#6o R.P.I. virginia @  #62 R.P.I. Virginia Tech:

Today’s word of the day is… gobshite

gob·shite  (gbsht)

maginot line Defense: (starters back=9)

• forty-three base (4-3), will cheat the Will forward into a 5-2 or odd look.
• uva has three guys with 8 sacks or more and three guys with 10.5 TFL (tackles for a loss) or more; all one-in-the same! (#44, Coley, #7 Harold and #88 Valles are legit, bear those numerals in mind)
• uva enjoys a backbreaking and downright staggering 72 total TFL this campaign!
• 15th ranked rushing defense.
• VASTLY improved and electric players in the front-7 on pure voltage and pure play-making horsepower alone. Little radical. May miss a play or two to make 4-6 plays happen of their own. Will jam A or B Gap on wide-side run-blitz.
• Accordingly, the Harold at De with Valles behind him at Lb combo is a real live same-side overloading problem!
• 3 very nice sized and outright strong play making Lb’s straight across. Try as I might, there just is no weak link here.
• Pretty decent job of disguising man on edge and passing (pardon the pun) guys off into the deeper zone. A bit tighter man short-side and a forward facing Tampa-2 that is not run-shy behind that. Safeties are staggered, rarely even. And both are displaced forward a bit. Ss is about a pace or two removed from a glorified Bandit. Also, this Secondary reminds me of tennis player on the baseline awaiting a serve. Rarely stationary pre-snap, some walking around or North-South movement. I presume via disguising design.
• Secondary will take physical shots on the ball and away from the ball alike. Head on a swivel, if you want to live.
• Tallest secondary I’ve seen on film all year. The anti-Bucky secondary if you will.
• Does have a somewhat softer medium-man passing down look with deeper second and third layers. Will use sideline as 12th defender and spill plays accordingly.
• Not an epic tackling secondary downfield. Pretty solid grappling however in the front-7.
• A bit talky, although not quite as outright mouthy on breaking tape as the last 2-3 stop-unit incarnations have been. And guess what? Penlites are a bit down for uva this year. hoo’da thunk it?!?
• I number at least 4 Pro ballers here, maybe 1-3 more fringe ones after that. uva’s defensive talent is way up. In particular upfront.

french Offense: (returning starters=7)

• Gun, single or Ace-21 sets, with 3 or 4 wide.
• Will motion short to wide pre-snap; under the Qb, which gives a initial jet-sweep wide-side countering look.
• uva has only given up 12 sacks this year!
• hooever, Qb Lambert has thrown at least 1 pick in every game since o9.o6; go fig’?!? (although sources hint that his bum ankle is finally better)
• Lambert will run a little, he is a willing although awkward and ungainly runner, without epic speed, VT should be able to contact (i.e. punish him) when he does.
• Lambert has improved, a bit, though Lambert-o-phobic we need not be. Still a bit erratic, will spray throws. Will miss to the outside under pressure.
• Johns also plays Pivot (or Qb), although has not played in 3 of the last 4 contests.
• Short to medium passing, targets are on the move; not much waiting on the ball. Out’s, In’s, Crossing’s, Drag’s, Boot’s, lotta perpendiculars here.  Umpire needs to be awake, or he will get hit by the throw or a passing baller.
• Lambert will work deeper stuff on 1/2 and 3/4’s rolls.
• More than an average amount of passing between hashmarks or what I’ll call the middle two-third’s of the field. Or even between the numerals.
• Tb’s have 76 catches, will screen to them off play-action.
• Average+ Rb corp via committee. Not overly explosive. Not overly big, either. Run as hard as they can, internally, where uva does do more carrying work.
• LEFT side oLine >>> right side oLine.
• Left=healthy and experienced, right=juggling act that has settled if not improved of late.
• Lotta engage, wrestle, turn, or so-called shield-blocking here. Quick hitters internally on plunges, dives and Iso’s. This is not a sweeping Bill Dooley set.
• O does deploy 3 Wideouts with 15.5 per catch or better, there is a tackle breaking scheming  elementto create Y.A.C. (yards after catch) play extending catches here –more so than a pure bombs away vertical element and VT has given up some big plays downfield this year.
• Wr via committee, similar to Rb’s. Decent+ as pass catches go.

booHoo Special Teams: (each returns)
Alec Vozenilek was pretty useful as a FG Kicker in relief of the formerly hamstrung Ian Frye at Kicker in 2013; having gone 12 for 15 on three’s.

This year the towering 6’7” small-forward sized Ian Frye is healthy and doing rather well back at Kicker, whereas Alec Vozenilek is back at Punter and doing rather average.

Frye has not missed inside of 45 yards this season, going 20 of 24 overall with three of his misses being 50 yards or more. As there does appear to be a cutoff or demarcation here in makeability or accuracy albeit perhaps not in pure out spot-of-the-ball range. I type this because Frye does enjoy a career long of 53 yards over in Charlottesville Va., and he did put a staggering 96% of his high school kicks into the endzone. So raw leg strength would not appear to be the culprit this time. Frye is 32 of 33 on P.A.T.’s.

Alec Vozenilek entered the year on no less than five different pre-season all-conference teams or punting awards watch lists.

Alec has disappointed, at least a little bit. 114th best in Net Punting at 33 yards and change is just not good, and 2 punts already snuffed out is even worse! That said, Alec is a athlete who was a post-season honoree in basketball in highs school and still teaches summer campers hoops; he also helped rescue over 125 animals from Hurricane Katrina.

That attempt at common humanity aside, you do have to think a desperate Frank is gonna pull out every single Pride & Joy stop he has for this one. The uva punt game is the one true conspicuous vulnerability that I see for Tech to potentially exploit on Friday night. 111th in punt return defense says so. Further, uva is 109th in punt returns themselves, and suddenly you have ceded more than a little hidden yardage to the Beamerball originator and master as the punting game goes.

30th in KO return defense however is not too shabby for any cup of hemlock suicide squad; and 5th best in KO returns is the first-best we have faced all year long! uva is dangerous here men; make no mistake on that.

Special Teams letter-grade: (a flat B, which would be higher if the hoo punt-game were not so self-inflicted as Cavalier wounds go)

X-factor(s):

• Monument: all in favor of france right now.
• motive: PUSH, VT seniors don’t want the streak ender’s tag; and the uva team must smell O&M blood in the Duck Pond waters.
• Weather: 24f, chilly, although non-precipitous non-windy New River Valley clear-night.
• Field: N/A, both war on grass.
• Health: large scale uva edge. (more below)
• surprisingly quiet uva this week | an increase in focus/attention/determination? (probable advantage @uva)

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Illation, conclusion(s) and OPT digits:

“When you see the sawdust the mill is not far away.”
-boxing adage describing an aging fighter-

That’s about as good of an edict for where things stand right now that I know of. Something is about to change(s), you could say you have my word on that because you do. There is only one true (lynchpin) question to be asked, Frankly speaking…

However, and in lieu of that, we have a preview to finish and some rather cavalier things that are begging to be said. “Here real men congregate and speak truth to the power.” As this website’s motto affirms and avows. So let us start off by having a little fun …(while we still can).

Friday night once mighty and now so injured as to be middleocore Virginia Tech faces a rapacious fan-base if there ever was one. Peeps hoo somehow never ever manage to spell the word “callus” in the game of Scrabble, peeps hoo were born on third base, and think they hit triples.

For 11 consecutive years all this hoo fan base has known is shame. No matter how many beamer’s they may drive, our Beamer -the real Beamer- drove them to the brink year after year after year.

Those attempts at ribbing you know hoo firmly in place, I realize you are tired of the labor pains and you want this baby! And that is where we shall begin the R.A.T.T. narrative of this preview, some of this you will like, some of this will make you cringe, and yet all of this is science-fact.

9, 9.85 and +0.4 mean what to you???

1. Nine is the number of at least depth-chart starters (if not outright game experience) currently in civies on our Injury List for this Commonwealth Clash, who are out for the year! At least 3 more if you count merely “out” for this game; that in theory could be recovered for a Bowl.  So that’s a potential aggregate of 12 total starters or more than half the O&M team! (unless you wanna quibble and tell me 2 of the 3 play the same spot; then it’s code for a mere 45% out) Phft! Who needs 45% of their starters anyway? Or in other words……….London should resign if he can not beat a beat-up or rather beat to death Frank like this. As London will most likely will never ever catch Virginia Tech this lame.
2. 9.85. More starter mathematics b.street? Not so fast my friends, as 9.85 is the average point-spread which has favored Virginia Tech in every, singe, game, of the 11 game Commonwealth Cup record setting win streak! 3,652 days if you are keeping score at home. However, and this is important, since half past when -or since 1998, if you must know- has Virginia Tech been favored to get beat? This has been the forlorn pre-game sports psych conclusion of all things hooVa folks. They are the ones hoo are used to a culture of L’s in this Commonwealth Cup rivalry. And yet, now, and suddenly, it is our kids; and in very particular, it is our senior kids who are getting their ear’s bent on Instragarm, Twitter, Fb.com and any other delivery vehicle of social-media origin, with lines that read like this: “Don’t you be the ones to let the streak end!” Since half-past never have our kids ever felt that much external or extrinsic foci of control pressure from the outside-in? Short answer? Not once, this is applied sports psych virgin territory for them; and for now favored uva alike. Or in other words… the pressure is now off of uva to simply lie down and take one, and the pressure is now squarely on Virginia Tech to not be *the class* who let the streak(s) end. Pressure bursts pipes … or … pressure makes diamonds. You do the armchair maths…
3. Finally, and this one surprised me, guess hoo’s coming to dinner with an actually negative margin? Courtesy of Graham Houston’s legendary so-called boxing  Forum Guide which measures recent play between common opponents and how each fighter fared against said common opponents head-to-head. It’ s virtually a pick ’em fight as Virginia Tech was 4/10ths of a point or .4 better vs. common opponents overall for the year on an aggregate per game basis.

***

Now we come to the every bit as authentic most recent 3-game trends, which likewise objectively surprised me to the good –in addition to Mister Houston’s Forum Guide above.

In each team’s most recent 3-games, Virginia Tech is actually not only been the better football team, it is the improving football team, albeit incrementally or as relative as that may clinically be. Check it…

In their last 3 games the hooVa O has dropped by 86 total yards off their season mathematical mean. A good deal more so in rushing, mind you. The hooVa D has softened by 25 yards per game itself. Over in Blacksburg Va., we see that the Hokie O has retreated by 40 yards per game in the last three weeks, and yet the Tech D has stiffened by 24 less yards per game allowed over the same time frame. Or in other words, a composite Net recent play advantage of a stunning 95 yards or about 9.5 points in favor of our beloved Virgina Tech in the last thee weeks! Bet you did not see that one coming; and neither did I.

At this point, over the last 3 weeks of play, Virginia Tech is better in total offense by 26 yards, or almost a chip-shot field-goal, and the Fighting Gobbler D is stingier by 61 fewer yards of total defense allowed. So that’s about a 10 point swing in Blacksburg’s favor right there men. Things may seem glum in the 24060 (b.burg’s zip), however, things are actually worse over in C’ville, at least in pure statistical terms since November 1st.

Winner = mind >>> body

L = body >>> mind

“The body fuels the mind.”
-Norman Maclean–

As much as I am recalcitrant to correct the thoroughly delightful River Runs Through it author, the late great Mr. Maclean has that one bassackwards.

Closer:

Here’s the skinny, folks…

In this series we used to be hammers; and to hammers everything looks like nails…

Either/Or……..

Either, VT digs deeper than deep, sucks a whole buncha stuff up, recovers 2 starters (now down to 1, with Trey OUT again), and beats uva fugly. I mean fugly as hell; something baseball looking in the final analysis. As Virginia Tech just won’t be scoring many points as Virginia Tech has been shutout or goose-egged in 5 of its last 8 quarters of scraping.

Or, and this is absolutely not umpossible, if there was every a year that the Commonwealth cup wheels dismount, flatten, and catch fire, as they detach from Frank’s little O&M trimmed red-wagon; this is surely that season.

As I told C2 Wednesday, London will tie Frank to the 10 year Tree of Woe and pistol whip Frank like a rented goalie for just as long as he can, and just as hard as he can. IF, he can. Ergo you just gotta pick uva to nail Tech, if you pick uva at all.

Right I’m expecting a commendable performance from Virginia Tech but a commanding one from uva and London who have waited ooooooh so long to rain on the Hokie parade. Oui oui everywhere on it indeed. The only real question is how long and how well can a depleted Hokie squad hold the Lane line?

Streaks are meant to be broken, this streak is history. This one is no longer in regard to mind over matter, the Hokie body is no longer willing, the mind does not matter. As I foresee a close game for a matter of quarter(s).  Then I foresee the healthier club with the better defensive front-7 and oLine taking over.

It’s not that methinks uva has such a Jack the Ripper or serrated mind. It is however that Virginia Tech no longer has the sporting bodies, quite plural, and nobody really seems to mind anymore. If you don’t believe me on the body part just ask the Virginia Tech training room and if you don’t believe me on the mind part, just ask all of these outside-in motivation speeches when what we really need is one from the inside-out. Player’s only meetings earlier this week, 1-3 rants after the Wake Forest debacle and very few even batting so much as an eye. These are clinical sporting signatures of the kiss of death men. Red flags gone logarithmically ‘rong

Bloviate all the gobshite out your azz, I mean out your yuppie mouf’ uva; like it’s Zima all over again with your close game at the half, your 21-6 third quarter  lead and your 33-6 VicTory,

Virginia Tech=6, france=33

“LETS GO!“

“HOKIES!“

bourbonstreet**