Recent Comments
Not enough talk going on about this. It's the most egregious part of the day to me. I cannot fucking believe he still hasn't figured out clock management.
It'll be our only loss of the season, and we didn't have Terion Stewart. USCe will do really good, and so will Virginia Tech. Defense and Special Teams will keep the Hokies in all games, and the running game/passing game will be balanced and play makers will step up. It was the first game of the season and players had to knock off rust. I'd like to see a lot of Pop Watson and Rangel because Drones is on his last year and will not improve but so much. Drones should be the backup. Build up depth, have a good year, and be even better next year =)
Could not possibly disagree more.
I think Drones was even worse than his stats show.
I saw someone who is processing very slowly, making poor reads (in the passing and option game), poor decisions on throws as well as in some of his runs.
He left SO much out on the field today, and it's completely inexcusable for him to be this bad 5 years into his collegiate career.
There's so much to break down here, but I won't get into it all.
For beginners, stats don't live in a vacuum. Those deep balls were a combination of good throws into tight coverage with SC Top 10 sort of catches. Those plays are not at all indicative of progress being made with Drones or with him being a serviceable QB. We can all reserve judgment until after a few games, but Drones looked as bad tonight as I ever remember him looking while in Blacksburg. There are many reasons we lost this game, not least of which is the reality that SC simply has more talent, but in the end Drones had opportunities and missed on many of them.
The most glaring opportunity? In the 4th quarter when we were 4th and somewhere around 3 or 4 yards and he ran out to the edge. All he had to do was shift a little, make someone miss, and instead he thought it was prudent to put his head down and operate like a battering ram. He had so many questionable decisions in a general sense that weren't directly related to accurate passing that it's abundantly clear he isn't our guy.
This program is effectively dead. Today wasn't just about losing on the field. We are never going to get out of the shadow of the Beamers. That symbolic loss today I think is the worst thing.
Being bad at football for over a decade will do that for you. Most of the students currently on campus were barely out of diapers last time we were good. We're in a death spiral right now and I'm not confident there is a way out of it, realistically
Sellers averaged under 2.0 ypc which is not something to toss aside. Would be shocked if he has any other games that low. As said a bunch above, the defense played well enough to win this game probably. It seems like we actually have a D that can stop the run for the first time in a loooong time.
Also encouraged by the WRs ability to make contested catches and get open (we'll hopefully fix the dropsies). Feels just like last year with a good defensive front and skill players we can't quite take advantage of. And when the only major hold overs year to year are Drones and Pry, it's hard not to point fingers
Slow down buddy. I didn't say he was worse. I'm simply saying it's too early to say he's better (or worse) after only one game...
yards are meaningless with two Ints and sub 50% completion, he isnt getting the ball where it needs to go, those are terrible stats.
That's because our offense somehow doesn't know how to identify a hot route and Drones doesn't know how to find it if there was one... so so many opportunities today to just drop it to a guy and let them run and instead Drones runs like crazy off to the side of their best defensive player and throws some crazy pass. It is incompetency in play calling and execution.
I was still watching into the 4th quarter. I was not expecting that would be the case. I like the defense. Wait and see with the offense.
Uh, did you ignore what I said about the stats? Explain more yards than all but one game and THREE long passes compared to just one in several games last year. Give me definitive points as to how he's worse. I'll give you a lower completion percentage but more yards. Plus, my recollection of some of the long "passes" last year was short passes with long gains after the receptions. These were 3 legit long passes. One of which, credit to the receiver, was made with a pass interference call against the DB.
Again, give me your criteria for how he has regressed. What stats are you comparing? My guess is it's the sniff test, which doesn't seem valid given all the stats I gave.
Again, I'm not saying he's "good" I'm just saying better than last year, at least in this game, again, against one of the top 3teams we will face, which he did worse, much worse, last year (at least in terms of yards, but when you throw for about double the yards, does completion percentage matter THAT much?).
We would always be out numbered in Atlanta. Its a 3 hour drive from Columbia, SC. That's a day trip for their fans. Most VT fans would have long drives or flights and need a hotel.
It's one game. And we had element of surprise on our side vs SC. We won't get that luxury again this year now that other teams have film on us. If he keeps it up then sure. But let's not say he's definitely better than last year after one game. He had lots of yards. He also missed some really important throws. He also had receivers drop critical balls at bad moments. This wasn't all on him. Let's see what he looks like over the next 3 weeks before making claims of progress or regression.
They are ranked 13th. Right now I think they are yea.
Regarding point 1 - I just went and checked the stats last year. There were games where the longest passes were 20, 25, 30, 31, and 34 yards. Of the 4 games we had passes longer than that, 3 of them were against Vanderbilt, Marshall, and ODU, with the 4th being against Stanford. In three of those, the longs of 55, 49, and 46 were by far the longest, with the next longest around 20 yards. Consider we had passes of 28, 36, and 37 yards just tonight, that is definitely more of a deep threat than we had last year, and against good receivers that played close with a lot of contact.
Also, at 221 yards passing, there was only one game we had more passing yards in last year, and that was against Vanderbilt. Against Miami last year, we had 189 (all Drones) and against Clemson, Drones had more than himself and Schlee combined (188, with Drones at 115 and Schlee at 73).
So Drones had more yards this game than in all but 1 game last year, with longer passes he had in most games. He IS better this year. He may not be a great P4 QB, but he is definitely better.
Edit: also, this is the first game of the season against probably one of the top 3teams we play, with an all new O-Line, new receivers, and new RBs. The offense probably wasn't going to do great this game.
To make this thread more tangible, especially given the game this afternoon: I live in downtown Blacksburg, and have been in town for over 20 years. Normally, for a good away game, you'd expect some buzz downtown, students at the bars, and some excitement for the game (even when we were mediocre).
Walking downtown at the end of the game, it was a ghost town. Mostly freshman just headed out to the bars.
If we think the donation problem is bad now, the wave of apathetic fans saddled with tons of debt and no disposable income is on the way. We better have a plan beyond panhandling for money and hoping for a big check.
The long td pass was a direct result of the position we put ourselves in with thebpunt return and then stalled drive
Drones is great against inferior opposition and ass against anyone that has a pulse
We gave up 17 points on defense to a preseason heisman front runner and one of those tds was in "sell out to stop thebrun and get the ball back" time due to the special teams gaf
At this point, Pry has shown that he has absolutely no idea how to handle the last 4 mins of a half enough times that the only fixes are to either give complete control of timeouts and tempo to Montgomery or to fire Pry. I was hoping that Montgomery being a former HC would be able to help in these situations and give advice but today's clock management screams that Pry was still 100% in charge. It's the same shit every time, he lets time run off the clock when facing a long field, doesn't know when to call timeouts, has the offense going at their normal tempo, and still has them checking with sideline to change play calls when they need to be snapping the ball. Pry is somehow the last person in the stadium to realize that we are near the end of the half every time. And when he finally does realize it, there are only 30 seconds left, on a running clock, with multiple timeouts remaining, and we are only at midfield. It's groundhog day every game and he's done nothing to fix it.
Besides the first drive the D looked improved and borderline stout at times.
The O -- looked like a carbon-copy of the Bowen scheme...was disappointed in lack of anything new. Drones isn't a good passer and isn't ever going to be.
You think SC is a top 15 team? In 2025?
No sacks from the right tackle is an improvement! But yeah, Bowen was creative but predictable, especially in the passing game. Montgomery seemed to have schemed up some simple plays that could have led to a steady if unspectacular offense. Time will tell if he's a long term improvement.
You may not have, but the point I was referencing said that Drones had regressed and was the worst version of himself.
And re-read your message -thought you were supporting the OP's sentiment I wrote above. I think he's a little better in some regards, definitely need to see.