Virginia Tech=41, Tulane=2o

Virginia Tech football is… back!

The Hokies are no longer, no damn basketball school. No way. No Sir. No how. No ma’am. Brent Pry and company out-physicaled, out-muscled, and out-hustled a lame-duck Tulane scare crew and went demonstrative final 2o-odd minute goon-squad upside the g.Waves collective heads. This is how you treat a cut in pugilistic terms— you apply leather, mo’ leather, and some laces if need(s) be. You rinse, you recycle and you repeat. As the F’n Gobblers went old-school V.P.I. V.T.C.C. all hands-on wet-deck to close. Accordingly, and to paraphrase Coach Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; on a day with water water everywhere, it was the Duck Pond squadron that had a drop to drink.

yessing process

second-check

Coaching flat-worlders… obloquy no mo’.

ground-truth data

fief dom

to catch a fief.

differcult

ultracrepidarian

siren’s song gone Name That Tune gone outta tune.

hiving off; hives off

chiefly British : to break away from or as if from a group : become separate

60 minutes remaining:
One thing that caught our pre-game eye on-field was… just how hard this team warmed up. Like they were already playing a 5Q game. Tuten looked like he was trying for a 1oom P.R. (personal record). Seriously. Was the VT T&F stop-watch out or what? The O was lively, big poppin’. ‘Running everything out’ as first-schoolers once put it. The D was providential in their meta-communicating and/or body language itself. NO wasted motion from any of them. Workmanlike, O&M blue-collar locked-down and shut-in. Serious. Focused. Gamey.

Or, in other words… what if we are (now) seeing each Coordinator’s pet ways-n-means impress themselves upon their respective huddles’ demeanors? Watch for this come ’24 and see where it clinically Applied Sports Psych’ goes…

…as these two coordinators surely cook based on rather differing temperaments and/or Myers–Briggs personal recipes for in-game thermodynamic success.

1Q 12:o8 remaining:
Observe the sequencing here, the slick/wet ‘ball; (all the MO’ so when it is new and the wax is unscuffed), comes free… then the Tulane blitzer Steals Drones’ just ‘cuase… THEN, as in only posthumous to the steal itself does he bother to chase, collect, scoop-n-score the rumbling, bumbling, tumbling… fumbling, rock! LOL. We told you this was a nutty aggressive hell or high Duck Pond H2o D.

Also… most curious to see Grubbs IGNORE the ‘middle-screen’ call to King-Tut’. As Grubbs is in such a droning on and on and on hurry— that he actually used a boxing dip-move to avoid contacting Tuten and not negate any velocity vectoring @Drones. That’s scouting the verb in A of ♠‘s! wowow.

That (teaching moment) said… in previous campaigns?

This is the very kinda play that woulda left us 3-hour-F.u.B.A.R. and/or undone.

And although we did not slip this punch successfully enuff… maybe we have learned to roll with the proverbial punches and now expect to— win.

1Q 7:27 remaining:
See one #12, Gosnell pop his bum shoulder out (again) on the Tulane jersey as his hand-got-caught/hang-up at the end of the Thomas sweep-style play. Suck way to do it, too. St.Christopher bless.

1Q 5:37 remaining:
We warned you in the BONUS roundabout which team was used to synthetics. Including their choice of cleating. One team was not and it cost us… St.Stephen and St.Nikon help!

Season Duration:
Really liked this Flex-He A.c.c. commercial… so, Eye included it, here.

2Q 13:o7 remaining:
In the halcyon heyday of all dis’ uppity azz enlightenment in the dark, in the era of empowHERment and in the era of P.urely C.hicken madness… how is this not a flag?!? LOL… as my non-boy from Tulane goes Scarface pool-side: “Lesbian!” scene on our endzone cheerleaders! ROTF…

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is my charter membership card in the National Organization of Wimminz, this?!?

2Q 12: 28 remaining:
Did not like the double hinge AND full closed patella sleeve on big ole X’s right knee. St.Culbreth bless. Asn he sure looked stiff/balky as the game moved along…

2Q :o8 remaining:
Shew! Got away with a –6 (point) one here, as big ole X is not just blocking downfield, he runs downfield and into the endzone to block the Fs of Tulane out of the passing lane to the Te (St.Germain), prior to a maybe/questionable tipping call. LOL… on this Back/Hind Judge.

3Q 13 remaining:
A near purfect, black-cat, walked under a ladder (indoors) while opening an umbrella just the same… of a play. As this is the 1st DOUBLE-(accidental)-steal methinks Eye’ve ever seen. As the 3rd-string Qb of Tulane ducks and goes ‘bear’ Grylls “slippy” and slips the punch of our Stud-De1, and just barely skirts his way on the ‘go’ call Keeper for an odd-side score. While Jenkins and the Wr6 of Tulane never ever see each other and score a rarefied double-knockdown in boxing and mutually Steal each other on the impro’ Qb3-scramble for a Major. ROTF! Try as you might; you just cannot make this oblong spheroid of a game, up.

4Q :32 remaining:
Really happy to see some ‘tude being copped and then inflicted late in this one here.

Also… #21 Keli Lawson tallied some very nice KO-coverage work(s) including one steal in the 3Q. He at least is trying to get back on the field as the ex-Lb1 the right way. Then the human roly-poly bug: (Johnny Dickson: see: pic) scores a nearly unnecessary pancake and pours the OLb of Tulane some Aunt Jemima syrup to end the ’23 campaign in plum gettin’ after it, style. Too bad he is leaving… he was late season developing so the campfire whispers: ‘say’.

0:oo remaining!

Time To Throw (TTT)©:

Virginia Tech:
Qb pressured=13
Qb hurried=2
Qb hits=26!
Sacked=2

Tulane:
Qb pressured=4
Qb hurried=3
Qb hits=16
Sacked=3

Time To Throw analysis:
Wells, this has been a squirrely tricky one to grade all year. As Drones goes New Guinna headhunting and seems to seek out contacts; or at least does not duck out on the same. That said, you could say the TTT took its 4th L ever here. As our passing cup sprang leaks plural. Tulane missed several of the same off our oddball geometrically shaped dribble-glass. As it is fair play to say that they protected their less mobile Qb(s) than we did our mo’ mobile one here.

Tulane headsets go… reject(s):
Nadda as in none as in nil carries for a kid who is now edged up on 1.5K rushing for the initial ~87% of the 1Q of play is jus’ plum nutty. Secessionist nearly, almost. Like Keebler Elf’s gone full-monty Planters gone Bastogne, “nutz“. All the mo’ nutty with your N.f.l. Qb1, done. Your Qb2 put outta the game and your Top-3 Wr’s not even in, play. Seriously… which side was their o’Cordinator, on???

I mean… try as we might this sport still ain’t rocket surgery gents.
So, why make it mo’ complex?

You gotta wonder if the drive-home scene from the disgruntled Bulldog fans from All the Right Moves is about to front yard their play-calling pro’ temp’ coach. Who could be gone anywho… and maybe that is your answer enuff. Though still yet, go’on and do All The Right Moves and audition favorably and professionally for the next guy even if this new guy don’t want yo’ work. I get the disgruntlement, I do not get the harakiri— ’cause as selfie-max’ King Saul found out… swords don’t feel, pain.

(o) (o)
V

Eye type that as Vah.Tech just went ‘oops’ upside the rain-slickened heads of Tulane on 1st-down for an unheard-of +234 yards to the epic great. Even via a rather predictable 76% run:pass 24% ratio top of the 1st-down split. i.e., Tulane surely knew what was coming and yet had no idea what to do!

Even mo’ absurd… VeeTee only gained +39′ -that’s thirty-nine feet- on 3rd down all day and zero inches threw the 3rd-down airwaves! As there is NO way in the Wild World of Sport that I or the agony of defeat skier coulda called for a three-full-play or +21-point beatdown just like that. (Could you?)

As you do not have to be St.Joseph the Carpenter to know that… lying is fo’ rugs. And in all honestly? Eye’d be lying if I coulda called for a VicTory dance foreknowing we’d only tally 13 3rd-down yards in 6o-minutes of Militant post-season play. You do the maths… as this oblong spheroid yet again proves to be most acute at being most obtuse when it comes to throwing you curve, balls. Go fig’…

Tackling Analysis:
Coach Marvelous -who ‘whispers’ say was said to be an Energizer Bunny of a Lb1, or a: “high energy” guy in his own right as a playar- was more or less on point here as halting went. And I’d have to wonder out loud if he is ready to name at least a family dog: (Maj.) Payne. As that De now Dt1 on 1.8 or so good wheels is still burning g.Wave rubber as I type. What a scalded northward bound, dawgg. He shall be missed. As it has been since his position Coach had a good back year back in ’95 -or: since c.Powell got racially mad @the w.V.u. haters- since we had a damn A-Gap bull-of-da-woods like this.                🐂

12′ rushing in 2Q and another 24′ in 3Q rushing allowed while the contest was still being sharply contested is pretty fair-to-middling stopping itself. As we only really missed a few stops later on after this one had utensils plural sticking outta it and all of our defensive 1’s were stuck to our, bench. Our gap fills less two illiterate or poorly called plays was vastly tighter than anyone had any right to expect. So, three cheers for the near-zero missed tackles in the initial ~39 minutes of O&M play.

Mea culpa, Eye did not expect that one, either.

Such tackling is not ½-bad from a team with 0 home-position Fs1’s, 0 home-position Mike1’s, and then both starting outta position Safeties doing O&M P.T. in the training room @home. And a team starting two Safeties at freakin’ Linebacker. Comparatively, and less the: I sure hope we gave Lb1: Tyler Grubbs a post-game eligibility handshake…

Tulane and not so much…

The Waves: “Tackling? What’s dat?“

Granted, King-Tut’ shook peeps for his nominal 5-1o inflicted missed-tackles, and even on what was a slithery day… worst; (opposing) tackling, Eye’ve… seen! In decades, plural.

W, o, r, s… T! Pitiful in a word.

Now, none of ^that^ is Tech’s fault… although Tulane likewise wanted none to do with our Qb1″ 6′3″, 237 lb., ramrod behemoth downfield. As these were not the Cro-magnon drones that the free-hitter(s) of Tulane were looking for.

As they looked mo’ the part of pee-wees looking -and even taking- the easy way, out.

👊🏿💪🏿👊🏿

As in… we four saw the still cannot buy beer (legally) only 2o-years-young, no.1 doing lateral (width of the field) gassers on Sunday before the game… and if anything, he looked even bigger than he did earlier this year. Near tree-trunk legs (see: above pic’) or a lowercase De1 or an uppercase OLb1 trapped inside a Warhammer Qb1, body.

Drones is a damn scalded dawgg… he runs like mo’ than just his hair is on fire and he surely inflicts his will upon the game and upon his “team” alike. (Mo’ on dat below…)

And you just gotta wonder where this kid is, come Autumn of ’26; if just a few mo’ passing-game things fall into place in the next two Springs and August Camps alike.

As there are a few progression-progressing check-down signs on tape that the game is literary
starting to slow down for him a mite… wow… if “aye”.

Longfield Management (Lo.FM)©:

Virginia Tech:
positive: |||| |||| || (1 TD! 1 Tulane flag)
Swiss (neutral): |||
negative: |||| (2 VT fumbles! 1 Tulane TD!)

Tulane:
positive: |||| |
Swiss (neutral): ||||
negative: |||| |||| (2 bonehead VT penalties! 1 Tulane flag)

Lo.FM Analysis:
To (still) be an underclassman, Drones be poppin’ clean on way way mo’ than his (historically) fair share of “+” or positive Lo.FM plays! That is typically the exclusive privy of upperclassmen per greater seasoning and matriculation only.

Additionally, Ky’ really does appear to have the temperament of a brazen brigand of a Mexican hit-back when hit fighter; ‘no mas’ to what the game plan says itself. Like an O.G. Oaktown Raider Atkinson or Tatum Soul-Patrol, overgrown and trapped in a Qb1, P5, D-1, body. Eye likes that… as the Nc.State Lb1 (p.Wilson) was the only one Eye say trade leather with Drones all year long and not get Ag.School cowed and made to moooo’v over. The only one in ’23.

One, that’s (1) guy suffered the 22ov that Drones powerhaus output well enuff. 1⃣. As less that one legit stud Lb1, who did rise to the occasion; Drones pawned everyone else. He is truly a man playing a boyz game and he surely plays it like a mother on 4th-down (19th best!!!), and on any give money-down or when punched himself.

Additionally, Ty.Bow’ and company did a very keen job, nearly nonpareil for ’23 on stretching the Tulane run-fits East-West. They made the g.Wave D elastic, and then used those Spanxx lycra tendencies and snapped it right back against itself like a rubber band pulled too far. This is the utopian version of a (Hokie) offensive backfield not only out-playing a Jokie oLine, it is out-playing it by far. As in, Crooky and Co. should be writing Drones, King-Tut’ and any given End-a-round love letters, plural.

That said… the Ng1 and Lb1 dent and ding respectively did Tulane zero favors here. Nadda. None. Nil. As our so-so at best -or at most- oLine which does not even court a home-position C1 mind yah; well, it only fish-hooked and eye-gouged a truly Biblically “unmanned” Tulane halt-unit more and more and mo’ as the game wore on and the Tulane hind-7 in particular went US.Navy, “made a hole” and found the cheap way out. Again, that’s not on Tech; granted, although this is Terminal Contact sport when you hustle your vitamin-A 110% off even on a clean field. Never mind on a sloppy one which did expense two kids dreaded ‘non-contact’ injuries to boot.

“Defend yourselves at all times.” Boxing Referee and Nevada District Judge Miles Lane.

As the riptide g.Wave actually hit for several consecutive positive Lo.FM’s once they started to feed their now near 1.5k Rb1. Thereby knotting the score at 17 alike. Rb1’s gotta eat… or did that just make too much, sense?

The nutty part is once Tulane remembered they had an all-conference Rb1, things stayed more/less on schedule for them until the scoreboard deficit forced them to pass. Whereas the (formerly) #FireBug much aligned t.Blow O stayed pretty dang well apace of the chain gang which is moist, I mean most remarkable on such a precipitous Soggy Bottom U.S.A. Military Bowl Day.

7 for 7 in red-zone efficiency is about as efficacious as it gets. And if not for a couple of fluke plays, VeeTee shoulda won this one 41-13; and coulda won this one by 41 or mo’ against 6 or less.

’cause VeeTee just put the ball on the a.turf carpet five, that’s (5) times, went rescue puppy on one of its very own tipsy throws (Drones selfie reception) and could have had another 1st-half one that was fiddy-fiddy (5o-5o) ball, picked. Or, in other words… just Christmas+2 and VeeTee did at least sorta try to give this one away. However, Tulane rescinded this misfit order and then fully refunded it the very same.

Finally, the grab-gang was surprisingly handy in such slop.

They did a pretty dang good job of bringing the rock in on such a swim-meet quality day.

(o) (o)
V

Blocking Analysis:
A virtual quadricentennial or a mere –6′ short of a rushing E.B.I.T. or net 4oo-yard grounding is quite the deluge of a bowl game statement.

And although Eye still saw too many oLinemen chasing or compensating on Tulane gap-busters… Crooky at least had them tying hard. Our Wideouts and Coach Mines went open-pit on the edge and totally S.E.A.L.-teamed the g.Waves Cb’s over and over and over again. Lane and Ayden Greene were snappy and edgy here. Everything that Will’s hero ‘dre Davis ever wanted to barricading be. Kaden had one of his better C1 games, the oLine folded quite well to the 2nd-layer in the likewise fluid 2nd-half and the kinda so-so Schick shellacked a Tulaner on the Pancake of the Day to high-point end his career. Not perfect, tho’ hard-trying; and as Lombardi taught you can forgive hard-triers easier than most.

Less X… as man-o-man did he get bowl-game smoked in the rain. This leaves us with a C— at best/most G-c-G internal blocking wedge and two Ot’s who are not very offensive in terms of quicks/footwork, wide runs, or passing-fancy things. Do NOT kid yourself folks… the raw freakiness of Tuten and the raw willpower of Cobra-Ky’ was cheat-sheet crooked like JAX.edu used to be… as those two did about as much to help blocking as our generally south of so-so blockers did to help themselves.

i.e., there will be not less than a chance(s) to see a returning ’24 1 upfront go starting –1 and become a, 2.

As this was possibly the worst blocked near 400 Net Rushing days in the history of quadratic rushing days!

💯

the takeaway…

…the takeaway is… even the most ardent N.A.T.T.’s must be finding it hard to rain on our Military Bowl, parade.

This team’s trajectory is more parts RISE and less parts, run.

The fu’n has been restored; as this team is surely putting out mo’ and playing harder and tougher as Eye types. Hokie football feels good, again. And it has been a little to medium minute or three since we could all on that little, agry.

🏈 👁️.Q. Award Winner:
Tissy. He sure played one of his better games and went out as apex predator as his 1o-million off-field thingys (he’s a father recall) will allow. Good on him and his kid-o.

---

xxx‘s & ooo‘s

Coaching flat-worlders… obloquy no mo’.

Some of these verbs are objectively getting better… among the science-fact betterments:

• A decent amount of pre-snap madness dried up.
• A decent amount of bad snaps themselves dried up.
• Other than one maybe temporal mechanics bleep-up up @Marshall; we (in-game) ran and managed the game clock like barn-find used Rolex watch. Not perfectly keeping time though our sense of timing was starting to edge closer and closer to just in time itself.
• Play-sending (signaling-in) was better as were the want of pesky ’22 delay of games.
• Substituting and layer/group swap meets were better as well. Rotations improved what little the same level of limited depth would allow.
• Staffing -in particular on O- was mo’ coherent if not cogently closer to being on the same page. Gelling. Fit. Form. Meshing. Synching. Call it what you deign… do call it: ‘better’.

The D generically and overall seems to have made some strides since being ranked 88th back during the final fu-un-due. They have only super-upgraded one (Stud-De) spot. So, that may be code for: taking as a coaching the verb encouragement goes there.

Nonetheless, in-game for the balance of ’23 was the one ‘meh’ to us four.
Do we have a plan B, much less C or D or E?

Now, some of that could (still) be due to useful Talent level(s) being a bit short on long itself. Granted. Some of that may require better stocking of home position ballers for C1, Fs1, and Mike1 alike. Admitted. Some of that could even be cultural/philosophical indoctrination still being an ongoing clinical rinsing process. As this Program is not yet fully formed. Though year no.3 is the time to grow beyond nascent itself.

We need not work for AT&T and telegraph our (in-game) punch, singular.

And we do need a more reliant in-game toggle to option B or something behind door no.3…

This one is your one coaching concern or nag outright.

–oOo–

Though inflicting/imprinting one’s pet culture is a year(s) plural wax melt impressing pressure-point before it stamps true. All the mo’ so in times of adversity. So, we shall have to ask ’24 if they are more than a 1-trick pony or if they are only truly suited to attacking weaknesses (down in the dirt in extreme particular). ’cause as L’ville, F.s.u. and to some extent Nc.State taught us— availing or even inviting opposing weaknesses may or may not always be there for Pry-bar to leverage.

That... & do file this one away men, this team has just barely learned how to hunt.

Now it will suddenly switch from being the hunter to being the hunted. Or, to its first French kiss; and how many of you were very or any good at that your very first time?                                                         👅

So, yes; coaching the verb is a bit better; at the little to medium things at least. Although how they handle the medium and beyond ’24 things will be a very very very big ’26 (contract comes due) big deal.