Your Clemson Eye in the Sky!

Virginia Tech football took last years Atlantic Coast Conference championship total yardage deficit of –84 yards and just turned it into a 30′ surplus. Although history will record that I am disallowed to call that an outright win; history and analysis alike surely will grant me the privilege of call that: “…progress”.

Prolly the hardest I’ve seen a Virginia Tech football team fight in at least a decade or more.

I for one find that rather refreshing… and yes… this may have been the end of the beginning of this formerly stillborn Hokie sporting culture reboot. Therefore, one could dare to say after the non stop O&M hemorrhaging of effort that we witnessed on Saturday night, that our Fu’ture was not lost.

1Q 15:00 remaining:
Okay, so I takes a little -which is to say a lot- I takes a lot of Hip-Hop and even some Rap when I workout. Yes, on my worst meanest days, I too listen to this song. Though who in the “Wide Wide World of Sports” approved: “You Can Hate Me Now” by Nas as the pre-game intro’ music for Clemson… AFTER, our very own signature Enter Sandman?!?

1Q 8:o8 remaining:
Finally, the first #HardSmartTough Hokie steal on special-teams of year… which leaves you wondering if this is being actively coached, out? As Shegog -who had a very tight game- fought the Clemson offensive-G #59 like a dawgg all the way down the field and finally stole him and dropped his ass right on his wallet at the bitter end.

2Q 14:56 remaining:
Yah; I know, Tuaman sorta missed this shoestring run-fit on all-galaxy T.Etienne of Clemson. Tough do watch Tuaman go all-out Crab Drill and crawl on all fours trying to make-up for it and bite his way back into the dog-pile on this one. Unreal how hard this Hokie team just played!

Game Duration:
Clemson did two things in-game starting right here at the 2Q 11 min. remaining mark that told you just how much Clemson thought of themselves. First of all they introduced the HR throw on 1st & ten and they went for no less than five of these… meaning they only needed two downs to gain 11. And then later on they went to a 30-front on defense meaning their three could handle our five. I’m not saying this/that as the accuracy of their inherit thought vector went… I am saying Clemson was feeling no O&M outcome phobia at this point in time.

2Q ~3:15 remaining:
Where is the Clemson scoring drive? Because I know where it ain’t… it ain’t on ESPN3, it ain’t on either YouTube copy that I could find; either. Fox Mulder and I want to believe; although this is downright… “spooky”. And only ~30 odd shopping days remain….

3Q 14:20 remaining:
This is what effort (foreground, #6, Strol’) and intensity (background, ex-#12, now turned coach-Fu’) look like. As yes, this was a perfect -and pretty dang difficult- outside shoulder pass that the Cb is NOT supposed to be able to get too. Except our Cb, did! wow!

3Q 12:44 remaining:
I haven’t done much of this since we got him; although I do gotta part company with coach-Fu’ and/or coach-Z here…

Did T.Mac’ unceremoniously fumble here?
Yes.

Do we deny this?
No.

Nevertheless, taking him out and benching him after this is not part of the solution… and frankly speaking, it is part of the problem. As I timed it —T.Mac’ fought for virtually 8 seconds in the pile-up trying to wrest the fumble back away from the Tiger defender well after the whistle had blown the play dead. That’s a live kid who has some remaining butterfingers problems, though it’s also a kid who is starting to figure it out and try a little harder to please you to boot. And benching him here is only serving to “condition” or reinforce the negativity; that from someone who -thank you Prof God and Dr. Minnix- made the highest grade in the history of Applied Sports Psychology from Illinois. I’m positive of that.

3Q 7:12 remaining:
#28 Feaster has already scored… no doubt about it. And yet we see no less than three Hokies -fighting after the bell- and still trying to tackle his ass!

This play right here could be you inflection point for the rest of the season men… as a lesser team made of softer stuff woulda spit the bit right here, let go the rope, and tapped right on out.

Instead -and to me- this is where the game began to turn in Virginia Tech’s favor as Virginia Tech out-gained and out-fought Clemson in pathological dying Shakespearean terms after this.

3Q 2:55 remaining:
Upon further review… maybe this was accidental? Although #19 just got to third-base with Cam on the 1st-date as he blasted Cam right in the package along the sideline on this crossing route tackle. Yikes 1o1!

3Q :24 remaining:
I suppose one way to put this is to say that this is an O&M staff coaching too hard. As you had to know Clemson was ready for any special-teams trickeration after the fake-punt last year; and while granted, maybe your Joey Syle confidence quotient is feeling rather bearish indeed. Still yet, if you wanna go for it on 4th & 12 who is the better Rb; the 4.78 40 timed Te Dalton Keene or an actual Rb?

As to me this O&M staff game-planned pretty well, they motivated off the charts well; and yet they also pressed a bit in the clutch and that’s something that they will have to get used to vs. #1’s outside of Memphis. As this was not a B.C.S., quad play-off look and the personnel grouping with 12 yards to go in support of such was more parts C-U.S.A. than that.

Though still yet, even a championship caliber team could have easily gone Hindenburg and deflated right here. N, o, t…. us!

Further… observe as well what a corned animal does… it reverts back to its most base instincts.

As Bud Böck went back to its 1999 press, jam, or tight man-to-man island coverage’s on edge and dared Clemson to hit the HR throw. And by and large, Clemson bunted, foul-tipped or struck out.

4Q 14:08 remaining:
My God! Did nugget or rookie year Bryce Watts find and absolutely train-wreck the dippy, lumpy looking P of Clemson (#48) on the nifty running Stro’ punt-return up above. Goodness gracious and props to #48 of Clemson for somehow getting up after taking this may volts from Watts.

4Q 13:46 remaining:
Did not enjoy seeing big bad #49 holding his right-shoulder after this dynamic open-field stop vs. Feaster of Clemson. Though -and per always- one site will be keeping an Eye on that for you. God Bless.

4Q 10:25 remaining:
Did not like seeing our Qb1 suffer an accidental left-knee roll-up at the end of this pocket throw as the left-De of Clemson was blocked into Joshua’s defenseless lead plant left-leg. Godspeed JAX.

Time To Throw (TTT)©:

Virginia Tech:
Qb pressured=1o
Qb hurried=3
Qb hits=13
Sacked=2

Clemson:
Qb pressured=6
Qb hurried=1
Qb hits=15
Sacked=3

We/Virginia Tech football just out-gained mighty, defending national champion, and N.f.l. riddled Clemson by 30′ (i.e. by 10 freakin’ yards)!!! Doesn’t sound like much you say?

Well, if you do not understand the severity of that crowing… understand this… that’s only because you did not read the preview, where I missed Virginia Tech by one point and Clemson by one play. Though if you did read it… recall that nobody has out-gained Clemson in close to two full-seasons of scrumming As these Tigers were up a mind boggling 2,499 total yards in their last 10 games alone coming into this one!?!

“Yes” William Christopher “dabo” Swinney… you do the damn maths!

As it is almost downright psychotic how hard this Hokie team just played.

Because while you may have us in raw Coach God given talent -for the moment anywho- you will never ever have us in heart. And no matter your talent-advantage matrix, you just got out-thought pre-game and out-fought all night; again. For the second time in two games; as we were the team who wanted it more and out-gained YOU by a likewise staggering 469% in the final 19 minutes of play. Guess who has more {sic: talent} and yet who wants it… less???

Typically I don’t hand out too many opposing compliments… though Qb Bryant of Clemson had more moves and more strength than I saw on film. And guess what… he’s only gonna get better and better on those aforementioned deep passing throw-game fits. As one may be forgiven for dully authoring that the best time to upset him was sooner, or September 30th and at home, rather than later, or on December 2nd, down in Charlotte. As Bryant accounted for no less than 8 of our missed tackles his ownself. And yes, this was easily our least great tackling day so far and prolly will stand as such for the rest of the campaign. And least we are remiss… Clemson’s Talent(s) had a little something something to do with that.

Longfield Management (Lo.FM)©:

Virginia Tech:
positive: |||| |||| ||| (1 TD)
negative: |||| |||| ||| (1 fake-FGA, 1 INT)
Swiss (neutral): ||

Clemson:
positive: |||| |||
negative: |||| | (1 CU flag)
Swiss (neutral): |

I believe I’ve learnt two Fu’fense things on how to defense us in 2017 terms… first -and most importantly- KEEP JAX bottled up in the
cup/pocket at all costs.

Why?

Because, for having a pretty dang decent top-end speed; JAX just does not have much twitch. Burst or acceleration; call it what you will… though kinda similar to LT3, don’t let him get going and get fully R.P.M. all wound-up. He’s an excellent game manager. He’d be the best game-manager ever with just one more stud Wr; and yet he has to throw under and round the rush. As he’s not real tall, and that’s another reason to plug the pocket on JAX. As he pretty much is an A+++ thought game version of B.Randall.

And if you are still bogged down in the: “hesitation” camp… break camp on this… 4.46 secs. That’s his 20-yard shuttle time and that’s in the bottom 29%. Or 25”, that’s his vertical leap and that’s bottom 37%. Do you see what I mean? His head is too schooled, too well learnt and too coached up to hesitate *that* much. And I gotta wonder what was our Staff’s onus for calling all of these Jackson keeper looks vs. this much Clemson speed? (Which my source’s correctly reported pre-game and someone wrote about in-game)

Similarly, we really need Clark, (or whomever), to give us more on the Wr jet-sweep play. As we had precious little east-west stretch Saturday night and this too magnifies the pocket or mesh-point lack of north-south burst by Jackson all the more. (As it was almost cruel to ask what we just asked of C.J.Carroll horizontally vs. Clemson)

Regarding the Lo.FM… we did not do too badly on them, it is rather that we suffered through precisely 200% more Lo.FM’s than Clemson did and that’s never a good look.

Then we got a little needy when chasing the chain-gang in the second half and this is where you force things and turnovers occur. The in-eloquent difference between: “pressure makes diamonds” and “pressures bursts pipes”.

As for our blocking itself… well, when you’ve got one N.F.L’er, one C.F.L.’er, and three other guys blocking a Stiller, a Cowboy, a Patriot and a Redskin… well, we get to do the maths there. As that’s just not gonna tally favorably all that often. You don’t need my 36 hours of calculus and stats to arthritic on that. Still yet, our first 30 minutes worth of blocking-grades were break even or equilibrium hold your own at best. And if you are a Tiger fan interloping this column you might say they were less than that. However, here is the other catch-44, the good blocking plays we did have were all less four snaps recorded in the final 40 minutes of the game. And yet those we did have did not go as far downfield as they typically have. As Clemson’s D has speed to burn and it is very tough to break contain and torch this Tiger halt-unit for six.

Though no matter who you rooted for you do have to say that Tech’s blocking slowly, yet surely got better as the nite went along. Nothing epic, not great, sometimes just barely flirting with being good;  nevertheless, we did wear the Clemson front-4 down just a bit as this one wore on. God Bless coach Hilgirth and coach Vice… your Gestalt coach’s of the Year!

And as you can see in TTT terms, Clemson won this metric and generically kept a pretty clean passing cup less some up-Hill works for the most part. Whereas methinks Josh got a little jumpy and threw three, possibly four throws that Corny will coach him up to have back. Learning experience 1o1 insert (______) here; check!

***

the takeaway…

The takeaway is… if I were a betting man -and I am- I’d wager the under on Dabo wanting to see us and hearing round(s) 8-12 go “ding” in the A.c.c. championship game!

He’s got to be really tired of the bulldog in us hanging from his neck for four quarters of all-out ultimate caloric burn.

---

As this is the hardest and the longest I’ve seen a Virginia Tech football team hustle upon breaking tape since 2005 and all the retaliatory Racially fueled haterade we poured right down wvu’s throat up at Mo-town Wv.

Or maybe since the final-game Dooley seniors declared all-out comeback war on Nc.State in the 1986 Peach.

And either way… Klempson don’t want no more of this!

As one botched 1Q coverage, one pop-up INT pick-6, one missed FGA and one stuffed FGA-fake and suddenly this one really was a 23-17 Hokie VicTory.

And yah, on December 6th if my aunt Kim had nutz and a bolt she’d be my uncle… Tim.

Still yet… as Sir Andrew and I both know… “sometimes down is up, sometimes up is down, and sometimes when you’re lost; you’re found.”

Virginia Tech=17, Clemson=31

“LETS GO!”

“Hokies!”

bourbonstreet**