Like most other Hokie fans there are mixed emotions when it comes to looking at the ODU win. On one hand, we won and that is a helluva lot better than last season, so in that sense we've seen some progress. On the other hand, how are we at a place where we are celebrating a relatively "boring" win against ODU?? In any event, Saturday evening was a HUGE win for the VT football program - All day ACCN coverage, and some of the best I've seen to be honest. Sold out, LIT crowd. And a win to cap it off! Below are a few observations, please feel free to add...
1. I don't think it can be overstated how much more disciplined this team is. They took care of the football and we had 4 penalties for 39 yards (targeting was the culprit here, not silly pre-snap errors). The coaching staff has done an excellent job in this regard. We should all be celebrating this!
2. The transfer portal will be the very thing that pushes this program one step forward to where we all want to be. Most of the stars from Saturday night were players we grabbed from the portal. From APR to Jennings, to Lane, to Tuten... Other players made some plays, but the real stars were from the portal. Coach Pry and Co. went after the players we needed, they got those players and they've put them in places where they can find success. This is what good coaches do. While we don't have a "Coach Prime - Colorado" situation on our hands, I do appreciate the evaluations our staff is doing.
3. French will highlight this in his film review, but the front seven, which seems more talented than last year, had significant issues as it relates to gap integrity and discipline. It was epically poor. Had we been playing Pitt, or any other P-5 team for that matter, we may have surrendered another one of those 350+ yard rushing games (look for Purdue to try and take advantage of that next week). This will likely be an issue all season. We will certainly see aggressive play calling on that side of the ball along with some big plays. But buckle up folks, I think we'll struggle with gap integrity all season long (Alan Tisdale was lost on a few of those big run plays, as French prophesied).
4. While the OL was fantastic in Pass Pro. (surprisingly good) it was equally as poor in run blocking. It was really poor at about every level possible. Add to that the fact that (1) Grant Wells still can't "read" in the read option game, or (2) he simply isn't allowed to do so. In either case, it will be tragic for this offense if that trend, whichever it is, continues.
5. I like what Tyler Bowen is trying to do. I thought the play calling was really good. I like what the passing game looks like. The OL gave Grant Wells a clean pocked all night. This offense, the passing game anyway, will go as Grant Wells goes. T-Bowen did an outstanding job of getting guys open in space and stretching the field. Can Grant Wells continue to evolve and become a decent QB? If so, we should lean on that as opposed to the run game.
I'll conclude with this - Mike Norvell is starting year 4 down at FSU and they appear to be firing on all cylinders. Now, to be fair, if he had Grant Wells instead of Jordan Travis the beatdown would have been a complete reversal. Great teams need great play from the QB position and FSU got that. I digress... My point is this - I see Pry and Co. taking a similar approach to the one Mike Norvell has taken. Ramp up recruiting to FSU level (Coach Pry is working to get us back to those annual top 20 classes - VT level). Hit the portal to fill in the gaps (as with VT, FSU's big stars were transfers). And patiently build the culture you want. I like Pry a lot! I hope the fanbase can be patient and continue to support, because the foundation for a genuine rebuild is being laid. I don't know if it will be 2024, 2025 or 2026, but VT football will be back in due time. Let's buckle up and enjoy the ride, even if there's some turbulence along the way.
Comments
Small sample size but he still rifles it to the receiver under 10 yards. He still is missing open men down field and throwing behind them. He did however get low snaps for about half the game so I'm not ready to put that all on him. The touch under 10 yards would be a big help to his game if he can find it.
Hasselbeck made similar comments about Wells' touch on the missed 4th & Goal and a few other passes so I have no doubt this is a legitimate opportunity for improvement of Wells' performance.
That said, Wells doesn't have the Railgun that LT3 was delivering footballs to Coale & Co, so maybe the WRs need to nudge the jugs machine speed up a couple notches, too.
I don't think it's necessarily the pace the ball is getting there so much as where exactly it's going. Most of the bad misses were just that. Either airmailed, behind, or directly into the back (I.e., not where hands can easily get). But yes I think both accuracy and touch need work
I'll never understand QBs who can throw it 100 mph to a receiver underneath when it's not necessary. It has to be an ego thing. Just throw it slower.
This would be high end VT classes. For the most part anything inside top 28 is par for Tech historically.
Agreed.
I understand and appreciate the sentiment being expressed by the OP however we have never consistently been in top 20. I would be ecstatic if Pry and company could transform our recruiting to top 20 classes.
All true statements - but if we could sustain top 28 classes for several cycles in a row, we'd be in much better shape as a program. That would significantly raise our floor.
I think we have only had one or two classes ranked higher than 20th.
Also FSU levels of recruiting are top 10, Norvell isn't back to FSU levels of recruiting.
It was ugly (as first games often are) and we beat a team we were supposed to by 19 points. Honestly, it tells us way less about this team than losing would have (or winning 62-0)
I still think it's going to be a frustrating season for VT. But that's just part of the path we're on. This was always going to be a long, slow rebuild no matter who is coaching. I like Pry a lot and hope he's successful. But we won't really know for a couple years at least. This was a win. We are undefeated. That's more than we could say at this point last season. So that's progress.
I feel like we learned quite a bit.
Some of it good, some of it not so good.
Dominating wouldn't have told us as much. I'm not sure losing would have told us a whole lot more. We have plenty of adjustments to make - the only question is can we grow enough to do that.
I see improvement over last year, and like the review and French pointed out, some deficiencies.
I think the D just oversold on defending the pass at all costs. I think they wanted to prevent the big back-breaking passing play. But the downside of that is we didn't man up enough on the outside to give ourselves a free hitter in the box, and the gap fits were very poor by the linebackers. They constantly washed themselves out of the play. That's going to need to be cleaned up but I fortunately think it can be. However I am concerned a bit at Mike as I don't know if we have a Dax to reliably stop the run there as of yet.
I like a lot of what the offense is doing. I thought Bowen did a pretty good job calling the game and it's super evident that we have upgraded skill position talent at every spot. I actually feel like we are pretty dangerous at WR and TE, and Tuten and Thomas are a really great RB duo. But we need to do better scheming our run game for those guys to be effective. We were pretty vanilla and running straight up the gut for the most part. I just don't know if this OL is built for that but it seems that's what Bowen wants to establish. Very poor run blocking by the O but I will say the pass pro was exceptionally good - gave wells a clean pocket all night. Wells just needs to settle down and build some confidence early on, I can almost feel his jumpiness with the overthrows and being a bit too amped up. When he has some success and gets some confidence he seems to settle in nicely. It's so much of a mind game thing IMO that is affecting Wells. If he can overcome that I think he could really do some damage through the air. When he is clicking he throws some nice balls. That deep shot to Ali down the sideline was beautiful, right over the shoulder and he didn't even break stride.
Some observations that just didn't fit in the review:
1) I was very pleased with kick coverage. Punt didn't get a lot of work, but the shorter high kickoffs led to poor field position for ODU. A+.
2) Wells missed some shots. He made some too. They need more, but the bigger story is that Wells didn't get his uniform dirty. More on that in the review.
3) The two young safeties, Phillips and Jones, played a ton. It seemed like they played more than Stroman and Peoples. They had some struggles with open field tackling, but they got really valuable repetitions.
Yep, OL, pass rush, linebacker fits all coming up when the editing is completed. Sorry for the delay but I had to drive back from Cooperstown yesterday.
Kick coverage was much improved. Did they get the ball past the 25 on a returnable ball?
Also, I was very pleased with how hard the running backs ran the ball. It isn't just OL. The scheme jams everything into cramped space. I don't understand some of the logic. Then you add the stubborn refusal by the OC to take some shots. When they did, the run game opened up a little bit where the 1-2 yard runs turned into 4-6 yard runs.
This is my mystery with Bowen. He seems hell bent on running up the middle. And I think we didn't take deep shots early in order to get Wells into a rhythm/give him some easy ones with all this quick hitters to the flat. Tuten was making yards out of nothing. If he gets schemed open he would be a nightmare to defend.
Tuten, always driving with the legs churning. Always trying to fall forward.
Possible he just wants to get the OL practice. We'll find out soon.
Ahh, Cooperstown is my hometown. I was surprised at how many young faces they were rotating on defense and at WR. Although, it seemed to mostly be run calls when the backup WRs were in.
We hit up Fly Creek, Ommegang, and Brooks BBQ while in town.
Totally agree on the run game scheme. ODU was stacking the box - and Bowen seemingly did nothing to counteract it from a playcalling standpoint. There were strange/awkward TE motions on a few plays and it all just looked off. Tuten kept hammering the ball into zero space - he deserves credit for grinding out what he got.
TSL shared a stat on their podcast that Tuten had 10 broken tackles, good for second in the nation so far. I am unable to verify this stat, but it's an indicator of how bad our line is, and how good Tuten is.
Looking at Adjusted Line Yard - VT only had 98 adjusted line yards, compared to ODU's 125, 2.3 and 3.8 ALY/carry, respectively (source).
TL;DR our line is not good at run blocking.
Watched the condensed game and noticed that Wells takes a single step forward on running plays only. Never on a designed pass play. It happened on every running play in the condensed highlights. He only play actioned off of it once. Is this an unintentional tell? Is it part of the offensive structure? Did you notice this and can you comment on the use of the step forward to key the run?
Noticed the same thing he leans in real hard
Someone on the 247 board pointed out the same thing. Unless you're the same person, not good that multiple people are noticing this. Anyone have a contact in the coaching staff?
No that wasn't me. I know people mentioned this last year, but it was super obvious in the condensed ODU game. Step forward = Run, step back = Pass. Seemed like such an obvious key - and should be easy to fix, unless this is by design for some reason.
Rewatching he definitely had a tendency to move/lean to the mesh point early not a great look if those aren't schemed as an RPO. He did pull one and made a TD pass out of it.
I noticed this last year and was hoping it would get corrected but it clearly didn't.
Seems like they could fix this with a slightly different alignment between the RB and QB. He's taking a step forward it looks like so that the RB has momentum running toward him for the hand off rather than standing directly beside the QB and having to go from a complete stop to full burst when he gets the ball. The RB should align a yard or two behind the QB and to the side I would think to avoid the problem.
Bowen has playmakers now and we did a good job of getting the ball in their hands. But we fail to set Tuten up to succeed - inside zone after inside zone. Nothing outside the tackles.
The first part of that may have been a schematic thing, and was to be expected, but hopefully managed
The second part of that can be coached, and in-game experience is the best way to show what needs to be coached up.
The third part will have to come down to experience and execution. We had r-So's at both starting LB spots who had a total of 3 starts between them. There's communications that need to be worked out, coordinations that need to be worked out, and just plain old fashioned minutes of watching what the other team is doing in the film room.
Edit: meant to be a reply to above.
5/5 agree!
Did something change in the targeting rule?
The randomness of the interpretation of it doesn't appear to have changed.
No all that changed was the prescriptions of the
se refs.guys in the booth.Edit: Sorry didn't watch the whole game.
Only one targeting was called by the refs on the field and that was picked up as a horrible call.
The other four were booth reviews.
Nothing has changed per se other than the fact that it is completely subjective and applied inconsistently.
Even the booth reviews are questionable at times.
There are ref crews (like ours) who throw the flag whenever there is even slight question of targeting and let the booth figure it out (i.e. the call that was reversed the ODU QB snapped his head back because he got hit from an odd angle, despite the fact that he was hit with a shoulder at shoulder level). That play never should have made it to the booth and a decent crew would have got it right on the field.
But then you have cases like the reversed call on ODU which appeared to be helmet to helmet yet was reversed. So the whole system seems somewhat random and inexplicable.
We could debate this endlessly and I don't think there is a simple solution to remove any subjectivity from the process but I do think removing the disqualification element of the rule would make a process that is frustratingly inconsistent less penal to players.
I would propose a system where suspension would only occur after a certain number of targeting penalties are accrued by a single player.
The disqualification aspect is so BS. I do like the season accrual idea or even a tiered system like a flagrant 1/2 though that will add even more subjectivity.
The goal for sport is to keep the best talent/players on the field at all times. A happenchance tackle resulting in removal from the game and suspension for the next game is not putting the best product on the field.
Punish continued abuse of the rule. The season is 12 games long, so I would hate to see someone who got a raw deal in Game 1 (get ejected/suspended), miss Game 2, then go all season with no violations then in Game 11 get another bad call and then have to miss Game 12 or their bowl game. I would be cool with a few ideas:
1. You go 4 to 6 games after your 1st offense with no violations, your 1st offense gets wiped clean.
2. Break the season into halves. If you have two violations in the first 6 games, you get suspended for a game. At the end of Game 6, if you have fewer than 2 violations, you start Game 7 with a clean slate at 0 violations.
3. Obvious malicious intent is automatic ejection as per the rule now.
Bitter talked about adding a penalty box with tiered penalty times in the TSL pod. Probably not happening, but would be fantastic.
I just imagine live subs like hockey absolute chaos on the field
The heckling would be phenomenal.
Ala yellow cards in soccer-two within the game=ejection; accumulation of X yellows within Y games (X an Y varying by league) results in one or two game suspension. (and not up to the club which games that suspension applies to)
for NCAAfb- two targetings in a game is immediate ejection(similar to one targeting today)n ; 2 within 3 games =ejection at the second occurrence; additional ones within 3(4)? games= ejection at addl occurrence and addl two games suspension? and maybe 15 yards as it is today for first occurrence; 2 for addl occurrence by same player in the same game?
Just a thought ...
I think I probably speak for most who watched, but here are my observations:
GOOD/IMPROVED:
BAD to ATROCIOUS:
It was a very stressful watch and we are going to get blown out by teams that can push us around. That being said we are going to give a few teams we play this year some serious headaches if Grant Wells can keep connecting on those long to medium throws.
He had some beautiful passes to go along with his 500mph zingers from 5 yards.
I think we can take some things that our team does really well and double down on them in the coming weeks. It may create a one dimensional feel but I believe it gives us the best chance to win football games. Hit em with the Novocain offense. Give it time it will work.
This was shockingly bad. We bit hard on every run option and just gifted the eventual ballcarrier about 5 yards before he was touched. And its not like ODU was doing anything tricky, they were very straightforward runs and every single time the isolated guy just allowed himself to overcommit and open a massive running lane. There was a period before the turnovers started where it seemed like this was going to potentially make this game much closer than it needed to be.
There were also one or two times when ODU was running the ball in the open field, and the defensive backs we had out there were looking to lock up with an offensive blocker rather than swarm to the ball. I specifically remember one time in the red zone when ODU got it down to the 5 yard line or so, and the corner was basically running away from the ballcarrier to lock up with a WR.
FSU has a monster DL, beast tailback and 3 legit WRs- one can't catch at all but he is 6'07 and fast. That is going to be an early 90's VT FSU game- they are going to beat us badly. We will not be able to run the ball or stop the run- the recipe for disaster. I thought we had very poor "push" up front on the OL. That HAS to improve. Tuten and Thomas can play, but they need some holes. I thought the VT LBs were a disappointment most of the night
oh hey there, sunshine
Yeah, going to tentatively chalk that one up in the loss column until further notice. To be fair though, I think the score got lopsided at the end because LSU sort of quit at some point. But FSU did look like a playoff team.
Objectively- how are we going to move the ball on FSU? That's my concern/take. I just don't see how we are going to generate offense on their D, especially in the run game.
This is just a guess, but with FSU's athletes on defense, I suspect we will be seeing a lot of Drones by then. Wells doesn't do a good job keeping defenses honest on these RPO plays (which I hope get a little less predictable)
I look to FSU's rebuild as a model as well - mostly because, 6 years ago (when Tagart was hired), their line was equally as bad as ours was last year. I think that it's going to take us 5ish years to get to 10 regular season wins.
I think comparing Wells to Travis is an oversimplification. FSU turned their OL from weakness to strength. Their receiver room is stacked. Their defense is solid.
And let us not forget Jordan Travis was a 3 star recruit and transferred in from Louisville and then thought of quitting football. He's not some Arch Manning type 5 star recruit. Norvell is winning with an average QB- because as you said, the line is legit now
Jordan Travis also took an ENORMOUS step forward as a passer between 2021 and 2022. The sort of fluky, hard to repeat development at the position. You can credit that to Norvell, of course, but I tend to think that it is more a case of they either had it in them or they didn't at QB.
You aren't wrong that the comparison is an oversimplification. However, J-Travis was running for his life all game long. That OL, as good as they may be, didn't help him out much in the passing game. Mike Norvell has done an excellent job developing him and making sure the offense gets playmakers in space.
But with the comparison, no I don't think Wells would be in the same ballpark as it relates to being able to make some of the plays and throws Travis makes with regularity.
You mean we *didn't* give up 350+ yards to ODU? It sure as hell seemed that way.
Positives:
Negatives:
Not sure what the issue with Grant Wells is, but to me it seems like his footwork isn't good enough, because he hasn't been coached well. He's throwing the ball without his feet aligned where the ball needs to go. If its an accurate ball its purely because of his upper body / arm talent. I know its ODU but our WRs and TEs were winning in the pass game, lots of YAC left on the field because if inaccurate throws.
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One game into this season, but it appears that Pry has at solved some issues relative to last season. Now lets be honest some of those issues are probably going to crop back up when we play better teams, as guys start pressing. But they were prepared and didn't beat themselves in Week 1.
Glad we came out with a win. Shore up a few things and it could've been a lot more convincing. We're not gonna be world beaters and I don't think anyone expected us to be. If we can find a way to run the ball on offense and stop the run on defense (both look like there's a potential to get better), I think we can win a few more games this year. Passing game and special teams were a big improvement, as was the lack of penalties. Keep building.
Nice to have a positive first week given our recent struggles. A lot of negativity for a win that covered the spread. I bet on the Hokies and was glad to get paid with a W and some $$.
Here's the Massey Composite Ranking for the ACC after week one.
Our VT-ODU win gained us 9 spots to FBS #79 (We ended last year #96).
Table is sorted by delta (change in MCR) from preseason.
Massey index to BC and LOLUVa:
My biggest frustration watching the game was much like last year, we just completely stalled out in the red zone. Settled for what, 2 field goals and 2 failed fourth downs inside the 15? We can't do that against other teams. Easily should have put up 50 points this game.
Good teams finish. We're not a good team. Yet. I hope Pry can get us there. It'll take time, though. Gotta be patient.
It's really tough to finish drives in an offense like this without a good run blocking OL.