Orange Bowl Eye in the Sky part III:

At the risk of cowtailing anything any further, yah, it’s still true, Stanford beat the physical stuffing out of the toughest A.C.C. football team down in the Orange Bowl just over a month ago. That has not changed.

What (did) change in my analysis was seeing how pitiful our basics were upon further (film-study) review. Been a long lone time since I’ve seen a Virginia Tech football team only reach a C+ to B- zenith as fundamentals go during the regular season, only to see such fall right off the map as Bowl game basics are concerned.

That must change come this springball and if need be this August camp as well.

Does Frank Beamer need to electrify his football team and Staff alike by bringing in another over the top coach like Elmo’ (Phil Elmassian)?

Just like Rooster Cogburn: “I will have to weigh that.” I expect Frank is playing with his O&M scales right about now as well.

Though I do know this …
“Discipline is the ancestor of fundamentals.”
–Anonymous coach-

And no less than Rock’ himself questioned VT’s discipline pre-game.

High time we got back to some O&M True Grit.

Such however is a matter for the Eye in the Sky part IV to hold court over.
What’s the matter with the Eye in the sky part III is nearly code for: “everything”. As everything is precisely what went ‘rong down on So.Beach during the final quarter of play.

4^th quarter 12:28 remaining:
“I told you Virginia Tech was not as good as this.”  –Jon Gruden-
“Their Safety play has killed them (VT)”. –Mike Tricco-
“They are playing three on two up here” (boundary-side with two people in match-up Man-to-Man and Whitely in Free behind that; and pure Man-to-man on the bottom side of your TV screen with Morg’ in one-on-one on the Te (Fleener)  and tight-Man with Roc’ on the field-side) “…and the guy Morgan; can’t cover Fleener!” Yup, pretty much spot-on Jon.

4^th quarter 11:37 remaining:
Very possibly the O&M Catch of the Year. A wrong shoulder head twisting “Beattlejuice! Beattlejuice! Beattlejuice!” circus high-light reel grab by my boy D.Wislon if there ever was one – other than the fact that #4 was about five yards out of bounds by the time he secured possession of the football. There was something positively John Stallworth Super Bowl XIV esque about this snag man. (click ME to see what b’street means!)

4^th quarter 11:26 remaining:
Here is one for the O.C. Josh Oglesby crowd – and I assure you going in it was a very mixed play. Note that Josh ankle dives and completely whiffs on a good clean miss of a cut-block attempt on Road Warrior Animal, I mean #11 Skov of Stanford as Josh fails in his attempt to pick up the Stanford blitz. However, even though Josh blocked every bit as well as anyone in the stands watching this play did – he smartly enough jumps right up and at least attempts to make himself available as a pass-catcher after this nonplus block by heading downfield into the spot now vacated by the  Skov blitz. That my friend is a feebly executed and yet rather savvy football play all rolled into one.

4^th quarter 8:34 remaining:
If I had some blood is thicker than water nepotistic based direct tie to T-mobile, I’da been red in the face while screaming for someone to get R.Williams out of the game. Three different times in the froth quarter of play that R.Williams simply choose to hit nobody out of multiple hard charging blitzing Stanford defenders who were all over T-mobile like a cheap Cardinal suit. If R.Williams is not willing to physically engage people and protect his Qb, sit his little butt down on your Tuesday night collegiate bench in a most unprofessional way before Sunday gets here.

4^th quarter 7:00 remaining:
Are you freaking kidding me?

Four, count ‘em, no less than four 9 man offensive shifts from JimBo before snapping the football on this play. All perfectly legal as nobody technically ever “got down” into an actual three-point stance, which would have facilitated an Illegal Shift call on all five Stanford oLinemen.

To put it mildly; JimBo and Stanford were toying with Virginia Tech at this point in time. Like a cat pawing at a mouse caught in an O&M mousetrap itself. Tom vs. Jerry and this time Tom was winning. This gave new meaning to rubbing someone’s nose in it or taking away someone’s manhood. Stanford made us sit on their lap and Stanford ordered us to be still and smile and make like we liked it.

Never seen an offense with four different 9 man offensive shifts pre snap in my four decades plus of football.
Wow! Just “w0w!”

Someone said JimBo would run it up on us if he could pre-game; that someone lied like a rug; as this took R.U.T.S. to a whole new despicable and downright loathsome level. If I was Bud I’da had to literally fight JimBo for this one. Sometimes you just can not slide out under the door. Sometimes you just can not turn the other cheek. Sometimes the proverbial ethical high-road is closed for repairs. This was one of those extremely rarefied times in life where you clinch your fists instead of spreading your wings in the proverbial flight vs. fight paradigm.

“Not on my watch.”
–Chris Kraft, famous N.A.S.A. V.P.I. & S.U. alum-

On the very next play JimBo nails a R.U.T.S. play-action throw to Fleener vs. a hapless Virginia Tech defense that was so frustrated and humiliated that it could not see straight. All except for B.Taylor who at least shows some very volatile and highly displeased emotion post-play as he attempts to throw his mouthpiece over 30 yards downfield and somehow hit Fleener in the back with it.

“For šηìτ like that, if you ask me, you know doing all that, when Andrew Luck’s playing in the N.F.L. I’ll find Harbaugh later (presumably after the Orange Bowl game). That’s me.” –Jon Gruden, who to his credit, was very unhappy with JimBo rubbing VT’s face in it-

4^th quarter 5:29 remaining:
Note poor TT -who got mauled on the night- come up holding his throwing or right-shoulder after this one. I missed this in real time and you have to hope that whatever damage was sustained while being driven into the ground on this one is all healed up by the time Pro Day and the N.F.L. scouts arrive in Blacksburg VA in March. (readers note: this is not the left-shoulder Tyrod hurt vs. france)

4^th quarter 4:18 remaining: (right)
Nice to see Morg’ execute one final departing collision hit on the Cardinal Rb #34 knocking #34 right on his keister in the process. However do note the Late Hit Personal Foul that Whitely drew as big ole #77 of Stanford had Whitley on stakes and never released his block on this play as the Refs (to their credit) knew this one was perilously close to getting out of hand and erupting into an explosive bench-clearing free-for-all right in their faces.

Time to Throw: (TTT)©

Virginia Tech: (46 total)
sacked= |||| |||
hit= |||| |||| |||| |||| |
hurried= |
pressured=|||| |||| |||| |

Stanford: (11 total)
sacked= |
hit= ||||
hurried=
pressured=|||| |

TTT analysis:
In very generic terms, the long and the short of it would be: Stanford managed to get 418% more pressure on Tyrod Taylor than Bud Lite managed to get on Andrew Luck. OUCH! That is what you call entering virgin territory folks; as the TTT metric has never been anywhere even remotely as skewed (pro or con) in O&M terms as it was on 03^rd January 2011 A.D. The Time to Throw metric has never been this good or this bad from a VT point-of-view; and it is not even close. Lopsided does not even begin to describe a 418% tilt in either sides favor. With the emphasis on the “not even close” part – never is a long time and he last time I checked the TTT vital has never been this totally out of control. Yikes!

That TTT dower of an opening paragraph not withstanding; and couple of things are worthy of a quick refresher course in the 2011 Orange Bowl before we proceed any further.

Stanford has enjoyed the best pass-blocking oLine in all of D-1 football for 26 straight games now and it is not even close. For 26 consecutive football games, Stanford has allowed 0.46 sacks per contest on average. VT more than doubled that number up with a 217% increase in Stanford Qb(s) sacked during the Orange Bowl. Yes Sirs that was technically only one Qb sack when you read the box-score. Still yet, VT did do better than most, and it was unwise or imprudent to expect to see a semi-mobile and efficacious pocket Qb such as Andrew Luck down in the So.Beach dirt very often down in Miami.

What bothers me after have broken tape on the 2011 Orange Bowl a billion times, is that even our opening salvo of blitz blitz and blitz some more did nearly nothing to deter Andrew Luck. He threw the ball 23 times vs. VT in Miami. One was caught by us, another one could and possibly should have been caught by us, and a third throw was simply arrant or off the mark on a first-half Post Pattern downfield where Luck threw an uncatchable pass by either team when he lead his Flanker too dang much.. That’s 3 bad throws out of 23 or a 13% wish you had that one back percentage. The other 87% of his passes were right on the money or were very catchable. Or in other words, it is pretty dang tough to beat a Qb who is threading needles like that and crushing it with no less than four TD home-run throws that went for between 25 and 58 yards on the night. When Andrew Luck was off we only got to 33% of his three iffy passes, when he was on target he was nails and he nailed Bud Lite right between the eyes. Bud Lite tried to adjust as the lunch-pail unit threw the whole O&M playbook at Andrew Luck. Bud Lite had nothing for him. We tried anything and everything. Base 4-3, Nickel, Zone-Blitz, mixed and disguised coverage’s, cover-1 and cover-2 looks with man and zone alike underneath. Nothing worked. And nothing is about the only chance you have when nothing works.

Fundamentals 1o1:

“You can’t have fun without the fundamentals.”
-Earvin “magic” Johnson-

(Editorial note: VT has refused to release our HS.com Notebook grades for the 2011 Orange Bowl)

VT tackling: (35 total)
whiffs= ||||
army= |||| |||| |||| |
broken= |||| |||| ||||

Tacking tutorial:

• whiffs=baseball term for a strike where you hit nothing, you make no contact with an opposing ball carrier at all
• army=not a military reset; an arm based tackle, anything other than hitting, wrapping-up and driving through
• broken=decent to textbook from on the attempted tackle where a VT defender was simply out-manned, out-gunned and run-over — you’d better eat your Wheaties

Broken tackles per play= 0.64!

VT blocking: (46 total)
negative blocks= |||| |||| |||| |||
stalemates= |||| |||| |||| |
missed blocks= |||| |||| ||

Blocking tutorial:

• negative blocks=a block where a VT oLineman or Rb/Te was engaged and driven backwards off the spot of the block itself, a block in reverse or a block on roller-stakes
• stalemate=classical 1960’s-early 1970’s politically incorrect yet so-called “chicken fighting”; as the VT blocker and the Stanford defender could not budge one another in either direction, the Coral Sea in tactical terms — or a de facto Stanford win, as the Stanford defender prevents the VT oLineman(s) from fold-blocking to the Cardinal Linebacking second-layer or creates congestion in the intended Hole or Gap where the VT Rb was scripted to run
• missed blocks=the VT blocker attempts to engage a would be Stanford defender and simply misses, the offensive whiff if you will, seen primarily from VT Rb’s in pass-protection (read: Ryan Williams) or by the VT oLine in pulling and occasionally in zoning up-field where the VT oLineman would simply run right on by a given Stanford defender(s)
  

Missed blocks per play=0.69!

So what happened?

A less athletic, less speedy and less big-game experienced Stanford Cardinal football team with a shifty and downright conceited lame-duck of a Head Coach beat the O&M pants off of Bud, and Frank-n-Stiney alike. There were no O&M heroes on this night folks, as this was the worst one-sided ass kicking that Fancy Gap and company have taken in seven years and change (read: @ wvu 2003).  While there may not have been any O&M heroes, there sure was a totally random amount of January O&M basic errors. A So.Beach blizzard of O&M fundamental or entry level misQ’s or mistakes. Why?

Recall that VT opened the year down o-2 with very poor blocking and tackling alike vs. Boise State and J.M.U. Someone ever went so far as to remark that something must be ‘rong when none other that Bud Foster himself was quoted as saying VT still could not tackle pre-game vs. Boise State. Then low and behold Bud said the same dang thing 48 hours prior to playing the Orange Bowl after VT had held an impromptu tacking-drill the Sunday before playing Stanford. Such is generally viewed as a major no-no as the risk of injury and no-contact 48 hours out rule of thumb goes.

Now rewind once more to the highly traumatizing run of hosting E.C.U., then @ NC.State and again @ Boston College with the season on the line and the o-2 VT MNC ship going down like the R.M.S. Titanic. Suddenly, and inexplicably, VT found itself foundering in three consecutive life and death pigskin struggles that were supposed to only be a glorified prelude to opening up 5-0 before our softie Mid-Major esque joyride of an October got here. Such was not the case as VT had to rally to win two of those three games, down o-10 at home to the Pirates and then down a whopping and seemingly insurmountable o-17 on the road down in Raleigh. The B.C. game was a seemingly more comfortable, other than the fact that Frank nervously and furtively played his offensive starters virtually the entire football game as Boston College remained within two scores for all less the final 3:50 of play. So…………..

Exactly how many O&M bullets did VT have to empty from its 2010 regular season emotional clip just to survive and live to fight another 3-2 day? Way too many, that’s how much and that would take its toil later on.

Then through what turned out to be the D-1 leading Turnover Margin, and via who turned out to be the 2010 A.C.C. football player of the year (Tyord Taylor), and with no small dash of some O&M luck, we finally made our way to what really only should have been an O&M coaching clinic vs. three consecutive totally over-matched football teams that only managed to notch thee wins apiece during the 2010 regular season campaign. Accordingly, what should have been a fell-good, VT fundamental(s) fixer-upper, scrubs need playing time to you know, trifecta of virtual cakewalk teams, actually and regrettably morphed itself into one giant O&M emotional sigh of relief. VT had walked the razor’s edge nimbly enough and had somehow managed to make the cut and remain in the A.C.C. chase with a possible B.C.S. bid still on the line.

Props are merited here men.

As Frank and company with some senior leadership from Rock’, T-mobile and J.Garves, et al., managed to navigate extremely choppy O&M waters and dodge two trailing tempests otherwise know as E.C.U. and @ NC.State. No wonder this team was emotionally gutted and physically worn-out. They open a shocking and eviscerating o-2, then they engaged in no less than 32 straight days of implosion avoidance football that could have seen the 2010 season go up in O&M flames for the first time since the meltdown all hands abandon ship closer to 2003. Yikes!

click me: “Red Alert!”

I don’t know about you, yet 32 days of General Quarters is 33 more days than the August MNC script read at first glance.

After that we successfully ran Will Stewart and Chris Coleman’s so-called “November Gauntlet” agilely enough. Well, sorta, as the O&M writing was on the O&M wall, literally; masking or making such writing invisible enough – something of a Blacksburg VA impromptu version of the alleged Philadelphia Experiment if you will.

Gah.Tech jumps our (bleep) going up 14-zip and then Nesbitt’s right forearm goes “snap” and that was that. The undercooked and overwhelmed rookie Wrambling Wreck Qb (T.Washington) was the proverbial deer in the national TV headlights of ESPN as Coach P.J. did him no play-calling favors with 9 consecutive and nonpareil incredulously predictable Belly-Play handoffs right into Bud Lite’s high-beams. Gah.Tech was indeed “blinded by the light.”

Then we go down to U.N.C. and play an extremely mischievous, rule-breaking, undisciplined, and downright suspended 6 turnover Tarheels. +6 in Turnover Margin should never equate to a 16 point win vs. a team with 9 injured or suspended starters for the season which is down to only one scholarship Rb at that time. Are you starting to make out the writing on the wall yet?

Then the horde, or gaggle or school of T.Rex’s otherwise known as the Miami oLine gashed us for a prehistoric 262 on the ground before they suddenly and inexplicably stopped running the football. Even more inexplicably, they put the ball in the hands of a rookie t-freshman Qb (S.Morris) who had just had his r-shirt ripped six quarters earlier and told him to go ahead and win the game his own self, never mind that Bud Lite was getting mauled in Jurassic Park. Game over; full stop; do not pass Go, do not collect $200. And oh yea, Miami had a -6 Turnover Margin as well. No wonder Coach Shannon and virtually all of TSL.com’s ~37,000 registered users are looking for coaching work.

france is france, n’est pas? Their 2011 recruiting class was a step in the right direction,  I’ll give them that; and yet they still must stride all the way out to 2014 before they may or may not get there. VT is miles ahead at this stage in terms of two-deep or Top-44 talent, and VT can basically coast to three more Commonwealth wins in a row.

A.C.C. championship game:

• Starting Qb? Out.
• Starting right-G? Out.
• Starting Rb? Out.
• Top back-up Rb? Out.

The useful yet entire finesse based F.S.U. zone blocking oLine totally desynchronized at this stage of the game men. In fact this was precisely and singularly why I picked VT to win this Atlantic Coast title tilt.

See the pattern yet?
I’ll summarize for all of us … Frank’s worst run-defense e-v-e-r (PRAISE is to Kyle Tucker for the leg work here), closed the 2010 show vs…

• VT closed the year vs. three out of five back-up Qb’s.
• VT closed the year vs. five injured stud Rb’s.
• VT closed the year vs. five straight suspect to downright mindless exhibitions of coaching acumen.
• VT closed the year with a mind-shattering and back-breaking 17:3 turnover ratio or a +14 turnover margin in VT’s favor the final five games alone, only one game of which was a rightful mismatch on paper in our favor (i.e. the lowly french)

Raleigh Hokie:
My pregame analysis…TT better show his *bleep* or we are in deep *bleep*!

There were so very many entry-level, elementary, fundamental textbook errors throughout the 2010 campaign that it is a wonder that we somehow managed to manufacture or borderline steal 11 wins this past season. Yes Stanford was more physical indeed. So were Auburn, Georgia, ‘bama, L.S.U., U.N.C. for 2009 at full strength and Boston College when they had both Raji and Brace at Dt.

I’ve said for years both on-Air and in cyber media print that: “VT is really only A.C.C. tough.” Meaning: that VT is indeed tough within the confines of the Charmin soft A.C.C. When we step outside the A.C.C. and play someone with an O.O.C. B.C.S. pulse … it is our middle that gets drilled.

Without question this was the most exciting season of woulda, coulda, shoulda Hokie football since Al Clark and company got beat by 4, by 2 and by 4 points again back in 1998. Woulda, coulda, shoulda football in both directions mind you; as we coulda beaten Boise State and J.M.U. with just two more tackles and one more block. We also coulda faltered in at least a couple of our breathtaking and nail biting 7 comeback cardiac wins this year. And where would VT have R.A.T.T. been vs. Gah.Tech, @ U.N.C., @ Miami and vs. Florida State if they had all been 100%? I’ll tell you one thing right now, if I were a betting man -and I am- I’d wager my bottom dollar that our 2011 Orange Bowl had those four aforementioned coaching Staff’s wondering and bemoaning how the hell VT won.

What Virginia Tech really needs right now is ... ??? More health. Just a few more on-field breaks. A helluva a pre-game speech and some in-game player Leadership. View Results  Loading ...

Conclusion and Illation:
This is precisely why I’ve told Will and Chris that this springball is the most important remaining springball of Frank Beamer’s soon to be College Football Hall of Fame O&M tenure. As a heretofore unseen and unmentionable amount of physical softness -and more importantly in my pigskin bound (text) book- fundamental or purified technique errors have somehow all silently crept hand-in-hand into the O&M woodwork down in Blacksburg VA. Frank is now quietly and sans any and all publication dealing with a tipping-point of a springball where the twilight or epilogue to his VT career hangs indeterminately in the balance. In 2020, when Frank Beamer is already gone, we will all look back at the 2011 Orange Bowl, the 54^th ranked ESPN.com national recruiting class, the 2011 spring practice and August camp, and the 2011 regular season … as Frank’s last valiant and gallant stand after a modernization of our approach(s) to recruiting, a boot-camp of spring-ball and a lock-down return to basics of a August camp as the seminal moment where O&M fundamental-toughness were restored. Or we will look back at 2011 as the beginning of the end.

“Time is the greatest critic of all.” –George Burns-
And time will tell.

♫Where do we go, where do we go, where do we go … from here?♫ -Guns-n-Roses-
I’ll be back with the first ever Eye in the Sky part IV and a strategic look ahead once the 2011 is officially released in a few weeks.

“LET’S GO!”

“HOKIES!”

b’street