Week 10 Review - Virginia Tech

would have put up a quick review of the game sooner than this, but, well, I didn’t really feel like it. To put it mildly, I took the loss… hard. Not only did I think we had a chance to win, I actually thought we might be the better team, at least if we played like I thought we could out of the bye week. Turns out, I think I was right. And we were on our way to the win. And Nesbitt got hurt. No problem, the defense really made some plays in the third quarter to keep us in it while the offense was sputtering. Eventually, VT pulled ahead, and surely now the pain could set in right? Well, no, our offense would fight back, even without Nesbitt. We tie it up with 2 minutes left. Relief, but cautious relief. But before I really even had time to panic, disaster. They bring the kick back to go back up by a TD. Surely now we are done. No, not yet. We still fight. We get all the way down to the VT 16, and finally die with an interception. But even that had to be close. If the ball floats another foot and a half, its probably a TD.

Trying to think of a more painful way to lose. Trying to think of a more crucial game to our season. Don’t think I’ll be able to do either one. Win that game and we are right back in the conference race. Lose it, and we have a better shot to get an invite to the Big Ten and win that in 2011 than we do to win the ACC this year. (I’m told its still mathematically possible…)

I think I would rather have lost 49-3 than lose like that. Tough to take…

The game itself was pretty simple. Our offensive line played well. That made us very hard to stop. VT’s skill players are very good, and played well. That made them difficult to stop. Somewhat surprisingly, we competed well in the trenches on both sides of the ball.

We controlled the first quarter with two relatively easy scores. VT had the ball only once, but drove nearly 60 yards before bogging down and punting.

In the second quarter, our defense bent again and this time broke, letting VT cut the lead in half. But they continued playing relatively good defense aside from that drive. On offense, I think CPJ outfoxed himself a little bit. Starting at our own 6 after a penalty, we try two passes on three plays. The lone running play gained around 10 yards, but the two passes cost us enough yards that we had to punt. I have no problem passing, but VT really hadn’t stopped the run yet. On another drive, we have 4^th and inches from our own 39 or so. Given our penchant for false starts, and the loud stadium, I would have preferred to simply line up and run the QB sneak right away. Nesbitt almost surely gets the first down. But instead we try to draw them off, then call time, then line up and wait to look for some audibles. Our O line, after sitting down in their stance for probably about 30-45 seconds combined before and after the time out, finally jumps and costs us 5 yards. Its tough to ask an O line to stay down that long and then all come off the ball at the same time when they are having trouble hearing the snap count over the crowd. Much easier to just line up and go.

Oh well, CPJ is a really good coach who called a really good game. Sometimes he changes pace and it works brilliantly, so maybe its not fair to second guess him when it doesn’t work. We did right the ship and march down to their 5 before the disastrous interception and ensuing Nesbitt injury.

So 2 TD’s and a drive to their 5 yard line is pretty good for only 5 possessions.

The third quarter marked a pretty clear change on offense. The offensive line was still blocking well, but the defense was now able to key much more on Allen. Tevin’s reads were a little shaky at first. He was clearly trying to find a rhythm for pretty much the whole quarter, and that cost us. He did make one really good throw to Hill that probably should have been caught for a 30-35 yard gain. Anyway, with Nesbitt in, almost certainly making quicker and better reads than Washington and giving the defense two strong runners* to worry about, I see no way that we don’t score some more points in the 3^rd quarter.

(side note* – I am cautiously excited to see how our offense goes with Tevin. I do think he is a good runner. But he is a different runner than Nesbitt, faster but not quite as strong. Point is, our offense was in a good rhythm with Nesbitt and Allen both able to attack the middle of the field. With Tevin in, we still had “two good runners”, but it took Tevin a quarter to start making his reads at full speed and running with confidence. “Hesitant Tevin”, the guy who played the third quarter, was someone the VT defense could largely ignore. They were able to wait and see if Allen got the ball before proceeding over to Washington, and since he was not playing full speed, this didn’t hurt them like it should have.)

Our defense played great in the third quarter, but appeared to get tired in the fourth. This makes sense because they spent more time than usual on the field, with our offense suddenly sputtering. With Nesbitt in, its my opinion that we probably give the defense more rest and also increase the lead during this quarter. So that hurt.

In the fourth, Tevin finally found himself, and we started moving the ball a little bit. He hit some very nice throws as well, although part of me wonders if those throws weren’t similar to some Nesbitt throws earlier in the year that were dropped. The catches were encouraging, at the very least. And Tevin may be a better passer than Nesbitt, but for now I would say let’s give it a few games before we proclaim him a great passer.

Normally, I don’t like to make excuses (like Nesbitt’s injury) but I definitely do not subscribe to the fairly common attitude among football fans that fans are not allowed to play “what if”. Most people seem to think you win or you lose, what happens happens, and they just won’t listen to “well things may have been different if this happened or didn’t happen”. I don’t get that logic. I play the what if game whether we win or we lose. I want to try to figure out what should have happened. I think its clear that there is an element of luck in the game, and sometimes the better team does not win, for whatever reason.

Even though I normally don’t love playing what if, I usually do it. But here, I have absolutely no problem doing so. I see no way that a rational person can argue that Nesbitt going down did not have a dramatic affect on the game. I see no way a rational person could argue that VT was likely to hold us to 0 points in the third quarter with him playing. (they possibly could have done so, but “likely”? Don’t think so.)

It certainly may be true that VT would have been forced to call a more aggressive game if we had Nesbitt and we were scoring points, and maybe that works better for them and they still win. So I will not go as far as to say if we don’t lose Nesbitt, we win the game for sure. But let’s just say I wouldn’t mind going back to halftime and playing it out with a healthy Nesbitt. And my money would be on us.

Further, I think it’s also pretty obvious that Nesbitt’s injury was something of a freak accident. He just got his arm kicked at a funny angle, and it broke a bone. It happens, even though its pretty unlikely, especially for a kid as tough as Nesbitt.

So I don’t feel bad at all about playing “what if” here. I think we lost the game primarily due to a freak injury to our most important player.

Even given that, I am somewhat excited to see Tevin run the offense. I think our offense is really better suited for a faster QB. Nesbitt ran it well, and is a warrior, but I am not convinced he was the best kind of runner for our system. I’ll reserve that discussion for later in the week, in the Miami preview, mostly because I want more time to look at the tape of Tevin’s running plays before I try to speculate as to what might happen.

Anyway, here is a look at the usual numbers.

GT First Half Drives

Start	Plays	Yards	Yards/ Play	3rd downs converted	4th downs converted	End	Result
GT 42	9	58	6.45	1 (1yd)	0	VT 0	TD
GT20	3	80	26.66	1 (1yd)	0	VT 0	TD
GT 26	3	9	3	0	0	GT 35	Punt
GT 7	3	2	0.67	0	0	GT 9	Punt
VT 47	5	41	8.2	0	0	VT 6	INT

You can see we moved the ball pretty easily on our three good drives.

VT First Half Drives

Start	Plays	Yards	Yards/ Play	3rd downs converted	4th downs converted	End	Result
VT 6	9	56	4.22	1 (4 yd)	0	GT 38	Punt
VT 23	10	77	7.7	0	0	GT 0	TD
VT 34	10	58	5.8	1 (3 yd)	0	GT 8	INT
VT 29	6	17	2.84	1 (3 yd)	0	VT 46	Punt

VT also moved the ball pretty easily, although they did have to convert more, and longer, third downs.

GT Second Half Drives

Start	Plays	Yards	Yards/ Play	3rd downs converted	4th downs converted	End	Result
GT 13	9	37	4.11	0	1 (2 yd)	50	Punt
GT 34	6	21	3.5	0	0	VT 45	Downs
GT 20	3	-3	-1	0	0	GT 17	Punt
GT 20	9	80	8.89	1 (5 yd)	1 (4 yd)	VT 0	TD
GT 20	10	64	6.4	2 (17, 2 yd)	0	VT 16	INT

Key here is our first three drives of the half, as Tevin was settling in, were noticeably worse than our average first half drive.

VT Second Half Drives

Start	Plays	Yards	Yards/ Play	3rd downs converted	4th downs converted	End	Result
VT 40	5	8	1.6	0	0	VT 48	Punt
VT 8	5	18	3.6	0	0	VT 26	Punt
VT 45	8	55	6.88	1 (1 yd)	1 (3 yd)	GT 0	TD
VT 38	11	62	5.64	2 (1, 2 yd)	0	GT 0	TD

Overall I would say the defense played pretty well.

Here are the third down stats:

First Half

GT		VT
14	First Downs Allowed	5
6	Third Downs Forced	5
3	Third Downs Stopped	3

Pretty even there except for the total first downs, but that’s probably more a function of us moving the ball so easily in the first half, when we did successfully move it.

Second Half

GT		VT
9	First Downs Allowed	9
6	Third Downs Forced	8
3	Third Downs Stopped	5

Pretty even there.

The overall game stats:

	GT	VT
Rush Yards	346	198
Yards Per Carry	6.8	5
Pass Yards	80	137
Yards Per Attempt	8	5.5
Total Yards	426	335
Yards Per Play	7	5.2
Points	21	28
Turnovers	2	2

You can see some pretty decent edges for us there. We lead in total yards, yards per pass, yards per rush, and yards per play, all by decent margins.

In the end, a somewhat typical VT game. They lost by most every measure except the final score. Seems they are pretty good at that. And yet this time it leaves a more bitter taste in my mouth than usual.

As for the rest of the year, I am curious to see if the defense continues to improve, and how the new look offense does. But I consider the next two games to be little more than practice for the UGA game. I am confident we will get at least one more win (most probably Duke but I think we have a reasonable shot to beat Miami or UGA) so we will keep the bowl streak alive. Besides that, the only thing we have left to play for in my opinion is beating UGA. So, let’s make sure to keep getting better…

Let’s Go Jackets!

Week 10 Preview - Virginia Tech

During the bye week, I had plenty of time to reflect on the season. The first thing I thought about is how I have picked us to win all 8 games so far this year. Not real good when your team is 5-3 and has two losses by at least 14 points. Makes you feel like a complete homer.

That revelation caused me to take a close look at my objectivity. To be fair, we were favored in two of the three games we lost. we clearly should have beaten Kansas. The Sagarin ratings currently have us 17 points better than Kansas on a neutral field. Furthermore, the N.C. State pick was reasonable. Our offensive line looked good against UNC, but that was basically the last time they have looked good. How was I supposed to know? I do think my review after the game, whereby I pointed out that State’s defense line is something less than stellar, was pretty accurate. We probably should have scored more than 7 points in the first half against their defense. Lastly, the Clemson pick wouldn’t have looked nearly as bad if we hadn’t played maybe our worst game, in terms of execution of all three units, in the Paul Johnson Era. All of those unforced errors cost us a lot of points. Really it could have been even worse than 27-13.

Nevertheless, 5-3 is 5-3, and when you are 3 games off in your picks, out of only 8 games total, AND two were basically complete gimmes, it is worrisome.

So I have given a lot of thought to this week’s pick. Virginia Tech has looked good all year except for one game (James Madison). And I feel that game is pretty explainable. It was four and a half days after they suffered an enormous let down. Their potential national title run was (probably) shot before it got off the ground, and they did not recover. They probably also thought there was no way they could lose to JMU.

But, with that said, their best game of the season was a loss (Boise St.). Their second best game was a win over N.C. State that was greatly aided by turnovers and special teams, and that they stole at the end. Of their six wins, all should have been pretty easy wins. Then again, you can say the same thing about us, that we have had 5 easy wins on the schedule so far this year, and, well, we only won 4 of them (oops…). So winning the games you are supposed to win isn’t a bad thing.

So how good is VT really? Well, they are the opposite of the usual VT teams. Their offense is their better unit. That’s good for two reasons. One, they still have a very poor offensive coordinator. And two, their offensive line is not great. Both of those things mean they can be stopped. However, they have some real playmakers, most notably Taylor, Williams and Wilson. (still not sold on Evans really being that good). Taylor especially has really improved. He is top 5 in the country in passing efficiency, and still is crazy good at making plays with his feet. I would be really surprised if he did not have a couple of backbreaking scrambles to extend drives.

But, BUT, there is hope. Our biggest weakness is our D line. So, just like last game, since we are not up against a great O line, we should have a chance to compete. (don’t laugh, we did compete with Clemson defensively. They had good field position most of the game and only scored 27. That’s not exactly overwhelming). If we can have a little bit of success on the line, we can get some stops. But I do expect them to score no fewer than 24-28, and possibly more.

What about the defense? Surprisingly, Bud Foster’s unit has not been that good. They are currently 33^rd in total defense, 29^th in scoring defense, 45^th in rushing and 44^th in passing. But here is some information that I think is more useful:

Team	Rush YPG - Season	Rush v VT	Rush y/p - Season	Rush y/p v. VT	Pass YPG - Season	Pass v VT	Pass y/p - Season	Pass y/p v. VT
Boise	214.3	168	5.6	5.7	301.6	215	10.3	7
JMU	167.5	114	4	2.8	149.4	121	7.4	15.1
ECU	118.5	110	4.3	3.7	304.1	251	6.5	5.7
BC	110.5	70	3.3	2.5	184.9	180	6.2	5.1
NCS	142.9	145	3.8	4.4	295.8	362	7.1	7.4
CMU	114.7	135	3.6	3.8	265.8	266	7	5.5
Wake	180.4	254	4.6	10.2	150.8	92	5.7	5.4
Duke	120.6	92	3.5	3.1	261.6	116	6.5	3.2
Avg.	146.175	136	4.0875	4.525	239.25	200.37	7.0875	6.8

You can see that on the season, VT has allowed 0.5 more yards per rush to their opponents than those opponents have averaged on the rest of the season. That is not VT defense. Their pass defense is allowing less than their opponents season average, but not that much less.

Additionally, notice that Boise, JMU, ECU and CMU all play in conferences where their usual opponents should be much worse than VT’s defense. So “holding” them below their season averages really is not impressive. Amazingly, VT did not even hold Central Michigan below their season average (what??). Among teams who play good defenses regularly, VT only held Boston College and Duke below their season averages.

Perhaps most significantly, VT allowed Wake Forest to run for significantly more yards and yards per play than their average. This is significant because Wake Forest, like us, does not have much of a passing attack. So VT probably expected a run on most plays, and still could not stop it.

VT still has Foster coaching the defense, so it is probably safe to assume the problem is not coaching. That leaves inexperience, or the same problem as us, a lack of athletes up front. Or it could be a combination of both. Either way, we should be able to take advantage and have some success blocking them.

Maybe the most important factor for predicting this game is the effect of they bye weeks. Both teams are coming off of byes. If you listen to GT’s detractors, we have no chance, because our offense loses its advantage if the defense has more time than one week. But we did beat UGA in 2008 and UNC this year off of bye weeks, so I don’t “bye” that. Ha. Get it? Ha ha. Ok. Nevermind. My apologies.

Seriously though, the bye will probably help VT some. But if we can block them, I think we can move the ball. Hopefully we can block them.

What effect might the bye have on us? Well, in 2008 off our bye we played probably our best game of the season, at home against Miami. Then in 2009, off our bye, we lost to UGA. Its hard to put 2009 UGA on the bye week, because they pushed us around so much and offensively we actually looked pretty good (yeah, 3 points in the first half, Nesbitt only played 2 possessions, one as the time was running out. And we “only” scored 24, but that was on 9 possessions for the GAME because both teams ran so well the game was shortened… Don’t get me started).

So I would say its more likely that we are likely to come out of the bye week playing well, at least offensively. In 2008 we were similarly up and down (albeit perhaps a little more “up”) with a young team, and they really started to click with the extra time. You get a little more practice, and you get to spend more time focusing on cleaning up mistakes than you get in an ordinary week when you want to spend most of your time studying the opponent. So hopefully we will be a little sharper, and come out playing really well. In fact, I am confident we will.

Given all of the above, I have decided we will play a good game tomorrow night. Probably our best of the season. But VT is one of the best, if not the best, team we have played so far. According to Sagarin they ARE the best team we have played so far. And we are on the road. In Lane Stadium. And VT is very good there, especially at night.

I think, unfortunately, that all that adds up to a close loss. We will be competitive, we will fight, we will have a chance. But in the end, VT is better (this season) at making the key plays to win. Special teams will probably hurt us somehow. I just think VT finds a way to get it done. But it will be close.

Fortunately for us GT fans, they will still go play the game, and I am not always right. Wrong 3 times out of 8 so far in fact. But that’s what I think will happen. Here is to me falling to 5-4 on the season.

Per usual, here is a look at the “talent”, as judged by espn.com’s recruiting rankings.

	2007			2008			2009			2010
	GT	VT		GT	VT		GT	VT		GT	VT
Best	81	84		80	83		80	83		80	81
Top 5	79.4	79.6		78	80		79.4	80.6		79	79.4
Top 10	78.5	78.1		77.3	79.2		78.8	79.5		78.2	78.1
Avg.	75.65	75.47		76.53	76.56		76.85	77.9		77.06	76.7
Total Players	20	17		15	25		21	19		16	19

Virginia Tech pretty reliably brings in one or two highly rated guys, and from there, their classes compare pretty favorably to ours. In fact, we arguably are better beyond the top 1 or 2. But overall, I would give VT a very slight edge.

	GT	Virginia Tech
Rush Yards Per Game	317.4	214.8
Rush Yards Per Carry	5.68	5.25
Rush Yards Allowed	162.25	136
Rush Yards Allowed/Carry	4.33	4.40
Pass Yards Per Game	84.8	209.9
Pass Yards Per Att.	6.45	9.88
Pass Yards Allowed	192	200.38
Pass Yards Allowed/Att.	6.48	5.89
Yards Per Play	5.8	6.6
Yards Per Play Allowed	5.3	5.2
Points Per Game	29.5	37
Points Allowed Per Game	23.6	20

You can see that VT wins by an average of 17, as opposed to only 6 for GT. They have a balanced offense, but will surely challenge our pass defense because they are so efficient. They average 9.88 yards per attempt, which is very good. They basically have an advantage in most every statistical category. (surprisingly, shocking in fact, we have a slight edge in yards per RUSH allowed…)

But that should not be surprising, they have been, to this point in the season, clearly better than us. We will need to play much better that we have so far to compete in this game. But I do think we will do that.

My goals for the game: Once again, simply win. Play a good game in terms of execution, and win.

As always, Let’s Go Jackets!

Week 10 Picks

Every week I will pick all the ACC games against the spread, as well as the biggest national games of the weekend, and occasionally the UGA game, even though UGA games are unlikely to fit either of those two criteria.

There will be three categories. “Free Money” are the games I feel the most confident about. “Solid bets” are next, and then “Toss-ups” are the ones that could go either way. I’ll keep track of how I am doing with a chart that I’ll update each week, so you readers can make fun of me for (probably) being sub .500 and correctly picking more “Toss-ups” than “Free Money” bets.

This week:

Awful bad on free money. Clemson and Miami (WTF Miami?) cost me, and, well, I didn’t really expect UGA to beat UF. So the jinx worked at least. 0 for 3.

2-2 on solid bets. I’ll take that, especially considering I just went 0 for 3 on free money. Maryland and N.C. State covered for me, but Michigan St. was blown out, and Navy, oh Navy, what happened? Duke? Really?

1 for 2 on tossups. Mizzou got routed, but Oregon won easily.

So far on the season:

Free Money	14 for 30
Solid Bets	14 for 36
Toss Ups	14 for 26
Total	42 for 92

Not exactly impressive numbers there…

So let’s try to fix it. Here are this week’s picks.

Free Money:

Clearly, there just aren’t any free money games in the ACC. But I’m gonna keep at it, and guarantee, GUARANTEE, that UVA beats Duke by more than half a point.

Boston College beats Wake by a lot. Way more than 2.5. Take that to the bank. Wake can only run the ball, and BC has a great run defense. Plus Maryland just beat Wake by about 40. Take the Eagles.

South Carolina favored by 3.5 at home against Arkansas. The cocks tried to start their annual end of the season victory clearance sale (every potential victory must go!) last week, but Tennessee is Aw-Ful, so could not take advantage. It starts this week. Take the Razorbacks.

Solid Bets:

Virginia Tech is favored by 12.5 over us. I think we will come out of the bye week and play a good game. Maybe our best game of the season. That may or may not be good enough on a Thursday night in Blacksburg, but I do believe we will not lose by more than 12.5. Take the Jackets.

I believe in Griffin, the very, very fast QB for Baylor, so I am taking the bears to lose by less than 7.5 against Oklahoma St. (for the first time in recorded history*, both of these teams are ranked, so this actually is a big game).

North Carolina, 10.5 underdogs, at FSU. I think the Heels, even the depleted Heels, are good enough to keep it closer than that. Of course, that probably means FSU wins by 42 after the ACC wheel of destiny gets through destroying my picks.

Les Miles covers. Trust me, he has done something to win the favor of the gods. That is all. (6.5 point underdogs at home against Bama).

Toss-Ups:

No idea what to say about Clemson versus N.C. St. Clemson is favored by 3.5. I’m gonna say the tigers continue their fine play from last weekend and get beat. Go pack.

Miami is favored by 8.5 against Maryland. Obviously this depends on which Miami shows up. The Miami that played FSU and UVA will lose. The Miami that played Clemson and Pitt will win big. Let’s go with good Miami. Canes cover.

TCU and Utah should be a great one. TCU is on the road and favored by 4.5. I think the Frogs get it done, and win by more than that, but Utah will put up a good fight.

Don’t know why, but I think Stanford blows out Arizona. So they cover 9.5 (and that spread seemed high to me, so why am I picking it this way… who knows?)

*I completely made this up. My apologies to both universities if it is false. Which it probably is.

Nesbitt Jokes:

1 – Nobody knows Joshua Nesbitt’s 40 time. Whenever coaches try to time it, the stopwatch malfunctions and simply reads “0.1 seconds faster than the guy chasing him”.

2 – Nobody knows Joshua Nesbitt’s bench press max either. It is measurable, but the GT facilities simply don’t have enough weights.