It's All About Options, Stupid

It wasn't pretty, but on a night when the Hokies desperately needed to stop the bleeding, the tandem of Marcellous Hawkins and Kyron Drones were the tourniquet Virginia Tech needed to earn a much needed victory over 5-2 Cal. It seemed at times that both teams and the officiating crew wanted the ACC's Friday night showcase to look like Wednesday night MAC-tion. Virginia Tech gave Cal second opportunities with horrific decision making, penalties, and special teams blunders, all of which cost the Hokies chances to win against South Carolina, Wake Forest, and Georgia Tech. But a resilient offense, which bounced back from a horrific interception by Drones and repeated defensive breakdowns in the secondary, established an identity and carried the Hokies to 357 rushing yards and a 42-34 victory. Interestingly, it was an identity that was probably there all along.

Throughout the season, the Hokies have run the football well, particularly on the outside zone. However, the offense was hamstrung early in the season by a stubborn insistence on throwing the ball on first down. Sacks and penalties happened far too often on those passing attempts, putting the Hokies into situations where they could not use the run game to its fullest potential. On Friday night, the Hokies stayed on schedule, played physically, and took advantage of a glaring weakness in Cal's defensive communication to generate offensive success.

Read This Option

Throughout the season, the one thing that the Hokies have done consistently well is run the football. However, Philip Montgomery has chosen to start games pass heavy and seemingly not reinforce good run fakes on zones by Drones. With the benefit of the off week, it appeared that the coaching staff did some much needed self scouting, and the game plan relied heavily on read option and triple option. More significantly, the Golden Bears regularly failed to account for the quarterback in the read game, either by having extra defenders bite on the running back or by taking pitch on options and trying to defend Drones with a deep safety. And let's be frank, they were absolutely awful defending the option.

Takye Heath (No. 2) motions into the boundary, then as Tech ran an outside zone read to the field, he took a step back to create a pitch relationship with Drones on a keeper. The Hokies blocked things well up front, with left tackle Johnny Garrett (No. 79) pancaking both defensive tackle T.J. Bollers (No. 88) and his teammate LG Layth Ghannamon (No. 56) with his scoop block. With Ghannam not getting to the second-level, the Golden Bears had four unblocked defenders in run support. How did this play pop?