Virginia Tech football did not have a good day as Fighting Gobbler ego went. Virginia Tech football did however have a great day for humility. As daddy Foster taught his son Bud, as Golf My Way by the greatest ever -Jack Nicklaus- teaches us all, you get too high or you get too low and bad things happen.
The golden-bear literally did say, hurry up and move onto the next shot, focus; and stop complimenting -or worry- about that last swing. Thing is, … the hiccup game someone said would occur before October ended, occurred vs. what seemed to be the most beatable October team. That’s not good sports fans. Although the game film opens up pretty decent for about 25-40 minutes of scrumming, and then things really got away from us and the 24060 whispers say that happy or hands-off coach-Fu ain’t. Read on to find out how/why…
TSL’s SURGEON GENERAL’s WARNING: if you are a P.A.T.T., or feel you may become preggers with a P.A.T.T., this may not be the Eye in the Sky, for you.
1Q game remaining:
Fastest, highest tempo’ed O I’ve ever seen at any level, any where, any time –this ‘Cuse warp-9 O. Dino is for real; he’s gonna give coach-Fu a run for best coach in the A.c.c. Don’t blink, don’t go to the frig’ keep you legs crossed, you will miss something here. Amazing! As it sure looked to me like the ‘cuse was opening up with 1960’s scrolls of 4-play scripts. You run those four calls, successively, A.S.A.P., no matter what. (Sometimes they are written on the inside of facemask hidden athletic tape, JIC as Ginko is just like that)
Additionally, for those of you questioning the inability of 1-Gap Bud Stout to defense a dual threat Qb, notice that ‘backer #49 Ter.Edmunds is spying Dungey early on in this one. That’s a man assignment folks, not a gap. And although recalcitrant to ill too much on Budweiser, ‘Tua lining up on the inner slot guy head-up in coverage is a curious thing and has to basically be a W-W for the ‘cuse.
Finally, do note that with about two ‘cuse offensive series left in the first-stanza, Bud took the spy (Edmunds) off of Dungey and goes to a really wide split ILb twins set with Tua an Edmunds basically flanking the outside eye of the widest in-line blocker upfront. LOVE to know/hear what spurred this toggle that more/less releases Dungey’s forward internal charges later on? (Though Foster did mix his spy looks back into having #49 go oo7 on Dungey later on as well)
1Q game duration:
If you are a ‘cuse fan, your oLine is aggressive. If you are a Hokie fan, or Ken, or Williams or Walker or Baron, the ‘cuse oLine is somewhere between inexpensive and dirty. As you saw hi-lo, pee-hole and cuts and doubling mechanics right on the blocking whistles moral boundary all day long. Ken took the first of many, at the 1Q 11:32 remaining mark.
2Q 13:27 remaining:
If you wanna see some Hokie steals, just watch Peoples on the upper right and Teller off to the left-side of the dogpile on your telly screen. Peoples is made of iron and Teller is made of worse than that. Wow!
2Q 11-10 remaining:
BEST goaline life-n-death defensive stand I’ve seen outta Vah.Tech since 1986 and Curtis Taliaferro‘s open-field stop on wvu in Lane. Notice the pure island coverage on the edge that held up; and a tremendous vertical surge from no less than a seven to eight man A-B gap overloads right in Dungey’s face. With three Qb hits and three Qb pressures just like that. A gutty sellout high risk high reward move from Foster.
2Q 5:28 remaining:
God Bless, as Vinny sure accidentally (right) leg whips big ole #8 Nigel Williams on this tragic looking friendly fire roll-up at the end of the ‘cuse middle-screen. Seeing Dr. Goforth and Staff SPRINT onto the field tells you just how scary this play looks on breaking-tape. Notice Williams is grabbing his leg, not his knee. God Bless some more.
2Q 4:01 remaining:
With the ‘cuse FG-Kicker already having come up short once before, why not put Strol’ back there to (possibly) field and return any shortie of a FGA miss? Auburn v. Alabama anyone?
3Q 14:58 remaining:
Huelskamp tackles Strol’ on the KO return as the harbinger of doom. Damn. (Though Sean did go gravedigger and bury the ‘Cuse wedge-buster at 4Q 7:55 to rally from this play)
3Q 13:32 remaining:
I know this seems sacrilegious… though, do we need to play Peoples over Sam as Fb1? As Sam has a lotta no contact plays where he just runs full speed by defenders and never ever chooses engage in left or right-side blocks. Everyone loves Sam. So it sucks to have to say that. He’s an Alpha worker-bee coach’s dream child. Though still, how many times do you see this on film before it is become “okay” to do something about it? (Or schedule and eye-appointment for him, …JIC)
3Q 11:22 remaining:
Lotta hustle on this swatted P.A.T. by Joey and by Walker. However, man-o-man did poor C.J. Carrol get stolen down the field!
3Q 3:59 remaining:
Okay, so, since half-when is it a good idea to put your best pass-rusher out into Slot-coverage?!? We do NOT have any Cb’s or Fs’ who can slot-cover any better than this? (Also: watch poor Woody grabbing the back of his left-hammie and stretching the same post-play).
3Q 1:58 remaining:
See R.Walker get his right-arm/shoulder pinned awkwardly underneath the Syracuse Rb at the end of this play. Godspeed; as this impact did not look salubrious to me. (Walker did return in the 4th however)
4Q 8:53 remaining:
Poor Ken gets his right-wrist caught in the belt-line (possibly the metal buckle/loop) of Qb Dungey as Dungey flies by on the even or right-side scripted Qb Draw; dang.
4Q 5:33 remaining:
“Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.” -Clint Eastwood-
Yah; pretty much true that, and don’t bother to tell me that Tua, Walker, Ken or Strol’ all hustled on these four, that’s 4 missed tackles per this one Tb-draw 16 yard scamper for six {sic: points}. We were only down one full play at this moment with ‘Cuse up 24-17; where was all that killer pulmonary cardio vampish conditioning here?
Time To Throw (TTT)©:
Virginia Tech:
Qb pressured=8
Qb hurried=1
Qb hits=13 (1 fumble)
Sacked=1
Syracuse:
Qb pressured=26!
Qb hurried=1
Qb hits=24! (with two leg injuries to boot)
Sacked=1
The cuse offensive KRAZY turbo pace forces most sub-light speed football teams to do one of two things…
- Try to play stall ball, go four-corners, and slow everything down.
- Try to play at the Orange’s breakneck speed and then try to keep up.
For most standardized sub-light speed teams; neither one nor two is in their pet or normalized offensive tempo wheelhouse. Making playing the ‘Cuse when the ‘Cuse is having a good offensive hair-day a very difficult game to temporally manage accordingly.
This writer was really disappointed in our pocket pressure on a gimpy Orangeman Qb, with a history of a soft melon, and then a double knee injury in 2Q and with only 40% of his starters playing in block of him up front. One sack in 100 plays vs. that just straight up sucks. It really does, as does allowing 100% passing on two throws great for 94 yards combined. From, non, Qb’s! As we managed to hold the gamey Dungey Qb kid to 52% passing on a whopping 53 throws, picked him once, deflected him twice, and could and possibly should have picked him at least two, possibly even three more times on top of that. Accordingly, MAJOR props to Eric for being only the third Qb in the history of the Lo.FM to upset the Lo.FM while taking a twice injured statistical shellacking in the process. Very impressive kid –I like what he’s about.
Then mix in: Ken, Williams (looked bad to me), Shai, Woody, Walker, Evans and whomever I may have missed; and this Hokie football team that someone said was a really “dinged” up super and thin last week just officially became really “dented” and no less Jenny Craig as depth goes on a four day compressed schedule work week.
Penultimate, someone with some X’s and O’s credible headship (namely the ‘Cuse D-coordinator/secondary coach); finally recognized that Evans misses long (overthrown) or out in front on too great of a lead. As there is now enough Evans’ film out in opposing dark-rooms to start to develop Evans’ tendencies and therefore opposing defensive opposition.
Finally mix in the five, that’s 5-wide ‘Cuse offense sets (see: pic). And guess what? There goes all of Foster’s zone mixing, baiting, disguising/rolling coverage’s –as look just how far laterally and to a lesser extent how far vertically Bud Stout is stretched out and just how many Cb’s and Rovers are forced into pure medium-man here. In some ways, this hearkens back to the early 2000’s Whip’s being marooned in no mans land à la WWI. As ‘Tua and Edmunds are stretched to their run-fit horizontal breaking point, and their run-fit dynamics requiring them to honor the 1o9 net gain of a gimpy Dungey on the Qb keepers effectively eliminates what passing help they can afford. Some might call this being out-coached, I call this being out schemed (just a bad bad match-up); and at times, out personnel(ed) –as coach Dino could not possibly find a better fit from his Qb1.
Longfield Management (Lo.FM)©:
Virginia Tech:
positive: |||| |||| || (1 ‘Cuse flag, 1 TD)
negative: |||| ||||
Swiss (neutral): ||||
Syracuse:
positive: |||| |||| |||| ||| (1 TD, 2 on 4th down, 1 VT penalty)
negative: |||| |||| ||| (1 ‘Cuse flag, 1 fumble, 1 INT)
Swiss (neutral): |||| |
Evans said it his ownself… ‘cuse may have just published the Fu’Fense defensive manual.
And it was so simple, as to be too obvious to see.
Tree (singular) >>> forest, if you will.
- Keep Evans pinned inside the Ot box, which he does not enjoy; and the more you can compress -if not outright contain- his game with E-W pincers, the more you place the onus on c-(right)-G. Which magnifies their liabilities all the more. Ditto if/when we face two pinching good De’s (or even a blitzy OLb), who can similarly narrow Evans handsome ability to ad-lib horizontally and therefore again; force our less than adequate c-(right)-G to have to hold more blocks, for even longer.
- Likewise, and per Hokie2Hoya’s great pay-side message board post-game take, you really do need a hyper speed track & field stopwatch quality halt-unit to run with the very quick hitting Fu’fense. More so laterally, though occasionally vertically as well; and not everyone has that. In point of fact only one team left truly matches-up well just like that in 40-yard dash terms. And oh by the way; they are up, next. (As after Miami the Fu’fense schematic 100m raw speed match-up offensive advantage shifts back in favor of us)
- Also, the under-zone flood look from Cuse’s 30 set or what you could be forgiven for deigning to call a nearly 3-8 defense is no bad way to deal with the Fu’fense. Ditto taking away the Wr I.Ford play-side first look and forcing someone else to beat you. Recall coach Dion is the only A.c.c. big whistle to face coach-Fu, last year. And it showed!
- Finally, and although I am not as yet able to put my finger subjectively nor precisely on it …there is something here that I do not like in clinical terms. Call it an inherited refugee hygienic problem from being married in basically .5oo ball for three straight years. Call it a trap-game and looking ahead to Miami. Call it being a bit: “chinny” in boxing circles … although do go ahead and put the rubber to the road and call it what it R.A.T.T., is. As this is a football team that does not (yet) take an incoming mental A-game punch entirely well. I’m not willing to go so far as to say we have an intangibly glass-jaw. Nonetheless, our applied sports-psyche cognitive ability to respond properly and timely to adversity is less than a fully Piaget(ed) man’s fully filled in sporting beard. Our mental whiskers are still Mark Wahlberg in Perfect Storm splotchy looking, at best.
the takeaway… the takeaway is, I wonder if we just got, exposed? As someone said last week, they R.A.T.T. felt us to be a lot closer to 30th best in national terms than we were to a lofty #17 in all the land. As we’d been fortunate for several games and the only thing I know about the nebulous or subjective concept of so-called luck, is, that luck always objectively runs out.
That very same someone even wrote about a hiccup game phobia way back in August; said; predicted it would happen. Although they said it would happen either before the ‘Cuse | or before we got the to BYE week prior to Duke. In other words, not in their wildest dreams, did they ever once say it was… the ‘Cuse.
Shows how much that dumbass knows…
Nevertheless, they do know that Foster was not happy post-game. Foster even was heard to have said that he planned on making some “adjustments” attitude wise on at least three guys this week. Thing is -and yah; he (Foster) is prolly right, that may indeed be needed- the thing is, that’s a bitch to do with a gimpy stop-unit, on a short week, vs. a team that has given us some T.Rex sized oLine powerhouse fits in three of the last four years.
Then someone heard that Coach-Fu was not happy with what is ultimately his defense. So allow me to just say that Fu’ went hands-on, in situ. Crossing over as as coach and going so far as to enter the defensive meeting room for the very first time all year, unannounced, he sat down, and then summarily told Foster’s stop-unit in no uncertain terms that he (J.F.) wasn’t going anywhere until things got fixed! WoW!
***
Dang, most Hokie disappointed I’ve been in years on a helter skelter film that saw us have our chances to steal one; every bit as much as we were fortunate to not get blow out.
Though hey, God Bless the ‘Cuse. They beat us; they beat us good and clean. Orange PROPS to them. My worst Hokie call since half-past J.m.u., –apologizes, on that one men.
In closing, hearing coach-Fu was very unhappy with this mess.; very, and this high-octane up-tempo ‘Cuse club came at the worst short-week time, too. Accordingly, there is a lot on the Coastal line this week gents. As this could clinically snowball on a team that has not yet mentally cleaned out three years worth of middleorce or acceptance of being merely .5oo hygiene.
Or in other words, methinks Miami=@Pitt.
We win both | or we drop three in a row.
Take thy pick.
Loading ...Virginia Tech=17, Syracuse=31
“LETS GO!”
“Hokies!”
bourbonstreet**
We were out coached, with heads that could hardly fit in their helmets
Coach Dino took bigger risks/rewards basically hit nearly all of them less the goaline stand.
coach-Fu’ took lesser risks/rewards.
Though to me he was more needy about them, with less field position support of the same.
Out risk managed is one way to put ^that^.
b.street
That eye do not lie…
Said post game this film session would be quite uncomfortable for quite a few players who watched the game from on field views…..
I hope after leaving the defensive room Coach Fuente set up camp in Coach VV’s offensive line huddle and too doesn’t leave until the soft middle is addressed.
Here’s to crushing Ibis wearing U.
Let’s Go…Hokies.
I’d have to suspect –and strongly– they would if they only could.
(address that softie oLine middle)
#64 was on ice-skates all day.
And it is only October.
#72 tried. He trapped okay a few times; though he got stalemated most of the time. That’s not enough from a Top-10 power-lifting G. He may even be Top-5.
b.street
Engineer says,
Your comment on Sam not hitting anyone on lead blocks is spot on. I have seen this at least once in every game. Thanks for your details b.street
Wish I twas ‘rong, there.
Everyone likes/loves Sam.
Though get him an eye-appointment.
You never know…
b.street
B. Street what do you think is wrong with our line (or RB’s). They can’t seam to push defenses off the line. Against several teams this year even when we won the other team can stop them without loading the box. On most running plays it seamed like Syracuses defense was pushing our line into the backfield and then the D-Lineman could tackle the running backs for short gains or no gains. I know the problem the last few years were that we were soft is that still the problem?
Oh yes. Still the problem.
Though now it is a 2 fold problem.
1. we lack a powerhouse set of pushers –not named W.T.
2. and 1. does not even fit the Fu’fense. Y.Nijman and (surprisingly) Wyatt fit the best. And the rest do not fit; and can not power anyone. Though there are whispers that Gallo is playing hurt as well in all fairness.
The only fix here is 2-3 years worth of recruiting (and developing) guys who do fit.
Although the Fu’fense itself is NOT and will not be a short-yardage set of crushers. That is not the Fu’fense’s design.
b.street
Defense struggled for sure, but the Offense has to own some of this loss too…
It did.
Though to me, and the Lo.FM and TTT, we tested pretty well on O. At least at times and for stretches of putting plays together. I might argue the O got more out-schemed (bad bad) match-up wise in point of fact.
Although O vs. D ills here is very much open to subjective debate.
You are not the 1st one telling me this.
(odd that coach-Fu went after the D post-game, and not his O, too!)
b.street
I’m going none of the above on what happened at JP dome. I predicted a flat game before we went and to me that’s 85% of what happened. Had we been a bit more focused and a half step faster on eight or so plays we would beaten them by 10-17. The other 15% (or maybe that should be higher) is that we have limitations on both sides and other coaches are taking advantage now as the Eye illuminated. The Cuse O surprised us some but we could have handled that if everyone had come to play instead of jogging around waiting for someone else to hit somebody, make a pick or tackle somebody.
I called it “flat” at halftime.
Then I had to call it being physically (and prolly mentally) worn-out.
Look, where is all that glorified S&C from Hilgirth; there?
I heard the Dome was unusually NOT warm like it normally is, too.
So we did not even need all the cooling equipment we packed up just in S&C case.
wild,
b.street
The offense scored 17 points. Why is that not one of the options in the poll?
Excellent point. We were averaging 40+ points a game. The O was supposed to pick up the slack when the D was down.
Both units got skooled. Hope we learn something from it or it was all for nothing.
That’s fair.
Good call out.
I try to keep it to 2 or 3 answers, only.
And I wanted “the better team won” for sportsmanship.
So 1 answer was left on the editing room floor. (the O in this case).
b.street
Sounds like a mess with blame to go around. D had a bad day but the O running into the middle on 1st/2nd down for no gain on multiple drives just left the D out there more. Total team effort on this one.
Thanks for the info b’street.
You are welcome Ted.
Thank you for reading!
b.street
B”street In defense of Rogers it appears to me he is nursing some significant hurt. He just is not moving well or seems to be a couple steps slow off the snap. Very stiff movement. Q’b’s that can run even on two bad legs is not knew just exaggerated when we are spread out. Three man fronts without a true nose tackle and spread out seemed to leave gaps that the Q’b could walk for a first down. Evans just does not seem to have the arm (whether hurt or not) to throw the long ball accurately. Will practice fix this issue that he understands is a problem?