Hokies Hold Full Speed Scrimmage Against Furman

I shared in any of your possible angst Saturday as the Hokies stumbled through a 14-0 first half lead against the FCS Furman Paladins. At live speed, worries over Brenden Motley's long-term viability as a quarterback seemed palatable as he failed to convert third-and-intermediate opportunities in the passing game. Defensively, the Hokies struggled to keep Furman off the edge, and tackling again appeared to be an issue. At halftime, more than a vocal minority of fans were having serious doubts about the Hokies beginning the ACC schedule with a winning record.

In the second half, the lights came on offensively. Scot Loeffler found a rhythm using more option and play-action oriented play calling that seemed to make Motley much more comfortable. His receivers found large holes in Furman's secondary, and outside of one overthrow to Isaiah Ford down the right sideline Motley was accurate. Defensively it was still a roller coaster. The d-line had a bounce back game highlighted by an amazing series by DT Woody Baron where he forced a fumble, had a tackle for a loss, and ended the series with a sack. Secondary coverage was excellent. Brandon Facyson and Kendall Fuller each broke up several passes. Despite many examples of strong play, Bud Foster's defense struggled to keep a plodding Furman team from getting to the edge, and counter action again exposed the Tech linebackers' inability to squeeze trap blocks.

Interestingly, after re-watching the game, I was much more positive about the Hokies and their immediate future. The coaching staff seemed to use this game as more of a full speed scrimmage than a seriously game planned opponent. Loeffler's structure of the passing game in the first half seemed much more designed around trying to get Motley up to speed on the timing and progressions of the drop back passing game that suited Michael Brewer. Defensively, Foster used some defensive formations that I can't recall the Hokies deploying in recent history. Some of those formations (or errors in alignment that produced those odd formations) appeared to be responsible for some of the Hokies' inability to keep the Paladins from attacking the edge. They could have also been red herrings—alignments that Foster wanted future opponents to have on film and prepare for, but has no intention of using.

The Good, the Bad, and the Inexplicable on Defense

In Labor Day's rematch against Ohio State, the Hokies didn't look as fast, aggressive, or physical as in the first encounter with the Buckeyes. This week, I hoped to see a dominant effort. The scoreboard indicated that the defense did their job, however Furman's ability to extend drives, especially running the football, left a nervous feeling in my stomach.

There were some real positives in the game for the defense. The defensive line dominated the interior and pressured Furman quarterback Reese Hannon (who passed for a school record 365 yards against a good Coastal Carolina team) into a miserable day. The Hokies man-to-man and zone coverage was excellent. The defense forced turnovers that gave the offense wiggle room as they struggled to find their legs.

The secondary played much more outside leverage this week, even from press alignments. Outside leverage allows the coverage man to look in at the quarterback and jump routes. Early, outside leverage baited Hannon into a bad throw that opened the scoring for the Hokies.

Furman runs triple slants from a trips formation to the field. Kendall Fuller blitzes from the boundary along with Deon Clarke from a base backer alignment. Brandon Facyson plays a deep third to the field side. Greg Stroman plays outside leverage on the wide receiver. Free safety Chuck Clark plays outside leverage on the middle receiver. Adonis Alexander is deep aligned in centerfield as the rover.

Given Alexander's distance from the inside slot receiver, the quarterback reads that mike linebacker Andrew Motuapuaka will sit inside under the inside slant route. Alexander closes quickly, and Motuapuaka tracks the quarterback's eyes to move under the second slant. The quarterback gets baited by the outside leverage of Chuck Clark. Clark seemingly gives the receiver a free release inside. For the quarterback, the free release means throw the ball. Motuapuaka comes underneath the route and snags the interception for the touchdown. However, as good a play as this by Motuapuaka, Clark completely beat the receiver on the break. If Motuapuaka doesn't intercept this, there is a good chance Clark might.

Rover Adonis Alexander is a name to watch. Desmond Frye was on the field for the opening snap, however Alexander got most of the work on passing downs and certainly was noticeable. Alexander intercepted a deflected pass for his first interception as a Hokie, and a questionable call negated Alexander's first forced and recovered fumble. I was particularly impressed with Alexander's press coverage on the inside receiver to the boundary.

Alexander is aligned in press coverage against the Furman tight end to the top of your screen.

Alexander is incredibly physical with the tight end and prevents him from getting any kind of quick free release to the inside. By the time the tight end has cleared the five-yard contact zone, the quarterback has made the unwise decision to challenge Kendall Fuller on the boundary. Fuller defends the pass, and at the end of the play you can see Chuck Clark coming to support Fuller's outside leverage with inside leverage deep help. I could have highlighted several plays that showcased Alexander stymying the interior receivers for Furman. Alexander has range and man coverage ability that I have not seen in a rover for some time. Watching his technique, I saw flashes of Jimmy Williams. Alexander's future could eventually be at the boundary corner spot.

The Hokies' front-seven pressured Hannon and controlled the interior running game throughout most of the contest. Furman was most successful moving the ball running speed option along with counter trey. The success of the speed option baffled me. As I have written many times before, every defensive call features an assigned edge and alley player to each side of the defense, coupled with a force-spill call. If the assigned edge player and alley player execute the call properly, an unblocked defender should find themselves alone in space with the run blocker.

Foster used a strange defensive alignment against a specific Furman formation that created a numerical advantage for Furman back to the field side. Furman lined up with two tight ends to the boundary side, the running back offset to the boundary side next to the quarterback, and twin recievers to the field.

Foster responded by having Kendall Fuller and Brandon Facyson cover the twins man-to-man while running a variation of the Bear that I'm not accustomed to seeing. This version has the backer aligned as the edge player to the boundary side (the backer played to the field against Ohio State). The whip is tucked on the line of scrimmage inside of the strong side offensive tackle. Frye is in at rover and aligns just behind Clarke. Even free safety Chuck Clark is on the boundary side of the field. This leaves only Nigel Williams (the three-technique d-tackle), Motuapuaka (mike linebacker), and defensive end Vinny Mihota to the wide side of the field. That means Furman has six defenders to the strong side, and only three defenders to the field side. Furman attacks them with a speed option.

Vinny Mihota is unblocked on the speed option. Furman has three blockers now to account for Motuapuaka and Williams. If you apply the force/spill concept, Mihota is spilling the play wide, however there is no alley player to his side of the field to take the pitch man. Motuapuaka gets sucked into the line of scrimmage, which gives the right offensive tackle a chance to cut block him. Motuapuaka has to know the call. if Mihota has the quarterback on a spill call, Motuapuaka has to give ground and get flat down the line to support pitch. Clark also takes a bad angle. Instead of running straight to the sideline, he angles towards the line of scrimmage. He ends up leapfrogging the same blocker that cut Motuapuaka. The lack of support on the edge gives the back wide open space to run until Clark recovers and Facyson sheds his block to make the tackle.

I thought perhaps there was an alignment error, however the next time Furman came out in that formation, Tech used the same alignment. Once again Furman ran a variation of speed option to the field side, and again the Hokies didn't have an alley player in place to defend the play.

This time, Ken Ekanem slow played the pitch and then tried to scramble back outside to get to the pitch man. Motuapuaka again took a step forward and got bumped before getting on his horse to the sideline. This is a shorter gain because Clark runs flat down the line to intercept the back after around a five-yard gain. Clark plays this much better, however it begs the question—is Clark aligned incorrectly, or was Foster just showing an odd defensive look that future opponents will be forced to game plan against even though it may not factor into his plans? I doubt Clark would be aligned incorrectly against the same formation twice in a row.

My biggest concern regarding the defense is linebacker play. Last week, Motuapuaka struggled in space. His play improved this week, especially in between the tackles, however seeing Motuapuaka getting cut on option plays caused me great angst when thinking about the looming matchup with Georgia Tech.

Deon Clarke and Ronny Vandyke both had some forgettable moments. Vandyke played less against Furman than against Ohio State as Foster used more four-man defensive fronts and a nickel. When Vandyke was in the game, he botched some force/spill assignments that allowed Furman to get on the edge.

On this play, Furman runs a toss sweep. I believe that Vandyke has a force call, meaning he must contain the running back and force him back to the inside.

The tackle pulls and manages to get outside of Vandyke and seal him inside. I think this is a force call because free safety Chuck Clark is the alley player, and his first step when he sees pitch is to the inside, not the sideline. If Vandyke indeed had a force call, he would turn the running back inside, and Clark would run straight downhill (just like his first step indicates) to fill the alley. Clark stops when he sees Vandyke get sealed inside and then tries to recover by running flat to the boundary. If I am correct, this is a textbook example of how the edge defender must correctly execute the force/spill call or he will put the alley player out of position.

If I am wrong and Vandyke has a spill call, then Clark makes the mistake by stepping straight ahead against the pitch. That is a possibility (without being in the film room it is tough to be sure), however I think it is unlikely because Vandyke takes on the pulling tackle with his inside shoulder initially to keep outside leverage. That indicates that he is trying to force the play, however when the tackle gains some momentum, Vandyke makes the mistake of jumping inside to try and get off the block. The big positive on this play is Motuapuaka. He scrapes and stays off blocks and makes a nice tackle in space.

Deon Clarke had some moments when he too struggled to shed the block of a pulling lineman. Furman's most successful play in the second half was a standard counter trey. From an I formation, Furman's back side tackle pulls to the play side and kicks out the first opposite colored jersey that shows. The fullback simulates an isolation/sprint draw play by diving into the space abandoned by the pulling tackle to cut off back side pursuit. The running back steps the same direction as the fullback, then takes a counter step and follows the tackle, where a hole usually opens up play side off-tackle. A similar concept was a staple of our offense at Emory & Henry, where I knew it as "56 Draw."

Luther Maddy blows up the middle, knocking the pulling tackle off course. Clarke is all alone, one-on-one with the Furman running back in the hole. The back bounces outside and Clarke doesn't even get a hand on him. Nicolas had the force correctly executed and Maddy blew things up inside. The defense is executed perfectly to leave Clarke alone with the back. He has to make this play. Worse for the Hokies is that this play saw Furman use some cut blocks to devastating effectiveness. Motuapuaka dodges a cut block on his right side and gets cut down on his left side. He left the game and didn't return. Ken Ekanem also got nicked on the play, and fell into Maddy awkwardly as well. Initial reports are that Motuapuaka and Ekanem are not seriously hurt. Thank goodness.

On another counter Clarke was kicked out by the pulling tackle. He has to play with a heavier shoulder to stick the tackle in the hole rather than running around the block and widening the hole.

Next week, Purdue presents a stiffer test for the Hokies' defense. Purdue uses counter action that demands players play their responsibilities correctly without losing their aggressiveness. Purdue QB Austin Appleby is a threat to run and loves to throw and run off of inside zone action. His legs forces the edge players on the back side of zone reads to stay honest and account for the quarterback. The Hokies will use the long week to make any corrections on alignment errors and I have a feeling that tackling and taking on trap blocks will be points of emphasis during individual work and in the linebacker meeting room.

Making Motley Comfortable: Inverted Veer and Play-Action Structure

I am going to go a little out of my comfort zone this week. Normally, the first thing that I review during my Sunday cram sessions is the offensive line play. This week, I watched four offensive series and only noted one significant error from the offensive line group. The down five were aggressive, dominated a smallish Furman front, and stayed on their blocks with tremendous footwork. This is a group that is doing a much better job of staying engaged with blockers and maintaining leg drive than recent renditions of the Virginia Tech offensive line. Of the blemishes, on occasion an offensive lineman failed to get square on a defender at the second level, which will happen from time to time. On one play, I was disappointed to see Yosh Nijman cut block right off the snap on an outside zone. Against Ohio State he scooped a much bigger and quicker defensive tackle and then cut him as the defensive tackle rolled off the block. This is easily correctable. The game plan was relatively simple with very little pin and pull blocking, and the starting group executed well. The second team group opened up huge holes for Travon McMillian, Shai McKenzie, Dwayne Lawson, and Chris Durkin.

The storyline of this game was Brenden Motley acclimating to being QB1. Loeffler threw him in the fire early. Tech opened the game using the same three-step drop passing triangle passing concept that Michael Brewer thrived in. On Tech's first offensive play of the football game, the Hokies ran a smash route concept (quick curl by Hodges designed to draw up the corner and a corner route by Ford) to the field side, with double in routes to the boundary.

The corner stays glued to Hodges, so after a small shoulder fake to freeze the safety Motley moves to his second progression in Ford. Ford breaks outside under the deep safety. Right here I see Motley's lack of confidence. Ford is open and the ball should be arriving as Ford takes his first or second step to the outside. Instead, Motley pats the ball (you would assume because he is worried about the safety). At this moment, the football needs to be releasing from Motley's hand.

Instead, Motley does not start his throwing motion until Ford has taken three strides to the outside. At this point, the safety knows Ford is committed to the corner route, and the safety closes accordingly. After Ford leaves the picture (around stride 6), Motley releases the football. This is way too late. The safety has plenty of time to close and deflect the pass. This is very likely an easy interception against a good safety. If Motley doesn't feel confident that a receiver is open, he should look to run or move through his progressions. As you watch the clip, Cam Phillips (progression 4) breaks open on a crossing route in front of the safety. Motley has to either commit to Ford when he breaks outside or move into the next progression. Motley is about two counts behind here.

Furman also deserves some credit. Against the standard pro-passing concepts used by Loeffler, the Paladins covered well.

Despite some of the early offensive struggles, Motley looked much more comfortable selling read option fakes than he did against Ohio State. Motley played in a Wing-T system at Christiansburg HS where hiding the ball in the mesh point is a critical factor in confusing the defense. In most of Motley's game and scrimmage action, he has been most effective using those ball fakes and then going where the defense isn't. Against Ohio State, Motley's mesh fakes were shoddy. His quarterback keepers looked like they were straight quarterback runs all the way (making them easy to defend), and the secondary didn't bite on play-action off those read plays. Motley has to use that important skill in order to maximize his effectiveness as a starter.

Motley was significantly improved with his ball handling against Furman. Here is a terrific example. The Hokies run a simple outside zone read with Motley and J.C. Coleman. The Furman defensive end is unblocked. Motley puts the ball into the stomach of Coleman and reads the defensive end. If the end crashes, Motley keeps and runs to the outside. If the end stays wide, Coleman gets the ball.

The key is hiding the football so the end thinks that the back has it. Motley sells this beautifully. The end crashes hard to the inside after Coleman, and Motley scampers for a nice gain.

For the most part, the Hokies ran the ball effectively. However, for some of the rare case where they were held to a short gain, I found that the running back and o-line had little culpability. The play structure, specifically oddly designed package plays, allowed for unblocked defenders in the box that couldn't be accounted for by the offensive line.

Here is an example of an inside zone read packaged with a wide receiver screen to the right side.

Coleman aligns to the left of Motley, while the receiver screen is set up to the right side. When Motley creates the mesh point with Coleman, he is facing left, and can't see the receiver on the screen. The nickel defender who is responsible for the screen quickly recognizes that the screen is not a threat, and he attacks the dive. The offensive line opens up a huge hole, however there is the unblocked nickel right in the hole to tackle Coleman. Meanwhile, the receiver is standing off to the right with nothing to do. I am not sure if this is an alignment error with Motley, Coleman, or another issue altogether.

As the game progressed, Loeffler started to incorporate more play-action and vertical routes into the passing game. Motley was much more comfortable throwing off of run action. Play-action off zone reads and inverted veer-jet sweep run action generated big play after big play. Those big chunk plays are critical when an offense starts to struggle sustaining drives due to a lack of ability to convert third downs with the intermediate passing game.

One play in particular got Motley going in the right direction. The Hokies showed a jet sweep and used Ryan Malleck to wham block the back side defensive end. The wham block is critical because it allowed Tech's offensive line to zone block play side and trigger the defense's zone run keys while still accounting for anything off the end of the line.

Hodges gets inside leverage on the safety and is decisive coming out of the fake. This is an easy throw and catch. Additionally, the Hokies have showcased a slant/post threat that was almost entirely absent with Michael Brewer running the offense.

On this play, the Hokies show a jet sweep and pull Parker Osterloh to sell the power / inverted veer.

This time Cline runs the post. On the outside, Phillips reads a deep cover 3 and settles down underneath the corner. Motley reads the same defense and decisively hits Phillips. Motley looks nothing like the rattled quarterback from Monday night.

Many folks have asked me what I thought of Dwayne Lawson's performance. I think you can see the upside in the true freshman signal caller. Loeffler's deployment of Lawson as a Wild Turkey QB seemed a bit misguided, as it became pretty apparent that Lawson was going to run a quarterback counter every time he rotated in. If Lawson is going to be the No. 2 behind Motley until Brewer returns, I think Loeffler has to give him a more diverse offensive package in order for Lawson to be effective. If he doesn't grasp at least as much offense as Motley did as a backup last season, burning Lawson's redshirt may have been the wrong course of action.

Lawson was tentative on those early rushing attempts. When Durkin and Lawson rotated on the last touchdown series, Durkin was much more assertive running the football, including one nice play where he received a bad snap and still created a mesh point with the running back that fooled the defensive end.

On the series prior to the last touchdown, Lawson got an opportunity to work more with the regular offensive playbook. After getting the team into field goal position, Lawson had three consecutive throws where he made the correct read (including a very nice read on a deep in route on third down). However, all three throws hit the turf in front of the receiver. Lawson completed a nice out route to Kevin Asante later that showed his arm strength. However, for Lawson to be a serious challenger to Motley, he has to be more accurate in the drop back passing game. I would have liked to have seen Loeffler give Durkin a chance to throw the ball off play-action, especially given how effective he was in the running game. I guess we will have to wait a few weeks to see if Durkin's progressions and accuracy have improved enough since the spring for him to make this a three-horse race for the quarterback position.

Purdue will be much more aggressive against read option runs than Furman, so play-action will give the Hokies' playmakers an opportunity to get behind the defense. Motley showed poise in a learning experience against Furman in those situations. On Saturday against the Boilermakers, he will be asked to make quicker decisions and beat tighter coverage, especially over the top.