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…
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