Well, this is awkward. For the last couple of weeks, we’ve all been talking about Tyler Bowen being replaced, but today we gather to talk about how he coached a good game against Pitt.
When I say “we’ve all been talking,” I mean the collective we: Tech Sideline and the fan base. (I can’t speak for other media outlets, because I didn’t read their stuff last week.) It was just three weeks ago that I wrote T-Bow, or Not T-Bow, That is the Question.
The topic of whether or not the collective Tech Sideline -- which includes all of us who work for TSL, not just me – should write things like that just a few games into the season is a good question, and it came up a few times in the past few weeks, so let’s talk about that.
I’ve been around long enough that I’ve seen some remarkable changes in direction, both good and bad, both during the season and outside the season, for players, coaches, and teams. It’s true that anytime you’re watching a team, person or unit with positive or negative momentum, it could change. So it’s fair for someone to ask, “Don’t you think you should let the season play out first?”
But does anyone really want to read us writing, week after week, “This looks bad, but let the season play out before we draw any judgments”? No. That’s boring, milksop, weak writing. Not to mention that we’d get roasted if we didn’t address the elephant in the room, the thing that literally everyone is talking about. You have to write about what you’re seeing in the moment, and that’s what we did.
Today, what we’re seeing in the moment is a pretty remarkable change in direction for an offense that had been stuck in the mud. The Hokies scored 38 points, the high-water mark of the Brent Pry era, and they didn’t do it against ODU or an FCS team. They did it against a Pittsburgh defense that was solid and experienced and disruptive. None of the touchdowns were from the defense or special teams, either. This was a legit offensive effort.
Standing in the stadium Saturday night, I thought I was watching a completely different offense, one that featured more misdirection and variety than we’ve seen since the Fuente era. Rewatching the game last night at home on DVR validated all of that. I’ll leave the analysis up to the analysts (Brandon Patterson’s writeup this week should be interesting, but of course they all are), but the Hokies were faking and juking Pitt all over the place. Tech even ran a flea-flicker and a reverse … all before the end of the first quarter.
In the last few weeks, we’ve been bashing Tyler Bowen pretty hard, but hedging it with language like, “If this continues …” or “If things don’t improve …”
Saturday night, they improved. I didn’t think a football team could rework its offense like that in the middle of the season, mainly because offenses are precision operations that require a lot of practice time to become efficient. That’s why you hear things like, “The defense is always ahead of the offense in the spring.”
Virginia Tech uncorked a bunch of plays we haven’t seen before, and for the most part executed them well. Which leads me to think they’ve been available all along. Which leads me to wonder why we haven’t seen them much until now. Which leads me to wonder if we’ll continue to see them.
Which leads me to think, “Let’s let the season play out and see what happens.” See what I did there?
The Hokies Go Outside
Okay, I will indulge in some basic analysis. In addition to the misdirection that was sprinkled in, Virginia Tech worked the perimeter with both the run game and the pass game. Brandon Patterson wrote in his pregame Pitt study:Cincinnati and UNC both had success with a different approach when they attacked the perimeter, often with wings looking to be making slice block and with motioning receivers.
This takes advantage of the tight matching rules Pitt employs, as well as the frequency they blitzed both the Bearcats and the Heels. You might remember the Hokies also used horizontal motion the last time they beat Pitt. I think VT will use some of it, though I don’t expect Pitt to blitz as much, and especially not blitz as much as they did against UNC.