“I’m glad that one’s over.”
That’s what Shane Beamer said to his dad as they hugged after South Carolina’s 24-11 win over Virginia Tech.
Shane’s simple sentence summed up exactly how I feel. I was looking forward to the game from an X’s and O’s perspective, but from an emotional perspective, I knew I was going to see Frank Beamer in some kind of South Carolina gear, and I knew I was going to hate it. I don’t blame him at all. Your kids come before anything. But I still hated it, and I never want to see that again, and I hope Frank is never put in that position again.
So yeah, I’m glad that one is over, and the Beamers certainly agree. They all handled it with class, as you would expect, but I think it’s safe to say that none of them would want to play that game again.
But what about the game itself? There’s plenty to unpack. Andy did a great job in his Five Thoughts as usual. Long story short, I don’t feel like I learned anything that I wasn’t expecting to learn. I thought the defense would be ahead of the offense, and it was. Actually, the defense was a little better than I expected, and the offense a little worse, but overall, I didn’t see anything that surprised me.
It was a mixed bag. Virginia Tech did some good things, particularly on defense. I’m a huge fan of Sam Siefkes. He’s a great hire. I think Philip Montgomery is a good coach, but I’ve always questioned the fit of his scheme with Tech’s personnel. We’ll talk about those things today, and yeah, that Kyron Drones performance.
Kyron Drones Struggles, But He Had Help
On this Labor Day, please take a moment to think of your favorite sportswriters. While you all are enjoying a nice cookout, maybe on a lake or at the river, I’m writing about the Virginia Tech offense. Sigh.The Brent Pry era has brought with it a number of statistical anomalies, most of which have been embarrassing for Virginia Tech. First and foremost is the 1-12 record in one-score games, which will have to be corrected later this season or his warm seat will start to scorch. But there are some others as well.
Last year, Virginia Tech went 6-0 against backup quarterbacks or quarterbacks who would later be benched. They went 0-7 against regular starters who did not get benched. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a stat like that before.
In 2022, Tech finished No. 125 in S&P+ offense with 13.5 adjusted points per game (APPG). Only two Power 5 teams scored fewer APPG since 2005 out of over 1,110 total teams in that span. Since 1980, only seven major-conference teams have had a worse APPG mark than Virginia Tech did in 2022. That’s crazy to think about, and it’s just about as bad as it gets.
What’s equally crazy to comprehend is the numbers Kyron Drones put up in South Carolina territory on Sunday afternoon. ESPN had him at 1-of-13. David Cunninham looked at the play-by-play and came up with 1-of-14. I don’t know which one it is, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t get much worse than that.
I would think that it would be almost mathematically impossible to be 1-12 in one-score games. What are the chances of going 0-7 against starting quarterbacks? And going 1-for-13 or 1-for-14 in opposing territory takes a colossal amount of ineptitude and just doesn’t seem likely. Yet every one of those things has happened to the Hokies in the last 3+ seasons.
In fairness to Drones, it’s certainly not all his fault. To put up numbers like that, a whole lot of things have to go wrong, and they certainly did. It’s a shared effort. That’s true wherever the ball happens to be on the field.
Virginia Tech’s redshirt senior quarterback did some good things and some bad things on Sunday. He had four “big time throws” as classified by PFF. That is tied for No. 2 in the ACC through the first week, and it’s tied for fourth in the entire country. He definitely made some excellent throws at times on Sunday, and what’s wild is that it would have been five had the amazing throw and catch to Ayden Greene down the right sideline not been called back for a chop block.
He kept plays alive, too. Drones was pressured a whopping 17 times. He was only sacked twice, and multiple times escaped the pressure early and managed to avoid getting sacked either by getting the ball out or taking off to his right. He turned some negatives into some neutrals, with perhaps a few positives as well.
Those were some good things. As the “big time throw” stat indicates, there are certainly some times when he makes you think that he’s a really good college quarterback.
But then there are a lot of other times where he makes you think that he’s not. His accuracy is all over the place. One minute he’s got a big time throw 30 yards downfield, and then the next minute he’s throwing the ball at the shoes of a wide open Marcellous Hawkins in the flat for what would certainly have been a big gain. You don't know what you're getting from a snap-to-snap basis.
His technique is all over the place on some of those short throws. Click here to read a good back-and-forth between Raleigh Hokie and myself on the boards yesterday. For you new subscribers, Raleigh Hokie is a very knowledgeable football guy who even Bud Foster has complimented in the past. I’ll do a copy and paste here of the relevant points:
Me: They were in man coverage quite a bit. They were daring us to beat them in one-on-one situations. And we definitely did at times. And Monty did well with those crossing routes against man coverage that led to some big gains. Ultimately we have to be a little bit better with ball placement. The drop by Heath was a well-thrown ball. That's on him. The other "drops" seemed to have been down around the feet of receivers. His ball placement, historically, has always been all over the place. He can make some totally sick throws (like the one to Ayden Greene that got called back for the chop block). And then a simple flare to a wide open running back that probably would have gained 20-30 yards is down at his feet. You don't know what you are getting from one snap to the next.
RH: Exactly right. It's a mechanics issue on the shorter passes. On the deep throws, he squares his shoulders and steps directly in-line with the direction of the pass. On the shorter throws, he is sometimes off his back foot and sometimes he opens his feet and uses only his throwing arm to deliver the pass. The feet can be any and everywhere. If there is one thing they need to work on over and over and over is consistent mechanics with his feet and left shoulder. Maybe he can become more accurate and maybe he can't but that's where it has to start.