takethepoints
Helluva Engineer
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- 5,912
Well, they're pretty good and we beat the living snot out of them. Up there. Some thoughts:
• About half way through the 1st quarter I noticed that they weren't doing what Pitt, Clemson, and Duke had done to slow down the O. They weren't shifting before the snap and they weren't blitzing the B gap to stop the dive. (They were trying to flood the outside lanes for the option, but since we ran so many QB sweeps from the WR-in formation, it wasn't doing them much good.) Their DL was also playing off the LOS, always a bad idea. Since the scheme used by P-C-D was invented by Bud Foster, I was surprised. I suppose the reason was that their D is so inexperienced due to the losses they've had this year. Bud may have thought that if he started shifting the DL/LBs, we would catch them confused and get a big play. That worked; our longest gain of the night was 16 yards. Problem = we averaged 6 ypc and had 35 first downs.
• The Two-Headed Monster was on fire last night: 158 yards and 4 TDs. This was a direct result of their D choices, imho.
• I said before that Tobias has two traits you would like in a running QB. He can find a crease almost as well as Robert Lavette and he gets to top speed (nothing to scream about, that) in one step. That's a very difficult combo to defend. Oth, he can't keep running the ball 40 times a game and expect to survive the rest of the season. Now, if he can just get this passing business down pat …
• We held the ball for 42:18; they held it for 17:42. It was great to see the Return of the Death March. On our last drive in the first half I called up YouTube on my iPhone and played "Prussian Glory" three times in a row as we went down field. Like:
• Now, to the guys who really won the game for us: the D. In the practice press conference this week, both Rivera and Branch seemed very confident. Branch said that VT had a typical ACC OL, but that he didn't think that was a problem "… because we have better athletes." I thought that was bravado, but maybe not. We sacked Willis once, hurried him twice, and had 4 TFLs. That doesn't look that impressive until you consider that they only had the ball 17:42. Even when he was setting up, he knew he didn't have a whole lot of time back there. And, despite a couple of early breakdowns, the coverage was pretty good. Result = Willis was hurrying his throws and often threw to open space where he thought his WRs would be. This must have led to some - shall we say? - pointed conversations on the VT sidelines. The run D was good also, especially after the half.
• I think the cold helped us. Their WRs had an uncommon number of drops, often when the ball was right in their hands. That can happen in your first game when it's cold. Since we didn't try to throw the ball but one time and used our WRs as blocking backs for most of the game, we didn't have the same problem.
• Some might think that Tobias has won the starting job. That's for Coach to decide, but I think TaQuon would have about as effective against the relatively passive D scheme VT was running. Also, we can't keep running QB sweeps for the rest of the season. If we can get Tobias up on the rest of the playbook, then he might very well win the job. We'll see soon enough.
• About half way through the 1st quarter I noticed that they weren't doing what Pitt, Clemson, and Duke had done to slow down the O. They weren't shifting before the snap and they weren't blitzing the B gap to stop the dive. (They were trying to flood the outside lanes for the option, but since we ran so many QB sweeps from the WR-in formation, it wasn't doing them much good.) Their DL was also playing off the LOS, always a bad idea. Since the scheme used by P-C-D was invented by Bud Foster, I was surprised. I suppose the reason was that their D is so inexperienced due to the losses they've had this year. Bud may have thought that if he started shifting the DL/LBs, we would catch them confused and get a big play. That worked; our longest gain of the night was 16 yards. Problem = we averaged 6 ypc and had 35 first downs.
• The Two-Headed Monster was on fire last night: 158 yards and 4 TDs. This was a direct result of their D choices, imho.
• I said before that Tobias has two traits you would like in a running QB. He can find a crease almost as well as Robert Lavette and he gets to top speed (nothing to scream about, that) in one step. That's a very difficult combo to defend. Oth, he can't keep running the ball 40 times a game and expect to survive the rest of the season. Now, if he can just get this passing business down pat …
• We held the ball for 42:18; they held it for 17:42. It was great to see the Return of the Death March. On our last drive in the first half I called up YouTube on my iPhone and played "Prussian Glory" three times in a row as we went down field. Like:
• Now, to the guys who really won the game for us: the D. In the practice press conference this week, both Rivera and Branch seemed very confident. Branch said that VT had a typical ACC OL, but that he didn't think that was a problem "… because we have better athletes." I thought that was bravado, but maybe not. We sacked Willis once, hurried him twice, and had 4 TFLs. That doesn't look that impressive until you consider that they only had the ball 17:42. Even when he was setting up, he knew he didn't have a whole lot of time back there. And, despite a couple of early breakdowns, the coverage was pretty good. Result = Willis was hurrying his throws and often threw to open space where he thought his WRs would be. This must have led to some - shall we say? - pointed conversations on the VT sidelines. The run D was good also, especially after the half.
• I think the cold helped us. Their WRs had an uncommon number of drops, often when the ball was right in their hands. That can happen in your first game when it's cold. Since we didn't try to throw the ball but one time and used our WRs as blocking backs for most of the game, we didn't have the same problem.
• Some might think that Tobias has won the starting job. That's for Coach to decide, but I think TaQuon would have about as effective against the relatively passive D scheme VT was running. Also, we can't keep running QB sweeps for the rest of the season. If we can get Tobias up on the rest of the playbook, then he might very well win the job. We'll see soon enough.
