Your 100% FREE-view winning East Carolina Eye in the Sky:

#13 Virginia Tech=17, East Carolina=10

(Greenville, North Carolina): here is my eMail to Chris Coleman on Friday:

In an unusually candid behind the scenes look at how we kick things back and forth at techsideline.com off-MB to try to help coach each other up.

On Monday, buying 15 for VT-5 I had a -15oo payout.
Today, the $-Line is at VT-75o.
Does Vegas know something that I don’t?

(a source’s) language was: “much tougher” comparing E.C.U. to Appy.State.
That said, seems to me like the powers that be are a bit nervy about E.C.U.
Why is that?
Yah; they may get high-teens or low 20’s, and so what?
If VT gets 40 VT wins. Period.

I was gonna go with VT by say 43-17, or something pretty wide.
Am I straight trippin’?

I am getting feelers from all over (not just from source-A and source-B) that have me backing down a bit.

Or in other words………………..my sources are EPIC; and yah; I should have listened to them and backed down more than a little bit as they -not me- nailed this one right between the eyes. As VT trailed East Carolina for nearly 35 minutes on Saturday down in Greenville and could not quite put these upset minded Pirates or the Referees away.

However, film-study paints a very very different picture. VT was really only a couple of keep plays away from painting a Picasso on a day which saw our beloved Hokies out-gain E.C.U. by a stunning 296% and yet only win by one single play. Go fig’?

(EDITORS NOTE: hopefully, an early-game update is forthcoming, once I am mercifully granted film-study access to such)

1st quarter 8:45 remaining:
So Wilson shows us another Harry Houdini escape routine of a run (KO return in this case). The ball is blown dead on contact, right at the 40-yardline, where I have added a white sphere which indicates the beanbag that spots the ball. Then Wilson rolls nearly 3 yards downfield on his own dissipating momentum, and then #87 gutlessly blast my poor boy right on out on a kidney shot that was at least two seconds late. There were no less than the four uncalled personal fouls that I saw on E.C.U. in this one. Never had to say this in my near decade at TSL.com; however, outside of Miami in Lane in 2003; E.C.U. is one dirty dog football team, or a jealous team, or both. Take thy pick.

1st quarter 1:08 remaining :
Interesting amount of Qb-keepers on the Read Option or on scripted Qb draws from a Qb who although quite the physical presence, does not quite enjoy the reputation of a pure runner. So why did we let L.T. carry the mail 11 times, 10 of which were in the first-half alone:

  1. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before; however at 6`6“ and 256 lbs., L.T. is nothing short of an Adonis in cleats.
  2. Any L.T. carry is one less carry for my boy David Wilson who took an extraordinary amount of clean contact from numerous defenseless postures on the day.
  3. Running L.T. keeps the game-clock rolling and it also keeps the E.C.U. offense over on the E.C.U. bench.

(Editors Note: at this stage VT was on pace for a astonishing 36 penalties on the day with no less than six first quarter flags at this point. in the end, VT finished with 12 whistles bad for 92 yards in reverse which gift wrapped no less than 27% of all Pirate first-downs –and this just in: there are only 111 more shopping days until Christmas)

Game-season duration:
Notice that the O’Cain huddle is lined-up only about 3 to 4 yards off the line-of-scrimmage itself; whereas the standard football huddle forms 8 to 10 yards behind the spot of the ball. This gets the VT offense on the ball and ready for play a couple of seconds earlier than the Frank-n-Stiney offense did. This also brings an element of potential eavesdropping into play; if the other side can make heads or tails out of the play that VT is calling.

2nd quarter 14:52 remaining:
Watch #33 Drager after he motions up your screen moving left to right as he executes a prefect seal block as he folds downfield on the E.C.U. ILb from an absolutely perfect blocking angle where any ILb would have a difficult time seeing Chris Drager coming. Ergo, I expect you see this play again and again this season.

2nd quarter 12:44 remaining:
Whole lot going on on this intercepted single-move Go pattern that was intended for Boykin in the corner of the E.C.U. endzone –and a whole lot of it is all ‘rong. Note that this is supposed to be a textbook 3-step drop; instead, it becomes a drop-back pass where Logan chops his feets (ellipse) as if he is gonna do a grass-drill for a completely desynchronizing 6-step drop. Then L.T. pulls the string in basketball terms and short arms his follow-through and subsequently the throw itself. Additionally note his previously noted penchant for leaning backwards (arrow) with his weight unevenly distributed with most of it being placed upon his hind or plant foot. And on top of all of that, his 3 extra superfluous drop-back steps caused his delivery to be late in the first place. Right now L.T is a 43% passer who is a good full year away from being great.

2nd quarter 12:32 remaining:
Watch #1 for E.C.U. steal B.Taylor at the end of the Womack catch and run at the top of your TV screen. Dang and ouch are the words that come to mind here.

2nd quarter 0:49 remaining:
Watch the telegraphed throw from L.T. as L.T. dials in on Davis and never even looks at another Wr on what should have been a pick-6 the other way. Again, there is a lot to like here, every bit as much as there is a lot left that still needs some work or some reps with regards to the passing element of L.T’s sophomoric debut rookie season. L.T. will have to improve and play better than this if we expect to do any better than split vs. Klempson and Miami in three weeks time.

What Virginia Tech needs or lacks most in A.c.c. terms is ... what?

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Longfield Management (Lo.FM)

Virginia Tech:
positive= |||| |||| (1 VT)
negative= |||| |||| |||| (3 VT penalties)
neutral= ||||

East Carolina:
positive= |||| ||| (3 VT penalties)
negative= |||| |||| |||| (1 VT INT)
neutral=|||

Does the Lo.FM suggest anything other than a grind it out physical slugging match in nip-n-tuck terms to you? Does it suggest anything other than an ugly looking barroom brawling brand of Philo Beddo football to you? Does it suggest anything other than he who land last lands hardest? It shouldn’t suggest anything else, as I witnessed VT play one of its most physical football games from both sides of the ball for full 12 rounds of punishing toe-to-toe football that went right down to the final bell for the fist time in five or six years give or take. 27 total points in a 17-10 ballgame says so in my book. No real major edge to be found here in objective unbiased Lo.FM analysis terms which is a first for the once beaten Lo.FM –although such perfectly jives with a seven point margin itself. Never seen that one before however I can not say that I am shocked that this one went down to the wire as VT surely left a good 10-13 points worth of offensive production or defensive takeaways or simple error-management out there on the playing-field down in Greenville North Carolina. VT could have won by more, as VT out-gained East Carolina by a whopping 294% on the day and in the end, if my Aunt Kim had nuts and a bolt she’d be my Uncle Tim.

My hand-written game notes suggested an offensive game whereby VT never found its play-calling offensive rhythm. Out of tune or out of synch all day long as I basically saw nothing on film to refute such as VT left 2 E.C.U. turnovers and one VT TD throw out on the field thanks to VT being VT’s own worst enemy.

One other major trend that leapt off the screen to me was the fact that VT looked like a football team that made just about one more play than E.C.U. did in this one. I’d say that winning by one single play or seven points fits that deduction rather smartly. As does the fact that VT was really only one single solitary play removed from E.C.U. in the negative Lo.FM category; when you discount that the fact that the final two negative scratch marks for Virginia Tech were nothing more than mere clock killers when E.C.U. was out of time outs to end the fourth quarter of play. Ditto the fact that VT barely outperformed E.C.U. in the positive category by a margin of 9 to 8 as the Hokies scraped their way to a downright  gutty single play road victory 17-10 down in Greenville on Saturday. According, as you can plainly see, Virginia Tech was its own worst enemy with no less than a mind-boggling six self-inflicted Lo.FM wounds on the day. Yes, VT won, and yes that is all that matters in the final analysis. However, because of such a sloppy and disheveled looking Hokie effort on Saturday, VT found itself scrapping all the way to the bitter end in a game that should have put away somewhere in the second-half of play and yet was only decided with just over 2 minutes to play remaining on the game-clock.

This posits two things to me:
first up, if you read my Pay side message-boards posts, you already realize that I love this teams’ personality. This is the best starting collective personality that I have seen out of a Virginia Tech football squad since Vince Hall’s senior year back in 2007. This 2011 VT football team will either roll with punches or simply take two to land one of their own. Secondly, Jerry West himself said it best when he said that the truest signature of a championship team is that they find a way to win when they do not play their best. Call it moxie, character, intestinal-fortitude, guts or simply call it the 2011 Virginia Tech football team; that manfully found a way to win when it did not play its best. Which leaves one wondering just how good they can be when they do finally put it all together and play their best?

LET’S GO!

HOKIES!

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