It’s ODU week, which can only mean one thing — it’s time to take a mailbag question wondering why the ODU series goes on and on and on.
We’ll get to that eventually, but first, let’s start this mailbag off with one on the coordinators:
How do you think Brent Pry feels now about his decision to hire Chris Marve/Tyler Bowen? If he could go back, do you think he would go with more experienced hires? It seems like most of the more recent hires have had more experience (Crook and Davis) and have been around for longer. Do you think he would go with a more experienced outside hire if it came to it in the future? — SpencerMas
I think he’s still probably OK with them, these early-season hiccups notwithstanding.
Both were going to be learning-on-the-job situations, which takes time and is going to have its share of growing pains along the way. You can’t make hires like this and be surprised when guys aren’t seasoned veterans prepared to deal with all situations. They hadn't done it before when you hired them!
While Marve’s had the added benefit of not only having Pry to help guide him along the way to his role as play-caller but also three additional assistants on that side with coordinator experience (J.C. Price, Shawn Quinn and Derek Jones), Bowen hasn’t had quite as much support.
The Brad Glenn pairing didn’t seem fruitful in Year 1, and the showy offensive hire where Tech put a lot of its money was Joe Rudolph, who lasted one year before heading to Notre Dame. Both of those guys had plenty of experience with results that seemed like less than a return on investment.
Is the offensive play-calling/scheme still very much a work in progress? Sure. But coaching is more than just X’s and O’s. From a recruiting standpoint, it feels like Bowen is more than pulling his weight.
It’s tough to guess how a coach feels about these decisions in hindsight, and it’s not always as simple as just hiring guys with more experience. Those guys often cost a lot more money. Bowen and Marve are making $875,000 each this fall. Of assistant coaches at public schools required to respond to open-records requests, that would have ranked 81st nationally last year.
Would you rather spend, say, a half million dollars more on each coordinator spot for more experienced coaches or save that $1 million to bring in a marquee player or players? In this day and age, I’d probably prefer the latter. Football in a lot of ways is about the Jimmys and Joes.
It’s probably too early in the season to be writing too conclusively about either hire, though. Tech’s played two games, and teams can look much different by the end of a year compared to the start. Just look at last season.
Ask me this again in late November and I might have a much different take.
Wasn't there chatter a few years ago about canceling the ODU series? It sounded like it was a done deal, and here we still are. Is ODU the only G5 team to secure such a lengthy commitment from a Power 5 team? With the current conference landscape, what is the maximum number of years any school should be committing to a series? — Kjhokie
There was chatter. Nothing came of it. I think Virginia Tech was re-evaluating the length of the series, which it should, considering these games are being played every year until 2031. That’s way too long, especially for a matchup that doesn’t exactly jump off the page for Hokies fans.
But after Tech goes to Norfolk this year, the next two games are in Blacksurg in 2025 and ’26. Why alter a series that’s coming your direction for two years? All you’d be doing is writing a check to get out of this series and then writing a bigger one to replace it with a one-off non-conference opponent probably of a similar difficulty.
Plus, the way the schedule is constructed the next few years, you’re probably not trying to add any marquee non-conference opponents anyway. Tech’s got a game against South Carolina in Atlanta in 2025 and a game at Maryland in 2026 as its headliner.
Notre Dame rotates back on the schedule in 2027 and ’28, with the Maryland home-and-home continuing in those seasons. With those games, if you try to dump the ODU series, it’s not like you’re adding a home-and-home with Tennessee to the mix. That’d be ridiculously overscheduling. (Nor has Tennessee ever wanted to do a home-and-home with Virginia Tech.)
So it feels, at least for the time being, that the series probably isn’t going anywhere. Maybe if you get to the 2029 game in Norfolk and this thing just feels like it’s run its course, you’d look for a way out, just for some variety.
That, more than anything, feels like the biggest issue with the series. Nobody would care too much about Tech going to Norfolk if it didn’t keep losing down there. More glaring, in my opinion, is that it’s just kind of a ho-hum pairing. It’s fine every now and then. But yearly? That should be reserved for UVa or Miami or some other comparable school, not a Group of 5 program.
Personally, I wouldn’t do more than four matchups with anybody. The pair of home-and-homes with Maryland coming up feels like a good number for a regional rivalry — good enough to get a taste of it but not too much to overdo it. Or maybe like West Virginia, which had a home-and-home to go with a neutral site matchup.
Anything more, like what Tech currently has with ODU or what became a much-reviled series with East Carolina, just feels like overkill. That’s not to say you shouldn’t do a pairing like that every now and then, but this one feels like it’s well past the point of being fresh and interesting.
Rank Virginia Tech head-to-head based just on coaching staffs for the remaining schedule. — RUHokie
Hmm. An interesting exercise. I’m not going to profess to know every coach of every team that’s out there, but, giving an extreme amount of weight to the head coaches on these teams, here’s how I’d rank them after this week:
1. Clemson: Rag on Dabo Swinney about the transfer portal all you want (no, seriously, it's so much fun), but he knows how to run a program, and that’s a good coaching staff he’s got, even with departures in recent years.
2 Georgia Tech: It feels like Brent Key knows what he’s doing on gamedays. Granted, that might be because it was such a jarring change from the mostly-clueless Geoff Collins.
3. Rutgers: Greg Schiano and the Scarlet Knights might not be flashy, but they’re effective in their own right. It feels like this team embodies its coach’s attitude.
4. Boston College: Do I want Bill O’Brien as my general manager in the NFL? No. But the dude can coach. And while I’d say the jury is out for some of his assistant staff, having a big whistle with big-game chops means a lot.
5. Virginia Tech: This feels like a decent ranking for Pry and the Hokies. I can’t get that 1-8 record in one-score games stat out of my mind.
6. Syracuse: Frankly, I didn’t know a whole lot about Fran Brown coming into the season, but I’m gaining respect by the week.
7. Duke: Manny Diaz did some good things at Miami that seem to be forgotten by a lot of people now. I remember him going for two against the Hokies when down 14 in 2019 and thinking he was at least a forward-thinking coach with some of his strategy. Granted, that was all for naught when his kicker missed an extra point after the ’Canes had a chance to go ahead in that game late.
8. Stanford: Troy Taylor had things rolling at Sacramento State (at a lower level), so I’m willing to believe that he can do the same at Stanford if given enough time.
9. Miami: The Hurricanes certainly might out-talent you, but I don’t think they’re going to out-coach you. Perhaps the assistant crew can carry the weight, but Mario “What's a Kneeldown?” Cristobal has not inspired confidence over the years.
10. Virginia: Good start for UVa this season, but nothing on the field in the first couple of years with Tony Elliott’s staff screams big-time.
The consensus seemed to be that the O-line would get better based off a year of experience, same coaching, weight room, etc. But is it possible they hit their ceiling, as a group, and it's just not that good? And is there hope going forward ('25 and beyond — obviously not considering a win in the portal)? — SBP94
Is the fact that our offensive line starters played nearly every snap in the first two games the canary in the coal mine? Aren't we supposed to be deeper? Shouldn't we be rotating our linemen, particularly early against lesser non-conference opponents, in order to let them develop and get ready for the tougher opponents and the long season? Is this just a matter of time before this weakness gets fully exposed? — 133921Hokie
A LOT of O-line questions/comments this week, which should come as no surprise, since that group has mostly underwhelmed in the first couple of games.
Of course, it’s possible that the line doesn’t take some huge leap this year. The group was not great last year, even during the Hokies’ late-season surge. It’s within the realm of possibility that it’ll just not be great this year either. You’d expect growth from a group that gained a year of experience and didn’t lose anyone from last season, but it’s not a given.
Typically, though, you see better play with experience. That’s true of players, who are more physically mature to handle banging around in the trenches and should be better simply due to a full complement of offseason reps. You’d think the coaching continuity would help, too, with Tech finally having the same coach for a second year in Ron Crook.
I’m a little surprised there hasn’t been more rotating. Better depth was supposed to be a strength of this group (or at least not a weakness), but the only spot that’s seen some fresh blood has been at left guard, and that was Bob Schick getting snaps after he’d spent all of last year at right guard.
That tells me that while the Hokies might feel better if they have to dip into that depth, they don’t necessarily want to do it. There are a lot of complaints about the play of Parker Clements right now, but if Tech doesn’t have a better option behind him, what good would it do to give someone else snaps?
This week should be a good barometer. ODU’s not a pushover up front, but it still should be a team where you go out and have some success opening holes and running the ball. For all of its struggles in the opener, South Carolina still ran for 178 yards against this crew. ECU put up 183 on the ground last week. If All-America linebacker Jason Henderson can’t go, that’s all the more reason to think the Hokies should have success, starting with the O-line.
If they can’t … goodness, it doesn’t get easier from here. Rutgers will test you in the trenches. Miami’s got some dudes up front. Don’t get me started on what Clemson could do against a sub-par blocking team.
This is the week where you can either say this group is finally showing some progress or you can drop the “it’s early in the season” qualifier and start to worry even more.
Perhaps talk about the special teams coach and his credentials. Is he the right person, or has what has happened so weird and unusual that he gets a pass? — Hokie101
Stu Holt has been a special teams coordinator at six stops prior to Virginia Tech. He was a long snapper for the Tar Heels under Mack Brown. He is the son of a legendary high school football coach who is the fourth-winningest big whistle in North Carolina history.
He is well-versed in not only general football knowledge but special teams specifically.
So when Pry comes out on Tuesday and says that neither he, nor Holt, nor a lot of the special teams coaches they contacted afterward had seen a play where the punt return team leaves a gunner completely uncovered to go all out after the block, I believe that it’s a pretty unique look and circumstance. (And frankly, a huge gamble by the Thundering Herd, since a quick flick of the wrist from Peter Moore and a wide-open Dante Lovett’s got a huge gain up the sideline.)
The double zero penalty in Week 1 felt especially flukish — backup punt returner in a unique situation where punt return safe is called following the penalty — so I’m willing to say that’s probably not going pop again, too.
That’s special teams, though, where you have to coordinate a large number of often inexperienced players through a basic but critical part of the game, a lot of times as those players’ introductions to college football altogether. Weird stuff is bound to happen. You've got to weather that as a coach and try to anticipate what could go spectacularly wrong.
On the flip side, Tech’s special teams are good enough that even with those blunders, they’re slightly above average in the SP+ rankings. John Love’s got a streak of 18 straight field goal makes. There’s a Conga line of punt returners who can do damage, currently featuring Jaylin Lane. Kickoff return’s been a weapon in the past when Bhayshul Tuten handled it. Moore’s 43.9-yard average is up from last year and not far off from his career-best pace in 2021. Kyle Lowe is at 75 percent touchbacks, with an average starting position of the 26-yard line.
There’s a lot to like about that group even with the two eye-catching gaffes. Now, if those mistakes continue, you’ve got to wonder what’s going on. Right now, though, you’ve got to look at the totality of how that group has played in a small sample size and consider the track record. Last year, the Hokies were 14th nationally in special teams play, according to SP+, with the same coach.
There are a lot more positives than negatives, which is what you need to see. It's relatively low on my "how worried should you be" gauge.