Recent Comments
Funny thing, I'm from Houston, where the original Ginger Man is, yet the first location I went to was the one in Austin. It was so close the whole time, but I never knew. Of course, getting from Northwest Houston down to Rice Village and back just to go drinking is basically an all day adventure.
My point isn't that we are a small time program. Its that given the same coach at a different school, the results are very different. I don't think we currently can compete with "the big boys" for recruits, regardless of the attention or personnel we have recruiting a kid and I believe that is no fault of our current coaching staff. Put Beamer at Bama and Saban here and I believe that the recruiting results would be reasonably similar to how they are now.
It's not the size of the playbook, it's how you use it. Ok I know it sounds like a penis joke, but really, look at Paul Johnson. The guy manages to score a whole lot more than anyone would expect given his game, especially how small his playbook is. You'd think he'd get shut down every time he plays the field, but, miraculously, the guy gets her done. There's something to be said for having a small playbook but using it to perfection.
That said, I hope we take his playbook and shove it down his throat this year. His system's biggest weakness is the inability to come from behind. He can't deal with competition that scores faster than he does and gets him to 3rd and long. I hope we're functioning well enough on offense to be that team when we meet.
love seeing Tyrod surpassing both Christian Ponder and EJ Manuel in the NFL; hopefully the whole world will see he's a better QB than Russell Wilson!
You know what? I don't care how the win against UVA looks. At the end of the day, every single one feels like 38-0 to me.
But yes, I would be disappointed if we had that ugly a game against Purdue. I totally understand the cynicism given our history.
I'm deciding to have optimism this week. I think our O-line is getting better every week. I think Motley is going to have better command of the game this week. I think our D will be hungrier and hitting their marks this week. I think Sam Rogers will be Sam Rogers, Bucky Hodges will have to be restrained from dancing, and Scot Loeffler sleeps more than 3 hours the night after the game.
I'm ready to see a 'whuppin.
HEY THAT WAS MY PREDICTION TOO!
Yes it does. Our worst recruiting year of the last 10 years came after winning the ACC championship. Wins don't translate to recruits without significant effort. We aren't a small time program. We aren't Bama or OSU, but we sure as hell aren't Utah or Illinois.
Once Brewer went down, the game felt like it was over. The players looked like they felt that way too.
So on that alone, I think Brewer not going down makes it a much different ballgame. Do we win? I still say we would have been in the 35-40% chance category. When you are playing a team like OSU, sometimes all it takes is one play to change a ballgame (unfortunately we got the negative version vs. the positive).
I think the odds are 100% more likely that Brewer could have delivered "that play" than Motley.
"John, who finally realized that he had probably spent way too much of his adult life focusing on the wrong kind of breasts and thighs, "
This is where I lost it.
Great food and right around the corner from the hotel I stay at.
also doesn't help when there is jumblings/rumors/articles stating x coach has last minute or day before visit with y recruit.. y recruit commits to x school/coach and VT gets left out..
this scenario seems to happen more often than not
So, if we get the best recruiter in the country at VT does that change our incoming classes more than winning the ACC? I still think that it is more about the environment you are selling (the product) than the salesman selling it.
Ron Zook was a great recruiter. Got a lot more talent at Florida than he did at Illinois. Saban gets a lot more talent at Bama than he did at MSU. Urban gets better talent at OSU than he did at Utah.
My position is that recruiting has significantly more to do with the program and environment of the school than the coach. Very rarely do you look at a coach in a small time program and say "That man is a great recruiter!"
I think it stays a 1 score game that is exciting to the finish, but given how the defense played in the second half and the moves that Miller showed off, I don't think we would have ended up winning. But a healthy Brewer and a closer score would have painted things a lot more positively for us (including votes received in the polls) than how it did turn out.
They just had better athletes all over the field, and our inexperience on defense got exposed with their adjustments down the stretch.
But what exactly would you like the coaches to do? I mean, you can spend 100% of you available time recruiting a kid, make him the perfect pitch to come to your school, get to know his family and they like you, be close to home. At the end of the day, it is some 17-18 year old making a choice about college with about 40 people telling him different things to do and why they are the best idea for them.
This is one of the reasons I struggle with how to feel about recruiting misses, and how to 'assign blame'. We (fans) don't really know what a recruit is looking for. Nor do we have visibility to the sales pitch being made. Nor do we have visibility to what our competitors are doing.
Game changer that no one has talked about or is talking about - the JC COLEMAN FUMBLE
Motley being the QB has completely made people forget about how big that fumble was.
OSU scores on their first drive of the half off of miscommunication from our DB's. Then our defense holds them the next two drives/the whole third quarter. Our offense has great field position for all of our next drives as well. And then... JC fumbles, literally the next play = Braxton spin move.... GAME CHANGER
I don't ask myself what the end result would be if Brewer had finished, I ask what the end result would be without that fumble. That to me is the turning point in the game, not Brewer.
Official GuitarMan seal of approval.
Today is also the 45th anniversary of Jimi's death. Your trivia for the day.
Honestly, I don't think we win because we still had no response for OSU once they opened it up with Braxton in space. I know that there are those that would say that if we were not on the field, we might not be as tired, but I still say no. We got some pressure on Jones on some throws, but zero sacks, ZERO. We couldn't bring him down. Once Miller started getting to the edge, it was going to be real tough to think we stop him and Jones and Elliot (I know he went quite after the 80 yarder). But we gave them hell for over 30 minutes, so what do I know.
It is fun to think about because Brewer looked damn good. Guess we will be left to wonder.
Lose a close game. Their athletes are better than ours and it would've shown in the 4th qtr like it did when we played Bama in '09 and had the lead going into the 4th.
Darrell Hazell fronts a Jimi Hendrix cover band called "Purple Hazell" and plays a Yamaha guitar, right-handed.
I thought David Wilson was a 5*, but i could be wrong.
I believe without a doubt in my heart that if Brewer stays in, VT wins the game. We started off very slow, but for once our coaches made the adjustments, and we started opening up the playbook. Now I also believe they should have had Motley way more ready with a package just for him. I feel like our team almost gave up after they realized Brewer wasn't coming back in. I have never seen our defense get gashed like that, except maybe Fitzgerald back at Pitt. But what if I also believe that we can win out and the crazy possibility is Ohio State is our only loss.......
In my opinion, this is the point that really killed us. We got the ball back on THEIR 40 and couldn't even get a FG attempt. We had picked up some yards on 1st and 2nd down and were right on the cusp of FG range when Motley took a sack on 3rd down to force a punt. I think even with Brewer's injury, had we managed a Touchdown or even just a FG on that drive, we still could've had a chance to win. That would have given Motley a great deal of confidence and the offense as a whole confidence that we could still score and compete with OSU. I know a lot of people will say that the JCC fumble was the real turning point, but I believe it was that drive that started at the 40.
Fifth Fuller, you continue to amaze me. Only you would think to use a chicken astronaut to mock Pu(e)rdue.
Bentley is so aggressive, does he create space for quick hitters to a TE or H-back?
If he's on a slot receiver, is he likely to bite extra hard on play action?
Losing a recruit to Bama or OSU is inevitable. What about losing blue chip recruits to UVA, UNC and Maryland?