Technically Washed Out

Over the years, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech have had a terrific rivalry, earmarked by a talent advantage of the former and scheme superiority of the latter. The 35-20 loss in Atlanta felt like a changing of the guard, with Georgia Tech's offense flashing way more muscle and talent than their defensive counterparts en route to a dominating performance. The Georgia Tech run game opened up easy play-action throws for dynamic quarterback Haynes King, while backup running back Malachi Hosley frequently had gigantic holes to run through.

There were not all negatives. Virginia Tech's linebacker group, especially Caleb Woodson, Noah Chambers, and George Ballance, delivered a physical performance that I haven't seen from the linebacker group in some time. But too often they were hung out to dry by a defensive line that seemed incapable of resisting an excellent Georgia Tech offensive line. Offensively, Virginia Tech once again ran the ball very effectively, averaging 5.5 yards a carry. But stupid first down penalties and mistakes repeatedly took the Hokies out of running sets, and Kyron Drones, the pass protection, and the passing game structure were not good enough to overcome the self-inflicted deficit.

Gap Scheme has the Defense Feeling Yellow

The key to this game was very simple. When the Hokies have played well defensively, the defensive line has eaten up double teams, leaving the linebackers free to make plays (although that linebacker group hasn't consistently made them.) Not only did the Yellow Jackets consistently block the Hokies defensive linemen one-on-one (which allowed their other linemen to release to the linebackers), but for the most part dominated those individual matchups. Take this outside zone run to the field as an example:

Left guard Joe Fusile (No. 67) barely made contact with DT Immanuel Hickman (No. 97) on his combo block. Instead, he releases and climbs to field linebacker Kaleb Spencer (No. 3) and buries him. He moved to the second-level because center Harrison Moore (No. 52) scooped Hickman one-on-one. Moore got Hickman to stretch laterally to the sideline, and when Hickman tried to recover, he put him into the turf.

Consider also that when an offense chooses to block defensive tackles one-on-one, the most dangerous threat is the backside defensive tackle. In this case, Kody Huisman (No. 98) had inside position on right tackle Malachi Carney (No. 72), but didn't make the play. The free release resulted in Spencer and Noah Chambers both swallowed up and traveling backwards.

Georgia Tech found most of their success with gap scheme power blocking, blocking down at the point of attack with a puller coming from the backside to kick out the edge. Defensively, the linebacker has to fill the space created between the down block and the edge kickout. Often that linebacker has to take on a second pulling blocker to fill the gap. It is imperative for the interior defensive lineman to minimize the space that the linebacker has to fill to gum the play up and allow backside pursuit to run the play down from behind. Unfortunately for the Hokies, the defensive line got washed inside way too frequently.