Virginia Tech=17 Purdue=24

Virginia Tech football is hurt.

The Hokies opponents are putting steals all kinda all over the TSL message board fanbase. Nevertheless, that’s entirely why Will and Chris keeps someone around… So, that “…when the going gets tough the tough get… going! Who’s with me?!?” Oh, wait… it might R.A.T.T. get zero-point-zero (shutout) tougher before anything goes anywhere(s) at any all’s? Yah; big 1o-4, Roger that at .5oo or 1-up vs. 1-down. As @Rutgers and @Marshall are now nearly ’23 life-n-death. Or pull the V.p.i. R.I.P. cord if Pry-bar and Co. are not serially killer careful. ’cause… “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” No shite Sherlock Spock. And truthfully, this could get worse before it gets ’24. (Observe Watson that Eye did not type: “better”). Maybe even much (worse) at that… As there were signs here men… and nearly none of them were any: “better”.

1Q 59:56 remaining:
Four secs. That’s all it ’23 took to go down another 1 here.

As Jenkins -who has been ‘playing fast’ is the word- tries to tackle the Swing play to the Hokie sideline and gets totally O.G. “ear-holed” by the Te1 of Purdue. This looked worse upon breaking tape than Eye had thought in real-time in-game.

He moves cervically and also takes the brunt of the shoulder/foreman delivery right through said (right) earhole. Yikes! St.Demos bless; as this is not a safe look. Not at all.

And Jenkins is at least willing… not always can Eye rightfully O&M type that… dang…

2Q 11:o9 remaining:
Best offender?
Best receiver?

Maybe… although not any, mo’.

As -and if you hate your lunch; slow-mo’ this one down- po’ Jennings… in real time Eye could see the dangle or (left)-foot/ankle get loose, let go. Truly gross. May St.Philip bless. As Agent-0 got friendly-fire rolled up from behind (accidentally) trying to do his duty and block downfield and he was 1,000% defenseless when his toe got caught and things went: ‘snap’. A cruel damn mistress the oblong spheroid in spades.

This play just sucks— hard to (re)watch even…

2Q :15 and/or Season remaining:
Wells, this play sucked… too…

As observe… as Grant drops back to pass, and gets his left cleats turf-trapped right as the Purdue blitzer face-plants himself helplessly into Grant’s hyperextended lower leg.

THEN… Grant pronates and rotates his left ankle in a CW (clockwise) fashion for bad measure. That said, the ankle-twist letting-go when it did, prolly did spare him a full hyperextension gutting rip. Though it amounts to 2 medium injuries at the expense of an XL 1. St.Nikon and St.Philip bless, twice!

3Q ~14 remaining:
See Lane our tasty-looking Z or Slot-receiver pull up lame downfield in Lane with a tight hammie. Dangnation… (St.Winfrey help!)

Also see Wright get his left knee basically clipped or blocked below the waist if the possession was reversed on the (deeper) Crossing route behind the play, dangnation…

“When it rains it… pours“… doh!

3Q 3:46 remaining:
See one #2, Burgos; with the Elbow ding on the orthodox or right side right at the end of the play near the top of your screen. St.Christopher bless.

1Q 15:00 (@Rutgers) remaining:

^^^this^^^ is what Pry-bar and Ty.Bow’ have offensively remaining… don’t cry for me Argentina or Cascade Falls or the Farm House or Meadow Soprano.

Game Duration and Season remaining:
So, and Eye saw this throughout, for the duration… Purdue was not per se a dirty club. That would be a bridge or at least an overpass too far… They were on the fringe of the rulebook pages, ‘echo’ of the whistle or marginal if you will.

That’s not the point… the point is… are we beginning to get a: ‘can be intimidated’ rep’?
Does our O&M tag now read: “pink“?

As the Boilermakers baited us, they pushed us, they nickeled and dimed us.
Not knee-dives, or fights, or really cheap stuff(s).
Inexpensive in a word.

Nearly a few percent bully— and that forecasts… hazing.
’cause if their muscle-shirt coach saw this and allowed this?

Others will see the same and then try to do the… same. Or, in other words, we needs an enforcer or a j.Lambert type in the bicentennial Super Bowl who will down-vote Cliff Harris and put a stop/stomp to all of this before all of this runs away and hides (mixed metaphor, intended).

4Q o:oo remaining:
We win! We win!

Time To Throw (TTT)©:

Virginia Tech:
Qb pressured=19
Qb hurried=6! (He got self-protective here).
Qb hits=17!
Sacked=3

Purdue:
Qb pressured=11
Qb hurried=1
Qb hits=9
Sacked=2

TTT Analysis:
So, and as you can see… Purdue won this TTT metric; although, not by a metric ton and that seems to jibe with the scoreboard in and of itself.

However, Grant got a bit self-defensive or self-protective later on; in particular vs. Penthouse or full-frontal pressures. This, on a dingy hard to protect in the first-place frontal orthosox-stanced hurler bum-ankle, and yah; Eye can understand why. He takes another licking there and he may or may not keep on… tickin’. Tough break for a rarefied ’23 clean-cut boy-next-door looks kinda kid. Dang…

Card however did what he had to do… no real misQ’s, steady, reliable; though unspectacular. He did ace one really slick sideline throw in my notes. Though the rest he measured more so than maestroed. And yet that very Occam’s Razor of a look cut our defense both ways. Or, the Purdue game plan measured up; albeit not by much. Kinda like the Frank-n-Stiney apex O which knew it “only took” so many plays to beat you when they knew Budweiser would hold your feet to the Worsham Field ground.

***

8o% vis-a-vis 37%.
That’s your 3rd down-passing percentage in this one here.

+23 vs. –5.
That’s your 3rd down-rushing yardage in this one here. (NO sacks, mind yah!)

16′ against ~3′.
That’s your 3rd down average gain for each side in this one here.

Do you see a trend; here?

’cause is it not that the Ty.Bow’ O was so bad on 1st or on 2nd down; they weren’t.
They were however a near full monty mess on 3rd down itself.

i.e., the Boilermakers went Amazing Kreskin predicted our predictability itself.
This is AFTER several actually dynamic adjustments from Ty.Bow’ and Co.

+RPO’s, passing-tree seedlings, Off-Ot plays, et al…

Owens Dining Hall French-Vanilla if you will.

(o) (o)
V

So, we should bench our 141-rating Qb1, for our 67-rating Qb2; just so we can (try) to throw to our gutted catch-crew behind our 1ooth best run-blocking, oLine?
Eye mean… what could possibly go ‘rong ^here^?

LOL… someone get me a little caffeine help, pick-me-up here.
As my spectacles and Eye remain skeptical indeed.

Blocking:
Well, this one landed about where we thought (inaccurately to their credit) O.d.u. would land.

De-Talent was indeed August Camp 1’s vs. 1’s upgraded over in the New River Valley.
We thought, no, we hoped that was all we were seeing… see?

Still, yet, our footwork is only a step behind being the enemy of fast; we really do not have any of Pry’s prized BIG-1o grizzly bear black-n-blue Wyatt Teller maulers and suddenly things backed up more than a step of three here. b.Moore did way less and both Ot’s regressed as our V-cup sprang several pass-pro’ (short for passing protection, mind yah), leaks. Schick -shockingly- was nearly serviceable, the rest were closer to out-of-service or a barricaded disservice itself.

The Boilermaker front-7 is run-(fighting) heavily tilted both in schematic terms and upon hard-to-Battle-of-The-(won’t)-Budge tipping the Toledo’s scaling terms. This is indeed a hefty front-7 to be sure. And although bulky/beefy, they logged zero, that’s (o) pre-season All-BIG-X 1’s, 2’s or 3’s. As Purdue either made plays; or, they de facto won Linebacker freeing stand-up so-called: “chicken-fights” along the L.O.S. (line-of-scrummage) over and over and over again. As Purdue tallied by my count tweleveteen, that’s (12) negative stops; and a mind-boggling 15 halts {sic: +3 sacks} on or behind our L.O.S.! Goodness gracious guys… that’s nearly 4.5 times in 1o. That’s almost pee-wee vs. I.M.G. or midget vs. the band.

i.e., this was not the best front-7 we will see all year, and look what it did to us.

You do the maths…

Longfield Management (Lo.FM)©:

Virginia Tech:
positive: |||| |||| | (1 VT TD!)
Swiss (neutral): ||
negative: |||| |||| |||| |||| (1 VT oLine flag, 1 Wr pre-snap flag)

Purdue:
positive: |||| |||| | (1 Purdue TD!)
Swiss (neutral): |||| ||||
negative: |||| |||| (2 Purdue penalties)

Lo.FM Analysis:
Well, and as you can see… -same as up TTT above- that one too adds up to a close game VomiT for the good guys.

Card was not carded and able to buy beer at age 2o if you will.

As -if nothing else- he successfully shifted -or, mitigated- some (potentially) negative-looking Lo.FM plays into the mo’ manageable looking middleocore or ‘Swiss’ category itself. This may not outright win games; it may not even keep you in games per se… however, it does not L games. And that can count as a near-win or a little preggers in leaners or in close games themselves.

— — —

That said, Eye has noticed that Grant has settled down just a scosche when chasing the chain gang this season vis-à-vis the last.

He is hitting/generating a few more good or “+” Lo.FM’s when behind schedule in ’23. He has/had mo’ catch-corp Talent(s) surrounding him; and it will be very curious (or, very obvious) how wells that now goes, so to speak. As he had tallied 12 BIG Lo.FM points here and points seem (already) to be at a premium (86th best in: scoring-O) to we.

▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄

As quirkiness went… VeeTee only tabbed one Swiss or ‘neutral’ Lo.FM in the opening 58 minutes of play! That’s the initial five-eight or ≈97% of play people. Never seen that b4, and that is saying a lot in my 7th decade of breaking tape. Wild… unique, even.

Such does paint a hell-or-high-H2o picture to us. This is a pretty anxietized/stressed O. Needy in a word. Reachy, even. And this reaching showed itself out as the game wore on, VeeTee (TOP, time of possession) wore down and got Blinded By The (high-noon tip-off) Light. A Manfred Mann’s Earth Band nite gone twilight. Fall back soon enuff if you will…

(o) (o)
V

Tackling:
This one, same as last time out… is a scratch mark against itself; nearly…

…as we tackled a little less well, (than v. O.d.u.); and yet we filled a couple of Gaps just a little cleaner. What I did not like was the closing efforting levels on the final 3 halt-unit sets from Marve and Co. It was not all that ‘competitive’. Or, maybe it merely lacks a take command-n-control Leadership alpha to verbally pistol whip and rally the sagging stop-unit troops? DAX at least tried; where Vince Hall succeeded. And this surely looks ’23 needed to we.

As indicated this one -same as the last one- is a bit of a misnomer; in that, you did not miss a zero-contact Tac’ when you filled the ‘rong… Gap.

Though tackling itself did wilt a bit as perDude pressed northward to a whopping 8o-play play-counter for the contest. That’s pretty high S&C contesting with south-of-ideal V.P.I. R&R or O2 masking itself.

READERS note: a few of the little things did clean-up a bit pre-Purdue.
Missing, Snapping, Dropping;
all just a little better.

Defense does have a bit mo’ ‘recovery speed’ is one of the few good things you can objectively science-fact point out thus far this year.

There are athletes and the associated metric(s) out there.

the takeaway…

🏈 👁️.Q. Award Winner:

(VOID)… As in nobody won here…

Coaching the verb… some are very verbose in their coaching critiques… even dawggmatic criticisms.

Here in the land of thinkers, we self-selected a mo’ thoughtful ’22 approach… we pensively said they did NOT have their Penn.State D in-situ parts; though Pry/Marve did have well-seasoned ballers here. We said they did NOT have BIG-X 220v powerhaus ramrod O players and their possession depth really lacked layers. We were also the 1st-movers on the seeming lack of press box fix or X’s & O’s juxtaPositions if you will. Nevertheless…

There WAS more offensive variety this week… they tried several in/out and off-Ot run-shapes… they did a better job -in particular at throw-shapes full-strength- of scheming opening mid-range downfield. Lotta mo’ rubs if you are Tech/picks if you are Purdue.

They tried… their Talent sucks. The Jimmy’s and Joe’s are typing all their X’s and O’s.

Now here in ’23… coaching the verb does not appear well conjugated, admittedly.
Though Talent itself is years removed from bearing ANY coaching acumen out.

In point of fact, we already have our names besides coaching the verb may have backed up a bit compared to ’22. (Defensively in basic entry-level 1st-day-of-school terms especially; maybe Pry needs to coach that, again?)

The scheduling of (J.R.R.R.) Tolken-looking Qb2-series or downs says a lot however to us.

Recall they did NOT afford Drones any mop-up or token closing O.d.u. minutes.

This says so much to us. As in… it says… they felt like their 1’s needed the damn work. Today. Right now. That is a lotta things… and long-view; or strategic would actually be numbed among ‘em. I’ll grant you coaching sin-say critics that. However, IF, if the strategic need is that bad and ’23 is that near-term severe; when do you start playing ’24, 2day?

Strike hard, strike first; Cobra… Ky‘?

“pop” goes the weasel?

xxx‘s & ooo‘s:

Coaching the verb… well, it sure as Shinola ain’t up.
And I will give the #FIREbug crowd this carrot…

…it is not cogent to (presently) say that it is on the level or sideways.

Flat would not be generous; ‘flat’ would be… talse. (Mostly: false). Frankly (pun intended); it is a bit down. We say defensively/fundamentally as much as anything else. We know and hereby recognize this as Talent itself is NOT down and it ain’t… “flat”. It did inch its way up -before all these hurts- right? Did it ‘inch’ enough to showcase any coaching, metrics???

So, if Talent went up and coaching went flat... how could performance go down?

The ‘why’ part is what is troubling here to us four… it is as if Capt. Kangaroo has been mobilizing them with his animal-tamers voice.

Meaning: are they playing Mister Scott football and “giving you all she gots”?

formulae football

Understand… as much as Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening may have hurt?

They damn sure coulda hurt even, mo’… Purdue missed an F.G.A., Purdue missed a fumble recovery, and Purdue airmailed one surefire deep-6 throw too.

^^^that^^^ and Purdue truly sparked us by a nearly unheard of +16 minute edge in T.O.P. (time of possession). As it is tough to beat much of anything -other than thyself- when you do all of that. Hermaphroditic or asexual football 1o1.

And do understand… the Game of Life ain’t Viagra.

i.e., there ain’t no need to be *that* hard on… yourself!

“The Rest of the Story...“

Where’s the τau Σigma λambda I used to know?

So, where was all that Tire-Driling? Not letting go the Tug-o-War, rope?

As this one is from C2..,. who shrewdly picked up upon some fractional sideline looks…
or a splintering if you wills. (Foreshadowing, intended…)

That’s; not, a good… clinical, look, see?

Recall: we four were the ones who said that Drones had some really streety stuff in him during the camping tug-o-wars, tire-drilling; etc. … maybe even a bit, thuggy-bear not huggy-bear.

This is after C’s posted that our non-pasty Qb’s were NOT engaged in anything Pasty-Freeze.

They were off on their own 3o-yards removed down the sideline Afrodisiac trip, see? As there are whispers that at least a few teammates have opted for a Wells-Fargo, embargo. He jus’ don’t seem much loved at all.

½ ⅓ ¼ ⅕ ⅙ ⅛ ⅔ ⅖ ⅜ ¾…➗’s?

Maybe Ky’ & Co. truly madly deeply feels like Grant’s wells hath run dry and that they should give him a, try? That’s not pretty or beautiful in Upsilon Vega Υν (↑vote) terms. Although itis their pleasure and their selfie right. The truly ugly part is… what part of the team (now) feels the… same?

As in… there were reports that Wells did not even know all his teammates… (’22) names’!?!

 

From the Chris List: d) …however… and parroting his “1):” (i.e., not ready to play)… and this is a fresh take that popped while Eye was reading his article…

…what if they won’t block?

Think about that gents… what if they are a Prom Nite ice-queen uptight and won’t; put… out?

The sportlight…

…here in the sportlight… yet again things shifted the limelight away from your typical X’s and O’s and that typically codes for locker room thingys or head games themselves.

Thanks @*the* Dr. Minnix (of Illinois Sports Psychology Dept.)…

Now, do recall– we four ghosted that Pry was this very August Camp (still) bemoaning that they took a Q or more to really punch again after getting, punched.

He said that. (And we also ghosted that Fu’ said the very same thing @Bristol halftime vs. UTenn).

Eye say that in all candor… just as I put forth the following sans all censor… ’cause without Wideouts: Jennings and Lane and less Te’s: Gallo and Wright… how are we not fundamentally in the same
situation as last year?

Albeit with a mucho gusto worse run-shape oLine; with nearly no blocking depth and with a shaky pass-pro’ V-cup?

1-1. That be we— and is that the end of we north of .5oo in ’23?

---

’cause after dicey-looking runs @Rutgers and @Marshall; we face Pitt who actively tries to manhandle us and have their way; then the best team in the A.c.c. ranked #4 Nationally @Tally and then a pretty fair-to-middling @Wake date on 7 (regular-season) weeks + 5 (camping) weeks of football = ’23 fatigue max’.

IF we do not at least sneak one of the next two, you do the 1-6 opening maths.

As in… we are (now) in two back-to-back single-elimination playoff games.

Fish or get off the pot…

That, and Fu’ is looking Harder, SMARTER, and a little tougher, as Eye types…

#wimps!

Virginia Tech=17, Purdue=24

“LETS GO!”

“Hokies!”

bourbonstreet**