Assessing the Hokies' Inconsistencies in a 24-21 Victory Against Duke

Virginia Tech didn't play its best game against the Blue Devils, but nevertheless got a the win. Analyzing the highs and lows.

[Michael Shroyer]

The Hokies escaped Duke with a 24-21 win on Saturday; a victory that at best can be described as inconsistent. Duke's offensive attack kept the Hokies' defense off-balance. In addition, Virginia Tech's offense struggled when the Blue Devils took away the quick slants and deep fades that have been staples of Tech's offense when it's effective.

Analyzing the Hokies' Ground Attack

Justin Fuente's offensive staff tried to establish the run with mixed results to keep Duke's linebackers from dropping underneath quick slants. On the opening drive of the game, the Hokies kept it simple with repeated inside zones. As exemplified on this play, the simple equation of the Hokies superior mass up front, coupled with a strong turnout block by Chris Cunningham, and hard running by Steven Peoples produced solid gains again and again.

The wheels came off when the Hokies attempted to complement the inside zone game with outside zone and counter action. Duke used a variety of run stunts to create movement up front. Those stunts seemed to confuse the blocking scheme, and on too many running plays bust were evident. Outside of Peoples and Cunningham, the skill position blockers struggled mightily to execute their blocks on the edge.

This following play was emblematic of the Hokies' inconsistency blocking. They run a pin-and-pull outside zone to the right side. Peoples (aligned as the H-Back to the boundary) pancakes DE Marquies Price (No. 91). Wyatt Teller pulls and leads up to cut down all world Duke linebacker Ben Humphreys (No. 34).

Meanwhile, Bucky Hodges was assigned to seal LB Joe Giles-Harris (No. 44). Hodges doesn't drive into Giles-Harris, which allows Giles-Harris to slide off the block with ease and get to the edge. Augie Conte is the lead pulling guard on the play and he looks like a million bucks coming around the edge. When he reaches Giles-Harris, Conte bounces off of him ineffectively. On the inside, Eric Gallo has to block down on DT Mike Ramsey (No. 99). Gallo has what should be an easy block. Gallo is aligned between Ramsey and the football. Gallo should have his head across Ramsey's left side to interject himself into Ramsey's pursuit angle. Instead, Gallo puts his head on Ramsey's right side with a very passive (almost like a pass block) posture. Ramsey slides off Gallo's block and tracks down Sam Rogers from behind. Two great blocks, coupled with three bad ones produce a loss of yardage and a third-and-long.

Similar blocking errors even happened on positive plays. On Travon McMillian's touchdown run, Duke blitzed field-side strike safety Corbin McCarthy (No. 26) off the Hokies' left flank. Humphreys then blitzed around the edge to the same side, and Duke's d-line slanted hard to the boundary. The Hokies ran an inside zone.

Sam Rogers reads the blitz and cuts off McCarthy. The rest of the offensive line zones to the right, except for Teller. He sees Humphreys vacate the B-gap where normally he and Teller would collide. Instead of continuing inside to find the other inside linebacker, Teller turns and helps Nijman kick out DE Terrell Lucas (No. 90). Unfortunately, Giles-Harris is also stunting and slides right over into Humphreys' B-gap. McMillian hits the hole and Giles-Harris is right there ready to stick him. McMillian runs right through his tackle for a touchdown. This was the most assertive run of McMillian's season and I thought the announcers (and many fans) didn't play up his individual effort as much as it should have been.

This familiar pattern continued for most of the game. The Hokies would hit a couple of plays, and then get a loss due to a bust in the run game to get behind the sticks. Ultimately, they couldn't sustain enough drives. Most of the busts came on counters and outside runs. When the Hokies got the football back with 4:06 left on the clock, I expected offensive coordinator Brad Cornelsen to stick with the inside zone series. Instead, he called a series counter-treys off the inside zone action and the Hokies' blockers delivered the holes needed to drain the clock.

On first down Virginia Tech lined up with Rogers to the left at H-Back and McMillian back and to the right of Jerod Evans. Based on alignment and tendency, this formation indicates an inside zone to the field-side. The right side of the offensive line sells the inside zone by taking a step at the snap to its left. Duke's defensive line slants the same direction.

Teller pulls to the right. DE Marquies Price (No. 91) is crashing hard to the inside, so Teller gets on his outside shoulder and then rides him to the inside. This takes tremendous athleticism and is a highlight reel block for guard play. Rogers pulls around and drives Giles-Harris out of the hole. McMillian plants his right foot and explodes past rover Alonzo Saxton II (No. 21) for a 21-yard gain. Note, Conte does a terrific job chipping the DT before heading to the second-level to smother Humphreys. Successful execution of the counter trey was crucial to the Hokies keeping Duke's defense off balance on the game's final series.

That Battle of Wits Between Bud Foster and David Cutcliffe

The cat and mouse game between David Cutcliffe and Bud Foster always makes for an interesting chess match. Perhaps more than any other staff in the ACC Coastal, Cutcliffe and co. seem to have a better grasp of the Hokie front-seven's defensive keys. From this knowledge base, the Duke staff designs blocking schemes that manipulates the Hokies' defensive front into slanting in ways that become advantageous for the offense.

In 2014, Foster adjusted mid-game by having his defensive line penetrate north-south rather than slanting. As result, the defense (which was gashed for 121 rushing yards in the first quarter) shut down Duke the rest of the way for a 17-16 upset.

Again on Saturday, the undermanned Blue Devils and their blocking scheme seemed to have the Hokies' front-seven running away from the football all game long. On this play, the Blue Devils run an inside zone read. Duke' offensive line zones to its right.

The defensive front and linebacker Andrew Motuapuaka key the first step of Duke's offensive line. When the offensive line steps to the right, Motuapuaka and the front move in the same direction. Ken Ekanem crashes hard to the inside to spill the play. Unfortunately, Motuapuaka is scraping the wrong direction and Chuck Clark is too deep to give immediate support.

After the mesh, RB Shaun Wilson (No. 29) immediately, subtly adjusts his path and QB Daniel Jones (No. 17) has the luxury of a lead blocker. This creates the same situation the Hokies struggled with against Duke last season — Tech is outnumbered at the point of attack and one defender has to account for a blocker and a runner.

Jones also had success keeping the ball on the inside zone read. On this play, Seth Dooley crashed on the dive, and both linebackers scraped away from the dive and the keeper.

The crash combined with the linebackers scraping away left Jones with an easy read to keep. Terrell Edmunds is all that remains to defend Jones in space. On this play, Edmunds' alignment near the line of scrimmage minimizes the damage. Unfortunately, most of the game Edmunds was aligned in a deep center field position while Duke featured trips regularly to Chuck Clark's side.

Virginia Tech's Defensive Ends Didn't Have a Good Day at the Office

It didn't help matters that collectively the Hokies' defensive ends played poorly. Foster expressed his frustration with their performance.

"Our ends were bending and working on the dive and we wanted them to take the quarterback," Foster said. "It's just fundamental football, it goes back to day one. We had a call one time, we were gonna blitz, they changed the call and shifted it back and the end didn't get the call. We went back to base defense. He should have been playing the quarterback and he bent for the dive. Those are things that, mistakes that we can't make. It didn't cost us (today). Those are communications that we've gotta do a better job as a group to make sure we've got 11 players on the same page."

Former Hokie defensive end Jeremy Haynes expressed his frustration and showcased one example of how the defensive ends were not executing the scheme properly.

On this play, both defensive tackles align in the B-gaps and the linebackers align even wider. This makes it look like a giant bubble is open between the guards. At the snap, Woody Baron crashes across the face of the guard into the A-gap. Tremaine Edmunds stunts bends out and shoots the C-gap. The problem is that defensive end Seth Dooley is supposed to crash through the B-gap and instead he maintains outside leverage in the C-gap. Instead of creating a wall that occupies all three gaps, a huge bubble opens up between Dooley and Baron. The announcer wrongly blames Baron. This is on Dooley for not executing the crash.

Seth Dooley was far from the only culprit. A banged up Vinny Mihota labored to keep contain on bootlegs. Trevon Hill was set up to make some plays against the dive by crashing hard, only to miss the tackle.

This time around, the Hokies have the quarterback well defended. Motuapuaka fills the gap outside of Hill. Anthony Shegog comes up to force the quarterback keep inside. Hill crashes on the dive. Jones gives the ball to Wilson on the dive, and he runs right through Hill's arm tackle for 15 yards.

Virginia Tech's most heralded defensive linemen, Ken Ekanem, also struggled against Duke's read option attack (a trend throughout his career). On Duke's first touchdown drive Ekanem lost contain twice, and on the final touchdown, it appears that Ekanem may have also busted an assignment.

Duke runs a basic inverted veer. The right tackle blocks down on Tremaine Edmunds and the right guard blocks down on Woody Baron. Ekanem isn't really kicked out as much as he maintains outside leverage against the pulling left guard like he expects someone to fit the hole inside. Essentially, both he and Motuapuaka cover the same gap, leaving the inside gap open.
There is room for improvement across the board here. On of either Ekanem or Motuapuaka missed their assignment when they fitted in the wrong gap. When Baron feels the down block, he goes up field instead of giving ground and crossing the face of the guard (a problem that Luther Maddy had last year fighting through down blocks). Also, Edmunds gets completely eaten up by the right tackle.

With the struggles against the read option, the last team the Hokies' defense would want to see on the schedule is Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets force defenses to play assignment football. The Bees put tremendous pressure on defensive ends to make tackles on dives or slow play the quarterback depending on the defensive calls. Busted assignments against an option offense like Georgia Tech is a recipe for disaster.

That being said, at critical moments Virginia Tech's defense was able to elevate their level of play. Early in the third quarter, the Blue Devils drove to the Hokies' 20-yard line and had a fresh set of downs. Ricky Walker and Woody Baron delivered sacks on two of the next three plays to drive Duke out of field goal range. After Terrell Edmunds was ejected for targeting on Duke's final possession, Tremaine Edmunds sacked Jones after Ricky Walker blew up Duke's center to disrupt the play. On third-and-seven from the same series, Mook Reynolds leveled Jones on a well-disguised nickel blitz to disrupt the rhythm on a fade route. Shegog from his bandit spot had beautiful coverage on the Duke receiver.

The Hokies will be without Terrell Edmunds for a half and corner Greg Stroman's status is unknown. Defensive linemen Nigel Williams, Vinny Mihota, and Trevon Hill are battling injuries. The Hokies will have to grow up in a hurry and play much sharper to shut down Georgia Tech.

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