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Duke game where we return the kickoff to the 5 yard line and then take a 9-minute 20 play drive for a touchdown.
This might explain why we consistently give up starting field position on the 25 in hopes we can have a 99 yard monster clock eating drive. How many teams can say they had a 99 yard drive after a kickoff? /s.
Always the slowest developing plays and he gets brought down from behind...
Hindsight is 20/20 but burning Lawson's redshirt made perfect sense at the time. To me, the head scratching part of this wasn't that Lawson's redshirt was burned, it was that he was unable to win more playing time from Motley.
When Brewer went down against Ohio State, it was unrealistic to maintain a redshirt for Lawson, regardless of what he was or wasn't promised during recruiting. We knew we had at least 5 or 6 games without Brewer, assuming he didn't have any setbacks and was even able to return at all. Based on Motley's complete inability to stay healthy in 2014 in very limited playing time, it was a reasonable assumption that it was unlikely Motley would be able to stay healthy through 5+ games playing every down. From that perspective, it made all the sense in the world to ease Lawson into some playing time against Furman and start getting him ready in case he was needed.
Lawson looked ok against Furman, and I honestly thought he would be our starter by the Pitt game. Then he struggled a bit at Purdue when he came on in relief of Motley (Motley was subsequently reinserted for another series before Lawson was allowed back in). After Purdue, Lawson appeared in another 3 games and had a designed run here or there but played very sparingly, even though we didn't see Brewer for another 3.5 games. I don't know what happened behind the scenes, but like I said, it was disappointing to me that he couldn't work his way into more playing time.
Honestly, I wouldn't get too bent out of shape over the decision to burn his redshirt. We have been in this situation before where a highly touted player burned a redshirt and received very little playing time (Macho and David Wilson come to mind) but as it turned out, neither of them would have returned for another season anyway. If Lawson turns out to be really good, 3 years as a starter will be more than enough before he wants to go to the NFL. If he winds up not panning out, then there's nothing to really wring our hands about.
Any time we had Trey Edmunds in on 3rd and short after the RB rotation was settled.
I'm pretty sure this happened twice.
Step 5. Make her open the box
I forgot about that one.
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10 years 7 months
# | Can Someone Explain The ACC's Bowl Selection Process To Me? Grass is always greener....
If we had joined the SEC there is a good chance we would be complaining about how the northern school always gets the shaft because we are one of the southern bluebloods. Bowls selections committees only care about who is going to put butts in seats, NC State being a lot closer to the Belk bowl than Pitt likely the biggest driver, not some state bias.
And how Edmunds was the goal line back for so long. I know its not 100% on him, but it seemed like he got stuffed way more often than he got into the endzone. To me, he looked like he was running like the ball was at the 40, like he was trying a break a run, rather than charging forward, knowing he needed to fall forward for a yard or two.
I would have gone to Annapolis any day of the week, but cannot make Shreveport.
Since you brought up officiating - how about the pass interference against ECU
This adds nothing to the conversation though.
For VT football I have a few:
- The clock management in the Duke game and trying to kick a 67 yard FG
- The targeting ejection in the ECU game
- The inability to make adjustments offensively for SO long during games
- The RB rotation
For the college football season:
- The end of the Miami vs. Duke game
Lawson played in 5 games, although he played very sparingly outside of the Furman game.
That doesn't fit the narrative many people want that this staff is just bad, Frank Beamer only hired Shane because he is his son. Rational thought out analysis of an issue has no place here.
That Coach Beamer allowed his son to mess up the rb rotation for so long this season.
While I agree that the head-scratching RB rotation was probably mostly on Shane, I just can't buy into that being definitely true. We cannot rule out the possibility that Loeffler had more to do with the RB rotation than we think. We just don't know for sure without being in the meetings with coaches.
That being said, if you go by the logic that the RB coach is responsible for the RB rotation, I think you could argue that the burning of the QB's red-shirt is the responsibility of the QB coach. That one falls pretty squarely on Loeffler's shoulders IMO. I think he might have promised Lawson some playing time. In effect, promised that he wouldn't red-shirt. Look on the bright side, we probably have a pissed off and talented QB who is going to give it his all to prove the doubters wrong. That, paired with a proven QB developer, could do some serious damage. I'm excited to see what our offense looks like in a couple of years.
Thanks for the post AND the pic. That pic gave me a chill - really gonna miss that guy.
The discussion is moot at this point.
The mighty Whit has spoken, and managed to get what many of us thought VT needed. A great new offensive mind on board to run the offense, while keeping Bud on board to run the defense.
Good discussion, because in hindsight it looks like a tough pill. Given our past history to retain the red shirt unless in dire straits, I don't think the coaches would've arbitrarily burned it. I think they had a plan for the season, but then after Brewer went down and Motley moved into QB1, it became less about designing packages for him and simply prepping him to be QB2. Was burning the shirt and giving him playing time a way of getting him prepped as QB2 in case Brewer didn't come back, ensuring we didn't have him taking the first snaps with the game on the line?
I'm no expert but I expect those are highly different sets of parameters, and something the coaching staff didn't do lightly. Add in the fact that we probably did anticipate getting him specific packages and told him that, and *poof* we have what we have. We also don't know what his development progress has been, good or bad. I think we'll know a lot more when we see Coach Fuente's offense in the spring, and who's doing what.
Add in the fact that most of our games were down-to-the wire, come-from-behind, every-play-matters, and there probably weren't many places our staff felt we could get him that playing time. Maybe in Shreveport, we'll get to see all 3.
i think i put the rb rotation out of my mind and not sure how it didnt come to my mind when thinking about this topic.
always will think back to a few season a go when we did the famous 3 and long draw play to dustin pickle.. rational was it was his turn in rotation and no way miami was expecting it. LOL
That along with hiring his old HS coach...
i thought about this...
I was just a little south of you in New Orleans for that one.
You're right it was a catch. Most of the people in the stadium knew that.
I left the stadium a little stunned that night, and not really in the mood to celebrate. But it sure was a fun trip overall anyway.
That Coach Beamer allowed his son to mess up the rb rotation for so long this season. It was nice when McMillian finally got the bulk of the carries over the lets make sure every gets a participation trophy mentality...
Let's not act like the ACC is screwing us over. We got dissed in 2000 when we got sent to the gator bowl because a BCS bowl wanted the ND fanbase; this is just a 6-6 team going to a 6-6 bowl.
The season was full of clusterfooks many of which could have been avoided despite losing our QB, a Fuller and having some strange personnel issues. Lawson having his redshirt pulled might turn out to be a stroke of genius when all is said and done. However, I have a strong feeling it was done to deflect the criticism that was being heavily lobbed at the coaching staff for Motley's play in the OSU game. So far it does look really sh**y as you say. And I know this is our legendary coach's last season and he has done much to make us better than before but I believe, and I must be in the minority and will catch a lot of flack but I feel the same way that coaches doled out criticism and judgment to me, they deserve the same when things they do are head scratchers. Frank Beamer did not have a good season at the helm and it's pretty much his own fault. In fact, I believe this season did not have to have the relatively pizz poor result we saw and since Coach Beamer is still accepting the dollars any flack he gets for it cannot necessarily be dismissed as hater talk. All that said, none of us are perfect, and playing for him overall must be a great dadgum experience that will get after ya.