Your winning Duke Eye in Sky part II.

Our passing was rather impressive on the day. Even very impressive at times as Tyrod Taylor

had his best day statistically of all-time.

R.Will did finally begin to run semi effectively with about 7 minutes left in the game and he did run hard to have so little daylight for the first 3 Quarters and change. Special Teams were solid kicking wise as Waldron and Bowden enjoyed fine days. Though our return-game spurted all afternoon long. The VT defense was stout against the Dukies rushing attack though they did allow 359 passing against a hidden A.C.C. passing diamond in the rough otherwise known as Thaddeus Lewis.

Some good things; some impoverished things; and several things that unconditionally must improve before Gah.Tech gets here. So lets take a look at some humorous plays and dissect several plays that were left wanting in order to apply some specificity to that which must improve in the next 6 to 13 days.

3rd Quarter 14:56 remaining:
Mexican pancakes anyone? As our very own “Taco” appears to come up lame on a non-contact injury on his right leg on the first play of the second-half; whereby a puny 250 lb. Duke Center (C) lays him flat out after driving him off the Line of Scrimmage by about 5 yards.

3rd Quarter 13:52 remaining:
After placing Duke in an ugly 2nd and 18 from their own 11; Thad’ Lewis showcases why he is the

truth to any and all Pro scouts in the stands. Threading the needle between Kam and Porch who had nice coverage; even though they collided and knocked each other down. Then to make matters worse; #83 rocks the Rock on a rare downfield pancake block to add insult to injury. J.Worilds was in Zone-Blitz coverage and he and Kam warrant praise for chasing the play down from behind. Though Lewis had all day to throw as both Jake and ‘Quell were easily brushed off on the very deep (6 yards off the LOS) blitz. So why put our only legit pass-rusher into coverage with “Taco” hurting and Graves out?

3rd Quarter 10:33 remaining:
Note the bogus Personal Foul on the devastating crackback by Boykin on #20. This is what Helmet-to-Helmet has come to?!? I have a word for that; I call it: “band”. Don’t like contact but wanna

play? Try the band. Afterward T-mobile engages in his first major tete-a-tete verbal sparring session of the season. Which is an improvement over last year; though TT need not take the smack-down vocal bait from #7 who is a nobody to begin with. The kick getting up by #7 was light-weight and accidental in the untangling process. And props to Coach Sherman. This is the best and most violent downfield blocking VT Wide Receiver (Wr) corps in a long long time.

3rd Quarter 6:07 remaining:
2nd down and inches from the 34 and we call a Qb-Sneak with a Qb we can not afford to get hurt? Why not break out some trickeration at this point? Might catch Duke napping on a Flea-Flicker and at least you make the remaining 9 teams we have left to play defend against such in any remaining 2nd or 3rd and short situations.

3rd Quarter 4:51 remaining:
Watch sneaky #4 of Duke pick up D.Coale’s legs in a childish wheelbarrow style and then drop him to the ground on the Boykin fumble recovery.

3rd Quarter 0:47 remaining:
Henious call against poor Jake. Watch the replay; Jake hit T.Lewis -possibly late- with his right

shoulder! Jake’s helmet did not even hit the ground much less T.Lewis on the completely phantom helmet-to-helmet call.

4th Quarter 14:57 remaining:
Gorilla Monsoon called this the “solar-plexes”. Old-school calls it the family-jewels. Either way this is Helmet-to-junk contact as Worilds blasts Lewis right in the package on the inside-stunt.

4th Quarter 10:01 remaining:
Easily our best blocked play of the day as “Boooooooooone” executes a perfect seal-block on the left-side Duke Defensive-End (De); then Brooks nails a textbook kick-out block on #40. Amazing how R.Will suddenly came to life with a little blocking up front on this drive. Up to that point Duke had throttled him; holding R.Will to 1.9 per rush until this 4th Quarter drive.

4th Quarter 7:54 remaining:
T.Lewis accidentally drills the unaware sideline pho-tog with this looping sideline throw. Nice sportsmanship by #2 of Duke and Virg’ trying to help the dotted sideline pho-tog out afterward.

4th Quarter 5:05 remaining:
Just watch #3 VinceO. Third time on the day we did not even bother to chip-block him. Might wanna put a helmet on a future N.F.L. Defensive Tackle (Dt). In fact, our OLine missed numerous assignments up-front on this day.

Second-half Techbits:

• Note the increase in pressing man-to-man one-on-one island coverage on the Boundary Cornerback (Cb) side for Bud and Coach Gray.
• Watch Jake and ‘Quell intentionally crowding the LOS to show Blitz then actually blitzing or backing-off as disguised bait. Also note that Bud has moved them back about 2 yards off the LOS as I hinted he should to help eliminate some over-pursuit situations.
• Nice use of 3-step drops by Duke to take advantage of Jake and ‘Quell on quick hitters in coverage.
• Really suspect cut-blocking by, well … everyone. R.Will whiffed on three. Serg’, Wang, B.War, all missed cut-blocks all over the place that cost us 10’s upon 10’s of bonus yardage. You must see what you hit. That helps protect the cervical spine and that helps keep your cut-blocking aim right on target. That said, the number of cut-blocks we missed vs. Duke was staggering; easily into the mid teens at the very least.

Time to Throw (T3):®

Virginia Tech (TT):
Sacked=1
Hurried=o
Pressured=9
Hit=6

Duke (T.Lewis):
Sacked=3
Hurried=o
Pressured=1o
Hit=4

T3 Analysis:
VERY oddball day as VT’s pass-blocking was no less than the equal of VT’s run-blocking. How

unusual is that? Only very porous pass-blocking from R.Will skewed this T3 vital downwards. TT had quality pocket time to throw on a very respectable 6o% of our called passing plays; which represents a high-water mark for the VT T3 metric. On top of that TT only took off running on one scripted pass-play and was sacked on two others which count as runs in the official Box Score. Duke’s Lewis on the other hand had four actual runs for 3 feet on the day. He was sacked three other times as Bud Foster teed off on him late in the game in obvious passing situations down 15 points at that stage of the game. T.Lewis had good time to throw fairly often thanks to the aforementioned 3-step drops that are hard for any DLine to get to. This produced a quality passing pocket a whopping 67% of the time despite numerous 5 or 6 man blitzes from Bud Foster throughout the afternoon. Finally, it was very interesting to see how the respective Qb’s fared when they were actually hit. TT produced positive plays which included one stellar passing TD 50% of the time when he was contacted by the Duke defense. T.Lewis on the other had is a much more finesse oriented Qb as illustrated by his lowly 25% success rate when he was hit by the VT defense.

All in all Lewis had more time to throw as two of our sacks against came late in the 4th Quarter when Duke was forced to abandon their paltry running game that barely amassed 38 yards rushing on the day. A 1-dimensional -in this case throwing- offense tends to fare rather poorly vs. Bud Foster. The fact that Duke managed to scratch out 26 points and came up 3 yards short of the 400 yard mark on the afternoon  is disturbing to say the least. Ditto the on-going lack of VT pass-rush from the VT defensive front-line.

Player-Grades:

• S.Render with his least great outing of the year. Serg’ ran right on by Duke players on attempted blocks contacting nobody whatsoever numerous times. D-
• Cody Grimm. 14 Tackles, passes defended, major hustle and the best nose for the football since Vince Hall. A perfect 100 on the day for the highest possible A+++.
• Vince Oghobasse. Note that Vince lined up in both the VT left-side A-Gap and B-Gap (or 3 and 5-Holes) where he pummeled our two senior OLinemen (Serg’ and Wang) all day long. Vince was indeed the most disruptive Dt out of Mt.Cody and Suh. A+
• Josh sure is running much much better in his last 8 quarters of football folks. Much quicker to the Hole or Gap and running with much more self-confidence as well. A
• S.Friday. In limited reps #82 is getting much more pressure per play(s) than any other VT DLineman not named Worilds. B+
• T-mobile. Career high in passing-yards. MUCH better throwing mechanics! Take a look at his wind-up folks. Much more compact; which produces a quicker release. The hitch was a misnomer. A hitch is a full-stop; like Chris Dudley in free-throws. TT had a very elongated looping throwing motion last year where he even had the hand-held nose of the football pointing down at times. Now he is back to the Joe Montana very lofty, soft-touch, easily catchable football. And TT is throwing it downfield 35-4o yards on the flick of a wrist. Only thing left to do is to learn to look-off the primary Receiver. All you need is a slight rotation of the neck and the movement of the eyes to the given corner of the face to accomplish this. Defensive backs are (mostly) too far away to precisely read a Qb’s eyes and will only see the neck’s perceived line-of-sight. That is the only thing that lowers TT to an A- on the day.
• Kam. Kam’s run-support was better in terms of pure tacking and his coverage was (most often) tighter on the day. Not great; but good. B+.
• Ju-Ju & Wilson. Zero snaps combined for these two as I was really hoping to see Clayton get about 10-15 minutes of Qb work to develop him just in case TT gets blown up. I was also hoping to see Wilson get 10 or so carries to rest R.Will -who has 58 carries in 8 Quarters of play- and get Wilson back on track himself. Incomplete.

Conclusions and illation:
12 Hokie yellow-flags thrown bad for a buck-5 (1o5) in reverse is just not a good things folks. Tyrod had a career day; and Boykin (less his fumble) and Coale enjoyed fine games themselves. Cody did all that any undersized B.C.S. conference Linebacker could do; and where would this defense be without him?

And yet there was something strikingly underwhelming about this whole Duke shebang.

Believe it or not; it is the VT offense that has improved more from game#1 up through game#5 on the season. When was the last time we could honestly say that? So lets give Stiney some credit and a O&M pat on the back instead of an O&M kick in the butt for a change. Stiney clearly choose my pre-game Option number 3. and chose to work on the VT passing game and succeed richly for such. (readers note: Frank-n-Stiney is now a unheard of 34th in Passing Efficiency)

That said; unless critical elements of Bud’s always vaunted stop-unit improve in a hurry; or unless personal changes remedy this middleocore VT defense we just might need TT and our no less than incrementally ever improving offense to wing our way to victory down in the ATL or vs. at least one upstart opponent before 2009 draws to a close.

The main thing vs.a beat-down Maryland team is ... what? A.S.A.P. as in the sooner the better. Beat MU and move on; quickly! P.T. Playing time. Empty the bench; play any/all Seniors. Spread the love. N.A.T.T. an unexpected opportunity to fine-tune things late in the season that need fine-tuning. View Results  Loading ...

Up next: Boston College:
A surprising 4-1 B.C. Flying Eagle squad comes to Blacksburg VA this Saturday before we play Gah.Tech away. The B.C. offense is better at running the ball than they are at throwing it and they are just barely average at running it to begin with. The B.C. stop-unit is a nifty 26th in Total Defense thus far on 2009. Only allowing a parsimonious 2.8 per rush on the season. Freshman Qb Dave Shinskie has taken hold of the Gary Tranquill (remember him; an antediluvian Ohio State Woody Hayes and VT refuge ) offensive reins up on Chestnut Hill and amassed a alluring 7:2 passing ratio (TDs to INTs) in only 1o Quarters of play. For comparison sakes TT has a right-looking 6:1 ratio in 5 games of play.

B.C. is a decent to perhaps semi-good football team right now. However, they have had VT’s number a bit in recent contests and they do know how to stymie the Frank-n-Stiney offense. That will produce an ugly gridiron game in Blacksburg; though I am comfortable in typing that VT will ultimately win this one. (preliminary prediction: VT by 10 or so at Home).

“LETS GO!”

“HOKIES!”

b’street