It was Military Appreciation Day and the White Effect Game.
The best moment at the start of the game? Three Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters fly overhead to honor their fellow service members and swear in a large group of Army Reserve officer trainees.
Three Black Hawks fly in formation from south to north for a change. John Schneider – SB Nation
But since it was a daytime match, it was clear something was wrong. They brought along large marshmallow roaster effects and smoke machines. There was only a faint hint of smoke here and there, and one of the marshmallow roasters stopped working after the first burst of flames.
Perhaps it was some kind of omen, but the Hokies lost the coin toss again, which seems to go against the statistical odds of Spock beating a computer at 3D chess.
Right from the start of things, something was wrong. Even the rain couldn’t decide whether to soak us or continue to flow southeast, blocking out the light and messing up our camera settings.
This G, B, U isn’t going to be long. Unfortunately, you might end up copying and pasting it from the last one or the one before that. This will also be the last note.
Anyway, good thing that happened
During the pregame show, media members reported that Beischul Tuten was questionable. The already shuffled line was shuffled again due to a significant number of injuries, including reserve offensive lineman Reiss Gangnam. But fortunately, Tuten, with his right knee secured in a lineman’s knee pad, was on the field, dressed and ready to go. In the end, it turned out to be the best thing that happened to the Hokies in the game. Tuten scored 18 of Tech’s points on powerful long runs. He ran for 122 yards, averaging more than eight yards per attempt, most of which were evenly distributed. The truth is that without Tuten, the team’s offensive power was almost nonexistent.
Along with the Tuten run, the offensive line was also hurt. Many will still complain, but the offensive line actually did the heavy lifting blocking for Beischul-Tutten and gave Kyron Draughn plenty of time on most of the pass plays (not all, but most). The odd thing here is that the run blocking improved a lot, even though the pass blocking looked a little less accomplished in comparison. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but the offensive line wasn’t a huge issue in this game on that side of the line of scrimmage.
Okay… I found two “good ones”, but the bad ones are coming too.
As I todded off the field to take photos on the Rutgers side of the field after the Hokies’ first attack, I said to someone on the sideline, “This is it…this is how we lose…”
Another Wasted Slow Start
Bowen came out limping, the Hokies were out three times in a row, and the play calling was really poor, with little enthusiasm. It was like the players knew they weren’t going to move the sticks when a “jet sweep” to Jaylin Lane was slammed just behind the line of scrimmage. Then a second down long went for nothing, and a third down pass was totally out of play, thrown short of the sticks and incomplete. It was a really disappointing start, and even though the defense prevented three straight Rutgers outs, when Tech got the ball back it didn’t look like they were going to be able to do anything about it. And it got even worse when Lane fumbled on a punt return on review, allowing Rutgers to run straight into the end zone and score the first points of the game on an embarrassing error at the start.
Aside from the old attrition issue, there were plenty of drops and wasted opportunities.
Tech struggled to hold onto the ball when they had it. Tech allowed two fumbles and a crucial interception that thwarted a two-minute drive that was looking to win or tie the game. Tech’s passing game was awful. Kyron Drones had plenty of time to hit a 3-4 second route but just couldn’t get it. He was either offered a screen pass pattern that was short of the line of scrimmage and nowhere near the gain line or a naturally low-probability impossible deep ball that he ended up overthrowing. Drones didn’t have his best day. But his offensive coordinator did absolutely nothing to help him in four straight games. Drones gained yards on some deliberate runs and some scrambles, but overall the Hokie offense was one-dimensional (and mostly won on that dimension alone).
Can you imagine what would have happened if the Draughns had been able to throw half of the Rutgers QB’s passing patterns? Rutgers averaged 10.8 yards per pass attempt; Tech averaged 5.1. (I think this included some 3-pointers, but I haven’t seen the replay.) A very low-probability deep throw called with no intermediate checkdown pattern. Tech was 3rd and medium (4th or 5th) and only needed to get a pattern over the line to move the sticks, and somehow elected to throw an impossible bomb. The big problem here is that Felton struggles to get to the ball, and even if he does get there, struggles to catch it.
Zebra laundry wasn’t much but it really hurt
Tech was penalized just four times, for a total of 34 yards. One of the penalties was a completely bogus pass interference call on Mansoor Delane, but replays in the stadium showed nothing more than the incidental contact that always occurs on a passing play. The crowd protested but could do nothing. The Scarlet Knights got a much-needed first down after third-and-long, but frankly, things were abysmal because of several other questionable flags during key plays.
Don’t practice what you don’t play
The Tech defense had a really tough day. Rutgers could have gotten the ball to the top of the field if they wanted to, with a mix of mid-range passing and occasional rushing. In fact, Tech’s run defense was pretty good, holding Rutgers to 2.9 yards per carry and losing 34 total yards. Teams expected to run through the Tech defense didn’t. This could be listed as a “good” point, but! Rutgers didn’t run, they got a ton of mid-range yards on the pass, and when they needed to move the ball, they moved at will through the air. The Tech pass defense was simply not prepared for such a challenge, which is probably a tribute to Schiano’s OC, but also a real warning to the Hokie defensive staff. The defense was not prepared for what was coming and struggled to adjust.
There are too many ugly things…
In the ellipsis you could fill in a list of really awful things that go wrong with this program. Have you ever been waiting for an elevator only to find it never shows up? Yes, we’ve all been there. It happens all the time in high rise buildings. What do you do? You can stand and wait for the elevator while doing something else, like talking to a friend or a stranger. You can also take the stairs, but not if you’re rushing to a higher floor… So, frustrated, you keep pressing the call button, hoping that the damn machine will finally pay attention to you and the elevator will magically appear.
Well yeah, I feel like “that” guy. The ugly points from this season, last season, and the season before that, and the season before that. This offense doesn’t work! How many times do you have to bang your head against a brick wall before you realize what you’re doing isn’t doing anything to the wall? The play calling is poor. The game planning is nothing short of mediocre, and the plays themselves are ripped straight out of the first few chapters of a high school “power spread” playbook.
The offensive assistant (Dancing Itos – an O.J. trial reference, maybe I’m old) gesticulates, glares and waves for 10 or even 30 seconds before making a lame dive play that only gains 2 yards. Or the ridiculous slot receiver jet sweep that opened the Rutgers game. If you want to go wide on the opening run, why not run a toss sweep to Beischul-Teuten on the field side? Why throw the ball back down the line of scrimmage to force a QB who has struggled a bit this season into a third-and-long situation where the defense can either perk up their ears or throw to a dump off receiver in front of the sticks?
It all means nothing, and the occasional gap-breaking one play for big yards doesn’t make up for 10 plays where the defense rushed the line of scrimmage with little to no significant gain.
Not only that, but this team had multiple opportunities to close out games with two-minute drill plays that put the ball in position to score quickly, but no plays were prepared that approached an effective two-minute offense. With a significant percentage of games tied until the final five minutes of the game, not having a two-minute drill on offense is a glaring deficiency. In reality, such a drill requires an intermediate passing game that this team only happened to know about.
There are already loud voices calling for change from the stands, many not even ready to wait for the new season, Hokie Nation is in a bad mood right now, and this is the final embarrassment.
Well, that last ugly feeling is what a large portion of the fanbase is feeling right now: You get sold a Cadillac, you pop the hood and see a glued-on bumper being worked on with a sewing machine. Fans get disillusioned and stop coming or losing interest.
For now, I’ll leave it at that.
The photos have been uploaded to Facebook.
Friday is an awfully short time to prepare to be plucked by a team with a bird mascot. The road trip to Miami is going to be brutal. There’s little hope that the game planning and play calling will “suddenly, miraculously” improve. Let’s hope the injury list coming out of Coral Gables isn’t too long for them to put up a good fight against Stanford.
