Week 12 - Miami and stuff

Before I start, I wanted to point out that several of the people I've called out in that new thing I've been doing have played really well lately. In fact the whole team is performing great. But since I spoke negatively about a few guys, I want to praise them when they do well. Jeron Gouveia-Winslow had another huge, game changing play. He was the one that forced the Ezly fumble on the goal line last week against UNC. Great play GW! My boy! Also, Hosely, Drager, the defense as a whole, Beamer, and even Stinespring have done well down the stretch after I called them out earlier for their plays or decisions. See it's not all negativity!

I’m terribly unmotivated to do this blog this week. We should have the Coastal wrapped up after beating UNC last week. I mean all we have to do is beat UVA, and everyone but Miami has done that this year. So that got me thinking, are the players in a similar situation? They know they just have to beat a weak UVA team, so do they overlook Miami and get rocked? Sure it’s different situations, but I like being able to relate athletes to myself. I mean, I’m a little athletic…

Anyway, to show my lack of motivation, here’s my synopsis: Miami’s offensive and defensive lines are better than ours. They’ll probably win the battles up front making this a tough game to win. On the offensive line they are all huge and great blockers. Their two tackles, Orlando Franklin and Seantrel Henderson, are beasts. Franklin is a senior and the leader on their line, and Henderson is a true freshman that came over from USC after they got in trouble. Henderson was the #1 recruit in the nation last year. They have used their size and strength up front to run all over people since Jacory Harris went down. Berry, Miller, and James have been running all over people the last few weeks. And am I the only person that’s upset that Jacory Harris is out against us? He’s an interception machine! Oh well…

On the other side of the ball, the defensive line is another tough matchup. End, Allen Bailey, leads a group that gets to the QB often. They’re 7th in the country in sacks. We could see a different game plan this week after GT and UNC only rushed 3 or 4 and dropped everyone else into zone against us. Their secondary has been great too. They’re 3rd in the country in pass defense and have only allowed 6 passing TDs.

But history is a bit on our side. In the 3 years under Randy Shannon, Miami hasn’t lived up to the hype in games against VT. Sure they beat us last time we went down to Miami, but they only scored 16 points in the game. In the last three years, they’ve scored 14, 16, and 7 (last year in the pouring rain). So if Bud still has their number, I’m confident our offense can score at least 21 points. We have too many weapons on offense to score any less. So yeah, that’s all I’ve got this week. Maybe a loss will motivate me to do a better write-up for the season finale. Or maybe the Hokie players are nothing like me… Even though Josh Morgan once told me that I had good hands and that I should come out for the team when he threw the football around with us at our University Terrace apartment. This was before the girl he was dating in one of the apartments above us threw him out (and all of his clothes and stuff out the window and into the lawn) and moved on to Deron Washington. But before I start to ramble...

Hey, Bud Foster, it seems like people have been running all over us this season. Keep up your complete dominance against Miami's offense and come up with a game plan that plugs all the holes for opposing running backs. Too often this season it seems like all the linemen and linebackers are getting blocked on design runs and the first people to the ball carrier are coming from the secondary.

Prediction: 24-17 Hokies. For whatever reason… It’ll be a tough day for a rushing offense and defense I imagine, but Tyrod will do enough to carry us back to the ACC Championship game. And since this post lacked all sorts of effort and humor, I’ll leave you with this motivational poster inspired by Miami’s loss to us 3 years ago:

Week 11 - Adversity

Happy Veterans Day! I’d like to take a moment to thank all of those that are serving and have served. Keep our troops in mind this weekend.

So that Georgia Tech game was pretty stressful huh? It didn’t help matters to be there in the freezing cold with an angry GT alum girlfriend either… She was a good sport about all of it, but she was still cold, sick, and angry. But that said, it was a fun weekend in Blacksburg, and I miss it so much. How good did GT look though? I thought it was their best game of the season on both sides of the ball. Al Groh and the defense surprised me (and the Hokies) with how well they played and game planned. And since GT got up early, they were able to run the ball and not throw it which as I pointed out last week was the key to their success. Luckily they did throw it a few times including two interceptions in the red zone. And the last interception was the one that sealed the deal. Probably a game we shouldn’t have won, but hey, we did!

So now we’re moving on to a UNC team that is really hitting their stride now even though they have had so much off the field (and even on the field) issues this season. They have already had 31 players miss at least 1 game this season due to NCAA violations or injuries. With everything added up, they will lose an estimated 89 starts from players. Now they are faced with the question of whether or not to pull Ryan Houston’s redshirt since they really don’t have a running back left in the backfield. At least we decided to not redshirt David Wilson before the opener which is looking more and more like a great decision due to the two kick returns in huge wins (against NCST and GT) and Ryan William’s injury. So how has UNC played so well this season? Well the starters’ backups were also great recruits and are playing up to their hype. It’s probably easy to recruit if you pay players, give them gifts of housing, travel, entertainment, and jewelry, write essays for them, not make them go to class, make them contacts with agents, and allow them to partake in cannibalism. Alright fine, one of those is made up, but you have to figure out which one on your own. And apparently this has gone on for a while. I just found out today that former UNC players, Hakeem Nicks, Mahlon Carey, and Omar Brown, also received gifts while at Chapel Hill.

And before I get into this any further, just know that I don’t think this is a problem specific to UNC. Look what’s going on with Cam Newton and about half of the SEC and USC, and throughout the college athletic landscape. I mean would you be surprised if something came out like this about Michael Vick? I’m not saying he got paid and VT at all, but it also wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he did. Obviously this is going to happen when there is so much money in the college sports system as a whole and those that are providing the entertainment are only paid in tuition. Most of these players come from poorer families and could probably use a little extra cash for school. So you can’t help but feel a little sympathy for the athletes. But then there’s Marvin Austin… How can you be so dumb to broadcast over facebook and twitter that you’re partying and traveling with agents and then continue to hurt your cause in an ongoing NCAA investigation by other comments you make? I mean all these players on UNC decided to come back to be one of the best defenses ever in college football. But more than half of them were taking money and gifts from agents. Just go pro! This whole thing hurt all of their draft statuses (or is it stati?).

But what bothers me the most about everything that went on and is still going on is how Butch Davis is being canonized over how “UNC is overcoming adversity.” Are you kidding me! You have to be crazy to think that Butch Davis didn’t know about any of this. The tutor that wrote all the papers for all these players and even Butch Davis’ son is the Davis family’s nanny! So when Butch has all these interviews about how proud he is of these players for overcoming all this adversity and how these guys are such great guys, he couldn’t come off as more of a hypocrite. He knew all of this was going on! Coaches always know! Why do you think Pete Carroll snuck off to the Seahawks right before the shit hit the fan at USC? And overcoming adversity? Really? I mean yes, I guess it is adversity, but it’s self inflicted adversity! It would be like if someone wanted be the first one legged person to swim the Bering Strait, but they cut off their own leg to do it. It’s not like Mississippi State playing through the loss of Nick Bell after his fight with cancer, or Rutgers playing for Eric LeGrand after he was paralyzed from the neck down from making a tackle, or Notre Dame playing for the student that died in the tower collapse taping a practice (although we still may learn that the coaching staff is to blame), or even Michigan State rallying after their head coaches heart attack scare, or other real tragedies other football teams are facing. UNC only has themselves to blame! If I have to hear another interview of Butch Davis just gushing about how great his players are, how big their hearts are, and how they have overcome so much together, I’m going to lose it. Sure I feel bad for the UNC players that did it right and got dragged down by the players that were only looking out for themselves, but Butch Davis and several of the athletes on UNC are to blame. And in all honesty, Butch Davis should be fired over this. He actually should have already have fired…



Ugh, now to some real football stuff… T.J. Yates is having a great year all things considered. He’s lead UNC to throw for the 33nd most passing yards in the country and is the most improved player in the ACC. And on offense he’s doing mostly alone with all sorts of running backs, receivers, and even his #1 target, TE, Zach Pianalto. He does still have a lot of weapons at WR, but I don’t see how UNC can come out and run the ball. If we can make them totally one dimensional, I don’t see how they can beat us. Our pass defense is too good to let Yates and Co. go up and down the field. And on defense, UNC is still good. They’ve gotten most of their players back like Quan Sturdivant and others, and the people that filled in for them played great. Also, I think Bruce Carter is a beast! We might have some trouble running on them, but their secondary is depleted by injuries. So I expect Tyrod to have a big day throwing.

It’s not like UNC is the only one facing adversity through injuries! Defensive End and regular blog mention, Chris Drager is out due to a hit he took in the Georgia Tech game. It hasn’t shown up too much on the stat sheet, but I think Drager has had a really good 2nd half of the season. He’s been hurrying the QB and knocking down passes a good amount recently. That said, I’m not too worried with JR Collins and James Gayle stepping in for him. They’re not as good in run defense, but both are probably better pass rushers, and as I said, UNC will be throwing a lot against us. But the biggest hit to the Hokies is the loss of both return men! David Wilson, fresh off the game winning kickoff return against GT, is out at least 1 week with mono. Dyrell Roberts is out for the rest of the year with compartment syndrome. This causes painful swelling (in Roberts’ case in his thigh) which caused him to have emergency surgery the night after the GT game. This leads to my weekly H_RMBSYCGAAMACBLDE(AMTYFAMBT)!

Hey, Ryan Williams and Tony Gregory, step up in the kick returns and more importantly hold on to the ball! We have adversity to overcome!

Prediction: We will stare adversity in the face and then stomp on it. 27-17 VT. Why? Because it’s almost lunch time… I mean, we’ve played well against the pass all year and this should be no different. Also, our offense should do better than they did against UNC last year. Tyrod Taylor will be the player of the game, and year…

Week 10 - Groh Blows

Oh where to start? I guess I’ll just throw this out there now; I think there are only 2 ways this game can go: a shootout or a VT blowout. That’s really all I can see happening. Both teams will outmatch their opposing defenses, but will GT have another multi-turnover, penalty filled game where they can’t convert 3rd downs and basically stop themselves on offense? They have already done this 4 times this year. The 4 games: a 28-25 loss to Kansas because they can’t stop Kansas’ passing attack and killed themselves with penalties and 3rd down conversions (4 of 13), a 45-28 loss to NCST because they can’t stop Russell Wilson and have a punt blocked and an additional 2 turnovers, a 24-20 win against Wake where they win despite penalties and a -2 turnover deficit, and a 27-13 loss to Clemson where Ellington and company ran all over their defense, they converted only 6/16 3rd downs, and only completed 6/19 passes.

So why are they having so much more trouble this year compared to the previous two? Well most people will point to the fact that they lost 4 of their probably best 5 players from last year’s team to the NFL draft. And I agree that this is a large part of the problem. Derrick Morgan Burnett were great on defense and when they left the skill level did have a significant drop. Allen and Dwyer were pretty much interchangeable, so Dwyer wasn’t a huge loss. But the biggest loss of all was Demaryius Thomas. There is a reason Thomas was picked in the first round of the NFL draft. His size, speed, and skill made it where he could stretch the field, win jump balls, and catch anything near him. The current GT team does not have this ability as seen by Thomas’ 1152 yards last season compared to 678 yards total with a team high of 164 yards from Stephen Hill with only 4 games to go. So obviously the loss of Thomas was a huge loss.

I say that’s only half of the problem. As I said earlier GT is killing themselves on offense in their losses through timely penalties and turnovers. But the biggest reason they’ve been losing is the 3rd down conversions. In their 3 losses, GT is 4 of 13, 4 of 14, and 6 of 16 for a total of 14 of 43 (32.6%). For the season they are converting on 3rd down 38.4% of the time which ranks 70th in the country. Last season, they converted an astonishing 52.4% on 3rd downs, which ranked 2nd in the country. Thomas is part of the reason for the drop off considering how many drops I’ve seen for GT, but the real root cause in my opinion is the play calling. More often than not last season, GT would run on 1st and 2nd to get a 3rd and short. This would give Paul Johnson the luxury of basically 2 shots using the triple option to pick up the short yardage since he always goes for it on 4th down. Meaning this opened up the passing game since it isn’t an obvious passing situation (run or pass can get you the first down) and there is little to lose (if you’re confident your offense can pick up a few yards on 4th, and Paul Johnson has never seemed like he has lacked confidence). But in the games I’ve seen GT play this year, the 3 losses + the UNC game, GT will often throw on 1st or 2nd down. I don’t know if you’ve checked but Nesbitt is only completing 38.2% of his passes and a lot of those passes are screen passes. I mean Nesbitt is rarely mistaken for an accurate passer. Even last season with one of the top 2 or 3 receivers in the country, he only completed 46% of his passes (granted he took more downfield shots). But now you don’t even have Thomas, so why would you throw the ball just as often? Nesbitt is currently on pace for 700 less yards with only 9 few attempts. So as a VT fan, I’m hoping Nesbitt attempts 20 or more passes this Thursday…

But let’s move on to what will be my favorite part of this blog, my boy, Al Groh! This is where we will start the Groh Blows.



Al Groh has been in the defensive scheming game for 40 years, and is credited for brining the 3-4 defense to the college game. This is complete bullshit since the defense has been around since the 40s or probably even earlier, but yeah basically it was popular in 80s and early 90s in the NFL and he brought it with him to UVA. So the defensive mastermind converted and oversaw UVA’s defense in 2001. Since that time he lead the Cavaliers to a 59-53 record, a Gator Bowl, a Music City Bowl, a MPC Computers Bowl, and 2 Continental Tire Bowls. He alienated the Tidewater area and allowed VT to be the sole recruiter of the area. He sparked VT websites such as www.dontfirealgroh.com. Oh, and he has had a single win against VT. I know my readers, they want stats! Well, here’s some good stuff since 2004 about Al Groh defenses (I couldn’t, aka didn’t try very hard, to find anything older than that). All of these wonderful stats are brought to you by well me, but from cfbstats.com.

From 2004-2009, Al Groh’s total defense at UVA has ranked 18th, 61st, 17th, 23rd, 42nd, and 52nd. This is pretty good, right? Three times in the top 25, all 6 years in the top half(ish). So I can see how this would be an improvement for GT. Wait, how did GT do in that same time? They finished 12th, 22nd, 27th, 20th, 25th, and 53rd from 04-09. So they replaced their defensive coordinator from 2009 that gave up an average of 24.8 points and 360.3 yards per game, with the mastermind of the defense that gave up 26.3 points and 358.4 yards per game. Oh and he’ll be switching to the 3-4 which GT hasn’t recruited the personnel for, and they haven’t played during their college careers. So how’s Al doing this season? Teams are averaging 23.6 points and 354.3 yards per game against GT. And GT has yet to play VT, Miami, and Georgia which are in the top 4 of offenses they will play this year. And for the complete demoralization of possibly the 2 GT people that might read this, VT, under Bud Foster, has ranked 4th, 1st, 1st, 4th, 7th, and 12th in that time.

So how have the Hokies specifically done against Al Groh since 2004? Well they are 6-0 and have averaged just over 28 points per game. And this is with VT offenses that ranked 66th, 57th, 99th, 100th, 103rd, and 49th in total offense. And now we actually have an offense! To my surprise we are ranked 12th in the country right now in scoring offense and 32nd in total offense. So in summary, I think our offense will be tough to stop.

The question is how does our defense play against the triple option. Well, I don’t really know. GT under Paul Johnson has been fairly good against us in the past and completely controlled the clock last year. We aren’t really strong at stopping the run right now as we rank 77th in the country in average yards per rush against us at 4.4. We have already given up 44 rushes longer than 10 yards and 11 rushes over 20 and we haven’t played a real rushing attack yet. Our linebackers haven’t really don’t a great job recognizing the run or wrapping up the defender. Well we’ve missed a lot of tackles in general which is the recipe for disaster against GT. Plus, Bruce Taylor might still be suffering from his ankle injury by Thursday meaning Redshirt Freshman Jack Tyler will get significant playing time. It’s not like Taylor has our most tackles, tackles for a loss, QB hurries, and 3rd most sacks…

This brings me to this week’s installment of H_RMBSYCGAAMACBLDE(AMTYFAMBT)!

Hey Everyone on Defense, everyone needs to learn to wrap some people up! I’m tired of this missed tackle garbage, and GT is the type of team you really need to tackle.

But there is some good news. Teams have historically done well against Paul Johnson’s triple option when they have more than a week to prepare. Bud Foster did go visit Iowa over the summer to talk with them how they stopped the triple option. Also, all the things I’ve already mentioned about Groh and their play calling. Oh and we’re 28th in the league in opponent 3rd down conversion.

Prediction: GT always plays us tough, so I leaning that this turns into a shoot out. I have no idea how the rain and 36 degree temperature affects each team, but I feel like we’re a pretty good bad weather team. So how’s it all play out? We put up 42 on Al Groh’s defense last year which had better personnel than this year’s GT team has, but GT will control the ball much better than UVA did last season. So I say VT wins this one 34-24. But who knows with these two teams…