Virginia Tech 31, west virginia 24

Virginia Tech football may or may not have gotten away with one… west virginia football may or may not have gone Christmas come early and given away one. As there are some rather interesting stats down below that might just want a word with all of that. Nevertheless…

The epic Hokie Nation pulled the fat outta the fire at just the right moment and finally unplugged what was no less than an totally electric wvu offensive attack. With some help from the always willing to mentally short-circuit eers themselves mind you; as I will say this little… I could understand why the eers feel like they let this one get away. And that’s good, cleansing, hygienic, even therapeutic, for a team and a fan-base that needs all the couch therapy that they can get. As the eer body was willing enough, although the err mind was soft, flaccid, in a word; or in the …end.

1Q duration:
Evans may be gone although the Qb-iso’ wham A-gap play is still here. I wonder how much Fu’ ran this internal pivot spearhead look @T.c.u. and Memphis? JAX however was not taking Evans like multiple contacts per play or thermonuclear detonations overall. As this is a pretty dang tough kid to do this as a r-Fresh with ~44 odd games left in his O&M sporting career.

Observe #22 Terrell Edmunds sporting the massive right-side shoulder harness from the word: “go”.  That’s just not what you wanna see from your vastly more Hilgirth sinew Fs men.

Curiously enough, did not see an actual steal from either side in this rivalry games opening stanza that saw wvu basically urinate on sportsmanship itself as the game wore on. Extremely impressive to me that Fu’s crew kept their composure and did not retaliate in a near total vacuum of sporting civics.

Did see wvu targeting Tua’ wherever he went. Not necessarily illegally -at least not in Q1- although they had someone assigned to him him on most any given play. Don’t often see a Mike-Lb taking this much fire 7-10 yards off of the line-of-scrimmage (LOS); and wvu surely could have been whistled for ineligible man downfield more than a couple of times.

Love to have a press-pass holder ask why we never rolled JAX to his weak-side or his left? My people have nothing injury wise regarding Jackson; although that would be my knee-jerk wonderment here… and somewhere Todd Greenwood and Mark Cox are, smiling.

1Q 3:23 remaining:
No bleep! Watch as none other than the much maligned run-fit Tuaman gets great arm-extension on the would be left-G of wvu and therefore easily sheds him  to make the solo stop on the wvu A-gap plunge play right up the gut. (Yes, if you are keeping score at home, this is precisely the second time I’ve seen #54 defeat a run-block; although that’s a 200% improvement if you are half-full)

1Q 1:28 remaining:
This is the play where old-blue and gold sportsmanship took a Labor Day eve holiday for the duration. Watch as #28 of wvu knee-dives Stroman on the attempted crackback hit well outside the Ot-box. To put it another way, football is not a cruel enough mistress as is… what with three instantaneous deaths per year on average and 12-16 deaths within three weeks of the spinal injury per campaign as the arithmetic mean. Yah; two-eight, your a real man now girlfriend.

Not!

2Q 14:18 remaining:
Beautiful original-school so-called “scissors” play that you see often enough these days as to be able to count it on your thumbs, or nose, as any given season goes. Watch Cunningham and Nijman execute kick-out and seal-blocks respectively an then watch the effortless looking dip-move by T.Mac as he breaks contain on the five-hole off-tackle to your left. Now you know why it is less than easy to sit T.Mac’ the blocker.

2Q 11:05 remaining:
Maybe Chung had an uneven blocking night; although he sure went Chungking upside the left-De of wvu’s head on this epic pealback steal at the end of the Savoy end-around jet-sweep play. Wowow!

Off/on game duration:
WAR Tim Settle in his true N.f.l. home position of Ng, head-up, zero-technique, 4-point stance pawning the wvu C!!! That being rightfully said… this 30 personnel grouping ain’t what it Ohio State debuting used to be; at least not, yet.

2Q 3:22 remaining:
Really nice steal by Shegog in the vintage Beamer tribute #25 as he totally launches #1 for wvu on this punt return. Could not happen to a nicer bunch of ballers; either!

3Q 8:18 remaining:
“Shazam!” A rare, rarer, rarest double-steal recorded on film as Gallo and Teller conspired  and double-teamed #88, thereby literally knocking #88 about 8′ through the air or basically into the middle of next week. w0w!

4Q 12:18 remaining:
Won’t see this too too often, or possibly never again and the left-Ot of wvu managed -to his credit-to pancake a pursuing backside Tim Settle on the off-tackle C-Gap outside zone call here. And you had to feel for the Fed-Ex turf as it sure as hell took a beating here.

4Q 2:45 remaining:
In the you just can’t make this (bleep) up category… I give you mrs. wilma grier… who the instant she saw herself up on the ABC broadcast screen, started fixing her damn hair! I mean come on girlfriend, what’s more important here? Winning the football game itself or looking cutier than Ken, the (Mattel Barbie collection) estrogen flavored doll?!?

4Q <1 min. remaining:
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!? If this is NOT off-sides, could someone please tell me what is off-sides? Because this game shoulda been over right here; twice!

4Q ~3 second remaining:
Jackie Smith circa Super Bowl XII anyone? As all-galaxy grier, same as the actually great Roger Staubach, missed one, here.

4Q 0:00 remaining:
They say you can’t make chicken salad outta chicken (bleep). Well and on behalf of Vinny Mihota’s left knee? Bleep off #79! As whatever happens to you from here on out is just too good for a naughty little boy like you.

Go on and buy the 2021 and the 2022 A.D. games on out and keep the Black Diamond Trophy for life Whit.

A we don’t need wvu, and nobody kneeds to be playing a bunch patella assassins such as this.

Nobody!

Time To Throw (TTT)©:

Virginia Tech:
Qb pressured=7
Qb hurried=1
Qb hits=12
Sacked=1

west virginia:
Qb pressured=17
Qb hurried=1
Qb hits=16
Sacked=2

As you can see above, Bud tore grier down a few times and at least got his pants dirty here and there. Whereas the Vice-squad kept the noticeably less statuesque Jackson kid erected and mostly upright in protest of all things wvu in the O&M pocket. As grier -to his credit- got rid of the football just in the nick of sack avoiding time at least twice. While JAX looked more parts upperclassman and less parts debuting r-Fresh. with a couple of wily throw-aways and a couple more tucks of the rock on Qb-keepers to head up-field and catch as catch can. As it was actually the much vaunted grier who threw into zone-blitz coverage and was picked off; when Jackson was as cool as the other side of the Shanks Hall pillow. Because beyond one politically incorrect slant pattern rotation early on; Jackson could not have been intercepted for the rest the night. As Jackson looked the calmer, cooler more collected and at times even the headier customer between these two coach’s sons’.

Tackling was great, then downright good, and then good enough as virtually 90 plays in defense of such a stretchy and whacky Veer-n-shoot offensive set is asking a lot of any given stop-unit —never mind a critically thin starting stop-unit as restive or back-up depth goes. Hill and Settle and to some extent the Tuaman all had pretty dang solid tackling nights; and Alexander had the most physical night of them all. However, our geometry was pretty dang pitiful and by pitiful I mean it was really shallow off the edge of our defensive spill-points as internal leverage went. Likewise, our De’s got caught pinching inside a few times too many to boot and all of this from highly experienced Foster halt-unit ballers. Raise your hand if you call that one pre-game? Me neither; as coach Foster and staff have more than a few basic, fundamental, intrinsic things that they need to clean up on a short Holiday workweek.

Because if I had told you that wvu would ultimately come up 24′ short of an even and likewise staggering 600 total yards of offense, I would have also told you my 34 forecast points for wvu was too low; and my offensive forecast for wvu was the highest of them all to begin with. Go fig’ on winning a game on your worst statistical defensive game in 136 games or going all the way back to the blowout L down @L.S.U. Now recall that the old-school rule of thumb is one point for every 10 yards of total offense gained… and even now during the basketball on grass era of Nintendo like offenses itself, I would have said Bud Lyte would have allowed about 400 to 425 yards of offense vs. this jumped up wvu offensive set. Possibly 450 yards with a negative Hokie turnover margin or some ugly coverage team(s) gaffe. And yet I would still have been short by very close to 150 total yards allowed. Snap!

Longfield Management (Lo.FM)©:

Virginia Tech:
positive: |||| |||| (1 wvu penalty)
negative: |||| |||| (1 VT sideline penalty)
Swiss (neutral): |||
Σ=22

west virginia:
positive: |||| |||| (1 TD)
negative: |||| |||| |||| |||| || (1 INT, 3 wvu penalties)
Swiss (neutral): |||| ||
Σ=31

When you examine the Lo.FM, one could be forgiven for thinking the older (22) Qb with more So.Eastern transferring-in balloyhooed passing greatness actually played for the Hokies. As will did make a few more throw-plays than Joshua did; although he also missed way more with his Park Place arm and did way less with his Tennessee Ave. wheels. Nevertheless, wvu was also wvu’s own worst enemy when chasing the chain-gang drawing a bed-wetting four yellow flags bad for 48 in reverse! That’s not a good look dana; although at least it is a fb.com zebra or officiating attention needy looking selfie in modern parlance. As yes, you did out-gain coach-Fu’ and company on the night; although there was something very she-scent about the masculinity of your performance as your team turned downright catty at times.

Now mix in two Jackson passing drops and one Jackson flat-out passing miss and what was a very crispy debut could have been even better. As normally I’m occasioned to say that so-n-so out-coached the opposing coach. This time however I gotta say that Coach Corny and Coach Vice out-coached Bud Foster by a more than a little bit. Further, one could argue they did so with less raw talent and they surely did so with way less game-time experience. As try as we might, football still ain’t rocket-surgery folks and I therefore have no idea why the wvu staff stopped going to their three Rb’s who put up: 6.3, 8.2 and and 9.6 per carry on average. (P.s., I bet these very same three stalwart wvu Rb’s have no idea, either)

As the Fu’fensive run-shape was about as good as you could ever hope for it to be a 3-guard offensive set. Now imagine how things will look when Smith eventually gets back at right-Ot; and if T.Mac’ ever learns that blocking for others is still not a sin.

***

the takeaway…

Will Grier left two homerun throws out on the field good for 14 points and right at 80 more yards worth of passing. He also virtually never read backside and totally ignored wvu safety-valve guys waving their frantic hands for attentions sake with literally nobody within 20 yards of them three different times the Eye could see upon breaking tape.

That’s at least another 50 yards gained and suddenly you can see why the eer-nation must feel like an O&M ice-pick just went eerache upside coach dana’s headset time and time again. To wit, as good as all-everything will grier already is, he could be so much better if he was not such a corporal harris redux and so damn in love with his very own ability to hit the sexy or the high Q-score play. Take what the D gives you will and let all that homerun hitting business come to you. Your O can hit for the cycle on any given night will and a one run win counts the same as your very own facebook/social media savvy narcissistic homerun derby.

---

4,718 former days + 2017 until 2021 (or 1,476 more days) = basically 17 years worth of Black Diamond Trophy ownership that sting like an eye full of championship champagne never will. As try as the middle-finger prone eer-nation might, you still can’t spell: “VicTory” with Vee Tee!

And just think err-nation, whereas you are recruiting a handful+ of states to the west, the mighty and reigning Black Diamond Trophy champion Hokie Nation is recruiting like a champion in its very own regional geographic footprint, or wading back into the Tidewater in its very own backyard. I’d wish you luck with that though we all know I don’t mean it, as that New River sound you heard was two out-of-conference ships passing in the night. As wvu’s recruiting footprint has sprained a long-distance ankle and by the time we get to 2021 Virginia Tech’s recruiting will have only gotten steady-state better while west virginia’s recruiting will have only gotten incrementally worse.

Or in other words you old-gold and blue velvet spams just screwed yourselves and your very own best chance to beat us pooch! Because why should we beat you when you enjoy beating yourselves? And come 2021 it will be B.O.H.I.C.A. time all over again. Still yet, such is the nature of hickhop compared to Metallica and such is the innate sporting ethos of a fan-base and a team alike who’s mettle melts under-fire.

And guess what wvu? This is precisely why the All Class Conference has never ever wanted you and never ever… will.

 

Virginia Tech=31, west virginia=24

“LETS GO!”

“Hokies!”

bourbonstreet**