This week's entry into the Monday Thoughts renaming contest is "Will's Call," suggested by … I don't remember. Whoever you were, claim your no-prize in the comments section.
I liked Monday Stew, and it's still an option, but I was surprised by the number of people who said that "stew" has "negative connotations." What have you people been eating? And I meant it as a noun, a tasty delicious noun, not a worried, conflicted verb.
Oh, well. This week it's Will's Call, and maybe next week we'll try something different.
Let's get to it!
"As for the Hokie offense, I have a hard time believing they’ll be as dominant as they were last week against BC, though I think they’ll be strong. They shifted my perceptions in a big way against the Eagles; another game like that will shift things yet again, and I won’t know what to think." -- Yours truly, in our game preview, where I picked VT to win 37-27.
Well … they did it again. The offense picked up right where they left off after the Boston College game, and the defense, for the most part, was good. The Hokies cranked it up another notch by adding a special teams element, and for the second week in a row, we're looking at a dominant win.
And yes, I do know what to think about it. That was kind of silly of me to say that I wouldn't, though to be fair, I think I was just using an expression … a better way to phrase it would have been, "I won't know what to do with myself," in a giddy sort of way.
But let's ask the question: At this point, what should we think?
What Should We Think?
All we can really do is take a snapshot in time, and draw conclusions off that snapshot.Yes, you can throw the usual disclaimers in there: the Hokies probably won't keep playing this well, injuries could rear their ugly head, turnovers could re-enter the picture, etc. These are 20-year-olds, and if Justin Fuente can get them to play at a consistently high level the entire season, well … he'd be the first, and even Nick Saban would show up in Blacksburg, asking him how he did it. So there's that.
But I'm going to put all that aside. If you're going to suffer through four years of mediocre football, like we did from 2012-2015 -- admittedly, the Hokies had their moments, and they weren't a disaster, they just weren't their best -- then when the team is playing well, you've got to allow yourself to enjoy it. You've got to revel in it a little bit. You've got to stop worrying about what might happen, and enjoy what has happened, and have a little faith that it's going to continue.
So, what we should think is that Justin Fuente's rebuilding job is well ahead of schedule. Evidence is mounting that he has taken pretty much the same group of players -- with one glaring exception that we'll talk about -- that played inconsistent, average football the last four seasons, and has turned them into a group that is headed towards a deserved top 20 ranking.
What I think is that the Hokies are playing like a top-25, maybe top-20 team right now. The pollsters haven't caught up to it yet, because for many of them, their last view of the Hokies was the fumblerama in Bristol, so VT is still in the "receiving votes" category -- #30 in the AP Poll, and #34 in the Coaches Poll.
The computer-driven rankings are starting to get smarter, though. In ESPN's Power Rankings, Virginia Tech is #26 -- still too low, in my opinion, but computers don't factor out the five turnovers, and they don't have an eye test. They just go on cold, hard numbers. Jeff Sagarin has Virginia Tech #23, Virginia Tech's own Kenneth Massey has the Hokies at #34 -- thanks, Ken, you're making me look bad here -- and the broadest measure of computer rankings, Massey's composite computer rankings, have the Hokies at #22.
According to FootballStudyHall.com, the S&P rankings that CC talks about so much lists the Hokies' chances for winning the remaining games on their schedule as:
- @UNC: 58%
- @Syracuse: 78%
- Miami: 47%
- @Pittsburgh: 59%
- @Duke: 75%
- Georgia Tech: 79%
- @Notre Dame: 64%
- Virginia: 88%
Those numbers communicate my next thought: Virginia Tech has a good chance (50% or better, exception Miami) to win every remaining game on their schedule. I'm not saying they will, of course. ESPN's power rankings give the Hokies a 0.2% chance of winning out, and that's reasonable.
But the Virginia Tech team I've seen the last two weeks can win every game left on the schedule.
You're going to hear a lot in the coming week or so about how the Hokies are getting ready to play four out of their next five on the road, but for the most part, that doesn't worry me. Two of those road games are at UNC and Duke, where the Hokies generally play well: Tech is 10-1 in Durham and Chapel Hill since joining the ACC, the one loss coming 48-34 against the Tar Heels in 2012.
Another road game is at Syracuse, where yes, the Hokies are 1-6 since 1987. But Syracuse is not a good football team.
So don't sweat the upcoming road stretch. I think the Hokies will do well.
Our round table article last week focused on expectations. I began the season thinking 7-5 was likely, and that 8-4 was the ceiling. I'm ratcheting things up a little, to 8-4 or 9-3 being likely, and 10-2 being the ceiling.
How did we get here? Let's talk about one big reason, a guy that is a new addition over last year.
Jerod Evans
The Hokies have been under the radar so far this season, but if Jerod Evans keeps doing things like this, they won't be:
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Just for fun, here's the Steve Young run referenced by the analyst in the video:
In case you missed it, Jerod's run finished #2 in the ESPN SportsCenter Top 10 plays for Saturday -- overall, not just college football -- and it made ESPN's College Football Final mashup of moments of the day, as well.
Like any sports media company, ESPN likes to promote two things: teams and players. They talk about coaches a lot as well, but on Saturdays, fans tune in to see teams and players play, not coaches coach. ESPN came into the season talking about Clemson's Deshaun Watson, but they have quickly glommed onto Louisville's Lamar Jackson, deservedly so. Outside the ACC, their man crush on Christian McCaffrey is strong -- again, deservedly so.
They're always looking for the next big thing, and Jerod's run has put him on their radar. When you go beyond the highlight, his stats hold up well. Very well.
If Jerod and the Hokies take care of business in Chapel Hill and at Syracuse, ESPN's college football crew will crank up the hype meter for Virginia Tech's Thursday night home game against Miami on October 20th, and Jerod will be the focus. They'll pimp that as Evans vs. Miami's Brad Kaaya, and you'll see them hype it as a big-time offensive matchup. Too bad ESPN's Thursday Night College Football isn't what it used to be. That would have been a killer matchup 15-20 years ago, but those of us who love college football will still be there, digging it anyway.
The thing I keep going back to is Evans' sterling 13:1 TD-interception ratio. That's what fuels his #4 pass efficiency rating, ahead of his more highly-hyped ACC contemporaries, UNC's Mitch Trubisky (#8), Louisville's Lamar Jackson (#10), and Kaaya (#16).
Evans is on pace to have a 39:3 TD-interception ratio in the regular season, and let me point out that Paxton Lynch's ratio at Memphis last year was 28:4, and seven of those touchdowns came in the first half against SMU, a team that was terrible on defense and had quit by the time Lynch shredded them on November 28th.
In Memphis' other 11 regular season games, Paxton Lynch's ratio was 21:4. Jerod's already at 13:1 in just four games. Makes you think, doesn't it?
I always think that coaches are better suited for some jobs and situations than others. (Captain Obvious, reporting for duty.) That's the risk you run when you hire an up-and-comer; you might wind up with the next Turner Gill, who elevated hapless Buffalo into bowl game territory, then couldn't elevate hapless Kansas and was fired. He seemed like a good hire at the time. Or James Franklin, who brought an attitude and a lot of wins (24-15) to Vanderbilt, but who is 16-14 so far at Penn State. Vandy was a difficult situation; it seemed like he could handle the difficult post-Paterno era at PSU, as well. Not so far.
As good as Fuente was at Memphis, where he resurrected a non-existent program into relevancy, is it possible that he'll be even better at Virginia Tech, perhaps much better? What if he stepped from a situation where he was pretty darn good into one where all he had to do was push a few buttons and pull a few levers, and boom, the thing exploded? If that's the case, we're in for a fun ride.
To bring this thing back around to Jerod Evans, because that's what this section is about, I remember Fuente's comments in a press session shortly after his hiring by VT, about recruiting Paxton Lynch. He said something like, "After we signed him, I remember looking at my assistant coaches and saying, 'Did we really just do that?'", meaning they knew they'd stolen one. I wonder how Fuente will speak about Evans in the future?
I've gone on for quite a while and haven't said a word about the ECU game itself.
Prepare to be Boarded, Pirates!
The crowd for this game wasn't as big as I expected. Sellers were having an easy go of it on our ticket boards, which was encouraging, and as Chris noted in his Friday Q&A, there weren't many tickets left on hokietickets.com. Attendance wound up being announced at 63,712, which is about 2,800 short of capacity, and there were large swaths of empty seats in the South end zone.
Those that came had a lot of fun. The Hokies didn't pick up a first down in their first three possessions, but Greg Stroman staked them to an early 7-0 lead with this gem:
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Virginia Tech annihilated ECU's special teams, with a punt return TD, a blocked field goal, a blocked punt, and a recovery of a muffed punt by ECU.
But let's face it, even without the special teams miscues, ECU wasn't going to win this game. After starting with three 3-and-outs, the Hokie offense blasted ECU with five straight scoring drives, including four touchdowns, and this thing was over.
After the sluggish offensive start, the Hokies scored three touchdowns in just 15 offensive plays. Here are the highlights from that stretch of plays.
At this point, with Yosuah Nijman running downfield and not finding anyone to block because the play had so completely fooled ECU's defense, I thought to myself, "Tech's coaches are just toying with ECU. Toying with them." Just look at how wide open the running and passing lanes are in the plays I mashed up there. When they do run into resistance on the touchdown by Marshawn Williams, the VT offensive line solves that by simply getting together and shoving him into the end zone.
By my count, the video shows 11 plays in a 15-play stretch. Note all the misdirection and execution, as the offense just gashes the ECU defense for gain after gain.
The Hokies' first ten plays gained 21 yards (2.1 ypp), and starting with the pass to Chris Cunningham shown in that video, the next 23 plays gained 268 yards (11.7 ypp). At that point, it was halftime, and the Hokies led 38-0.
I've always thought that Bud Foster's greatest strength as a defensive coordinator is his ability to adjust in-game. Usually, by the opponent's third possession, Bud has his adjustments in place to their game plan, and that's when the real fun starts. I'm now seeing evidence that the new offensive coaching staff starts out with a strong game plan, and also adjusts quickly.
The Hokies have outscored their opponents 49-6 in the first quarter this season, and 48-31 in the second quarter. Take out the disastrous 0-24 second quarter against Tennessee, and you get 48-7 in the second quarter of the other three games. That yields 97-13 in the first half (with Tennessee removed).
This team shows up ready to play. The environment at Bristol got to them, but I don't think that will happen again. The game I've really got circled is the Miami game in Lane Stadium on Thursday, Oct. 20th. The Hurricanes jumped all over the Hokies in 2014, taking a 24-0 halftime lead, and I've got a theory that the Canes play well in Blacksburg, because they like the atmosphere. I can't wait to see if the Hokies are ready for that one and hit the Canes in the mouth early.
I'm not worried about the road game at UNC in a couple weeks, because the Hokies are 5-1 there since Tech joined the ACC in 2004, and even during their recent struggles, Virginia Tech was a strong road team. The Hokies were 1-4 on the road in 2012, but went 11-5 from 2013-2015, including that signature win over Ohio State in 2014. That was a different coaching staff, so we'll see, but these players are used to success on the road.
Quick Hitters from the ECU Game
A series of unrelated comments:
Eyes on the QB: You could really see the benefit of playing zone coverage and keeping eyes on the quarterback. A number of times, Philip Nelson broke the pocket and started to run, only to be greeted with spies who had their eyes forward. Here's an example:
Is that the most boring video you've ever seen? Exactly! In that play, the linebackers and DBs are all playing zone, and when Nelson breaks the pocket, they close on him quickly and take him down to force a 4th down.
Smart in the open field: One thing that struck me was how smart the Hokies were in their open field blocking, in both the Stroman punt return and the Jerod Evans 55-yard run. If you watch closely, you can see multiple instances of players pulling up because they're about to block an ECU player in the back.
I'll wait while you rewatch the videos.
Ludwing blows up: Mitchell Ludwig's punting through four games:
- Liberty: 39.0 avg., 39.4 net
- Tennessee: 34.4 avg., 31.2 net
- BC: 36.7 avg., 36.7 net
- ECU: 45.3 avg. 46.0 net
Yards per play steadily climbing: Speaking of bullet-point items that keep improving, check out the yards per play of Virginia Tech's offense:
- Liberty: 5.1 yards per play (ypp)
- Tennessee: 5.4 ypp
- BC: 6.2 ypp
- ECU: 6.8 ypp
The Hokies' next two opponents, UNC and Syracuse, are ranked 90th and 111th in total defense. UNC gives up 5.6 yards per play, Syracuse 6.4. BC, by contrast, gives up 3.9 ypp; Tennessee 4.9, and ECU 6.4.
In other words, if the Hokies avoid turnovers, they're going to hang a lot of points on UNC and Syracuse, too.
Speaking of turnovers: Defensive coordinators love to be paired with a turnover-free offense. Here's a stat for you:
https://twitter.com/TechSideline/status/780460341671108608
You guessed it -- BC started in Virginia Tech territory after VT's only turnover of the last two weeks, the interception that went off of Isaiah Ford's hands and was picked off at the Hokie 27.
Surprise TFL leader: I asked on Twitter last night who leads the Hokies in tackles for loss (TFL). Participants were admonished not to look it up. The answer surprised me: Tremaine Edmunds.
Edmunds has six TFLs, leading Ken Ekanem (5.5) by a smidge, and Edmunds is rapidly progressing into a good linebacker. His play reading and closing speed is improving game by game, and this tackle was positively Xavier-Adibi-vs-Reggie-Ball-like (although Philip Nelson is no Reggie Ball):
A guy that big and that fast who can change direction like that and make an open-field tackle has a lot of potential. To be fair, I saw him get juked earlier in a similar situation, but that play proves he can do it; he just needs to get more consistent, and is improving quickly.
Billy Ray: So where do you stand on Billy Ray Mitchell's (#66) personal foul for a late hit? I stand thus: I'd rather have to teach an aggressive guy to tone it down a bit and play smarter, than to try to teach a guy who isn't aggressive to turn it up a notch. One is easier than the other.
I Really Want to Beat These Guys: I'm just going to leave this here:
That pic was posted by OXVT on Twitter, but, ahem, let's just say it was texted to him by someone whose material you read regularly (cough-cough).
For those who need a little hand-holding, that's a screen grab of the UNC "crowd" during their game in Chapel Hill vs. Pittsburgh, with 7:34 remaining in the game and the game still in doubt. Those things that look like empty seats are, believe it or not, empty seats.
The Tar Heels came back to win on a last-second TD pass, 37-36, and all those aluminum bleachers in Kenan Stadium had a great view of the game-winning touchdown.
I don't like losing recruits to that school, and I don't like losing football games to them. When I look at that picture, I see a lot of empty seats available for Hokie fans. You have been issued your marching orders. Go forth and conquer.
By the way, Paul Petera on Twitter, had a great response to OX's tweet:
https://twitter.com/paulpetera/status/779820211306246144
Expectations Realigned
Game predictions are a difficult thing. In the last two weeks, I have predicted the Hokies to score a total of 54 points, and they have hung 103 on their opponents.
I won't make the mistake again of lowballing the Hokies, especially if they play against a bad defense. And in the next two games, as I outlined above, they play a couple of bad defenses.
We've only got four games of data to go on, but the improvement in Virginia Tech's team has been rapid, especially the offense. Do the Hokies have weaknesses? Sure. They can be beaten in man coverage on defense, and the traditional tailback running game has been AWOL. They have been turnover-free in the last two games, but that could change.
But at this moment in time, at the risk of being melodramatic, the program has the look of a predator lying in wait, and not many people know it yet. The Hokies take a week off before visiting UNC, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear a lot of close game predictions and UNC win predictions from the talking heads leading up to the game. I'm really looking forward to it, because the Hokies are on a roll, they'll be playing in front of a large Hokie contingent, and they'll be on the cusp of being ranked.
Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but after two weeks of 103-17 domination, what am I supposed to do?