Virginia Tech=31, Duke=14

Virginia Tech football came up off the got crowned Monarchial mat with… control, as in total control— if not with a vengeance as the cliché goes.

The Hokies controlled the Dukies for all less the opening 10 minutes or so of scrumming down in Durham, Nc. And then the Hokies basically only (slowly) tightened their grip on the formerly 24th ranked Dukies all the mo’. Now, although I’m not sure if this was a dominant performance, it was a very dang solid one as containment went. As coach Fu’ and company put a very sporting Duke team in the Coastal brig as our force-field remained enforce for nearly the duration. As this was about as close to a yesteryear 1990’s Frank on the way up kinda VicTory as we’ve seen in many a year. Basic, fundamentally sound, old-school, deliberate and instructional football. Although yah; there were a few things to look at and a couple of things that still need some growth. Still yet; Qb2 Ryan Willis had a helluva a game and an even better first-half and you do have to be intrigued by the downfield passing possibilities here. So, let’s see what went well and what went right on an overall very redemptive night…

1Q and a season on the brink remaining:
Honestly -and even though down-n-distance and field-location itself may wanna disagree with me here- I honestly found the early fake-punt and the H.Hooker substitutions to be just a little bit needy. As for my $0.o3 in the game of life, you make per se “reach” calls like that vs. superior firepower teams (A.K.A. Clemson in the A.c.c. title tilt) and not vs. the personnel inferior ones. And certainly not vs. a Duke team that no matter how well coached they may indeed be— you do objectively enjoy a testing and multi-row/column athlon matrix advantage on. That ain’t Linear Algebra II with the Dr. Critenden of McBryde Hall fame/infamy, that’s just how you maintain faith, you trust in the players… let the players play.

However, to put that another way is to say… numerous sideline sources said that Fu’ himself was reallllllly all kinds of after this one. As Fu’ did way more personal coaching and less big-picture overall strategic steering than usual on Saturday night. And that was sure one serious and deliberate looking scowl Fu’ wore on his face for about the first 59 minutes of play. As Fu’ himself was more parts wind… and less parts… rudder.

1Q 8:39 remaining:
LOVE the hustle here, don’t wanna rain on that… as our wang Chung’s Duke’s #34 on a scrapping hard-driving steal right at the end of the play. And yet then #34 rolls across the field right into the planted left-leg and therefore knee of poor S.Savoy. Nearly expensing S.Savoy his season on the always horrific accidental/inadvertent roll-up. As Savoy was hopping, skipping and jumping for his very patella life and methinks #15 musta played a mean game of hopscotch as a kid for this one. Shew! #ThxCoachGod!!!

2Q 13:25 remaining:
Did not like the look of this on film as one #26, starting Safety Jovonn Quillen sure took one for the team in recovering this muffed punt. As he pounces the pigskin on end (on the tip/point of the ball) and then three Dukies who weighed a combined 750 lbs. even landed on him. That’s how you at least bruise rib cartilage folks, if not snap the same. Godspeed @two-six.

2Q 11:36 remaining:
Just watch and film-room LOL along with everyone one else on the team as #83 Eric Kumah Autumn harvests and basically posterizes #51 the star all-conference caliber De for Duke folks. Now, this is how you should be playing all along when you are the physically biggest Wr on the team men. As Eee.Kay knocked Victor Dimukeje about ~5 yards outta bounds and right on his wallet chump-change style on this electrifying hit. PROPS!!!

2Q 4:46 remaining:
If his 203 Qb rating, his perfectly clean 3:0 passing ratio, his 64% day with a positive five yards rushing and a whopping north-south stretching evening with a sterling power hitting six completions of 18 yards or more, two of which went for six points… well if that did not win his more urban Luke-warm teammates over? Maybe taking a punch like this, will? As #96 the wide side De of Duke punched Ry’ right in the mouf as Ry’ popped right back up, and turned his back on the colorful noise of #96 right as rain. That’s a pretty fair to middlin’ set of whiskers folks and there are more than a few boxers who wish they had a bread like this. (and do watch #44 go right after Ryan post-play, as everybody always wants to test the pasty boy-next-door Howdy Doody looking Qb in acid test terms that are as clear as black-n-white). And although some would be recalcitrant to hit this at all -much less hit it too hard- did you see who came over to felicitate Ry’ Willis post-game? Or did I just shed too much “light” on this dynamic and will now be accused of practicing pigmentation?

3Q 12:44 remaining:
Don’t feel too bad if you did not see this one, as Eye did not catch it in real-time, either… nevertheless, do watch as poor #9 K.Ladler gets accidentally stolen from behind, friendly-fire or Hokie-on-Hokie crime style and he hurts his left leg/soleus on the out of control landing plant in the Duke turf. Freaky, weird, oddball play and yet yup, those still count as injurious plays to (inflatable) boot.

3Q 10:49 remaining:
I know some who have not balled will gloss over this… whereas I consider(ed) this to be the defining moment of the whole dang game. Just watch as virtually the ENTIRE Virginia Tech football staffing sideline erupts after the 4th-down gut-check Bud Stoūt stop vs. Duke and let’s just say, they colorfully encouraged an altogether, all for one, and one for all spot of the ball per the same.

As normally Hilgirth and maybe one or two other staffers plum get after the post-play theatrics, all the worlds a stage, and yet these ain’t thespians. These are real live men who wanted to upset Duke and they wanted to redemptively beat Duke really damn bad, too!

A couple of little bonus Hokie health insalubrious catches, Rb T.Wheatley has a bad right-shoulder and Dt Ro.Porcher IV has a bad right-wrist. Both still braced up and still played, although Tech can’t cry too much on this with the visible/credible black-n-blue evidence on film big-n-blue. D.Rivers is fighting a bum left-biceps to boot.

3Q 7:51 remaining:
Just what a now thinning De spot did need, as poor right-De one #40, Emmanuel Belmar gets knocked silly on an entirely defenseless and inadvertent spin-out forearm shiverRay Nitschke  style right into the chops at the end of the Duke scramble to the short-side. Hope our dentist made the trip and at least Duke does have a totally epic med’ school. As this is a savage/ugly kayo type hit right on the point of the chin. St.Emmanuel and St.Antipas (Patron of Teeth) bless, as this is not getting your proverbial bell-rung, this is getting the Liberty Bell dropped on, y, o, u. Yikes…

3Q 2:15 remaining:
A hippy, play indeed as poor E.Kumah Charliehorses none other than himself on this rugged sideline out-pattern landing along the V.Tech bench. A harsh game when the grass itself can rise up and bite an otherwise perfectly useful right-hip/thigh.

4Q 13:47 remaining:
11 peeps on the field and 9 of ’em less than hard-trying, though do not tell that to everyone’s fan-favorite Dax. As this Dax may or may not be from Deep Space-9, although he hustles to the very echo of the whistle as Dax Holyfield is the only one who bothers to jump and he does not jump, he skies in attempting to block the Duke P.A.T. (this in addition to having the kick-coverage hit of the night early on in 1Q). As hearty kids like Dax only come with one speed… FULL.

4Q 12:41 remaining:
T.P. or a turning point in engineering surveying terms? As this is the kinda throw that melts a lotta wide receiving corps ice. Helluva a lofty and I do mean very lofty in terms of relief from the field proper and yet an easy pitch-n-catch to the outside shoulder as Willis’ touch is baby soft indeed. To put it another way… there are currently four traveling Qb’s on the roster and a couple of other walk-ons, practice squad ones— and yet #5 is the only one on the roster who can make this throw at this moment.

4Q 1:18 remaining:
Another kid in addition to Dax who fights until the echo of twelfth-round bell goes “ding” is Dalton “double deuce” Keene. As this kid is prolly all-Conference come 2020 and his blocking this year is far in advance of his early blocking this time last year. Don’t believe me? Just ask got served/pancaked #34 of Duke. Helluva an open-field knockdown block scored here! (guess the whispers of Dalton punishing T.Hill in August camp were, true!

Time To Throw (TTT)©:

Virginia Tech:
Qb pressured=8 (1 passing TD)
Qb hurried=1
Qb hits=13
Sacked=nil.

Duke:
Qb pressured=15
Qb hurried=2
Qb hits=17
Sacked=4

Ashby may have just taken his first real live step (singular) as in his first one yet, as he’s been okay at Mike-Lb, almost transparent enough. As I do not see him getting worked or driven off the line-of-scrimmage routinely, though I do not see the mini-me tomahawk missile some had described pre-season either. Ash’ however did just court his best half of play with a stunning 8 stops in the first 30 minutes of battle and here’s is hopeful that the game is just beginning to proverbially slow-down for him. As he’s gonna have to win a lotta battles on technique, smarts, and instincts, as he just does not court the vitals to win any wars on Newtonian Mechanics alone. Though he is a gridiron seeker, a finder of the ball. A WWII destroyer sonar type of Lb if you will.

Divine “gorilla glue” Deablo sure cemented some superior generic stop-unit play on Saturday night @Duke. As our hind-4/5 rotations and alignments were not once seen as being tardy or last-second, they were however noticeably smoother and smoother is one of our most important secondary coverage edicts… as smooth(er) rotations are “disguised” rotations. As the whole entire defense was much more ironed out and far less crimped or hemmed up. That’s a lowercase version of leadership folks or at least a small-forward sized player-coach on-field. Mutually, Divine seemed to move smoothly enough his ownself; having shaken off the whispered effects of a reoccurring/lingering foot ding yet again.

Those O&M halt-unit individual praises rightfully bestowed, lest we forget, Duke missed three or four homerun throws in the 1st-half by a foot or less. Two of which had at least a full yard of separation on the given Hokie pass-defender and those two sure looked like they had a legimitate shot to go for 6. Making football -same as sex- a game inches, indeed.

Nevertheless, keeping Ry’ Willis as clean as we did up above TTT statistic has its advantages, does it not? And this new and improved more streamlined, more Baywatch lifeguard looking Ry’ is spry, or at least active enough in the pocket enough to extend plays and avoid sacks. And he does have at least a heretofore unreported 4th gear or pretty sporty in-line or linear top-speed.

That said… our run-block fits sure were given fits by the Duke read-n-react or stall-ball kinda defensive line play. And you have to wonder who(m) else is gonna be gleaning this when they break tape on the Duke game film? i.e. keep the Fu’fense in front of you, and clog/back it up old-pipes style at/on the line-of-scrimmage.

As you can see… we just logged our first negative blocking grading day -most courtesy of suspect run-shapes- as Duke gave our ground attack a multi-finger poke right to the Eye. And candidly, our run-fits and our lack of TFL (tackles for a loss) allowed are a Spartan 35^th stiffest and had been visibly superior to our passing cup (or sacks allowed) which checks in at a rather vanilla or pedestrian 64^th best overall. And this one saw us field our marginally liked Qb2 in lieu of our normal Qb1 —and the internally marginalized Qb2 got bagged on sacks, zero times. Go fig’ on that? Though do fig’ that the best front-6 in Duke history sure lived up to and bellied up to all of that and a snap. As that was a physically rock solid and a head-game metamorphic Summa Cum Laude Duke front-6.

Accordingly… Godspeed to the likable coach Cut’ and company from here on out too.

Longfield Management (Lo.FM)©:

Virginia Tech:
positive: |||| |||| | (1 VT TD)
Swiss (neutral): ||||
negative: |||| |||| |||| ||| (1 VT penalty)

Duke:
positive: |||| |||
Swiss (neutral): ||||
negative: |||| |||| |||| || (1 Duke flag)

Major tip of the efforting cap to Wang and to Holt, who had A+++ hustle, “want too” and Gung-Ho kinda nights down at Duke on Saturday. As you routinely saw both guys multi to downright many yards downfield, hard-chugging, hard-struggling, and hard-blocking when they did get there as there is really nothing more you can ask of a human than to be: “hard trying”. And these two big ole light-hearted weight-tooting oLinemen came to work in spades.

As for Hokie tackling… man-o-man… what a difference a weekend makes! As Bud Böck just won the tackling gold-medal at Oktoberfest in… September!

As we missed less than 1/10th of a tackle per play and we even had one broken-field Duke run -to their credit- where we missed 3 tackles in less than 10 seconds of work.

Nonetheless, we went close to 20 minutes of defensing before we missed our first stop to start the game and that to is downright unheard of. So felicitations to coach Foster for cleaning his O.d.u. backyard army tackling mess right on up. Bud Foster is a man of his word… indeed.

the takeaway…
…the takeaways is… everyone thought we’d be 3-1 after four games played this year and yet here we are 3-1 after what was supposed to be five games played. We upset F.s.u. on the road and then O.d.u. totally undid us.

A {sic: extremely} strange game this oblong spheroid… n’est-ce pas?

As we are 3-1 right on schedule even if we only play 11 games this campaign.

A .75o winning percentage -as fully expected- albeit in the least possible expected way; go fig’ on this 2018 thus far gentlemen, though one thing is most definitely fo’ sure… dull this 2018 Virginia Tech football club just, ain’t.

---

And; although we all know I ain’t exactly campaigning with election day coming up us to be named the 2017-2018 President of the Joshua Jackson for Qb1 fan-club… I do not believe that even I -a certifiable Joshua Jackson metrics-based sayer of O&M truth- even I could not have said this…

"Injury or not to Josh Jackson, I believe Willis is the right choice for this 

particular Virginia Tech team." -Chris Coleman, TSL-

So after what you just saw in a pretty well must win upset down @Duke… how say you???

As although I could not have said that prior to this @Duke football game, and nor could I have piously said that prior to seeing the Fu’fense un-turtle, stick its head outta its O&M red-state offensive shell, and discover that yah; infrared radiation feels good and it feels even better on a colder blue-state day.

I can, however, say that (now) after having seen the deeper pass-points in the Willis schematic of the Fu’fense… I can say that I do see what Chris means here.

What I wanna see just to be sure, however, is… just how much good does this vastly enhanced now fully medium-sized vertical throw-game stretch help the formerly east-west elastic Fu’fense run-game sets per loosening opposing defenses up and providing more room to run-fit work?

The sage armchair Euclidean Qb’s among you see me working already, don’t you?

As Fu’s full horizontal sretch of 53.33 yards by about 60′ downfield is sure as hell a lot more than approx. 100′ by about 30′ downfield… or someone and their Corny O just climbed outta the quietly G.O.P. proverbial… box.

***

Me personally?

Well, I personally hope this was *the* seminal cultural moment whereby Fu’ finally inflicted -not instilled mind you- whereby Fu’ finally inflicted his pet culture and committed marriage upon his team.

As there is NO denying it when you break tape upon this @Duke contest folks, Fu’ and company absolutely, entirely and unconditionally won this one vs. very a pretty dang cagey and post-season bound Duke football team by indeed playing a football game that was entirely…

#HardSmartTOUGH

As Fu’ has had to go back to the Fu’ture and reset his year no.3 culture in year no.1 entry-level intra-disciplinarian lay the damn law down terms. As this team is not senior class heavy enough or mature enough overall; and it is not (yet) top-44 talent refilled enough to merely show up and get that work.

This is a hard hat, dump truck, metatarsal boot wearing, black-n-blue Big East yesteryear kinda football team. A… ♫”You load 16 tons…”♪  Tennesse Earnie Ford “git ‘er done” in Commonwealth terms squad.

A Smith Barney club if you will, as this 2018 Virginia Tech football team is gonna have to win football games the old-fashioned way, they are gonna have to “…earn it“.

#wimps!

Virginia Tech=31, Duke=14

“LETS GO!”

“Hokies!”

bourbonstreet**