Virginia Tech offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler met with media members at noon today and was asked about previously presumed No. 1 LG Wyatt Teller who has been working with the No. 2 o-line.
#Hokies OC Scot Loeffler says Wyatt Teller is still a starter at guard. Has been with 2s some the past week.— Mike Barber (@RTD_MikeBarber) August 24, 2015
#Hokies OC Scot Loeffler said Wyatt Teller is certainly being pushed in preseason, but he's still No. 1 LG.— Norm Wood (@normwood) August 24, 2015
OG/OT Parker Osterloh replaced Teller on the first-team o-line over the last week-or-so.
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So many things about this team just seem like we have to wait till the first snap to find out.
Thank you.
i think the coaches also wanted to see how Parker would work with the first team in case of Injury to teller. Pre-season is the time to see some scenarios.
French just stepped off the ledge.
I imagined this being French after hearing Lefty's comments:
Case study- watch the 2nd half of the Military Bowl. Watch which side Coleman runs to when he has success. Then proceed to question the logic in any punishment-intended demotions.
Maybe Searels just hates mullets:
No one guy is bigger than the team.
Searels is the OL coach, so unless he's overruled by Loeffler or Beamer, he decides who gets to play and when. If Teller is getting pushed by Osterloh, I gotta believe it's a good thing.
That said, I'm hoping to hear about him taking first team reps again now.
If he had started last year, or had been neck and neck for a starting spot... I'd be right there with your logic.
But he wasn't until he was and then he was our best lineman by far when it comes to knocking defenders off their spot.
Call it what you want, but it sure sounds like a consistent lack of judgment.
"Like sand through the hourglass, these are the days of our linemen."
I read Pierson's comment, saw this meme and the music immediately cued in my head.
Damn my aunt for watching that garbage while babysitting me!!!
Thinking positive here. The fact that Teller is getting pushed is a good thing which means we got some depth on the OL. Not a lot, but some is better that none.
That's great and all, but my question is, "Why bother?" If the threat of bench time isn't real, don't make it.
Who said it was a threat of bench time? There are many scenarios on why Teller was switched out. He may have been struggling with the mental aspect, maybe Parker was playing really well, maybe it was truly a depth exercise. Of all the things it could be, threatening to bench him, outside of the reason someone is playing better than him, is the least likely.
Yep
Like others have said, I'm sure this is all just trying to find out what other combinations of OL work well together. As we've always seen, injuries for everyone are going to happen - not just OL, so he could also be looking to see who run/pass blocks together the best if there are any other injuries (i.e. Brewer or some receivers). I like it especially when they still have 2 weeks to hammer down the rest of what they need to.
Motivation was a factor here!
Hopefully, there is not a decline/lack of improvement w/Teller, but an improvement/push by Osterloh.
Exactly it's pushing Parker to get better to show that he's within reach of actually playing. I think too many times at Tech they stated this guy is the starter and no one else has a chance to play and there's no competition. Competition is never a bad thing and having other guys step up encourages them to be even better in the long run. it also keeps egos in check and makes starters work harder to retain their starting role. Understand the need for cohesion on the offensive line but maybe the coaches decided the need for depth is just as great or greater as the need for cohesion, since the likelihood of no injuries is pretty slim.
Stay with me here, maybe it was to give Teller some time used to working with less talented teammates so he can shoulder more of the load, or maybe to get him more work in against 1st line DL, where he is going against the best we have to offer? Just thoughts.
This is evidence that Searels isn't putting Teller with the 2's to build depth, but rather because the gap between Teller and the backups is shrinking. Loeffler confirms Teller is being "pushed" by Osterloh.
As I said in my scrimmage review, it makes absolutely no sense for Searels to be this fluid with his offensive line this late in the offseason unless he has some questions about who his starting five is going to be.
which is still strange after teller was the OL MVP last year despite starting the fewest games of the group...would think if anything the gap between him and the rest of the starters may be shrinking not the gap between him and the backups.
Which brings up all kinds of questions as to just how good Conte has been recently. Either he's tearing things up, Teller has stepped back, or Osterloh just really can't play on the interior of the right side.
Or Osterloh has improved enough to warrant getting reps with the 1's in order to build that depth, whereas he and Nijman struggled too much in the spring to even consider it. That would certainly explain the timing. Or this is simply coach speak and being "pushed" isn't nearly as significant as you are inferring. Essentially what you are stating is that Teller went from being the best OL on the team to the sole potential starter who might not even be good enough to start, despite an abundance of evidence to the contrary.
You're reaching with your definitive statements. We'll see.
He is literally the only "sole potential starter" that didn't start the scrimmage with the first group. In fact, he spent just as much time with the twos as with the ones. This wasn't a couple of series, this was half the scrimmage at least.
Why isn't Searels "building depth" at the center or right guard position? The most likely answer is that if Teller was as far ahead of his competition for his spot as Gallo or Conte was he would be running with the first team all the time. It makes more sense for him to be getting pushed (like Loeffler says) than it is for him to be so good that he doesn't need 1st team reps.
Yep. To me, Braxton Pfaff and Alston Smith are more "known quantities" than Kyle Chung, Tyrell Smith, or Austin Clark? Why aren't they working at the ones sometimes?
(Answer- because they aren't ones. Hence my frustration.)
Nijman getting time makes sense, because Hansen is banged up and Nijman may be more ready to play left tackle (with McLaughlin moving over) than Osterloh is ready to play right tackle. Plus, Nijman is just playing one position, while Osterloh was being forced to rep at multiple positions, which is tough for an inexperienced kid.
I highly doubt we see Alston ever contributing and if we do it means the injury bug has bitten us bad!
All of this makes me want to know just how good is Parker Osterloh?
He hasn't looked out of place. BUT, Wyatt Teller is an All-ACC caliber/potential All American player ability wise. He generated far more push consistently than any other OL in 2014 (in about half the snaps.) It makes zero sense.
It makes sense to Searels...
and I think French has stated multiple times that other schools have not been too high on his coaching in the past. He could go down as our greatest OL coach of all time like fans want to believe or he could just be another coach. We don't know yet.
Certain segments of the fan bases at Georgia and Texas weren't happy with him. Georgia fans because they haven't won the SEC (never mind that's generally been more of a defense problem for them). And Texas fans because the team was crashing and burning in Mack Brown's last few years.
Recall that Texas hired Searels away from Georgia. It's not like he was fired.
The guy has a fantastic resume when it comes to coaching OL. Is he the best OL coach out there? probably not. He is he perfect? No.
But he's damn sure better than Newsome, and better than Grimes too, at least in terms of his ability to recruit quality OL prospects to Virginia Tech and his aggressive blocking philosophy.
I would argue with you about "being better" than Grimes. That is a subject for debate. I don't think recruiting gives Searels an edge yet, because at Georgia, he was recruiting Georgia kids, LSU-Louisiana/Mississippi Valley kids, and Texas-Texas kids. At those schools, recruiting in-state talent is a bit easier. If he gets Landon Dickerson and similar kids down the road, I am happy to mea culpa.
From a coaching/technique standpoint, I watched a ton of film of his last Texas OL, and outside of the left guard, I did not find that group to be very sound technique-wise. Say what you want about Grimes OL group, but that group was sound fundamentally and opened up holes (the backs just were not experienced enough in a zone scheme to take advantage of them.) Last season, the OL wasn't as sound technique-wise and the running game suffered UNTIL Wyatt Teller entered the lineup and facilitated the ability to create movement on inside zones and provided the offense with a guard with the ability to pull and kick out on outside zones.
I am not giving up hope on Searels. I like the attitude he is trying to infuse and I want to see the OL be more dominant. I prefer his scheme to Grimes scheme, and my opinion of Searels ability to teach the position has improved after seeing Nijman's improvement from the spring.
From what I have heard, the players seem to connect with Searels a lot better which could help a lot as far as his ability to teach.
It helps when you've spent more than 1 year with your position coach.
The barometer for whether his better than Grimes is the LSU job. They both were available, both familiar throughout the region and SEC. Did LSU interview Searles? Because clearly they hired Grimes.
LSU is pretty good at identifying coaches and they picked Grimes over Searles.
The only barometer I care about is the results on the field at Virginia Tech.
Well, he coached at LSU during their NC season under Saban. So if LSU is pretty good at identifying coaches, that's a checkmark on Searels' resume.
On the recruiting front, I don't think there's any doubt that Searels has been more effective at recruiting OL talent to Blacksburg when compared to Grimes. Will it be enough for our team to be successful? To be determined.
Grimes landed a bunch of 3-star recruits who are all a little on the small size for P5 OL. Not Willenbrock sized obviously but maybe 1-2" short and/or 15-25lb lighter than "ideal". Oh and he landed zero OT's when OT was the obvious, immediate need for our OL.
Eric Gallo, OC, 6-2 299
Colt Petitt, OG, 6-4 288
Billy Ray Mitchell, OG, 6-4 278
Tyrell Smith, OC, 6-3 288 (prepped)
So far 1 of 4 have developed into a contributor on a think OL.
Searels has landed higher rated guys with P5 size. At least one of which is going to be a contributor as a true freshman (partly due to talent, partly due to Grimes not recruiting anyone in 2014 who could play OT in 2015)
Austin Clark, 4-star OT/OG , 6-6 310
Yoshua Nijman, 4-star DL/OT, 6-8, 278
D'Andre Plantin, 3-star OT, 6-5 290
Mike Arnold, 3-star OT, 6-5 280 (prepping)
grimes did have brady taylor before his flip to OSU, but looks like he's 2nd string center for them now. How many, if any, of those guys that SS landed did grimes establish relationships with? I would think at the least he had developed a relationship with Austin.
Clark maybe, but Nijman Plantin and Arnold were not on our radar until Searels was on board. Grimes did keep Pfaff in the fold but he was originally a Newsome recruit who gray-shirted. Or maybe more correctly a "previous staff" recruit since it seemed like OL recruiting wasn't tied directly to the OL coach prior to Grimes arriving.
Grimes recruited those guys for his stretch zone scheme. Go back and look at the NFL average OL sizes in the late 90's, then look at the average size OL that Alex Gibbs had when the Broncos were winning Super Bowls and turning Olandis Gary into a 1000 yard rusher.
Grimes recruited guys that fit his system. And Grimes had proven ability to recruit nationally. To me, Searels has been a backyard recruiter up until his VT tenure. He will have to be a national recruiter to succeed in Blacksburg, because there isn't enough Virginia OL to go around.
Well, he's already hitting Georgia hard. He doesn't necessarily have to be "national" so long as he's maintained his relationships from Louisiana, Georgia and Texas. And it looks like he has.
It wasn't the schools that were unhappy; it was the peanut galleries who also generally think the answer to their issues is the 2nd string QB they're seen little of or not at all (unless of course there is a true freshman that was rated highly by some recruiting services sitting in the #3 or #4 slot). Either that or come up with some sort of goofy gimmick offensive/defensive scheme or personnel package...
I think the hand wringing over this in entirely overblown. IMO, by far the biggest concern with the OL is having a 6th and 7th or 8th player that can slide in when the inevitable injury occurs - not that Wyatt Teller isn't getting all 1st team reps.
If this was the week after the OSU game (or any week really) and Teller was dinged up and barely practiced at all but would okay for Saturday, it wouldn't even register a blip on the Richter meter.
How did Newesome ever get another job if message board fodder had any impact on Coaching performance? I really think Searles will be ok at least for what we need now in terms of direction.
Searels deserves our fan support for some limited amount of time until he can prove himself. For me, he's still in that window, and he's done some things I really liked.
I've got to believe the OL is improving over what we had when he arrived, and that's even with some of the projected stars not panning out.
He deserves our support, but French makes a valid point. This isn't Joe Bugel here.
And Searels must be the only coach in the country to want to start a 6'8" guard
I'm good friends with Parker and I can tell you Brewer will struggle to get a football over that boy's head. He's an oak tree out there
F*^k! Please stop the flying monkeys! Thank our Lord that it is only 2 weeks and a hour away. Makes me wish I had done acid in college. Teller is #1 and Osterloh will be an All American. "Bad day to stop sniffin' glue"
Purdue mini-plans are in my ad box on the right hand side of the screen. Nothing makes sense today.
Nothing I can say that hasn't already been said. I'm glad the decision has been made, but I'm baffled as to how it's been handled.
Two weeks on the dot
This is so overblown. This is a good thing. We have depth.
The official Ohio St. prep (for players) started today. That was the last scrimmage chance to work those guys with the ones and see what they would bring. Now we know. And now Wyatt will be with the 1's.
Everybody breathe!
The goddam season needs to get here already so we can wring our hands over in-game performance. This place is about to blow its top.
Honestly, whats so bad with having 10 linemen who are comfy with each other and being able to shift in and out.
In addition, Wyatt showing the 2s how it is done, can't be a bad thing.
Can't wait till the season starts, so the speculation falls to the wayside...
"Cooking with Wyatt Teller."
(Credit to whoever here made that.)
New snapchat is out which shows a good bit of offensive line reps at Wyatt is at LG in all of them.