Recent Comments

Understand that football isn't about immediate results.

This goes out to all the chicken littles we may have this season.

But while I know results with Fuente may not be immediate, I still reserve the right to drown sorrows if we underachieve.

Do you see any brandon flower types in our secondary this year? I sure don't.

I am sure he will use it, but I don't think it would be prevalent.

and if they don't block well, Fuente will find someone who does

No- Shibest special teams have been great wherever he has gone.

However, they will be tested early given the lack of depth of defensive players that can cover kicks. Eric Berry's little brother is at Tennessee, and he is one of the best if not the best kick returner in the country.

To me, improvement on the defense starts with the best players running through blocks and winning one on one battles. Watching film from last year (I have watched UNC, UVA, and NC State the last couple of weeks), it was very frustrating to see DL fitting their gap and then moving right along with the block instead of fitting and then getting off the block and finding the football. Dead feet were problems at linebacker and on defensive line.

When you go back and watch the teams from the mid-2000's, they didn't have spectacular pass rush. What they did have were defensive linemen who kept their feet going at contact, which made them very difficult to block. Hall and Adibi didn't stop their feet and hop backwards when a back or a guard isolates on them. They would beat the blocker to the angle or keep their feet moving while working to shed. I just didn't see enough of it last season.

Fortunately, at the end of the season, Baron, Williams, Mihota, and Ekanem were the best four up front in terms of making themselves difficult to block, and that is the crew who we have back. I greatly appreciated Dadi Nicolas and Luther Maddy's contributions at VT and they gave us a ton of great moments. But, neither was particularly good last season compared to what was expected and needed for the scheme. Marshall was a unique player and played his tail off, but his size and style of play caused problems and often exposed linebackers.

I encourage folks to get on youtube and watch clips from average ACC games (2006 vs UNC is good quality) and watch the defensive guys and compare how individual guys take on blocks versus now. Don't always focus on stars. It is night and day.

I would assume Huelskamp is the back up. Jamion Moss is still on the roster and worked as the back up backer during the spring game, and he underwhelmed me. They need to figure out a way to get something from Ray Minor. There were two walk on linebackers that played really well at the end of the spring game, but I can't find them on the new roster at Hokiesports.com

Do you have any "too soon to tell" conclusions about what to expect? Sounds like the offense will be a blend of Memphis with something new because VT personnel. What about the defense? Or from the conditioning program, can we expect a tougher, more physical team?

The all encompassing hard-hitting question everyone (read I) wants to know:

Will I be using my ass pocket to celebrate or drown my sorrows this season?

I am torn here. I was also thinking along the lines of the Director's Cup as it does the best to show overall performance but then you have the opposite side of the scale bringing into light revenue and the ability to continue to compete. I would probably have to balance my selection between the two based on where I was pick wise. Harder yet is with schools like Stanford and other Private schools, they aren't required to disclose information in the same fashion as public schools.

http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

...and we wonder why Texas A&M is able to raid us regularly for coaches....#1 in Revenue in 2015 and "Profit" by a long measure. One area I question is since the goal is to be a non-profit, how much of the "Profit" I calculated using the USA Today spreadsheet varies because of schools spending inordinate amounts on internal Taj Mahal projects. Look at Texas, which showed only about a $10mil "Profit" off of $183mil in Revenue. I would love to see how much of that $173mil in expenses was spent directly on student athletes and how much was spent on fluff.

If any QB "wins the starting job" and there's a truly better option sitting on the bench (for reasons other than discipline), you have a coaching problem a la Mike London. I know Beamer was guilty of this at times due to his sense of loyalty rather than incompetence, but in the end, no matter the rationale, I think it makes for poor coaching.

You must be a dad.