Game Preview: Boston College

Virginia Tech Hokies (6-2, 3-1) at Boston College Eagles (3-4, 1-3)

Time: 12:06 PM
Date: Saturday, November 2, 2013
Place: Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
Stadium: Alumni Stadium (44,500)
TV: ABC Regional (reverse mirror on ESPN2)
Radio: Virginia Tech IMG
Spread: Virginia Tech -4.5
Weather: 55 - 65 F, Partly Cloudy, 80% Humidity

The Skinny

By: Joe

Virginia Tech has played tremendous football in November since joining the ACC (29-4 overall, 27-4 in ACC play). Tech has won its last 5 meetings against the Eagles, and that streak will have to continue if the Hokies want to play a meaningful game in December. Despite last Saturday's embarrassing loss to Duke, Tech still controls their own destiny to Charlotte.

Players to Watch

By: French

Andre Williams (#44): Williams is a 6-foot, 227-pound senior who currently leads the ACC in rushing at 144 yards per game. Williams did not play against the Hokies last season due to injury. He is a powerful back who has terrific straight-line speed. Boston College uses him as a battering ram from both traditional power sets as well as the pistol and shotgun. Most of his big runs come from the pistol set, where often Boston College will run a traditional stretch play, but block down and pull a guard. Williams isn't elusive, but he is outstanding at maintaining his balance after contact. If Boston College can get an early lead against Virginia Tech, expect Williams to get carry after carry.

Kevin Pierre-Louis (#24): Kevin Pierre-Louis is a small (6-1, 225-pound) outside linebacker who looks like a safety on film. The Eagles move him around on defense and use his speed in a variety of blitz packages. He excels at forcing the run off the edge, and then shedding blockers to make plays. In the Eagles 4-3 system, the defensive line attempts to tie up blockers and the linebackers make tackles. Pierre-Louis is second in the ACC in tackles per game (9.29), so expect to hear his name called frequently.

Kasim Edebali (#91): Edebali is the best pass rusher for Boston College. A 6-3, 246-pound senior defensive end, Edibali is terrific at maintaining his gap fits to allow the Eagle linebackers to make tackles, and he utilizes an excellent rip technique to beat guards and tackles on the inside in passing situations. When assigned to the edge, Edibali has great jump off the snap. Edebali often benefits from the confusion created by Don Brown's seven-man fronts, where he is one of only two defensive linemen on the field. He leads the Eagles with 5.5 sacks and 8 tackles for a loss.

Manuel Asprilla (#21): Asprilla is a tiny (5-10, 167-pound) safety who has thrived in Don Brown pressure defense. Asprilla is second on the team in tackles for a loss (7.0), and flies to the football. He can be a liability in coverage, as Florida State and North Carolina attacked him with tight ends and slot receivers for big gains. After not accounting for Duke's safeties around the line of scrimmage, getting a body on Asprilla will be critical for the Hokie ground game to find success.

Bullying the Bully: Boston College's Smashmouth Running Game

By: French

Coach Steve Addazio emanates a tough guy aura, and his offense emulates his character. Most of the time, Boston College works out of the I or ace formation, sometimes with two and three tight ends. From that formation, the Eagles heavily feature power leads (pulling the back side guard to the play side and leading with the fullback). As a change-up, the Eagles will run counter trey. On that play they will pull two linemen, or an H-Back and a lineman, and the tailback will take a counter step one way and then break back behind the two pulling blockers. The offense will run the same style plays from the pistol and shotgun formation to mix things up, but regardless of formation the Eagles want to play power football. Stanford has perfected this offense, and Boston College has operated it effectively enough to average 176.6 yard per game on the ground (57th nationally).

Here are a couple of Boston College's bread and butter running plays. The Eagles love to run the counter trey from a three tight end set.

00:03:27–00:03:32

This is pure, physical, smashmouth football. Williams takes a counter-step to the right. The Eagles left H-Back does a veer release to attempt to get the Florida State defender to widen, then they pull the right guard to kick that defender out. Behind the right guard, the right H-Back pulls and then turns up on the linebacker. A small hole develops, Williams hits the hole hard and pushes the pile slightly after initial contact.

Here Andre Williams shows his explosiveness on a power play off the left side from the shotgun.

00:03:19–00:03:27

As they do from the I formation, the Eagles use down blocking at the point of attack, and then pull two offensive linemen to outnumber the Seminoles on the edge. Williams shows tremendous balance and does not go down at first contact. He is a load.

While they have not shown it much on film this year, the Eagles had tremendous success last season against the Hokies by running zone blocking up front and leading with a fullback, then as Bud Foster adjusted, the Eagles adjusted to a bend back counter, where everything was zone blocked, but the blockers would seal the end and linebacker on the back side and the running back would cut back against the flow of the Hokie defense.

00:15:15–00:15:22

Last season, even without Andre Williams, Deuce Finch had 138 yards rushing against Bud Foster's front.

Boston College's passing attack is less effective. Chase Rettig (who seems to have played at Boston College since Doug Flutie last took snaps) is back. Rettig played poorly against the Hokies last season (13 of 30,129 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT). In BC's last two games, against North Carolina and Clemson, Rettig completed just 56% of his passes for 249 yards and a single score.

However, his receiver corps is decimated. Alex Amidon, a 2012 first-team All-ACC selection, who scored a touchdown against the Hokies last season, leads Boston College with 46 catches (4th in the ACC). No other BC receiver has more than 8 catches. If the Hokies can take away Amidon, the Eagles only seem to be able to get the ball to their other receivers on screens and gimmick plays (they completed a nice throwback screen to the tight end for a big play against Florida State.) It is interesting to note that Finch also caught five passes for the Eagles against the Hokies last season, but Andre Williams does not have a single catch on the year. Expect the Eagles to surprise the Hokies with a couple of throws to running backs.

So, how do the Hokies stop Boston College's power run game? Well, last season Bud Foster ran his 46 front frequently, with Jarrett at inside linebacker, Tweedy on the edge to the wide side, and Bruce Taylor on the edge to the boundary. The Eagles had some success running the zone with a fullback lead and the counter, but both Tweedy and Taylor had big days disrupting Rettig off the edge. I would imagine that Dadi Nicolas will again be featured as the whip linebacker, and Boston College will again try to attack the Hokies up the middle.

Derrick Hopkins and Jack Tyler were quiet against Duke, but they must be forces inside in Chestnut Hill. The Hokies won't stop Williams unless they can stop his forward momentum by getting into the backfield, and then gang tackling him. It all starts with Hopkins and Maddy not losing gap fits inside, and Tyler avoiding down blocks to scrape and clean up the mess. On the outside, expect the Hokies to focus on stopping Amidon, with Facyson and Kyle Fuller returning, that shouldn't be too big of a challenge. The names of the game this week are "tackling" and "run support", then create big plays and turnovers when the Eagles are forced to throw the football.

Chaos: The Eagles 2-6 Blitz Package

By: French

Boston College has been known traditionally as a 4-3 team, always seemingly with a terrific linebacking corps that makes plays from sideline to sideline. On running downs, this holds true, with Kevin Pierre-Louis ably filling the role of playmaking linebacker. In previous years, the Eagles had been a team that rushed four defensive linemen and then dropped back into soft zones in an attempt to keep everything in front of them. However, this isn't your mother's Boston College defense. Defensive coordinator Don Brown has implemented an aggressive in your face system that often features two defensive linemen and five linebackers and safeties all pressed up on the line of scrimmage standing up on passing downs. This system, made famous by Joe Lee Dunn in the SEC, creates tremendous confusion on the offensive line, as it is unclear which players are blitzing and which go back into coverage.

00:01:43–00:01:48

Above, the Seminoles face a 3rd-and-7. The Eagles put seven on the line and end up rushing six, yet have excellent coverage on the crossing routes down field. Much like the Hokies, the ability to play man coverage makes this concept even more difficult to play against.

Using this system not only works when you bring numbers, but even if the Eagles only bring four or five on the play, it can cause confusion amongst the offensive line, leading to sacks. Florida State struggled mightily to pass block the Eagles blitz scheme, especially early in the game.

00:00:11–00:00:17

On this play, Boston College only sent five pass rushers, but two were unblocked and got to the quarterback. How? The design of the blitz caused the Seminole blockers to make two mistakes.

First, the linebacker in the middle comes forward just enough to draw the center's attention. The right guard thinks he has help to the inside, and the defensive tackle slants hard inside and gets leverage. Without help from the center, the guard doesn't have a chance, but the center stays fixated on the middle linebacker until it is too late.

Second, BC sends two edge rushers at the offensive tackle. He chooses to pick up the outside rusher, leaving the tailback to take the inside rusher. Unfortunately for Jameis Winston, the tailback also goes to the outside rusher, leaving the defender coming off the tackle's inside shoulder unblocked. Normal pass blocking rules tell the offensive line to block the inside threat and let the outside threat go, but without knowing the pass protection call, it is difficult to determine who made the mistake, but somebody did.

The Eagles have had ten different players register sacks this season, with only three of those players being defensive linemen. They will look to cause confusion early and often, and try to force Logan Thomas into making turnovers.

For the Hokies to be successful, first and foremost they must run the football. Boston College will stay in their base defense on 3rd-and-short situations (although they do still blitz). The Eagles jump into this two-man front jumble in passing situations, especially on third down. Staying out of 3rd-and-long (which despite their struggles, for the most part the Hokies have kept themselves in 3rd-and-makeable situations this year) will be critical.

Second, offensive line protections must be simplified and Trey Edmunds must be in sync with the offensive line. It will be critical that Edmunds identify the most dangerous unblocked man, usually determined as the player closest to the quarterback, so an interior blitzer, and then catch him early enough that the pickup doesn't collapse the pocket. Thomas has most often struggled when defenders collapse the pocket and impact his ability to follow through on throws.

Also, Boston College runs much more man coverage than BC teams we have seen in the past. The Hokies have to beat that coverage over the top. Florida State changed the momentum of the game by getting some big plays deep when Winston was under tremendous pressure. UNC had a huge day offensively beating man coverage. The Hokies have to make them pay when they blitz, because Brown will keep bringing them even if they do get beat deep.

Besides the two defensive linemen, most of the defenders who come to the front in this package are small quick guys. This is ironic given how my last column called for less inverted veer, but if I am Coach Loeffler and the Hokies have a 3rd-and-four or five, and the Eagles line up in this waterbug seven-man front, I would run the inverted veer or straight power lead from the shotgun and knock those little guys going backwards. Establishing that as a threat may freeze some of the blitzes.

Fight, Focus, and Finish

By: Joe

This is a must-win, winnable game. It won't come easy though. As Torrian Gray said earlier this week, "It's going to be a fistfight." This offseason the coaches focused on developing team toughness. Physical toughness can be the difference in a grind-it-out game like the one expected on Saturday. Boston College is going to try to punch its way to an upset. If the Hokies can stand tall early in the game, they'll have a chance to break the Eagles' will.

We'll get insight into the team's mental toughness too. Did the Hokies put the Duke loss behind them and focus on Boston College during practice? Will they avoid a slow start, on the road, at noon, in a stadium not renowned for its atmosphere?

Last Saturday, careless turnovers proved costly for Tech against a less talented opponent. Boston College will look for any momentum to rally around for 60 minutes. Tech can't afford to provide the Eagles with a spark, nor is the Hokies offense good enough to make up for sloppy play. The defense is good enough to win a field position game.

However, the offense needs to finish its sustained drives by putting points on the board. According to cfbstats.com, Virginia Tech ranks 120th out of 125 teams in red zone conversions (65.38%). Also, it has made just 47.1% of its total field goals (118th). Making that FG percentage worse is the fact Tech's attempted 17 kicks (T-8th). The Hokies have been content with controlling the clock, but each trip inside the 20 they need to come away with at least 3.

The roller coaster season continues, strap in, and enjoy the finish.