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The Defense did shut them down tho. They had 2 touchdowns with a preseason Heisman candidate. The end of the first half did not lose us the game. You might not have liked the strategy there but it was a strategy and miles better than what weve seen him do in the past. Would you have preferred drones throw 3 incompletions and gave the ball back to usc with 2 minutes to go?

Drones poor play lost this game. If he doesn't do 100% turnaround before Saturday it will be a long long season if he stays the starter.

Frank was given a game ball too.

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I dont feel bad about it. Don't feel good either.

We ran over 2 minutes of the clock before crossing the 50 and ended with a really long FG, we didn't try to make it easier on Love. We didn't try to score against #13 in theor own backyard, we weren't trying to win the game and that's an issue. This isnt us keeping it close so Bud can shut them dow 2nd half, we can't play that football, we don't have the players, we needed to score and we didn't even try.

No doubt, receivers didn't do him any favors. I'm talking about the eye test, what i physically watched. I seen a true freshman making his first start yesterday, not a fourth/fifth year QB that has started 3 seasons.

Well Pry per usual wanted to thank our fans for the strong turnout first thing in his postgame presser. Pretty obvious that's just canned coach speak at this point.

Problem was, we hired a guy who recruits
on relationships right as the NIL era was
about to kick off.

This right here is one of the biggest reasons we are in our current position. The old style recruiting having a head on collision with the NIL era.

I don't fault Pry at all for this. It was an unfortunate timing of events that created a massive round whole, square peg scenario.

The other was hiring two inexperienced coordinators out of the gate.

I mean let's not pretend that him being a GA in the 90s and all the photos we could drum up with him and Frank during that time wasn't a major selling point to the administration and boosters to why he was even considered in the first place.

All of what you say is true, but the connection to Frank is what got him on our radar. Otherwise, we probably aren't even interviewing him. He wasn't a major name in the coaching circles when Fuente was fired.

Going to get back into doing advanced stats write ups for each week, but going to wait until at least three games have been played to start doing my own threads. (I think I did about 8 games last year with pretty decent consistency until I got married at the end of the fall.)

Looking at expected points per play (offense and defense only), we really hung with South Carolina in the second and third quarters, but got blasted in the first and fourth quarters. That shouldn't be surprising as those were the only quarters we allowed touchdowns.

Success rate and explosive rate will be an interesting metric to track as the year goes on, especially to see how they replace Tuten in the running game.

By rushing success rate, the Hokies finished at 43.2% which is higher than I initially expected. But looking at it by quarter, it seems it was mostly in the second and third quarters. VT couldn't get anything going in the first quarter on the ground, and had only limited success in the fourth quarter. Another major difference from last year was the fact that the Hokies had 0 explosive runs on offense (runs over 15 yards).

Passing the ball was a struggle, which is always going to be true when you complete less than 50% of your passes - but it did improve as the game went on. VT had a success rate of 31.4% and had explosive passing plays on 5 of 35 attempts (passes going for more than 20 yards), meaning that one of every three completions for Drones was an explosive pass. These came on both crossing routes picking up YAC and on deep shots to the outside portions of the field. It also does not include the play wiped off by a chop block.

Comparatively on defense, VT held the South Carolina running attack in check, allowing success on only 30.6% of plays. They did however have a much higher 47.4% success rate passing the ball on fewer attempts. They also had four explosive plays each in the running and passing game. For a team with boasting a preseason Heisman candidate, two 25-year old running backs, and a 6'5", 238 pound Olympic level athlete at receiver, I would say that is a pretty decent improvement over last season.

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out over the course of the year. One note, it looks like the College Football Database is moving behind a paywall to access the API this year, which might limit my ability to run comparisons against other teams later in the season. If the Hokies start winning, and these posts gain traction, I might just bite the bullet and subscribe.

But Drones is what he is, he hit his ceiling in 2023 and there's no more development left for him.

I think you could also say this about Pry as well...