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If you want the cold hard truth, our Virginia Tech football team just isn’t that good this year. Blame the coaches if you must but I’m not convinced that coaching problems is why we’re 3-2 this season. Do they deserve some blame, of course. They’re paid extremely well to win football games. When that doesn’t happen, you have to question their motives and philosophy. That comes with the territory in the profession.
But, in my lifetime, I’ve watched Virginia Tech win 10 games for eight straight years, dominate UVA for most of the last 15 years, and beat countless top 25 opponents. That doesn’t happen unless you have a competent coaching staff. If you think these guys have become bumbling fools overnight then you are sadly mistaken.
With that being said, we do need to make some adjustments going forward. Whatever our goal is on offense needs to be redefined and we need to simplify our gameplan. You can’t play an entire half of football and record just two first downs if you want to win the game. You can’t wait until the 2nd half to open up the playbook. Adjustments are needed but I’ll dive into that more in a second.
Back to the team itself, our team is young and not as talented in key areas. For whatever reason, we’ve struggled with attrition in the 2008 and 2009 classes, which have led to a lot of the 2010 and 2011 recruiting class playing snaps probably a year before they’re ready. A good example of that is Michael Cole, who was beat with 13 seconds left for the game winning touchdown. Cole is a heady player, a savvy guy, and a good athlete. He’s also a freshman who made a very costly freshman mistake in letting Damon Julian behind him in the final seconds.
Those mistakes happen in college football. It’s what makes the game so exciting and gut-wrenching at the same time. Honestly, that’s all I have to say about yesterday’s game. It hurt but at the end of the day the loss is largely meaningless. We’re not in the National Title race this year and Cincinnati is not an ACC opponent. Should we have won that game? Probably. From my view, VT was the more talented team. But, when you can’t find any rhythm on offense, the talent level goes out the window and the victory will go to the better, more well-oiled machine and Cincinnati was definitely the better ‘team’ yesterday.
Now, the Hokies need to make the trip back to Blacksburg and figure out what’s gone wrong this season. I’ll give my thoughts on that below.
The Offense
The offense has three major problems right now. First, the offensive line cannot get a push. I don’t know if it’s a personnel issue, a scheme issue, or a combination of the two. But, our offensive line cannot move an opposing defensive tackle off the line of scrimmage. We also look incredibly confused on who to block at certain times in the game. That lack of physicality has cost us two games this season.
Second, Logan Thomas has struggled to overcome the first issue listed above and thus has looked out of rhythm all season. He continues to overthrow receivers, miss open receivers down field, and hasn’t been a threat in the running game all year. This is not the same Logan Thomas we saw last season.
Lastly, we just don’t have a playmaker on offense that can kick-start our offense. Last year, Wilson was a sparkplug that could break a 30 or 40 yard run at any time. Opposing defenses had to respect that, which left Jarrett Boykin and Danny Coale in a lot of one-on-one coverage. That led to a lot of big plays from those guys. This year, we don’t have a David Wilson. Our running backs are struggling, largely due to the lack of effective interior run blocking.
Combine all of that and you’re going to have an offense that sputters, struggles, and looks anemic. That’s exactly what we have this season. No more no less.
But the question is can those problems be fixed this year. Right now, I think they can be but it may result in some much-needed changes up front. First, I would love for Caleb Farris to play more at center and at right guard. Yes, I know he’s the backup center and he’s important, especially if Miller keeps getting injured. But, he’s one of the more physical players up front. He needs to be on the field.
Second, why the hell can’t Laurence Gibson see a few snaps in games like this? He was clearly one of our better linemen against Austin Peay so insert him in on a drive and see if he can get a push. It was clear that Matt Arkema wasn’t doing anything of note yesterday so you’re not risking a whole lot giving another guy a chance.
Also, I would love to see more of J.C. Coleman in a full-time role at running back. I know Michael Holmes played well yesterday and I think he needs to touch the ball as well. But we’re not going to be able to run the ball up the middle effectively this season. So, find a way to go to the outside more and teach these linemen how to move and who to block. This really shouldn’t be that hard.
I get that you have to keep the defense honest but you can’t keep running the ball right behind your weakest link in hopes of something magical happening. This isn’t Hogwarts.
Going forward, I don’t know what to expect out of this offense because we have the talent to score points. But, something in our scheme, our play calling, or our general approach to gameplanning needs to change.
The Defense
This part is going to be a lot shorter just because I have a lot more faith in Bud Foster to fix issues than I do our offense. When our offense struggles, it tends to struggle for the entire year. However, our defense tends to improve on a game-to-game basis. Yesterday, I will admit for at least the first half, our defense looked like our 2011 Virginia Tech defense for the first time all season (maybe sans Georgia Tech).
Our defensive line was active and we were able to pressure, hit, and sack Munchie Legaux. But, our defense faltered in the 2nd half, giving up 21 points including a last second touchdown that sealed a Cincinnati victory.
Thankfully, our defense has a few less critical problems then our offense and a lot of these problems will fix themselves. Antone Exum took a lot of criticism for his play yesterday and deservedly so. Exum struggled in coverage but you have to cut him some slack. He’s playing his third position in three years. He’s in his fifth game as a cornerback. I’m not ready to send him back to safety, especially since he wasn’t exactly great at rover last season either.
I think the quickest fix for that issue is to swap Kyle Fuller and Exum. Move Fuller over to boundary cornerback where he’s in more one-on-one coverage and let Exum drop back and cover the deeper part of the field. To me, this makes the most sense and seems to play to both player’s strongpoints.
The rest of the defense has improved. Our linebackers were better yesterday and our defensive line is improving. Although, the loss of Luther Maddy to a leg injury did hurt, Kris Harley played well in his absence. He even recorded his first career interception. Just wish he could have stayed on his feet for a fat guy touchdown.
Overall: We Are Who We Are
I’ve never understood College Football fan’s irrational fascination with firing a coach after a unit’s poor performance. Firing coaches rarely fixes the main issue and often times hurts a program. If you make a coaching change it needs to be a strategic one, not an irrational panicky move to try to plug a potential leak. Plus, you can’t fire a coach during the middle of a season. That too is irrational.
At this point, you just have to accept our team this season. We are who were are. That’s not going to change. This isn’t the NFL and we can’t trade players. We have the 105 guys we have and that’s it.
Going forward, I think we need to be more creative in our use of talent in hopes that it masks some of our more pressing issues. The real fix will come on the recruiting trail. If you want the offensive line to get better well bring in more physical offensive linemen who have strong lower bodies.
For some strange reason, I think our team will be OK this year. Our current issues are troublesome but we have enough skill position talent to mask some of them. Plus, we’ve always been a better team in conference since joining the ACC. So, this season isn’t a lost cause yet. But, next week’s game against UNC becomes crucial. It’s officially go time for this team and this offense. Our margin for error is razor thin if we want that 10 win streak to continue. A loss next week to UNC and you can kiss it goodbye.
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{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
Justin,
That was a great job of rallying for the team and the coaches but the bottom line is that the coaches are where the buck stops and the fact is that we don’t adjust or coach well from behind in games. It is also the coaches jobs to get the kids (especially inexperienced ones) up and prepared for games. Our atheleticism has saved our backsides for many of the past 8 seasons you spoke about and got us the majority of those victories. We simply don’t change our schemes or playbook in a significant way….opposing teams WATCH FILM and they have figured us out (see Clemson from last year) and can easily prepare for us. The same thing can be said of Beamer Ball in that other schools bought Frank’s Special Teams tapes and came to Blacksburg in the summer and they all put their starters in on special teams too now. We haven’t had great special teams since we started advertising them. We gave a half-hearted attempt at the Pistol this year and it has just cofused the young/inexperienced players. This years results should be a shining light into the coaching inability vs the athleticism of the players…….look how we play and execute the same plays that we alwasys have with our best athletes (with experience) gone to the NFL or graduated. Yes the new guys are athletic but it shows the importance of the coaching and playcalling to fill the inexperience deficit. We are in desperate need of new offensive coaches and play-calling imo. I will continue to scream for the Hokies and pray that the terrible coaching doesn’t affect recruiting in a bad way…..i.e. getting great OL to come her and continuing getting awesome running backs.
I agree with that but there are three lines of thought within our fanbase right now.
1.) Our issues can be fixed through personnel changes
2.) Our issues can be fixed through coaching changes
3.) Our issues cannot be fixed through either.
Which one you choose is just how you perceive the team right now. I don’t think any of them are wrong in theory. For this articles purpose, I went with one because coaching changes should be a last resort. In college football today, it’s become the initial reaction from the fanbase, which is preposterous. That’s more or less the point of my article. Just deep breaths and let’s see how we finish out this season then reflect and make changes if needed.
I agree with VTShane. Bottom line, it IS the coaches fault! We have the talent, but they need good coaching. What worked 10, even 5 years ago won’t work today. The game has changed. Maybe the coaches need to stop spending so much time doing TV commercials and charity golf tournaments and do their home work, and bring their game into the 21st century. If Beamer doesn’t change, we will soon be in the same boat as UVA.
I’m with Shane and Howie. We spent a good portion of the off-season reading about how this was supposed to be our best, most talented offensive line in however many years, yet they’ve had trouble opening running lanes against Austin Peay and Bowling Green. Something is not right with this picture.
Blame the coaches all u want but we were in position to win yesterday. If it weren’t for exum getting burnt for a long td and/or fuller/Cole letting a man get behind them on the last td we win. Coaching can catch the blame for poor play call in first half, but Logan didn’t help at all with all his bad throws. He missed Dunn for a td!
That passed to Dunn was really a microcosm of this season. Good playcall, good execution all the way up until the pass. Logan throws it high, Dunn, expecting to get popped, doesn’t secure the ball and it’s then picked off by the Cincy safety. Just a good play gone bad. But, we’ve had a lot of those this year.
Justin’s right, you DO NOT change coaches mid-season except for things like felony arrests, motorcycle accidents, etc…
At the end of the season, it will be time for any staff changes, if necessary. Meanwhile, let them do their jobs and support them even if they and the players struggle. It’s a tough game and the breaks sometimes go to the other guy. I agree our offense needs help, we’ll see if that help comes or not during the off-season.
If nothing else, we can hope to get LT and Fuller back next year and have a much more mature team. Just wish we didn’t open with Bama…
I’m one of the guys that think that we have a chance to win every game. This year however has led me against that notion. Everyone that thinks that we need coaching changes is wrong, well at least major ones. This team is exactly like the teams over the past couple of years with one glaring exception. The defense is not stepping up when we need them to. The offense getting off to a slow start is a given, but they looked very good at times in the second half. The defense let us down in key times against Georgia tech(even though the offense bailed them out late), Pitt, and certainly the worst was against Cincy. It was just embarassing to see a sidearm running quarterback drive 85 yards that quickly against our “defense.” Anyway the bottom line is that this team is probably a year away from being a good team. LT’s stock has dropped like a rock as has everyone of our talented underclassmen. Fuller seems to be the only one that hasn’t disappointed and he appears to want to stay and play with his brother. I don’t believe that Miami can consistently play well over the course of the year so we will at least have a shot at the championship. Clemson might hang 70 on us and FSU is going to beat us by a lot, but if we can just hang on we have a shot. If we can make it to the championship game our coaches could definitely get our players up for the game. This year is about us just staying above water and waiting for the influx of talented secondary players for next year and the development of our players. This team desperately needs Kendall Fuller. I do not think that a major overhaul of the coaching staff is the answer because that goes against the continuity that this program was built on. I do believe that Newsome has run his course and that Stinespring/O’Cain need to change things in a timely manner or else. Like Justin said this year was set up for failure by the previous recruiting classes, and with significantly better players incoming there are better days on the horizon. With all of that being said I still feel some unwarrented optimism about the season. We could somehow magically turn it around and be great in ACC play, you never know. It’s times like these that you have to build on the positives, we’re 1-0 in league play and we’ve beaten the perrenial pain in the ass Yellow Jackets, and we really can only go up from here. There won’t be any national pressure on this team for the rest of the year, and hopefully these losses can fire up our older players. Also we can all look forward the unworldy beat down that we should give to UVA in Blacksburg at the end of the year because they absolutely suck. The main point in this long, my apologies, comment is that as fans our team needs us the most right now. We can’t all get mad after two meaningless losses.
When they pick teams to play for National Championships, or in a couple years when the playoff becomes a reality, losses mean plenty. Those meaningless losses are why that cursed National Championship case is still empty, because we have at least one or two of those EVERY year.
Newsome needs to go. Obviously he isn’t going to be gone tomorrow, and I take no joy in calling for someone to lose their job, but once the season is over, we need to wish him the best in his future endeavors. His offensive line scheme doesn’t seem to work with whatever our offensive philosophy is(unless our philosophy is to be inept, in which case it fits like a glove). I miss big, strong, angry o-linemen that enjoy hitting people in the mouth.
Honestly I hope we don’t win 10 games this year because if we do, there’s no way anything will change and anytime someone dares question Beamer about the offensive struggles, he’ll start into the “Well, we’ve won 10 games for eight years…” Nick Saban doesn’t talk about consecutive seasons of winning X games a year. He talks about 2 National Championships in 3 years, and it’s not like they have an overly fancy offense.
This is EXACTLY what I was trying to say! I LOVE our Hokies but Newsome, Steinspring and O’Cain need to go. I love the continuity at VT as well, but those three under-perform season after season.
Just remember Brian, Nick Saban almost cherry picks the best 4 and 5 star athletes in the country. Remember Korren Kirven? All set to be a Hokie until Saban strolls into town last minute, since he only has a 3 star DT so far that year, and BOOM!, Kirven goes to Bama. Such is the recruiting power of 1) the SEC in general, 2) Nick Saban in particular, and 3) the history of National Championships that Saban and Bama share. Bama was winning NC’s when Frank Beamer was playing PeeWee ball, they have a HUGE head start on us in that regard. Developing a nationally successful program takes time, investment and a tad of luck. We are moving in the right direction as we continue to dominate UVA and most of the ACC on the field, we fight for the best recruits in the mid-Atlantic and we appear on national TV.
This season has started a bit rough. So did 2010. We need a turnaround this season. We may need a coaching change, or a new philosophy. Our program is sound, but we have a ways to go to be in the same conversation as Saban and Bama. We can get there though, just consider where we were when Beamer was a player.
I think Clemson would agree with us that dominating UVA and the ACC doesn’t get you much except an ass kicking in the Orange Bowl, but that’s beside the point.
As for cherry picking, you have to get results to cherry pick. Saban didn’t inherit a very good football team from Mike Shula. Between Shula’s four years and Saban’s first two, the Tide played a lot of .500 level football record wise. No doubt he went out and got some big strong lineman that like to hit people in the mouth and has had line coaches that teach that philosophy well. We used to do that, and I hope that we will soon do so again. I think this would solve a lot of our offensive woes.
But yes, I remember Kirven. He was the first thing I, and probably everyone else that reads this blog, thought of when we heard Holland Fisher was taking a visit down there.
I agree with Brian everytime we lose Beamer gives the “Well, we’ve won 10 games in 8 seasons speech and it gets old and tired of hearing after awhile. Whatever you want to put it on, its Beamer’s fault he’s the HC and the responsibility falls on his shoulder. I can’t get mad at Saban, because he’s doing how I would want our program to be ran. For years I thought recruiting was about location location location, but trust me there isn’t anything special in Alabama and yet kids still want to go there.
And beyond everything else, our uniforms have gone to h#ll.
Stop with all these gimmick uniforms. Go back to all maroon and all white. Blue collar.
Yea I’m not a fan of the orange pants although I have come around on the orange jerseys. I still want to bring back #AllMaroonEverything
It’s very simple, poor o-line recruiting for years we have reached on too many o-line players, our 4 star o-line recruits aren’t paining out that goes back to the coaches not doing their jobs of evaluating good talent and coaching them up to be ready to play. We need an attitude upfront like we use to that goes back to recruiting the right player coaches not doing their jobs. Newsome has to be the first to go, Todd Washington would be the perfect hire for o-line coach he’s doing a great job with the ravens but we all know beamer will never do anything the big money boosters have to do it. We use to be so fun to watch now were the most boring team to watch something has to be done with this offensive staff or we will never see a BCS game for a long time with FSU and Clemson getting better and better every year. Shane needs to talk to frank ASAP!
^I approve of this message. #ReplaceNewsome2012
Whats the definition of insanity? We all know the answer except Beamer and our offensive coaching staff same ol run up da gut on Ist and 2nd down then da bubble pass woah!!!!! Im sorry Justin we have the talent butt our coaching staff doesnt knw how to utilize it period point blank!!!!!
What about replacing Stinespring as Off. Coordinator with Shane Beamer? How much pull would he have speaking with recruits while he draws up plays for them and how he would use them. Stinespring is a great recruiter, and I don’t think he needs to be fired, but Shane would definitely breath some life into our offensive play calling.
Too early and you’re risking an FSU like situation. I may change my attitude towards that in a few years but I don’t think Shane is ready to take over the offense.
I think the problem’s with our offense comes from our recruiting philsophy. take our 2013 recruits for example. out of 18 players committed, only 3 are listed as OL!!!!!! Frank’s philsophy of “bulking them up” just does not cut it any more. We HAVE to start recruiting 4 and 5 star OL’s. We have skill people who could play for almost any team in the country, but if the OL cannot open holes, or give the QB time to go thru his check downs, John Elway, Jim Brown or Walter Peyton could not play behind our OL. They simply are not good enough. we see this every time we play a “national team” i.e. Alabama, Boise St, Kansas etc. We are always overwhelmed by the opposing defense. Now, this adds a 2nd problem, it puts too much pressure on our defense, from too many 3 & outs, poor field position, turnovers etc. third, back to our 2013 recruits, of the 3, only 2 are of OL’s size. Parker Osterloh is listed at 6’8″-299 lbs, Braxton Pfaff is listed at 6’4″-289 lbs. good size. now here’s our problem, our 3rd OL recruit is Kyle Chung, listed at 6’4″-255 lbs. NOT a good OL size. Now if Frank Moves Kyle to another position, we ONLY have 2 OL recruits for 2013. A change in our recriuting Ol’s MUST happen. WE HAVE TO START RECRUITING 4/5 STAR OL’s. These kids get these ratings for a reason, because they are good!!!! We need to get 3 or 4 in every recruiting class, this will then build depth. Then and only then will our offensive offense be helped and we can then gripe about something else. Well guys, that’s my 2 cents worth.
I tend to agree that firing a coach should not be a knee jerk reaction to a couple of losses. However, it comes down to your expectations as a fan. I thoroughly enjoy the 10 win seasons, ACC championships, and BCS bowl opportunities. But, I also feel like we have hit the ceiling with this coaching staff, and not just because of our play this year. I am sick of the embarrassment on national tv – which seems to be a yearly tradition now.
As a live and die with the team fan, I think we should expect the team to take the next step and compete for a national championship. I just don’t see that being the case under our current coaching situation. I actually feel like we are moving in the opposite direction. I know we have a young team, but even in our dominant years we still struggled to compete with the top teams nationally.
Unfortunately I have been at two games this year..both losses. Saturday I was fortunate enough to get field passes and get around to both sides of the field. One observation I have in both losses is that no question we had better over personal than both those teams. Sure Pitt & Cincy were better at some positions (and they used that advantage) but overall we were the better team. Both Pitt & Cincy are top 50 teams but not top 25 teams. Both games we were out coached..period/no question. Justin you are dead wrong on your analogy that for 10 years our coaches have won these type games, so don’t blame them! Time passes everyone at some point and nothing stays the same. Coaches and teams must constantly evolve and change, you can’t rest on your historical laurels. I could write about this game until my fingers fall off but I will spare you all. One point I will make in this post though..3rd and 10 with 20 seconds, two plays left and from where I stood there was mass confusion on the VT sidelines. We had 2 time outs left and like the GT game no one takes charge no on. TAKE A TIMEOUT! For the first time in 20 years FB is showing his age- mentally..There was no VT defender lined-up deeper than the 25 year line on the last play! Call a time out and pull a linebacker and go to a 2deep safety and man to man press! Kyle Fuller steeped up and took the blame..that was a very admirable thing to do but the coaches take no responsibility are not supporting these players….who are the adults again…we are not world beaters this year but for the first time in a while the coaches are letting this program down. Butch Davis did a great job trying desperately to win this game…playing to win, fake FG’s, trick plays, working the refs! I am not calling for any coaching changes but I am calling the coaches out to take some responsibility and help this team…if we continue to “play not to lose” we will be playing FSU on Thursday night in October a 4-4 team! We have lost 4 of the last 7..our signature win in that span was a miracle finish at home. The ACC schedule is as tough as it ever was….I for one don’t want to wait for next year. More to come on what HAS to happen next around here!
Everyone talks about recruiting on the OL and then couples those comments with we’re recruiting too many TE’s and trying to convert etc, however look at things now and last year. Last years line for the most part did a decent job and it was filled with 1 4star OL, 2 2star TE converts, 1 star center & 1 3star lineman. This years group touts 2 4star linemen and 3 high 3 star purely OL recruits. The big thing is finding consistency and gelling as a unit and realistically we shouldn’t expect much cause this team isn’t going to have a chance to do that. Now do I think coaching should be altered…….maybe. I mean I always think you need to evaluate your process to see if there are ways to improve. Everyone’s coming up short this year though. Our O and our D. Should we fire coaches who have been wildly successful historically over one off year? yah that’d be smart…..perhaps suggest that same notion to Robert Kraft since NE didn’t go undefeated. I think these times just show what kind of fan you are. Are you one who understands sports and how you’re going to have down times because you can’t always plug every whole perfectly (I mean Alabama hasn’t won every national championship since the dawn of time…nor has Michigan, or ND and the list goes on) or do you only see wins. I think the explosion in fantasy football, pick em contests, etc has just helped breed us into a number driven society who wants those numbers now instead of trying to be understanding to developping and restocking and retooling.
I think we need to find our identity as a football team, and then actually play the game to our identity. Right now I think we’re trying to offensively do two different approaches (our old version of smashmouth with the newer Pistol type game) and they don’t seem to be working well together, they’re not complementing each other well right now. Our D is trying to become more athletic on the line…which should play well against the spread, however now run oriented teams are causing us pain. We’re young in the secondary and we’re going to make mistakes also.
Let’s find out who we are and start rolling.
Didnt get to see the game. Did RVD get the start and if so how did he do?
Drew, thanks for making sense. One difficult season (less than 10 wins in our case) does not mean the entire program is falling apart. Change happens in time, but football is not a microwave oven sport where instant and enduring results are typically available, especially if you are trying to reach the highest level of the sport.