to the sky is falling mentality a lot of us have been guilty of, myself included at times.
Thank you for such a well-reasoned post.
Agree so much. Great take.
Agree with everything except that it's a young team. Hooker is a JR. Belmar, Reed, Dax, etc all Jrs or older. This team isn't full of freshman.
Isn't Reed like 40?
Sure, it's not all freshman and sophomores like the defense was a few years ago, but they're not senior laden.
That's why this game on defense was terrifying to me. Forget the covid issues in the secondary, for the most part this was the same front 7 that was in place in 2018 when they were just getting pushed off the line and abused with regularity in the running game. Back then all we heard about was the youth and that it would get better.
It seemed like they took a step forward last year but today was a worse effort from those positions than even the worst of the worst against Pitt and GT back then. And it was the same guys so the youth excuse ain't gonna cut it this time.
Yup
This. We are ultratoast vs the run. Ultratoast. Our trenches are just not stout and effective.
So.......I may have been wrong
I'm sure Dax is a fine young man. Some here broke the ice about his capabilities. It was a terrible game for him because he is the 2nd level. Not a starter and shouldn't be rewarded. Proud of the offensive comeback. Outscored 'em after 0-21. We will be OK.
Keep hooker as QB1 and find some linebackers who can actually play and we might stand a chance but man the defense was deflating at times. Love the fight on the offense and special teams but sometimes it ain't it we will be okay. Got a decent schedule to work hooker back in before the big games at the end so let's hope the defense can get healthy and learn how to use the backers to do something productive. Loved the fight and attitude by this team today even when it was over. Truth be told though why the hell were our linebackers running their mouth at the end absolute tone deaf dumb assery.
Absolutely insane to talk shit after making exactly one stop in the entire 2nd half. And that one stop was due to a easy pass that was dropped and would have been another first down.
That was literally the worst game I've seen from Virginia Tech, and yet there was a stretch in the third quarter where we played like the best versions of ourselves. Coincidentally, this stretch involved the least amount of defense possible.
Hooker needs to start moving forward, and someone should explain why he hasn't played until now. I think the medical stuff was serious enough to merit this, but prove me right or wrong at this point. Offense needs to be consistent. Early drops killed us. Some were good defensive plays, some were receivers getting lazy and allowing defenders time to make plays. Herbert looked great once he could get going, and Blackshear made some moves - maybe use them in the screen game instead of plays at the boundary that take too long to set up.
Defense? Wow, where to begin. Defensive line got worked. I understand new technique means more active pass rushing DEs, but when they aren't getting pressure they need to be active in run stopping. Linebackers are just unathletic and can't make up the ground, especially Dax. Corners got bullied on run blocking, and everyone was playing too deep. Chamarri has to be smarter, Matheny has to get off the field, and Deablo needs to be available (but that one is less controllable).
You must have missed the JMU game, the ODU game, the Temple game, most of 2003, the Stanford game, the acc championship were we lost to unranked FSU, the 2016 Syracuse game, the 2012 Pitt game ....
That's fair, I think I'm just bummed that we had no clue how to stop them. I know Deablo, Connor, Jenkins (and to an extent Hunter) would have made this better, but when you basically allow 10 yards a play, it isn't going to end well. It felt like Stanford and Pitt, where we just had no answers. Some of those other games had a measure of flukeiness to them in my opinion.
I've seen worse.
0-0 with Wake Forest in regulation for one.
It wasn't just early drops by receivers, the balls were way off target and they were trying to adjust while blanketed by a defender.
BB went to his primary receiver regardless of how many defenders were there....others had to be wide open.
It appears quite clear that BB is running a single-read on most if not all passing plays.
If his primary is covered, then tuck and run. Pretty similar to what Evans ran in '16.
The box score looks okay, and UNC is probably a good team. Hopefully that was the jumpstart Hooker needed to get back on the field.
do we have any idea how much practicing players who are out for games are able to get? Should we assume players out for the game missed the week as well? Think that will have an effect as well, especially on younger players
When we are able to get our defense back from Covid I'm still not convinced we have the guys to be particularly stout on that side of the ball. Not sure Corn realizes we can't screw around the first half and expect to win.
Hooker won his starting spot in the 2d half with his play
no reason he doesn't start the rest of the season
As I said last week, "Atleast we know Hooker is the starter". Took Fuente slightly longer to know for sure.
wrong thread
Edit: Your edit makes this a helluva lot funnier
Nah nah, right thread
Okay, I'm not being argumentative here, just asking a question. To those of you saying that the "talent gap is enormous" between UNC and VT.... What's your evidence for that?
2017: VT had 5 4-stars and 22 3-stars, UNC had 4 4-stars and 14 3-stars.
2018: VT had 7 4-stars and 19 3-stars, UNC had 7 4-stars and 19 3-stars.
2019: VT had 7 4-stars and 16 3-stars, UNC had 5 4-stars and 18 3-stars.
I don't have a clue what they've done in the transfer portal, but just by those numbers, we've been at or above their level during those years. In 2020 and 2021 so far, they've out-recruited us, but those guys aren't on the field yet. Just wondering.
We will be fine and I don't mean in a mediocre way or whatever the "in the know folks" on here think. It's the same crowd on here wanting to burn the program down after every loss.
This is a game everyone had as a possible loss and yet when we do, it's recruiting or some other random metric that shows how terrible Fu is or whatever.
Again, I think it's the way we lost. If we rolled out hooker and Herbert drive number one and worked what's been working for us against a defense that was also missing players from Covid it would be a different story. It's the fact that year in and year out we continue to have a game or two where we decide we aren't going to do what works; are going to not start the qb that offers the best balance; and shoot ourselves in the foot. Despite Unc scoring on a high percentage of possessions we continued to sputter when it was clear the defense was in over its head and the qb was limiting the offense. You make it a shoot out and lose by 3 or 7 and I'm overall feeling much better. But the fact we came back from 21 down twice after some dumb dumb dumb coaching decisions shows me we could have played the shootout game knowing what we had on defense and at least not gotten embarrassed
Well, dust off the resume and apply to coach the team or write a letter to Babcock....maybe start a boycott...I'm of course being facetious...I recommend listening to the postgame shows, they are very revealing and trust me Coach Fu knows there are in game decision that he'd like to have back. To a man, coaches and players all said they didn't know why they came out so "cold/timid".
It's easy for us to sit here and armchair every decision.
I understand the frustration with my comment and perhaps it is playing armchair qb but I don't think I was in minority for thinking the trick to beating a loaded box from snap number one was a qb that doesn't pass into quadrupole coverage and giving it to your rb that averages 12 yards a carry coming into the game. I'm the definition of a cornelson/fuente hater because I can't understand how we have 1-2 games a year where we go against what seems like the obvious answer (and proves to be such by the third quarter) every year. If whit would hire me as OC I would shit my pants and probably be way in over my head but it seems like we overthink ourselves out of multiple games a year
Some armchair QBs go exclusively with the first read as well.
Don't come in here with facts and taint the message! ;-) (leg)
It looked enormous on the field.
Also have to factor in the heavy attrition consistently under Fuente.
The more ominous thing is that the 19, 20 and 21 classes are where the talent gap projects to really open up...UNC is on track to be the superior team for a while.
But Mack is old and the Basketball program is the only reason why they are successful...so we have that...
Edit: moved comment to vent thread, probably the better venue for it.
Not sure why? Vent thread vs That was ugly.
Meh, I'm not in as bad shape as I thought I was going to be after that 1st qtr. We came back strong and with Deablo back there instead of a walk-on, I think we make a few more stops. We have yet to field a full defense yet. I dont think we'll be world beaters on defense but I dont think we'll be nearly as bad as we were today. The LBs seemed out of sorts today but I think most of the issues can be fixed (outside of Dax. I have no idea what to do with him).
I think the offense was great once Hooker came in. We finally get to be a team that has the RBs run and the QB throw.
I actually thought we'd lose to UNC before all the COVID stuff happened. I thought they'd be our only loss (and now I would add Clemson to that loss column) but we could still have a really good season with what I saw today. We're not going to have 15 out or our whole secondary out anymore. I think that will make all the difference.
I'm not convinced. With the UNC RBs consistently getting to the second and third level, no amount of personnel changes/upgrades in the secondary would have helped.
We have major issues up front. Issues that were "youth" just two years ago.
It was youth two years ago, now it's just apparent lack of talent and poor scheme fit.
It will take several years to revamp this D, and that's assuming we can actually win some recruiting battles and get some difference makers.
Well, there's a very appealing selling point to recruits on the defensive side of the ball...
If it was as simple as just offering playing time, we should be killing it in recruiting.
The long Michael Carter run likely isn't a TD if that's Deablo instead of Matheny. Their TD before that was Hawkins and Matheny missing tackles. Those were the two TD's that I think don't happen if we have our safeties and DB's healthy and on the field.
But the first down happens, and the drive continues, and the problems aren't really solved up front.
I really wish our secondary had been healthy, but UNC was bitch slapping us up front and there wasn't a dang thing anyone could do about it.
I mean, so they dont score on those plays specifically, but they still keep the ball moving and probably score later. Unless, you are suggesting that Deablo would have forced a TO on both those plays.
A few other bright spots:
- Hooker came in and get back to business quickly.
- Mitchell isn't flashy but just does... all the things.
- Before today, we were the 8th least-penalized team in the country (in yards per game, at 30). Today we had 4 for 26. At least we aren't killing ourselves with penalties
- Early on it seemed like we couldn't run at all and Herbert still got to 138 and we got to 260 as a team. Not too bad.
- We are doing pretty well in TOP so far, we just have to make sure that when the opponent has the ball for a small amount of time, it is because they do not score, instead of translating to many points scored quickly.
Reason we didn't run well early is because blacks hear is not as good as Herbert and Herbert got one run in the 1st quarter - a major error by corny.
You don't throw the football on 3rd down if you're going to go for it in 4th. You definitely don't run a slant on 4th & 3 with DB giving inside route knowing LB is crashing out. Add that to a defense that's getting gashed all day giving UNC time and 40 yards for TD.
Offensive play-calling in certain KEY areas of the game leaves a lot to be desired.
Defense will have growing pains for 2 years. DL was extremely poor today and LBs nonexistent.
Good points. We have had glaring situational football issues over the years from clock management at the end of the half or when we're down, when to kick a a fg and when to go for it, when to go for it on 4th, and play calls on 3rd & 4th down in must go for it situations.
I didn't like going for it on 4th and 3 at the end of the half. I liked the play call even less. You just got back in the game, pooch it to pin them deep and make them go 85 yards in 90 seconds. Then to not play a shell defense and at the least prevent a td, you get beat for a td.
Kicking the 55 yard fg worked out but I thought this was a bad decision too. Realistically you make that kick maybe 4 out of 10 times at best. 3 points wasn't a difference maker and you can't risk giving them the ball at midfield with your defense playing so bad.
I think Fu is a good coach but sometimes he becomes possessed by a Mike London demon spirit.
Seems like Corn came out thinking we'll have to take what UNCheat gives us. But I think he should have tried to see if we can take what we want with our O line and league leading RB.
Indeed. He instilled a passive plan. I haven't seen anyone push back the heart of our line. Every week should start with that. We will run. Prove you can stop us mentality.
We need to start crowdfunding now to flip Tyleik Williams...
Defense was terrible....on both sides of the ball. All this discussion of how embarrassing today was are valid but lets not annoint UNC as the new gold standard, vs platinum standard of Clemson. UNC especially in the second half was terrible on defense. We outscored UNC although they could have closed that gap a bit at the end.
If our offense under Hooker can proceed as it did today, then even with as egregious our defense was, they only need to find a way to make a couple stops, especially on third down, where UNC went 6 for 10 converting. Hamilton has to think about adding a guy to the box and risk those deep throws. We gave up 9.3 yards per carry today for 399 yards. Thoughts of the days when Foster would put 5 guys on the line. Getting those critical stops also cuts down on the wear and tear on the defense. By the end, we had an ejection and two guys regularly being attended by the medical staff after starting down a handful of contibutors. Tough to be positive after this one but it wasnt all doom either. Unfortunately we have gotten used to losing the tough ones.
The 1st quarter was abysmal, but I feel like there's a ton of over reaction here.
Why don't we wait to play a few more games when we have a full and healthy roster.
Anyone looking for an undefeated or 10+ win season probably needs to do some inner reflection and pump the brakes with their expectations.
Standing in the rain getting soaked for 6 straight hours for work sounds better than watching this game. Glad I worked.
Haven't seen any of the games this year, and realized what I really miss is getting drunk with my friends in Blacksburg, not the football itself.
Sam Howell was 18-23 today for 257 yards.
UNC as a team rushed for 399 yards.
Justin Hamilton has a WHOLE LOT of work to do.
I admit I haven't read every comment here but what fucking game was anybody watching if the first thing to bitch about has anything to do with the offense?
Okay...so we crawled back into the game in the 3rd Quarter...and here's why.
UNC had less than 5 minutes
of possession in the 3rd Q
We controlled the ball, and ran the ball with our best weapon in the 3rdQ. That should have been the strategy from the start!!!
In the 1stQ, we gave Herbert the ball ONCE....please explain why that makes any sense at all. Had we controlled the ball in the 1st rather than going 3&Out twice in a row, we keep the ball away from their Offense. 3rd and 3 on 1st Possession and we try to convert with Burmeister throwing.....why????
And that's not even getting into the terrible decison before Half to go for 4th down and giftwrap them an easy TD (another short 3rd Down on that series where we decided not to give Hebert the ball) or the more general question of why BB was playing as QB1 at all.
The Defense was awful that is undeniable, but by creating an Offensive gameplan that played against our own strengths we ensured ourselves of having no chance.
The logical and obvious Gameplan here was go Run the ball and control the clock. Instead, we decided to keep the ball away from our best Offensive player and rely on the arm of a QB who is extremely limited Passing. That is simply dumb....there's no other word for it.
That 4th and 3 we went for was so stupid. I get the earlier attempts when we were down by 21, but we were only down 14 and we get the ball back at half. Just seemed like such an unnecessary risk. Sure, maybe they score anyways if we punt it, but at least try to pin them back.
I liked going for it, I just hated the 3rd and 4th down play calls. Corny overthinks things way too much. You basically had 2 downs to go 4 yards. This is a layup with the OL and Herbert. But instead of playing to our strengths, we throw a WR screen to the boundary when the defense was already overloaded to that side. Then we try hit Tre on a slant (should have been easy, but it seems like Tre isn't fully healthy), which didn't work.
I hated, hated, hated it before we even failed the attempt. We had gotten momentum back on our side. We clawed back and were going to have a shot after halftime to bring it 7 points.
4th and 1? Sure go for it. But 4th and 3? With a BB pass? You kidding me? I'm not trusting BB to make a pass to save my life. With the way UNC was moving, 50 yards was nothing for them. At least give the defense a chance to pin them back and make them work for the TD.
Any complaint about game plan, personnel, or play call on Offense is simply dumb when your defense is allowing 9 yds a carry and like 25 yds per pass.
You can't look at things in a vacuum with a football game.
Riiiiighhhtt....
Because when your Defense is allowing 9 YPC, it doesn't make sense to use your Running Game to attempt to convert 3rd downs and keep your Defense on the bench.
One thing to point out about Saturday was as bad as we were on defense with almost the entire secondary missing by the end, Alabama wasnt missing anyone and proceeded to allow Ole Miss to put up 48 points and 647 yards of offense. Thats the most points scored by an unranked opponent against Alabama since 1936. Fortunately for Saban and crew they played offense in the first half ans scraped together a measly 63 points on 723 yards of offense.
Clemson also hung 550 yards of offense on WE ARE BACK MIAMI while blowing their doors off.
We were bad but it wasnt only us on Saturday.
But those things don't matter because you can't incessantly complain about Fu, Corny, gameplan, recruiting, etc. /s
The stat I saw about the Bama game was insane. Ole Miss only prevented Bama from gaining 41 yards for the whole game. Forced a punt on the 40 and a fumble on the one
Why can't we judge this team as a team. The offense and defense as a team didn't perform well enough to beat Unc. Why does it matter who sucked most or blew bigger plays. We have a ton of work to do.
Snark not intended- reason we're breaking down the loss into its parts is because we need to try and fix the broken parts while realizing what the good parts are. The d right now is broken. The offense isn't - but - I'm hopeful that some things became clear for the coaches.
1. We are a run first team
2 Herbert is our best weapon
3 the pass for Hooker is much better coming after the run so we need to not get in a hole
4 hh is the clear starter
5 we need to stress the Covid precautions to the players because the d really needs those players back.
That's just off the top of my head. But the pieces have to be analyzed if you want to fix the problem.
That I get but there are a ton of people that are just completely dismissive of 'the offense had problems' and say this game was on the defense like...both can be true
Our offense had 260 rushing yards and 550+ yards overall with no turnovers and scored 45 points. That should win you a ball game any day if you have any semblance of a defense.
1st Q gameplan was curious but some of that is due to a QB who can't execute at a level needed t lead a solid P5 team. The decision to play that QB is also curious and deserves some criticism. Not trying to establish a run game with Herbert in the first half also warrants criticism. The 3rd/4th down play calls to end the first half wasn't great either, but overall the play calling was terrific. Our offensive coaches are great at scheming to get someone open.
On defense, we are horrible. The thing is, we have a lot better players on the field now than we have in the pipeline for tomorrow. And we still look this bad. That is concerning!
I think you can't simply look at the stats and make conclusions. The narrative of the game matters.
If HH starts the game and if Herbert gets his touches early, then we likely only need 45 to win as we will have shortened the game. The only reason we scored 45 is because we were playing catch-up all day (not saying we wouldn't have done so otherwise) and had to chase UNC. The defense never had an opportunity to rest or make adjustments for the first 15 minutes of the game.
The D really showed up after the half as UNC only scored 7 points the entire 3rd quarter. Of course they couldn't hold serve in the 4th. But any semblance of an offense in the 1st quarter and I think things turn out differently.
With all due respect, UNC only had three 3rd quarter possessions. The first was an easy TD, the 2nd was a failed 3rd down conversion on a dropped pass that had little to do with our D, and the last one had UNC drive down the field with the quarter ending but where they scored early in the 4th Q.
Despite our O and ST protecting the D during the whole 3rd Q, our D still had no answer when we needed a stop.
But again, that's pretty much the point.
Had we done that in the 1stQ, UNC gets less possessions and scores less points.
Instead, we played keep-away from Herbert for most of the First Half.
It's basic strategy...your D can't stop anybody, so Run the ball, eat the clock, and keep their Offense off the field.
It's one thing to attempt to establish a Running game and get stonewalled--its a whole different thing not to even try.
It's been our strength this year, and it's the best strategy we had. To go away from it is completely obtuse.
It's really a holistic approach to game planning that was grossly lacking last season until Jerry Kill arrived to Blacksburg.
Virginia Tech went the cheap route and hired a DC with ten months of total FBS experience, whose stops were VMI and UVA-Wise prior to Blacksburg. That decision will come home to roost this year if the defense continues to play like this. Every single team is dealing with COVID, and Tech just appears worse than most at dealing with it. I don't know whose fault that is.
The main issues with defense, other than COVID, are related to personnel. We simply don't have a whole lot of talent on that side of the ball. Add to that we are implementing a new system. Add to that we didn't have any practice time to implement said system. Add to that we are playing a bunch of first time starters and/or contributors.
It's a recipe for disaster even if Nick Saban had come to coach up the D.
Saban is going to be a little busy coaching up his own defense.....
The d never showed up - ever.
The third quarter would like a word.
We never once stopped UNC, but on a few drives they stopped themselves.
Yeah, that word is "onside".
Haven't seen anyone else mention it and it's less consequential, but when we scored to make it 37-42, doesn't it make much more sense to kick and be down 4 than to go for 2. I understand trying to cut it to 3 but it was too early to do that, and points are points. Nickel for how many times I've seen a team do this then end up losing the game by 1 or in OT
Told my son the same thing. At that point, it was clear UNC was unlikely to be done scoring. If our D could have held them to a FG instead of a TD, kicking the extra point would have left us down only 7.
In retrospect, we should have gone for 2 every time and kicked an onside kick every time. Better chance of recovering it than our defense coming up with a stop.