Well, that was my kinda Virginia Tech football game –easy on the eyes.
One-sided and lopsided at that; which makes for a most relaxing second-half of note taking on my vintage 1986 VT bookstore clipboard that has survived numerous encounters with Mr. Wall and or Mr.Floor over the years.
I like that and you should to.
Let’s just hope that we’ve got a few more in the bag as relatively comfortable September wins go before we get to the meat of our 2011 regular season schedule.
In the meantime, we’ve got a few things left to work on and several guys that we must keep healthy at all costs.
That said, this was about as crisp of an opening game that I’ve seen outta Virginia Tech in long long time. Think Coach O’Cain might have had a little something-something to do with that? Me too and I am also thinking that I should be thinking of revising my 10 win prediction upwards if we can only stay healthy for the duration. As this 2011 Virginia Tech football team has a very sporting shot at being #1 in the A.c.c. if our top-22 ballers remain good-to-go.
So let’s take a look at some second-half plays that you may have missed as we begin our considerations of East Carolina in earnest in a few days time.3rd quarter, 13:38 remaining:
Here is the very Wham or inside-zone Iso play that someone’s preview suggested that we should run vs. the Appy.State base 3-4 defense with the associate wider defensive line splits from the lowercase Mountaineers. Notice the lead kick-out block by J.Phillips who went to work on the MLb from Appy.State. If you show me a Fb who is blocking this well and absorbing this much heretofore unsung contact, I’m gonna show that Fb the rock down near the goalline and let him get his name in the paper on a Dive or Plunge play for six points.
3rd quarter, 13:20 remaining:
Second time I’ve ever seen this, and this is indeed a pretty neat Euclidean twist. Does the upper-right hand corner of the North Endzone bleacher remind you of a certain O&M helmet logo geometrically speaking?
3rd quarter, 13:15 remaining:
Watch ninety-nine Mr. Gayle with the unusual accidental steal of #31 the up-back from Appy.State at the end of this play. If Gayle played offense he would have likely been whistled for an inadvertent black-in-the-back penalty on this one.
3rd quarter, 7:25 remaining:
Was this one of the Winslow v.2010 big bad plays? Nope. Has he improved enough to hopefully avoid those in 2011? Perhaps, however, here we see that forty-three is just one stride away from a major (TFL) tackle for a loss on Pressley and #43 simply does nothing. Winslow finished with a full zero assists and likewise zero solo tackles on the day. (big PIC link)
3rd quarter, 5:20 remaining-game duration:
I added them up, once Coach O’Cain inserted #6 Mark Leal into the game, we ran 13 running plays and a full nine passing plays, up 52-nil with the game firmly in hand. That’s 22 plays less the four kneeling on the ball clock-killers at the end; or throwing the football an unheard of 41% of the time to close the show. Think Coach O’Cain wanted to try to develop Leal just a little bit? Think Frank-n-Stiney who once ran the football 23 consecutive times to end a blow-out game would have developed Leal one iota? Think again.
3rd quarter, remaining-game duration:
I don’t wanna cause anyone to have to reach for the Dramamine or inflict any version of cyber seasickness on any of y’all. However, just watch the second team defense and its lack of tackling from here on out for the duration. At times it was sickening indeed, and on this particular play note #34 K.Jarrett and #26 J.Hopper basically wave or helplessly flail at Quick from Appy.State as he motored right on by each of them for six points. As I have been seeing this on film for there straight years outta our rookie season defensive younglings, I am want to wonder if anybody bothers to teach any fundamentals coming up through the pigskin ranks anymore?
3rd quarter, 2:23 remaining:
Watch little ole Tony Gregory deliver the large and in charge steal on #86 the Kicker of Appy.State right at the end of
the D.Roberts kickoff return. Nobody likes the Kicker when the Kicker makes his way downfield. Too funny!
Game duration:
You tell me: who has the better purified Qb passing bio-mechanics: Logan Thomas or Mark Leal? To me, it sure is tough to beat such a quick-release on a nose down dart like the one Leal throws thanks to such a compact wind-up on his throwing motion to begin with. Note the strike that Leal threw to Coale rolling to his left and having to throw back across his body at the 3:15 mark of the third quarter for example.
3rd quarter, 0:29 remaining:
Hate to say it, Saturday was just not T.Clark’s day (more below), as he gets totally stolen at the end of the Appy.State kickoff return and as he unceremoniously comes flying into the top of your screen as someone yet again took him out behind the woodshed and went lumberyard on poor #57. Keep your head on a swivel at all times whenever you find yourself covering a punt or kick-off folks. The life you save may be your own.
3rd quarter, 14:50 remaining:
Watch as poor T.Clark come up lame after he hyper-extends his right knee on the dreaded no-contact leg plant as he feebly attempts to plant and change direction to come up underneath the play and make the stop on the Appy.State back-up Qb Mr. Jackson. Yikes,
this one is scary indeed.
4th quarter, 11:32 remaining-game duration:
#52 ‘Quell Rives may not have a whole lotta speed left, and he may be carrying upwards of at least 10+ lbs. of ‘rong-mass in his northern hemisphere. That said, he did move better than expected and he surely used nothing short of a very high football I.Q., and some guile, moxie and wit to make no less than 4 full tackles including a Qb hurry in just over a quarter of scrimmaging. Fiddy-two may no longer be able to beat you physically, however he is still as mentally sharp as every and played one helluva a thinking mans game on Saturday.
4th quarter, 9:00 remaining:
I like #31 of Appy.State. He can drink from my canteen any day. What should you do down 59-13? Well, you should try to hit somebody and try to make a name for yourself down the road. Note that #31 arrives just a tad late on the T.Gregory inside-zone carry so #31 decides he might as well seal somebody and therefore steals #45 his very own MLb right at the end of the play. Ha-ha, you gotta love a kid with a temperament like that.
4th quarter, 8:05 remaining:
Watch #25 Martin Scales simply detonate on the right-side Appy.State up-man on this kickoff return by the Mountaineers. Goodness, this is what you call unloading and twenty-five wins my award for the Hit of the Game on this one men! Dangnation, twenty-five hit this Appy.State kid, as Scales has a little mean in him, and he may even have some Wayne Ward as well.
4th quarter, 6:11 remaining:
Color commentator: Dave Archer: “We’ve got recruits taking hand-offs now.”
PBP commentator: Steve Martin: “Careful … careful.”
Don’t know about you, though that on-air real-time exchange in the booth was a head turner at best and borderline fishy at worst. Sure sounded like they knew something we did not –didn’t it?
4th quarter, 5:34 remaining:
Oh my God did Prince absolutely slaughter the back-up Mike Linebacker (MLb) for Appy.State when he pulled and fold-blocks on him downfield on this play. Prince pancaked this poor kid not once, freakin’ twice on this Dyer carry –and somewhere Aunt Jemima is smiling.
Note that Dr. Gentry’s son (Bo) adds a nice steal over top of the Prince-MLb pile-up at the end of the play of his own. Good for him! Bo sure has worked hard to do what he can with what Coach God did give him. You can never have too many worker bees like #63 on the team folks.
4th quarter, 5:01 remaining:
Talk about a play-action fake! Man-o-man is Mark Leal advanced in such, as he fakes the entire 7-man 3-4 defensive front from Appy.State out on this deft hand-off on the delay Draw play to Dyer –who ran very well in relief and has excellent short choppy based footwork as a kid who saw a lot of action at Tb in high school. Good for him! It’s always nice to see the back-ups that pay very the same practice price as the starters getting some real live playing time love. (big PIC link)
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Anomalies of the game:
- David Wilson only averaged a meager 10.1 per carry.
- No less than 4 different Hokies averaged 5.0 or greater per rush.
- L.T. was 47% on the day.
- Marcus Davis only averaged 41 per catch.
- zero tackles from an all-American Boundary-Cb named Jayron Hosley.
- zero from the Whip’s plural as well, as Tweedy made his solo stop as a Gunner in punt-coverage.
- A Dt (D.Hop) lead the team in tackles from his Defensive-Tackle spot for the first time … since when?
- Coach Wiles multiple front-4’s combined for no less than a whopping 26 tackles, 3 TLF, and 1 sack on a nearly dictatorial defensive performance up-front.
- No less than 28 different defenders were credited with some version of a defensive stat for the game! Wow, can you say floating a keg of Bud Lite or what.
- Hosely did average 32 per punt-return.
- Finally, VT only had 3 negative yardage rushing attempts beyond simply killing the clock.
Time To Throw (T3):©
Virginia Tech:
Qb hits: ||||
Qb’s sacked: |
Qb’s pressured: |||
Qb’s hurried: zero
Dropped passes: ||||
Applachian State:
Qb hits: |||| |||| |||| |||| |
Qb’s sacked: |
Qb’s pressured: |||| |||| |
Qb’s hurried: zero
A couple of oddities jump right out at you in evaluating the never beaten metric otherwise known as the: Time To Throw…
- first up, Appy.State is a up-tempo Spread Offense that operates out of multiple option bases sets
- number two says see: number one
- number three says see: number two
Hence we see two inordinate statistics: we see very few Qb Hurries and so very many Qb hits. Yah; that’s 72 golf or par for the course when playing a rapid-fire spread offensive set that emphasis the option attack such as the one Coach Moore deploys. Such is also the reason why, that in spite of the fact that we were getting good pocket pressure, both up the gut and off the edges that Virginia Tech only tallied one single solitary Qb sack on the day. Basically, you’ve got a “one-thousand one” count, and on occasion a tad more; in order to get to the Appy.State Qb as this Mountaineer offense was nothing if not quick on the release. That said, Bud Lite did precisely what someone said they would pre-game in that they took full advantage of the all rookie year r-freshman blind-side of the Appy.State offensive line as VT showed them multiple fronts with varying slants, stunts, loops, twists, and zone-blitzes. On top of that Bud Lite plum got after Presley when he was forced to run or ran via play-calling design. VT put some licks on Presley although they should have put at least one more hit on him to help that post-game cut under his nose heal up good and tight.
On the other side of the ball we saw a pretty decent textbook Cup formed around the pocket-Qb otherwise known as the Messiah in cleats or one #3 L.T. To be direct, I’m not real sure how much to take from this, as Appy.State only rushed 3 fulltime downlinemen and did not blitz as much as some had projected that they would. VT did pass protect very well as you can see by the four offensive-linemen with a 90 grade or higher, and no less than 8 guys who notched a passing grade of 80 or better on the opening day. When was the last time that happened; half past never? So do give C.Newsome and his boys some well earned love. Yes, it was only D-1aa and defensively challenged Appy.State; nevertheless, the VT front-line blocked about as well as they have for several years, and that is indeed years plural.
Game#2:
Up next we face the o-1 East Carolina Pirates at 3:30pm down in Greenville North Carolina on FOXSports Net. Off the top of my head, I like our chances here as the run-plugging E.C.U. middle defense looked like a muster-call for all hands on deck as the Pirates abandoned 22o yards worth of a stop-unit ship. That pegs E.C.U. as the 96th best rushing defense in the land, that’s not enough and neither are the impoverished Pirate special teams. Right now I’ll tentatively call for a 46-24 Hokie victory on Saturday; and don’t ever forget … you can’t spell VicTory with out VT.©
“LET’S GO!”
“HOKIES!”
b’street