Cincinnati=27, #25 Virginia Tech=24

I have to say, in my near decade on techsideline.com, I’ve never seen a Vah.Tech game go quite this Robert Louis Stevenson or Dr. Jackal and Mr. Hyde. In both directions mind you as Bud Stout opened triple bock strong enough; then taped out in the second half only to pour all of us a few pints of Bud Lyte. All the while allowing a staggering 495 yards of total offense of which 27 total points allowed really was not all that bad in the final analysis.

The Vah.Tech offense had all of that basackwards and opened up Mr. Hyde only to finish all the better as the benevolent and downright salubriously helpful Dr. Hyde with virtually 3oo yards of total offense of its own in a mere 17 minutes worth of second-half possession!

Could this game be any more astern, retrograde, misguided or abaft if it tried? When was the last time you saw a Virginia Tech football about-face, twice, in both directions? Not since the last V.P.I. vs. V.M.I. football game the clever ones among you will reply.

See what I mean?

Actually I don’t know what I mean and all of you have waited the aforementioned near 10 years to finally hear me say all of that.

As I officially have no idea which Virginia Tech football team will show up down @ U.n.c. on Saturday as the Bud Stout first-half version coupled with the Frank-n-Stiney second-half offensive juggernaut would be enough to beat U.N.C. even down on Tobacco Road. However, and that attempt at a few laps on the P.A.T.T.y wagon aside, if the second-half version of Bud Stout were married to the truncated and impotent fist-half version of O&M offense, the T.Heels could rout us royally indeed.

Again; I have negative-zero idea of which version of Virginia Tech will show up; or for that matter which version will show up for how long? Frankly speaking –and pun very much intended- neither does Vah.Tech.

3^rd quarter, 12:54 remaining:
Best lead-block of the year by a true Tb for the other Coach Beamer, hands-down, full-stop, do not cross go. As M.Holmes executed a prefect downstairs take-down block in the open-field leading the way for J.C.Coleman on the Fly-Sweep to the right outside the 6-hole on this one like a mother! A truly epic block, best I’ve seen from a Virginia TechTb in years; plural.

3^rd quarter, 6:55 remaining:
As I’ve not had the chance to actually write about a play this good looking in-game all year, I figure I owe it to the P.A.T.T.s who must be taking a warm hemlock flavored bath right about now. Lo and behold here is the Scissors or Crossbuck look off our base shotgun Ace or occasional Pistol set. Think of a pair of scissors all the way open in the shape of the letter: “X” and you will see what I mean as #11 D.Roberts goes left and #20 Holmes goes right, right off of D.Roberts left-hip to give this play its misdirection or Crossbuck element. Someone had been serendipitously reporting the existence of this play since August Camp. Looks like Yeti and size99foot just showed up. (big PIC link)

Season Duration:
Any of you ever watch Space-Ghost and the Mighty Mites way way back when? I swear one of them is J.C.Coleman come to Earth. I’m not sure this guy really is 5`8“, I’m not even sure he’s really 5-7, though he prolly is a very solid five-n-a-half. Either way; this kid is our lb. for  lb. Manny Pacquiao or Floyd “money” Mayweather Jr. as there sure is a whole helluva a lot of play-making ability all compacted scrunched up into a smallfry of a Tb who is big on heart and likewise big on acceleration and making people miss downfield. I don’t know about you, though I’d love to see the other Coach Beamer commit to J.C.C. and T.Gregory and just go pure speed max once #22 gets back.

3^rd quarter to 4^th quarter intermission:
The Cincy players, including the scrubs on the bench sprinted from end to end while mighty and formerly 25^th ranked Vah.Tech just walked it up. I’m not saying you have to be all “rah-rah sis-boom-bah!” You all know I hammer Hokies and opponents alike for “look at me!” smack-running and individualized bovine-shicakatous. Sometimes that is just nickel and dime window-dressing that makes discount mannequins of us all. Now, that said, which one would you rather be? The runner or the walker who is watching the runner runs?

4^th quarter, 13:33 remaining:
Now this is what Coach Lombardi, Jack Ham and myself call putting your shoulder into someone’s chest as old-school tackling goes. Just watch this one-man-tackling clinic put on by the left-shoulder otherwise known as #34 K.Jarrett who has been a lump-hammer in run support or in open-field tackling all year long. (big PIC link)

4^th quarter, 13:26 remaining:
This is not only a well-coached Cincy football team, clearly this an aggressive Cincy football team. Observe as the interior oLinemen of Cincy simply remain in their initial 3-point stances to enhance the (uncalled) off-sides penalty on Virginia Tech. Now notice as the Cincy Wideouts simply go for broke on Streak patterns downfield demonstrating a willingness to trade 5 yards for 6 points. “Football ain’t called band for a reason” and Cincy was playing Hells Bells in one note or less from the word go.

4^th quarter first VT offensive possession:
5 straight runs between the tackles and 6 points later we are finally figuring things out after the initial 290+ opening minutes of 2012 scrimmaging –that we absolutely have to stretch the field both vertically and horizontally before we can come back inside with our pet powerhouse plays after all of that. Hmmmmmmm, wonder where I’ve read that one before?

4^th quarter, 8:02 remaining:
This is why I hate the Zone-Blitz; as even I in my r-shirt junior season of middle-age can run right past 6` 3o8 lb. #98 D.Hop and his zone-blitz drop out in the flat. Gar-ron-damn-teed! Don’t believe me just ask Matty Ice and Boston College a few years back in Lane. Or you could ask the game-breaking #1 for Cincinnati one Robert Abernathy IV and his 4.39 forty-time if you don’t believe any of that. I watched this play a good 15 odd times and for the life of me I just can not see the back or short-side help for D.Hop who Coach Foster must clearly realize is not in a favorable match-up vs. the most electrifying Rb in the game not named J.C.C. On top of that we ran press-man on the Boundary-Cb side with Exum crowding the Cincy Wideout to compound fracture all of this all the more. Why we continue to match-up even with one of our more athletic De dLinemen in coverage like this is simply beyond me? Why we did this with poor lumbering #98 D.Hop is just plain nutz!

4^th quarter, 6:04 remaining:
Note the true 3-4 or thirty-set outta Bud Foster on this one folks. Bud Foster is the spice of life; and yet there is more than a subtle hint of desperation when I see you going frontal alignment swap-meet between a base 4-3, the twenty, an even 5-2 and now a legitimate Bud Wilkinson 3-4. While I do agry with showing a different look or set here and there to keep the offense off-balance and assignment challenged; showing four divergent sets in a game where you gave up 15` short of 500 yards of total defense is needy at best; and a stage V clinger at worst. i.e. we are not swapping back-n-forth between 4 different fronts for a good reason…

2^nd half duration:
Wanna give a shout-out to a group that as an ex-member of I am perpetually hard on. The Virginia Tech Wr’s had their best blocking afternoon of the year on Saturday up in Maryland. While I am recalcitrant to publish that they blocked extremely well, they did block extremely better than this really helped open up our Fly-sweep to the edge with D.Roberts and the occasional backside pitch-out to J.C.Coleman as well. Sure would like to see Coach Sherm’ and his boys do work and keep this kinda efforting up!

Time To Throw (TTT or T3):©
Virginia Tech:
Qb sacks=1
Qb pressures=7
Qb hurries=zero
Qb hits=12

Cincinnati:
Qb sacks=2
Qb pressures=18
Qb hurries=nil
Qb hits=16

Yes, its true, my pet TTT metric just got beat for the second time in 5 years! That’s 5 years up and 2 games down for both the TTT and the Lo.FM if you are keeping score at home. As our pass blocking was decent enough and we got more than decent amount of pressure on Munchie Legaux who surely hung in their like a champ and was big-man-on-campus clutch indeed! That last throw as straight sick and the catch by D.Julian was just about as awesome as it gets. Yes, it sucks to get beat. And yet the late, great, Leory Neiman could not have painted that one any better. That was an A+++ pitch-n-catch under smashing good pressure and I gotta give that one to the Nati. Helluva a throw, helluva a catch, as there was just not much more Vah.Tech could have done in defense of that. Now…

---

If Bud Foster were an animal what kinda animal would Bud Foster be? A mountain-lion? A Tiger? A grizzly bear? Maybe an old-school lumpy yet grumpy bulldog?

Or how ‘bout a duck?

Well, even if we can not agry on what kinda animal Bud Foster would be we can all agree that he clearly is anything and everything less being a duck. As this man ducks no questions and censorship just ain’t in his main vein either. However…frustration is his thing right now and that thing boiled over on Monday down in Blacksburg Va in numerous responses to the fourth-estate that were well beyond PG-13.

During such, -Bud Foster to his candor and to his credit- reminded the media that it was the media (read: not Bud Foster) that had told everyone just how great this 2012 Virginia Tech defense could be. Mea culpa Bud. I was one of those who truly hyped up your front-4 that I said nearly went three deep. Bud his ownself said that this twenty-twelve stop-unit: “…had a chance to be good.” Not “great” mind you, just “good”.

That admission firmly and fairly in place; I was less impressed with the hind-7 with so many off-season surgeries and four full guys playing outta position. So lesson learnt as this may indeed be all this brand of Bud Lyte has on tap. Defensive speed is down, tackling is down, we have dings and dents all over and yet all of that is forgivable enough where a real man like Bud Foster is concerned. What I wanna hear Coach Foster address is where is his teams’ intensity in lieu of his professionally fully vented frustration? As last years guys who played with their hair-on-fire have looked like they are soaking wet since Georgia Tech.

***

“…but I feel totally confident in what we’re doing on offense.”
-Frank Beamer-

“I think it’s a lack of energy out there,”
-VT Wr, Marcus Davis-

 Let’s put the rubber to the road: why are we saving the more laterally or horizontally oriented stretch plays for the second-half?

Hate to break it to all of you, though this second-half version of lateral stretch with J.C.Coleman and hopefully with T.Gregory really loosens things up and smartly at the point of attack for Virginia Tech and the Frank-n-Stiney offense. Yes, I know, there are only 25 odd shopping days left until Halloween. And yet this is some downright nifty use of misdirection here witch is borderline exotic for Virginia Tech. Said counter or misdirection look(s) subsequently free up play-action passing where we actually throw crossing routes and passes to guys on the move that ain’t exactly short or screens. Good God?!? Did I just give us an offensive complement? Perish the thought and I haven’t had anything to drink for 8 days. Well, not until now…

However, as I realize that giving the 2012 VT offense some credit is not exactly the flavor du jour. And upon further inspection I likewise realize that what I just wrote is nearly taboo – and virtually downright sexxy for the Back to the Future Jerry Claiborne may be gone yet his ghost is still here offense.  Though as I asked above … why wait? Why practice abstinence on pumping the opposing defense good and hard with O&M offensive plays that actually work and authentically play to our few offensive strengths? Note the key word there which is “few” folks. If you don’t have many trump cards you don’t have many alternatives, or so pragmatism suggests. Which suggests to me and apparently to O’Cain and Stiney the need to “simply” things once again. Running all that lateral stuff and then throwing downfield from the get go does enjoy a bit more sexxy than our opening 30 minute salvo of dud based scrumming week-in and week-out suggests. We may not be fishnet stockings all dolled up when we have the ball; though we ain’t exactly fish-guts either. There is a higher offensive ceiling here men and our small-forward sized Qb still has plenty of reach.

Soooooooo, for the love of (Coach) God…………..why not run this Ace and Pistol east-west stretch set full-time from the start? Or does that too make too much sense? I just saw where Stiney went to LT3 and asked LT3 to nominate his Top-5 favorite passing plays. LT3 gave him a full ten. Now this I like. As likes attract and it is high time to stop making LT3 date the opposite girl.

“LETS GO!”

“Hokies!“

bourbonstreet**