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I believe I read a quote from one of the coaches somewhere (Bitter's blog?) that Edmunds wasn't ready yet, had good flashes and bad mistakes, or something to that effect. Basically being a true freshman (without the advantage of spring practice like JC). But I am starting to think he needs that shirt pulled, reliable or not, and he'll learn on the job. Our run game has been pitiful. The guys we've got in there now aren't tearing it up, so... Unless Holmes/JC/Scales have a great week in practice I hope we see that shirt come off next week. He should dress for BG regardless, unless he's just not practicing well.
The coaches need to be making sure the players are jacked in, absolutely, but there is no excuse for a 5th year senior not being jacked in regardless of what the coaches do or don't do. I can't believe Davis said that.
I agree that the players should self police, but could you imagine Vince Lombardi walking around practice thinking, "I don't need to motivate these guys, they should just do it themselves". Of course not, in fact he's known as a guy who got more out of his players than they even knew they had.
This principle is epsecially true in college, where you're literally dealing with kids. And say what you will about Marcus Davis, but this has been happening consistently since long before he got to Blacksburg. In fact Beamer himself admitted that he was not getting kids prepared for bowl games a few years ago and changed his routine. Unfortunately the problem isn't confined to bowls. I can't see how the coaches don't take responsibility here.
....if Edmunds and RVD were playing right now.
To do that we have to compete with the SEC in recruiting, because that's where ALL the bullies are going to school. We can do it, but we have to up our recruiting budget and enlarge our recruiting footprint. And I don't see Frank or Jim Weaver pushing to do either of those things.
Trickster is cheaper. And at the end of the day this whole thing is still a financial endeavor.
In my limited viewing of college football it seems that offenses and defenses go through cycles...triple option, wish bone, spread, air raid, 4-4, 4-3, 3-4, 3-3-5 etc. Seems like the power offense is coming back because defenses have had to become smaller and faster to handle the spread offenses. Seeing Stanford's success, yes I know they had a number draft pick qb the last couple of years, makes me think that the coaches could recruit and run that system pretty well but they would need to bring in at least an OC that knew how to run that offense very well.
Are the coaches saving these players for next year and writing this year off? ( I know that doesnt make sense but remember these are the same coaches that tried to redshirt Tyrod Taylor and play Sean Glennon as starter for two years.) Note: I could be wrong on that but I am 80% certain they burned his red shirt in the LSU game and then burned it again after another horrible season opener.
I want the Hokies to be the 1976 Raiders. Power running behind beast offensive lines. Stretching the field with deep passing. Bad-ass pass rush and a secondary that makes you pay every time you catch a ball. The Hokies of the mid-90's made me a fan, and that was their modus operandi. Wins and losses aside, I want to see the Hokies be the bully, not be the trickster. Ultimately, the trickster still gets beat up.
Sadly, a 5th year senior's job is to make sure everyone plays at 100% all the time. A locker room has to police itself. This comment speaks volumes as to why a guy with Marcus Davis's measurables has not started until this year.
With Van Dyke, I am not sure. In scrimmages, JGW was always blitzing or zone on the slot receivers. Van Dyke played the slot in man, pressed, every play, and I can only recall him being beaten once (on a post by Corey Fuller where RVD looked a bunch like Bonner for the 2nd Pitt TD, but Logan threw incomplete to Davis on the corner.) JGW has played well, but to me, with so much weakness in the secondary, RVD fills a need much better.
With Edmunds, your guess is as good as mine. He is much more in the mold of their traditional back, but more of an inside runner. He is nimble, but he has an upfield burst to go with his power. He looked very similar to Shell in running style and size. I thought initially that he must have struggled with the pistol/gun stuff or in pass protection, but in the 2nd scrimmage he got chances to pick up blitzes and he rocked guys. (He knocked Matt Roth out of the scrimmage with one shot.) It can't be because of experience, because Coleman and Holmes don't have that much more. I would figure that they would take a kid like Edmunds, with an NFL pedigree and a polished background, and get him on the field as much as possible, because he will either be in the NFL in 2 years OR he will transfer in 2 years. They played Wilson with two backs that are MUCH better than Holmes and Coleman in front of him in 2010 without the redshirt. Why do this with Edmunds when he can fill such a glaring need.
I have been thinking about this for the last two days and I wonder if making changes to the coaching staff could help the team. It seems like we have alot of older coaches, no offense to anyone reading this post, who have been coaching in the ACC as assistants or Head Coaches and who at one point were successful but maybe dont have the time or can't for whatever reason pick up all the concepts of a newer offense. (I know this is echoing what was said above). I would like to see fresh blood on the O side of things especially, not saying this wouldnt be with out risk, but I look at Clemson, Stanford, and Oregon (not saying we need that Offense just an example) where offenses were changed very successfully. I am aware of places where that didnt work out aka Michigan. I just think we are going to die a slow death with this multiple offense with no full commitment to any one philosophy. Side note I wonder how that affects our recruiting.
Sadly, I can give a counter point to each of those solutions.
The shotgun read option has not been working because Logan has repeatedly made the wrong reads. I think that he has looked to hand off even though it is the wrong read because his leg is dinged up.
Phillips actually played well against GT and Peay, but he didn't have many shining moments against Pitt. Eric Martin really struggled.
The differences between zone blocking and man blocking shows itself on the OL. If they run a power play that should be man blocked, and they come off the ball zone blocking, defenders who are trying to get up field will be successful because the angle and head position of the blocker allows them to go upfield. It happens again and again, most often on goal line.
O'Cain should be having Logan watch film of NC State when he had Phillip Rivers as QB. O'Cain understands that offense, and it fits the talent that they have. The pistol only works if Logan is a dangerous runner. Right now, for whatever reason, he isn't, therefore the defense can key on the backs and the backs are not good enough to win that battle.
With all the criticism heaped on Newsome (and I myself have been vocal in criticizing him) we have never tried basing our offensive scheme/philosophy on one Blocking scheme (whichever he feels he can best teach his current talent and building on what that blocking scheme allows.
The highest complement I can pay you, French, is that through reading your work you have made me realize that for all the attention the skill position players get, offensive success in any scheme or system is predicated on efficiency and effectiveness of the offensive line.
We have asked Curt Newsome to do the impossible and criticize him when he can't. He might well be a horrible offensive line coach, but I can't be certain because we've never once put him in a position to succeed. He learned OL coaching at JMU. JMU runs a spread option. So what do we do? We ask him to produce lines that can block a power I rushing game. But we're also going to throw some shotgun spread in there. And some Ace. Oh, and a jumbo Ace package too. And here comes the Pistol. Block for it all, would you?
The reason the line has sucked under Stinespring isn't because of the line coach, it's because no line coach in the country could block for this Frankenstein's monster of an offensive system. The lines Grimes produced for Rickey Bustle were not great lines. But they knew how to block in the power I and they knew how to do a decent job at pass pro when we had a quarterback we trusted to win a game with his arm. We kept it simple and the line produced.
Now as for real world application, I know you are a power rushing enthusiast, French, but this line is undeniably strongest at pass pro. Despite the early struggles of Logan Thomas, he's the biggest play maker we have on offense and it's dreadfully apparent that we have no feature back to lean on unless Frank is willing to burn Edmunds' redshirt and endure the two fumbles a game that will come during his adjustment to the college game. In light of this, the only adjustment I can see working is abandoning the power run game and basing the run on jet sweeps, counters, and draws and using WR screens and quick slants to augment the run game. I know the thought of it makes you cringe, but do you think based on the performance of the line and the tailbacks through three games there's a better adjustment to be made?
to turn it around, and quick. that'll do it for me!
gotta pick with a sixer of sierra more often.
Great analysis as always. This team was horrible in pretty much every phase of the game. At least we have a consistent punter. Yes, Kyshoen's big return brought a moment of cheer but can't make up for the fact that everybody looked out of place the whole game. FOUR in a row to Pitt? That is unacceptable.
Love these posts. I think it is safe to say the whole team was just off. Foster will figure something out. The offense is something I have no confidence in. We are no longer the tough physical team but we are not finesse either. Caught in the middle somewhere - LOST
All good but the elephant in the room is that the team just wasn't ready to play. Marcus Davis was quoted by Andy Bitter saying they "took Pitt lightly". This happens every year on every team with different players and only one constant- the coaches. If they can't get they team focused and motivated they're failing.
I know you hear this a lot French, but thank you for that in-depth analysis of the game. I couldn't figure out what went wrong, especially on defense, and you provided the insight I could not even begin to describe.
All that being said, do you have any idea why RVD and Edmunds aren't taking the field? I assume its for separate reasons since RVD dresses and Edmunds does not, but given everything you said, the fact that we neither enough to make a mark, leaves me lost. Especially given that coleman does dress and the two are at the same seniority level (thus eliminating the standard "seniority" argument).
Everyone here is hoping we fix everything by UNC, but I'm hoping we fix a lot of this by UC. But that's for reasons that only involve me and a bet I may or may not have made in the offseason with my girlfriend.
Thanks again sir.
Going back to "power" formations usually means having a FB in the game. When was the last time Philips actually blocked someone on a running play? Our tight ends play Ole' more than our OL does. I don't think that adds up to a team capable of power running.
Last year we were doing rather well with Ace, Ace 3-WR, Shotgun 3WR and Shotgun 4WR. But for some reason we're going away from that. And what happened to the shotgun read option? that should be our bread and butter that's run 15-20 times per game.
The announcers on TV regularly mention how the opposing coaches talk about how hard it is to prepare for our offense. Well that might be the case if our offense could execute. Instead they're muddled up by 15 formations and contrasting philosophies.
Thanks French for the review of yet another annual dud game from our squad. I feel like this sort of showing is totally predictable and somewhat of an annual tradition unfortunately.
To gain credibility we need consistency, and we just don't ever get it. Not that anyone probably thought this was a "great team", but it seems like same old story, just another year... Hokies simply don't show up for a game. Who could argue that this isn't a yearly trend? In my opinion this speaks directly to coaching and the staff's ability to get our team prepared and coached up for every game throughout the season. We seem to lack mental focus and toughness that the big boys of college football build around.
This loss will probably get everyone fired up and we will come out strong over the next few games and have a "nice" season, but I wish that for once we could show up week in and week out for an entire season. It would make a loss so much easier to swallow.
I wish our offense had an identity. Too many different things going on on offense. Here is the old saying "He who is a jack of all trades is a master of none". I yearn for the old power run/ play action days.
My only thought? Thank god I won't have to get up before 10 in the morning to watch!
PotG isn't even the return, it's RVD's double block. That shit was bananas (and now you all have that song stuck in your head, bwahahahaha)
kam had a pretty good game, 9 tackles. i think witten did beat him for a td but at least seattle won.
"Yet, Logan is looking right..." Not right enough. Scales probably could have waltzed into the endzone. Though I'd have been happy with Fuller picking up the first down, which was an easier read/throw. Frustrating.
"giving the Pitt left tackle and guard great angles to seal off Wilson and Taylor". I think you mean FB and LT. And their FB sealed our DE overpursuing inside on the next example as well. Was this a theme for the day? At least they didn't throw it... Exum left his responsibility completely uncovered on the outside. I have to think seeing that distracted Fuller into overrunning the play. He should have cut up much sooner, but he was probably thinking about how he could get all the way outside to take that wide open receiver.
"Cole comes up to make the play" and is in great position to do so, making the TB pause... but then decides he needs to be responsible for the outside (which Exum had) as well, and fights back directly into the block. Exum has to cut back over to get the tackle.
"It doesn't help when Exum can't shake off his block to make a tackle." He has looked terrible at this all year. He's ok in space, but when he's got a man next to him he has no idea what to do. It's not like the WRs are throwing good blocks on him or anything. He has the size and strength to go through/around them with what they're doing. He needs to move back to FS or rover.
pause at 4:41 and see Taylor directly behind Tyler. Both caught too far inside from where they should be at that point.
"how can you not have Ronny Vandyke in the game somewhere?" Excellent question. And it should be apparent at this point that neither Taylor nor Tyler is the answer at backer. Heard a suggestion that we should try JGW at backer, and put RVD in at whip. Sounds good to me. What do you think, French?
got the wrong video linked for the Bonner example.
Why doesn't Exum bump the WR on that TD? Don't let him just run by you. As for "really makes you worry about Sammy Watkins in a few weeks"... I wonder if Exum will still be playing corner at that point. That experiment may be over.
how did Manning look to you?