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1) If picking up the pace on offense equates to more players in the playing rotation at several positions, will Bud need to adjust his rotation philosophy on defense to keep the defense fresh late in the game (ie. playing multiple LBs in a game assuming they're game day ready)? - Al Czervik
Chris Coleman: Well, any thoughts of playing multiple linebackers probably just disappeared with Carson Lydon leaving the program. But Bud Foster has never liked to do it anyway. The last time I remember it happening was when Jake Houseright and Brian Welch rotated at mike in 2000 and 2001, and Xavier Adibi and Mikal Baaqee rotated at backer in 2004. It's rare around these parts.
Let me throw some numbers at you….
In 2015, the Memphis offense averaged 79.1 plays per game. The VT offense ran 72.2 plays per game. That's a difference of just under seven plays per game. That's less than two plays per quarter. That isn't a lot. Opposing teams ran 66.7 plays per game against Tech's defense, while the Memphis defense was on the field for 73.8 plays per game.
Overall, there were an average of 138.9 plays during Tech games, and 152.9 plays during Memphis games. That's 14 plays per game…an average of 3.5 plays per quarter. That's going to lead to a few more yards and a few more points, but I don't think it's going to lead to wholesale fatigue of the Tech defense in the fourth quarter.
The concern is how they could potentially be affected on longer drives if they are facing an offense that runs at a fast pace, such as Justin Fuente wants his offense to play. You can't run defensive linemen in and out of games against a fast paced offense. If you want to get the starters a rest, you'll have to bring in the backups at the start of a drive. However, if the offense gets rolling, you run the risk of the backup linemen being in the game for the entire drive. That might not be good.
You asked a good question, but I don't think I can give a very good answer at this point. I still don't know what to expect, because I haven't seen the Hokies play a game under Justin Fuente. I don't get to watch much college football during the season because I'm busy with the VT game (the only time this job stinks is on Saturdays when I end up missing a good portion of the big games around the country), so I don't have a good perspective on how things could potentially be affected.
I will say this: even if Bud wanted to play multiple linebackers, I don't think he'd be able to do so this year. The only time he's going to play multiple linebackers is if we have good backups. Right now, I'm not even sure we have good starters, much less good backups.
Devon Hunter[/caption]
2) Who is our most critical football recruiting target for 2017? Lots of factors - what position do we need an immediate impact? Which one is likely to help land other top recruits? Which one gives us a leg up on top 2018 guys? - vt90
CC: I would pick Devon Hunter of Indian River High School. Some would say running back Khalan Laborn, but I would pick Hunter for a couple of reasons…
1: Starting safeties are on the field for every single snap. Running backs touch the ball on fewer than 50% of the snaps, and as time has passes running back reps seem to be split up more and more.
2: Tech has been considered the favorite for Hunter for quite awhile. In the past, they were the favorite for in-state linemen such as Josh Sweat, Derrick Nnadi and Clelin Ferrell. In the end, they lost all of those guys. They can't close the gap in-state until they start closing on highly-ranked guys with whom they are well-positioned.
Hunter doesn't seem to be in a hurry to make his final decision, though. I don’t think he'll wait until Signing Day, but I wish he would go ahead and get it out of the way in the next month because I think his commitment would reflect well on Virginia Tech and potentially help their standing with other in-state prospects such as Khalan Laborn and Jordan Williams.
Still, getting arguably the top player in the state would be a change for the better no matter when he commits. I think Hunter is a very good prospect who is physically capable of starting early in his career. Obviously he'd have to learn the defense, and that could take a year, but his commitment could send the message that the Hokies are making strides in the commonwealth of Virginia.
For what it's worth, Hunter tweeted this earlier in the week...
Just a H.O.K.I.E. thing ? #Statement17
pic.twitter.com/PIgarqZYP5— Devon Hunter (@devonhunter11) June 21, 2016
3) Any concern that we have zero OL commits? Since you always want four or five linemen in a class, it seems odd not to have any. I realize we have probably offered several not on the target list. It's early, but are there any worries? - HokieR
CC: I was waiting for somebody to bring this up, either in a Friday Q&A or in a message board topic. Offensive line recruiting is a sore spot for Virginia Tech fans. Mistakes in offensive line recruiting in the past have cost the Hokies some ball games over the years, and poor offensive line play made the offense difficult to watch at times.
In the past, there have been issues with not targeting enough offensive linemen, or simply just signing too many guys who were not talented enough to play on this level. The issue was there in the mid-90s, it was there again in the early stages of the ACC era, and it reared its ugly head again in 2012. We're in much better shape now than we were then, but when it comes to offensive line recruiting you are always recruiting for three years down the road. 2017 recruiting won't affect the 2017 offensive line, but it will certainly do so in 2019, 2020, etc.
My issue so far is our slowness in offering players. We offered Mekhi Becton of Highland Springs in late April, which was weeks or months after many other schools offered him. Here's his timetable of offers (Power 5 only), per 247Sports…
July 23, 2015: UVA
December 16, 2016: Pitt
January 19, 2016: NC State
January 21, 2016: Michigan State
February 3, 2016: Missouri
February 17, 2016: Iowa State
February 22, 2016: Maryland
February 24, 2016: Syracuse
March 15, 2016: West Virginia
March 28, 2016: Louisville
March 31, 2016: UNC
April 2, 2016: Wake Forest
April 27, 2016: Virginia Tech
May 6, 2016: Penn State
May 10, 2016: USC
May 12, 2016: Rutgers
May 17, 2016: Michigan
It's true that the Hokies had a coaching change, but so did Iowa State, Maryland and Syracuse, and they all offered before Virginia Tech. Becton is considering Tech, but the early rumor is that the Hokies were too late to offer. They don't have the luxury of swooping in late on in-state guys anymore. They simply don't have that kind of clout in the state of Virginia.
To be fair to Vance Vice, I'm not sure how much I like Becton either. He's huge (6-7, 345), and he pushes around much smaller guys in high school. I can't tell how well he moves his feet, and I can't tell how his strength will translate to the college level. To be honest, I'm not sold. He could be great, or he could be terrible. That's just what you have to accept when you recruit guys his size.
Johnny Jordan is another guy who should have been offered earlier. After watching his tape, I think he's a very good interior line prospect. Tech was the last school to offer him…
May 13, 2015: Kentucky
September 25, 2015: UNC
January 21, 2016: Maryland
January 27, 2016: Syracuse
March 5, 2016: UVA
April 18, 2016: Pitt
April 20, 2016: Louisville
May 16, 2016: Boston College
June 3, 2016: Virginia Tech
Jordan plays in DC, but he lives in Northern Virginia. I don't understand how we could be so far behind so many out-of-state programs in offering him.
So far, that's probably my only complaint with the new staff. They seem slow to get offers in the hands of offensive linemen. I'll be the first guy to tell you that outside of evaluating high school baseball players for the MLB draft, evaluating high school offensive linemen is probably the toughest job for a scout. But it's a tough job for those other schools, too.
I think Vance Vice is a good coach, but at this point I am slightly concerned about our recruiting up front. Of course, it's June 24 and he's been here for less than six months. It's far too early to make final, concrete decisions. But I do want to point it out as a situation to monitor. My philosophy when it comes to recruiting offensive linemen is to always take one more than you think you need to take. When I see the Hokies seemingly fall behind up front, it concerns me.
4) Which would be a bigger win for VT this year TN or ND? I know ND is a bigger national name, but a win over TN could not hurt in the head to head recruiting plus a win over a $EC team. - HardTimes
CC: Tennessee. That game will be early in the season. At that point hardly any big upsets will have happened, and there aren't very many entertaining games on September 10. A lot of people will be watching that game, because so many other teams will be playing non-conference matchups against inferior opponents.
When the Hokies play Notre Dame in November, there are going to be plenty of good conference matchups that day that could have an effect on division races, conference races, and even the National Championship. If feel that if Tech upsets the Irish that day, it will get lost to a certain extent because of all the other important games going on that day. On the other hand, if Notre Dame is in the National Title picture and the Hokies beat them, that would change my answer completely.
But overall, I believe Tennessee would be the bigger win for us. As you said, it's against an SEC team, and the Volunteers are starting to make inroads in Virginia. If we manage to beat them, we should take a team picture in front of the scoreboard and send framed copies to Darrell Taylor and Eric Crosby. Okay, maybe we shouldn't go that far, but it sure would feel good, wouldn't it?
[caption id="attachment_1448540" align="alignright" width="1500"]
Carson Lydon
5) Did Carson Lydon's wasted redshirt year lead to his transfer? - jackofalltrades
CC: No. If that was it, he would have left after the Independence Bowl and enrolled at a new school this spring so he could get a jump start in learning the defense. Lydon's transfer has been slowly building up since the very first month he enrolled at Virginia Tech. Lots of stuff went on behind the scenes that eventually led to this moment. I don’t have the whole story, and it's not my business to release what I do know, but I'm not surprised that it eventually came to this.
All that being said, I'm happy for Lydon. Now he can actually use his redshirt and hopefully be developed properly wherever he lands. If I were him, I would have immediately put in my papers after the Independence Bowl. I don't think it would take me an entire set of fingers to count the number of times I've disagreed with Bud Foster, but I was not a fan of how this situation was handled.
I don't really disagree with pulling Lydon's redshirt. It was pulled in the Purdue game, and Tech needed him the next week against ECU after Sean Huelskamp was ejected for a ridiculous targeting call. Even if his redshirt hadn't been pulled against Purdue, it would have been pulled against the Pirates. The Hokies were in a tight game in the fourth quarter, and the options were Lydon or walk-on fourth stringer Trent Young. Lydon was the clear choice.
That said, once you pull the redshirt on a guy like Lydon, you have to get him reps. Not necessarily on the field, but he needs reps in practice. Sending him down to the scout team isn't going to help his development. Neither is playing him on the kickoff team. With the way Joey Slye kicks the ball out of the endzone, the staff could have pulled me out of the stands for kickoff team duties last year.
Lydon did want to redshirt though. He didn't want that redshirt to be pulled unless he was going to continue to be developed by getting reps. That didn't happen, and I think that led to some bitterness. It was not the reason he is leaving, but I do feel that it made the situation more toxic. That's all I'll say.
Now that he's gone, I'm worried about the domino effect. Here's the projected mike depth chart right now (I'll automatically list true freshmen at the bottom)…
1: Andrew Motuapuaka (6-0, 235, r-Jr.)
2: Sean Huelskamp (6-1, 207, r-Jr. walk-on)
3: Trent Young (5-10, 212, r-So. walk-on)
4: Eron Carter (6-2, 230, Fr.)
At best, Andrew Motuapuaka is a mediocre option. Behind him is an undersized walk-on who always seems to be hurt, another walk-on, and true freshman Eron Carter (who had no other Power 5 offers). None of the other linebackers on the team are good fits at mike either, so converting a player is unlikely. They could try it, but I doubt it would work. We'll have to ride out 2016 with Motuapuaka, and perhaps Huelskamp (personally I'm ready to give Huelskamp a shot, but I doubt he would stay healthy for a whole season, so we'd end up needing both either way).
My concern now is that the Hokies won't be able to redshirt Eron Carter if there is an injury. I want to bite the bullet this year and redshirt everybody. When in doubt, always redshirt. Even if that cost the Hokies a game or two this year, I think it would pay dividends down the road. Player development is our chance to compete with Clemson and FSU, and the only way to completely develop our level of talent is by redshirting as many of them as you can. But a lack of depth leads to burned redshirts, which in turn leads to lack of development. Poor recruiting not only costs you talent and depth, but at times it can lead to a lost year of development for many players. Hopefully they can avoid that with Eron Carter and most of the other freshmen in this class.