Our Hokies take to the Road to play one of the truly elite and most fabled football
programs in all of D-1 pigskin history. When we visit the Nebraska Cornhuskers of Big-12 fame this weekend in primetime on ABC.
Nebraska has the finest offense we will see all year. Period. Full stop. Over, done, through. Can our anemic offense muster enough yards and points to beat Big Red away from Lane; and how do you feel about Bo vs. Bud???
Read on to find out…
#30 Virginia Tech @ #27 Nebraska:
Top-10
- Fumbles. Our Hokies have yet to fumble away the football on the year but we have
forced 11 fumbles and recovered 7 of them! - Penalties. VT is 5th best in all of D-1 in fewest Penalty yards accessed against this year. NEB on the other hand has racked up the 108th most yellow flags this year! Lottsa field position to be accounted for by the Zebra’s this weekend.
- 1st Down. we/VT have been given s-e-v-e-n first downs via opponent penalties this year, but yet we are 5th from last in First Down Offense. (NEB is 22nd best) NEB has 12 more first downs than we do, and they have only played three games.
- 3rd down. We/VT are only converting 35% of our 3rd down chances on the year.
- Kicks. VT opponents have only connected on 61% of their kicks this year; NEB opponents have only made 63% of their kicks on the year.
- 1st Quarter. On the year VT has yet to score in 60 combined minutes of the first stanza and is only allowing 0.75 points in the first quarter to boot.
- Tyrod Taylor. Has singled handed accounted for 52% of our offense so far this season!
- TD’s. NEB has returned three non-offense plays for Touchdowns already on the year.
- 4o yards. NEB has s-e-v-e-n players averaging over 40 all-purpose yards per game!
- VT Total Offense: 92nd, 100th, 107th and now 112th. Those are the week by week regression vitals on the Virginia Tech Total Offense for 2008.
X Factor for Nebraska: Which VT to prep for? Check out this soundbyte from Bo: “We have
been facing pretty unique spread offenses the last couple weeks, so it was like trying to redial it in for the two tight end sets that we’ll be seeing against Virginia Tech.” Hmmmmmmmmm, hey Bo, I’ve not seen that much Jumbo stuff this year. Which has me wondering if Bo is prepping for the VT he played last year at LSU; or should he be prepping for the Spread? If we see the Spread how will a bazillion vociferous corn-feed-fans effect that?
X Factor for VT: SOS (strength of schedule). This one is the kla-assic Rest vs. Rust argument brought back to life, yet again. Do our Hokies need some rest after
having played 8 straight high octane quarters of football; or are we battle tested for having played a tougher docket than Big Red has? Conversely, will NEB benefit from the extra 6 days of prep time and be fully healed up? Or will they be soft and rustic after too much time off post having feasted on that which some are describing as 3 Hostess cupcake OOC deserts? Either way…….time will tell.
NEB Fast Facts:
- NEB has 811 all-time wins and won the MNC in 1970, 1971, 1994, 1995 and 1997.
- NEB has an astonishing 43 conference titles!
- NEB is 5-o all-time vs. the ACC.
- This years NEB DLine has 2 INT’s.
- NEB has not been shut-out at Home in 40 years!
- Bo knows grades, as a whopping 42 Cornhuskers posted a 3.0 GPA or better last spring!
- NEB is setting a new record for consecutive Home sell-out’s every week, this week is the 294th.
- NEB has as stunning 32 different plays (Run+Pass+Return) for 20 yards or more in only 3 games!
- Right-Ot has seen three different starters in all three games for Big Red.
- Big Red has topped 400 yards of offense in 88% of their games since November 2007.
- In fact, NEB is averaging 535 yards of offense in their last 6 games.
- NEB has not been held under 35 points once in the last 11 months.
- Ganz has throw for at least 345 yards in 67% of his starts and has 21 passing TD’s in only 6 starts.
- 4 our our OLine starters played every single play vs. UNC except for 1 play missed by Shuman. Graham spelled the still healing DeChris a bit.
- “Macho” has 4 starts on the year despite missing the ECU game.
- We/VT have enjoyed the luxury of starting 240% more drives in enemy territory that our opponents have started inside Hokie territory.
What to watch??? If you are Stiney, what film do you watch to prep for NEB’s defense? How about the Western Michigan game? They are bad right? How about 3-1 on the year and a likely serious MAC contender. San Jose State? They are .500 on the year, and they are an improving lower Cali program that is finally keeping some kids in-state. Maybe Stiney should watch New
Mexico State? They also are .500 and just beat a pretty good Coach Price U.T.E.P. team. So what should Stiney watch? Well it’s more what he should not watch as the one thing W.Michigan, SJS and NewMexState all have in common is the spread offense. Ergo, Bo went to a quasi modified pseudo 4-2-5 Nickle package. However, Bo runs a standardized 4-3 most of the time. Though my Big-12 spy’s say NEB is weak in the Safety area; but would we dabble in that on the road? How about their Lb who has dropped 45 lbs.?
So if I’m Stiney I’m not able to watch much Nebraska defensive stuff from this year, beyond what the Blackshirt front-4 is doing. I need to look at LSU footage to riddle NEB out. That is no small X’s & O’s film-study edge. In other words…Bo can throw all kinds of stuff at Stiney that Stiney will never see coming.
What I would do if I were Bo: UNC showed Bo the way last week, so expect Bo to watch the T.Heel tapes and parrot some of what you just saw. Box my boy Tmobile up inside the pocket and make him a stationary thrower who must read defenses and hit him when he does
run. Make TT the passer win a duel on the road with Ganz the gun slinging NEB Qb. Work VT early on using the underneath passing game to this time set up the Run (which UNC mostly did not have; but NEB does have with Lucky). Then once VT starts to cheat forward, throw behind the second or third layer as time permits while staying away from Macho and Virgil. Pick on anyone else in coverage.
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Margin of Error: Notice I’ve used an A- here every week for teams not named Furman. Why is that? Because ECU, GT and UNC did not have well rounded offenses. So we did enjoy a
little wiggle room, albeit not much as showcased by the fact that we are +1 point in terms of scoring margin added together for those three games. On top of that we are -3o6 total yards in the hole vs. D-1 teams this year. That’s a slim margin of error that will tighten up all the more out in Lincoln. Because Big Red does have a quality offense and it can mutually run and throw the ball, rather well in fact. That reduces our margin of error as does having to play outside of Lane. This week we need no less than an O&M A+ game to win.
Prediction: Gotta say upfront, I really do not like the offensive balance of NEB. Buddyball is
very tough to beat when Bud Foster can zero in on a one dimensional football team. See GT with the Run and UNC with the pass as recent examples that out gained us but did not ultimately win the day. Now compare that to ECU, who Ran a bit, and threw very well. Think of Big Red as ECU but even more so. Lucky is a far better Rb (3rd out of High School), and NEB has something of a Yates clone who can channel Sonny Jurgensen whenever he wants in Ganz. Finally, in the timeless Rest vs. Rust department, my Big-12 spys say that NEB has recovered the services of their starting Fs, Cb, Fb and their top De back-up for having had the week off.
Illation: While Buddyball can usually tackle a one-dimensional offensive team, our Frank-n-Stiney offense typically struggles to generate enough points when we face a multi dimensional football team. Think GT, B.C. (twice), UGA, LSU, KU, ECU; these were all teams that could mix it up on offense and make Bud simultaneously deal with more than one
potential threat. Therefore, to wit, ergo, the Frank-n-Stiney offense could never quite catch up when asked to score 29 points on average in those well-balanced games. Which brings me objectively to my prediction……Nebraska 26 Virginia Tech 16.
b’street