Recent Comments
The movers and shakers are on the Harlem Shake video.
Not taking advantage of opportunities they have been given? This team was behind the 8-ball from the get-go, let's go through this.
Johnson was given the reigns to a team with 8 scholarship players (Dorian Finney-Smith was already leaving, regardless of JJ's hire) - that's already playing from behind in the ACC. Sure, we knew Erick Green was a great player coming into the year and his accolades this year prove that, but there was no other proven option alongside him going into the season. The two other players on this year's roster with the most seniority were Jarrell Eddie & Cadarian Raines - Eddie has shown flashes of brilliance but for the most part has always been a streaky scorer and Raines has been injury-plagued for most of his time at VT. No reliable second scoring option truly emerged on this team, so Green shouldered a huge load of the offense this year by necessity.
So JJ was faced with leading a youthful, mostly inexperienced team as a first-time head coach... very few times will that translate to instant success. As much as we want to see our athletics teams succeed, realistic expectations are also needed (especially in the case of the men's basketball team). After the hot start to the season, there were high hopes that we'd be competitive this year but we all know how that turned out.
So what went wrong? There's many possible factors, but I think the biggest one was the lack of quality depth - and that can't be held against anybody on the team or coaching staff (for this year's struggles at least). JJ wants his teams to play up-tempo and score lots of points, like we saw them do effectively at the beginning of the season. I firmly believe that a short bench contributed to the slide, since the style we wanted to play wore us down as the season went on.
Due to the attrition & general malaise that Greenberg seemed to have on the program, it might take a little while to see results. We'll know much more about JJ's real merit as a head coach in a few years time, once he has his own recruits populating the program. I know it's not the most fun approach, but this is very much going to be a "wait and see" type of program for the foreseeable future. I wouldn't write off JJ yet as so many seem to be doing - it's silly to expect results from day 1. Not even Beamer started out at VT with instant success, but few people seem to acknowledge that.
Yea it was cool until that part at the end about us.
I find that to be therapeutic. Even when I am up 40 points, I still send 8 man blitz.
Gotta love April Fools'. The VT SB Blog, Gobbler Country, has been notorious for their pranks.
I got about two lines in when I remembered what day it was.
The best prank was when GC "announced" they'd be merging with Tech Sideline
I still feel that basketball practice facility was money better spent on enhancing our football facilities.
April's Fools and I am one of Gobbler Country's writers.
Yeah but size doesn't really correlate to arm strength for position players (see Ichiro Suzuki). Him fielding a ground ball in the hole without falling over himself seems to be his most impressive trait.
you mean your former friends...
Weaver isn't the reason we have high coach/player turnover. It's just a sinking ship, if you can get off before it goes down, you do it. Is it Weaver's fault the ship is sinking? Maybe, but its not like JJ (or even the players) are taking advantage of the opportunities they have been given.
I was a big second baseman. My coach pointed out that the longest (typical) throw in baseball is the 2B's relay throw to third from the RF corner (or deep RF alley). That is a long, long throw. It's also imperative that a 2B have not only quick enough feet and hands to turn the double play, but to have a strong enough arm to get something on it when switching direction.
I know, I never realized how big our 2nd baseman was until this weekend. That has to be the tallest person to ever play middle infield.
Only the second series FSU has lost in two years I believe. Horan, Mantiply, Pinder, and Zagunis seem to be big time prospects and I would think Rash would get drafted again this year. Also, the second baseman is 6'6" which is kinda awesome. I am definitely planning on catching the Saturday game against Carolina after the 4/16 remembrance run.
Sounds like everything is great in the basketball program.
Nothing to see here.
yep..nothing but silence. must be Easter weekend
Happened years ago...
Thanks for making me feel old.
That would be something for them to talk about at family reunions FOREVER esopecially when it involves Alabama! #BEATBAMA
McCray levels a linebacker, allowing Thomas to annihilate a safety. Yup, I like it.
I bet the surprise star of the team will be a special teams unit that has a bunch of guys who could start on O or D but who are back in the depth chart. We'll get a coupla insane ST plays against Bama and shock the world like when Gayle hit Moses with the stutter-step spin move for the sack!
I'm so restless for more practice news...
this makes me so excited abt all aspects of the offense. getting back to the ground and pound game we didn't have at all last year is awesome. I really like the attention to detail with Logan. we all know he can be great and hopefully this new practice style and offensive attitude will help him get there
Or Saturdays?
i was wondering the same thing
CDS, I think you need to relax. JJ inherited a train wreck. He needs several years to recruit and develop players before we can pass judgement on his coaching abilities. I'll remind you that we only had 7 scholarship players for a large chunk of the season, some of which just wern't that good (ahem, Robert Brown). I can guarantee you that our 7 or 8 guys were dead tired by 25% into the season - - it's hard to play good basketball, especially defense, when your legs are that tired and you have no help off the bench.
I'll also remind you that Coach K went 10 - 17 and 11 - 17 in his second and third years at Duke. In his third year, Coach K only had 3 ACC wins. People undoubtedly called Coach K and his program a "shinking ship" that third year, just like you are doing so today after year one - - those people looked like idiots for a few decades thereafter. Don't be one of those people.