The commitment of Kyron Drones - and William Watson III - could signal a change in offensive philosophy for Virginia Tech. (@KyronDrones)
Virginia Tech got a commitment from Baylor transfer quarterback Kyron Drones on Monday night. That’s what I want to focus on today, but before we do that, I want to rewind back to last offseason when the Hokies took quarterbacks Grant Wells and Jason Brown from the portal. What's transpired with the Virginia Tech offense since?
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why did we ever think we could line them up and play smash mouth football with the current roster?
hokietom87
Experienced OL with Rudolph as the coach. Experience TE room. Decent potential at RB. QBs with good long balls.
VTVOICE
Do "read option and RPO" teams win national and conference championships? Are they among the top 10 in national rankings? I suspect not and that is why I am sad for VT's glory football days ever returning and possibly not renewing my TSL subscription. Gloomy thoughts I know, but I can't tolerate football mediocrity much longer. :-(
cdogvt
I think the system certainly impacts a QB performance, the comparisons of Armstrong, Deshazo, and Shrader is a good way to think about it. But a slight tweak to this is - these 3 are athletic players with varying levels of accuracy and not proven to be able to read defenses. Good to great athletes, all decent to good but great colllege level QBs. Wells is a good athlete and a good arm, but he doesn’t see the field well nor does he play well when it matters. He just isn’t going to be a good enough QB, certainly not someone that can overcome poor coaching (which we certainly had last year) or moderate/ low talent levels - or both. Few can, to be fair, but I have seen enough from Wells doesn’t have the mentality for Tech.
Cheesehokie
Thanks for the rays of optimism, CC. Sometimes I feel that Joe Montana in his prime would struggle to be successful with our OL. A good OL will make a journeyman QB look good. And a bad OL will sully the best. Sure hope Rudolph can engineer a turnaround up front. I’d be really excited to hear about some bona fide OL commits from the portal.
Atlee Hokie
Is Drones so much further along that "Pop" Watson doesn't stand a chance in beating Drones out. Is Watson going to have to ride the pines for 3 years before having a change to start?
fosterD1
Great article Chris!
I think Drones & Wells battling it out in the spring and fall camp would be fantastic. I think both fit in an RPO style offense. Excited to see who wins the job.
extremehokie
Sounds like Rudolph told Pry how terrible the OL talent was. So we gon try to be an RPO offense until we get some talent.
Smirnoff
This:
“… In my opinion, the ideal offense for Virginia Tech is the one it ran under Justin Fuente and Brad Cornelsen…”
I am in the minority, but I would’ve just stayed the course with the previous head coach and fired the OC. I don’t see a whole lot of difference between Fuente and Prye’s ceiling at Tech.
SFHokie10
100%
Bugle76
I would say it differently…..I would have rather seen us spend $8.75 mil on upgrading staff where needed. Water under the bridge. Go get Shibest!
McCannHokies25
Except for Fuente could NOT talk to anyone...if he could scheme plays up and only do that Tech would have won numerous ACC titles. Fuente's inability to actually run a program is the difference. Plus, Pry publicly called out his offensive coaches with the vanilla comment, fuente would have never done that. Those are the differences we should be thankful for...
phoenixhokie
I had the EXACT same thought. Would we be in worse shape overall with Fu still there??? I’m not sure it (program) wouldn’t be slightly better and that’s not a slam on Pry at all. More on consistency of keeping a staff intact.
Moot point obviously but still makes you go ‘Hmmm…..what if …?’
VaPoly07
good thing you dont run this program! Fu couldnt talk to a tree stump, much less get big donors to donate and show them a path forwrad.
133299Hokie
Is anyone comfortable with the coaching staff making the right decisions offensively? Pry is a defensive guy and he hired an oc with no experience. Who is developing this “new” offensive philosophy we are dreaming about? Their last plan failed miserably so I’m not holding my breath the new plan fixes our problems. I want to believe but I can’t until I see it.
DADEC52
Really is pretty professionally disturbing that they implemented an offense that they had no personnel to run. Can't make us all that comfortable that their next swing at it will be much better but optimistically, it really can't be much worse.
DADEC52
Good info and analysis Chris. I do think one table rather than 3 or 4 will make for far more useful comparisons. Truth is with the multiple tables on TSL the comparisons are something I simply don't make going back and forth is just awkward. Comparison items on the vertical axis and players to be compared on the horizontal. Shoot it ought to be easier for you too.
vtgriff09
Comparing Drones abd Bullock isn't fair. Just because they are both dual threat bigger guys doesn't mean the same. Drones had twice the amoint of attempts and yardage and played in Texas vs elite competition in a collegiate scheme. Drones is much better than Bullock, hence he was a nice 4* recruit.
TOUGH TURKEY
Great perspective in this article. It is obvious that Pry thought the O line was much better than the reality of this past season. Had the O line delivered, VT might have won 6-7 games this season and this play action offensive scheme would be the future.
Now anybody that has been around Tech would realize that a RPO offense matches the recruitment ceiling for the most part. The Hokies will likely never recruit like Bama, Buckeyes or the elite programs. The RPO offense evens the playing field a bit because a school with good to above average talent can be competitive due to elevated point production.
I like you really hope we see Pry move in the RPO direction on offense. It would make VT offense fun and exciting while resulting in more wins.
VAHokie89
Bullock is not a dual threat QB. He is a 1 and 1/2 threat. He isn't a threat through the air.
hokie4ever
Good article. I am Not sure what we were trying to do on offense this past season other than being very hard headed and trying to play smash mouth football. Wasn’t Joe Morehead Bowen’s mentor? Morehead wasn’t a smash mouth guy if my memory serves me right. How did get so screwed up?
Good to figure out what you can and cannot do.
VAHokie89
i actually disagree. The hokies COULD run an offense that was two-tight end, running game, play action. The offensive philosophy they wanted to run, they were capable of running. Unless we are saying that the premise of the original offensive philosophy was to be vanilla and predictable. But i don't we are saying that. Pry basically said the offense was vanilla, predictable, high schoolish. That is not about philosophy. That is about choices Bowen made in his play-calling, especially how he chose to run the ball.
Two-tight end, run, play-action does not presume ONLY running between the tackles, which is what our run game was all about for much of the season...
Beamer was run-first, play-action, ball control, etc... but his offenses got RBs purposely outside often, and not just because a RB had the vision to bounce something outside thata was intended to be inside.
vtgriff09
Agreed. Teams have run that sort of offense for a long time..the difference is they don't just run 1 play up the middle and the offense includes passing over the middle.of the field. When you consider that almost all of our runs were between the tackles, and almost all of our throws were outsode the hash marks, you see why no success.
Also veru weird, if I was going to run multiple tight ends and play action, I don't think I would run THAT scheme exclusively from shotgun..the two contradict themselves
VAHokie89
All i care about is this so-called "shift in offensive philosophy" involves more than just running between the tackles. The philosophy is going to remain the same. Maybe Bowen finally adds RPO, misdirection, actually getting the RBs consistently outside...other plays. But all i care about is for the offense to not be high school-ish
atlhokie1
Didn't we have wideouts leave though because they thought Tech wouldn't throw enough under the Fuente offense or was that just with BB as QB?
BNOMO
I wonder what this does to recruiting high school players. You sign, practice, lift, study, and learn the system for a couple of years and wait your turn on the depth chart, and then out of nowhere they bring in somebody from the portal just start in front of you. It Hass to be demoralizing. I wonder, how this affects players on college teams? Do they try for a couple of years and see if they’ll play and then if not, they go and transfer? It just seems like if you’re not good enough to play right away, you’re going to be a back up . I just don’t understand college football anymore.
atlhokie1
Same - wonder if at some point the recruiting rankings will end up being a combo of signing day plus the portal? Like the new QB's we have but that probably means current ones hit the road.
Stech
Good point, and some point, is today. It's already that way. Greg McElroy said it's easier to list who isn't in the portal than it is to list who is in the portal.
steves13
While this free agency is in place for the player's potential benefits, they will have to learn the facts of life...that there are consequences and reactions to every action. Schools now have to play the game as well and so yes, it will be difficult for the fellows that are not performing, for whatever reason.
McHokie78
College football has changed forever. Best not sweat it and take up pickle ball!
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