Recent Comments

OOOOH delicious.
I had one of those on a trip to Pittsburgh to see Mike Vick tear up the Panthers in their last season in the on campus Pitt Stadium. http://www.techsideline.com/football/1999/games/pitt.htm
Great game, great grub!

Other points of frustration:

1) 3rd string right guard/2nd string right tackles (of course, if Painter went down Via would be moved) that have more talent than the left guard not getting a chance to play. Based on his limited snaps last year, 2 scrimmages this year, and the play against Austin Peay, I would go with Wang and Gibson splitting snaps at left guard. You can not tell me it is a huge adjustment from right guard when they have had no problem moving Gibson around (3 positions in the last two years.) Rotate Wang and Gibson the next two games, and the better player should get every snap against UNC and beyond. My lineup for UNC would be:

Becton-Gibson-Miller-Benedict-Painter

And, I am getting to the point where if he could learn to snap better, I'd play Farris over Miller. I am getting sick of Miller not getting push against good nose tackles. Even though they are not big guys, this running back group will be much better in between the tackles instead of outside.

2) JGW and RVD. I get the senior thing, but the coaches are paid to win games first. Coverage depth is a weakness. RVD is better. JGW doesn't take on blocks well. RVD is better. He is learning, but if you didn't know their age, the eye test would tell you after 5-6 snaps that RVD should be starting. And, the first time they play a team with a power running game that targets the whip as the point of focus, JGW will get Wally Pipped. (I apologize for the dated reference.)

3) Running backs. I don't care about the committee approach. I do know that the offense is better when they get work inside. I think that in the first 4 drives (1st 2 of each game discounting the Coleman fumble) Holmes has had 3 carries. Shane Beamer's comments tonight was infuriating. I know all 4 guys work hard and deserve a shot, but the guy who is the best player should be getting most of the work. This team will be better when that happens. Holmes is good enough, and Coleman gives them the big play counter, but Coleman will be even more effective if Holmes has worn them down. Plus, it means less wear and tear on Logan Thomas, who already looks worse for wear.

i want.

No offense, but I think you are reading way too much into the "go with the hot one" line from Shane. I doubt he would tell a fan on twitter his exact running back plan unless he was willing to tell the press. All I took away from that is that they don't know who the "hot" RB will be, and once they figure that out, that RB will be featured. Could be holmes, coleman, scales, or even Drew Harris but its so early in the season that such a decision isn't really that important.

Graham's replacement last year was a power RB named Zach Brown. Kid was a transfer from whisky who was redshirted then found out he wasn't going to start bc of Montee Ball. When I saw him run against USF and UC, I remember thinking to myself "if we have to go up against him and Graham next year, we are going to have major issues." Luckily he was a single year player (didn't know that until now) so we don't have to face him.

The only element of Graham that scares me is the fact that he is trying desperately to make up for a lost season. But I guess that only goes so far when your o-line doesn't really want to block for you.

holmes is one cut and get north (ideally at least) and coleman is your classic scat back. give it to holmes between the tackles, get it to coleman on swing passes and from the slot and whatnot. the coaches should play to their strengths, and i think we're seeing that. i think they'll be 1 and 1a all season. the coaches are notoriously conservative, and they're easing their young backs into things.

that is the prettiest thing I've ever seen.

The starters this year may not be tried and true yet, but I think they will be by mid-season, but I think we'll always have great backs... The tradition started seemingly forever ago. Only recently has it been in the national sports media however. And this year they're jumping at the chance to criticize our backfield.

But even though we're "little in the middle," we're still gonna have a lotta back.

Why aren't we putting the ball in the air more? We've seen how effective it can be, Logan's got the arm, and we have a pretty good receiving corps. Beau, I realize the intent was to focus on the running game, but the entire offense scheme seems to be lost in a foggy malaise.

If there's anything that the Hokies in the NFL have shown, it's that our receivers have traditionally been under-used. As a prime example, Eddie Royal had a breakout rookie season with the Broncos, and every highlight had me screaming at the TV, "Why didn't Frank use him like this?!" We all love Danny Coale and want to see him used/succeed in the NFL, just like we want the same for Jarrett Boykin -- and they had a great QB in Tyrod -- so why not let Logan go vertical with Davis/Roberts/CFuller/Knowles and hell, even Randall Dunn, who was doing work without a shoe on Saturday.

Our run game can't succeed the way you want it to if we don't show the threat of completed passes on every down. We can't force the opposition's defense into a two-deep zone coverage and then run on it if we don't establish that portion of the offense first.

http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/tweeter12/My%2520Nabiscos/TheO...

Of this point was not to be all doom and gloom. I tried to convey that a few times but I guess I didn't do a good enough job. I think Joe alluded more to my point with the question of "where are we heading/ what is the current situation?"

I know GT was a grind and Austin Peay more of a scrimmage. That wasn't lost on me at all. However, in EVERY game we've played GT we have made sustained drives primarily through a running game. You saw how we had to come back with :44 to tie it with a FG. If they were up by a TD with enough time the outcome would have been much different. Looking back to '07

'07 W 27-3 185 rushing 2.83ypc
'08 W 20-17 199 rush 4.33ypc
'09* L 23-28 175 rush 5.65ypc
'10 W28-21 198 rush 4.93ypc
'11 W37-26 267 rush 5.13ypc
'12 W20-17 96 rush 2.74ypc

Now, you can look at these and say "WOW! look at how much their defense has improved. Al Groh may have been better prepared but I'm not buying it all that much. So we did know it would be a slugfest but that was more in terms of T.O.P and keeping our Defense off the field. Nonetheless, it was our FIRST game with TWO Freshman running backs.

I am not one to freak out with this team, nor am I going to. I am just wondering, like everyone else, how this is going to shake out. Luckily Shane Beamer was on last night answering fans tweets (love that guy) and I sent him this:

Beau ‏@BeaunerJam
@CoachSBeamer no one is expecting a replacement to DW, but do we have a featured back? < 15 carries for either guy per game

and got in return

Shane Beamer ‏@CoachSBeamer
“@BeaunerJam: @CoachSBeamer no one is expecting a replacement to DW, but do we have a featured back?"4 really good ones. Go w the hot one

Which one is hot? Holmes has the most carries with 22 and a 4.27 avg and 2TD, Coleman only 10 with a 5.4 avg, then Scales has more yards with a 6.0 avg, and finally Tony Greggory has ~50 with a TD and above 5.0 avg. These are not shotty numbers for the snaps they played. I don't even care if all four get the ball during the course of the game. If the offense is changing where there are no frontrunners thats ok too. However, grabbing sub 100 yards in games relying on Logan to do it all will not impress anyone. Just my thoughts. Thank you all for contributing!

I saw another tweet that said he rolled an ankle. It must have been on the 2nd touchdown drive.