Week 3 - UVA Preview

I think this week’s preview will be pretty short and sweet, mostly because at this early stage of the season, there is just not much data to analyze.  We have each only played two games, and for both UVA and GT, one of those games was against a clearly overmatched opponent.  So, this will be broad.  

Let’s begin with another video showing how much help we gave them last year.  This game was a particularly lackluster performance for us last year.  I have included only the plays that I consider to be major mental mistakes.  I did not include Tevin’s interception because that was mostly a physical mistake.  I also did not include dumb plays that did not really hurt us.  A good example is the block in the back that negated Orwin’s 66 yard catch and run in the 3rd quarter.  This did not hurt us because without the block in the back, that defender almost certainly makes the tackle.  So it cost us 10 yards, and not 50 as it might first appear.  The format is pretty simple.  I freeze the video at the dumb mistake, and add some text to explain what I’m talking about.  Then I show the play again at regular speed.  

You can’t make those kind of mistakes on the road against a quality opponent.  

Anyway, my prediction for Saturday is a GT win.  The main reason is simply that I thought we were better than UVA last year, and they lost more than we did.  So we should still be better.  In fact, the gap should have widened.  I know we lost last year, but as the video showed, I thought we got in our own way several times.  (yes, UVA made some dumb plays too, and we made others not included in the video.  Both teams always make dumb plays every game.  However, I thought we made more such plays than normal, and the ones we made were more egregious than normal...)  We were favored by about 7 last year, and had both teams played an average game, I think we would have won by about that margin.

Coming into this year, UVA lost a few players from a bad offense, and a bunch of players (3 D-linemen and 3 Defensive Backs) from a pretty good defense.  I expect their defense will still be good, but not as good.  Their offense should still be below average.

At this point, I remain concerned about our offense.  We look out of sync to me.  Not blocking particularly well.  Our timing looks off.  We have people taking false steps.  Nobody moving confidently or with a purpose.  I’m reminded of my high school basketball team.  In practice we would always spend a few minutes “dummying” our offense - ie running our offense with nobody guarding us.  The first team guys could do this quickly and smoothly.  Everybody knew exactly where to go, and they made purposeful cuts and passes.  They did this in games all the time, and thus running it in practice was second nature.  The second team offense was a lot clumsier.  People would forget when to cut and when to screen.  Sometimes a player would go the wrong direction for a half step before realizing.  Etc. 

Right now, our offense looks like the 2nd team.  I guess this makes sense.  Our A-backs and WR’s lack much live experience.  Then again, the O-Line and the QB are generally the positions that need that experience the most.  And we have it there.  I’m a little puzzled.  I expected us to be running pretty smoothly even early in the season.  Oh well.  We aren’t.  We need to improve quickly on this front.  

But I doubt the improvement happens this game.  I don’t think UVA’s defense will be as good as last year.  But it will still be pretty good.  I expect us to struggle early, mostly hit a few good plays but have drives stall out, and probably only get to 21 or 24 points for the game.  I hope to be pleasantly surprised.  

The good news is, 21 or 24 points is all we should need.  I still think our defense is legit.  Its only been one real game, but I have not seen anything to suggest otherwise.  Groh has been saying it.  We look the part.  I’m on board.  Our D-line looks improved.  A little stronger, a little better able to hold the point of attack.  Our linebackers look like serious playmakers.  A lot of speed, good tacklers, and they know where they are going.  They move with a purpose to the right place, and can do some things when they get there.  Our secondary was above average last year.  It is still very good, although like all college secondaries, occasionally has some breakdowns.  But overall, this should be a good unit.  

I’m hoping this year will proceed a lot like 2008.  As you remember, our offense started off pretty sluggish.  We got some ugly, low scoring wins (BC, Clemson) aided by defensive points (safety at BC, pick 6 at Clemson).  But eventually the offense started to click (Miami, UGA).  Hopefully the offense will pick things up faster since this is not the first year of the scheme, as 2008 was.  

Maybe the biggest matchup for this game will be our defensive ends against their offensive tackles.  Their tackles are excellent.  Probably their biggest strength.  Last year they were able to seal the edge and collapse our D-line, and most of their rushing yards came around the corner.  They gained 270 yards on the ground.  They hardly hurt us passing, and when they did, it was on play action, which probably only worked because the run was working so well.  If our defensive ends can compete, we should be ok.  Note I said “compete”.  They probably don’t even need to win this battle.  Just don’t lose it badly.  If they can be competitive, our LB’s should be able to clean up enough plays that we can force UVA into some passing situations, and that should lead to stops.  

I like UVA’s coaching staff.  I think they do a good job overall.  I expect a good game plan.  They certainly had a good game plan for us last year, on both sides of the ball.  But I like our coaches better.  I think we have a slight edge here.  Plus we are at home, and we had the easier game last week.  Athletically, UVA is probably about the same as us.  Maybe we have the slight edge, but its not much.  However, I think when you add up all the factors, this looks like a moderately comfortable win for us.  I think the 10 point spread is about right.  I see a 21-13 or 24-13 GT victory.  As I said, I hope our offense surprises me, but I have not seen anything so far to indicate that we will put up a bunch of points on a good defense at this stage of the season.  

But its been a while since our defense keyed a win over a decent opponent.  That would be refreshing.  I think it happens.

Let’s Go Jackets!

Week 3 - VT and PC Review

Ok so I apologize for being MIA for so long.  Worst.  Blogger.  Ever.  I know.  The Monday night game threw off the schedule.  Didn’t get a chance to review VT like I wanted.  Had a wedding this past weekend (seriously, we are still doing fall weddings?)  And I figured nobody needed analysis of Presbyterian.  I guess it was good to see the season average stat padding 700 yards again, but I think we all knew how that game was going to go.  

On to VT.  After I got over the initial, crushing disappointment (and this took a few days) there actually were some positives.  I was proud of the way we fought.  I thought Tevin played a very good game until the decision at the end.  (Of course, he said he was trying to throw it away, so maybe even that was not really his fault, as he was getting hit when he threw).  Of course I was proud of the defense.  Great game from them for most of the night.  The special teams generally played well, good kickoff coverage, made the field goal, downed a punt deep, capitalized on VT’s awful punt snap.  

But we lost.  What is about GT?  How do we find ways to lose games in the most gut wrenching manner?  44 seconds.  Seriously.  As soon as we scored and I saw the clock all I could think was “oh thats way too much time”.  I mean, I knew the defense had played well.  And 44 seconds is not much.  But I just couldn’t shake that feeling.  Even so we were still basically one tackle away.  Even if they get the first down on 4th and 4, we probably win the game if our secondary makes the tackle the first time.  But we went for the big hit.  The only bad result there is to let him get cleanly past the first defender.  The smart play would have been to wait, and move horizontally to stay in front.  Doesn’t matter if he runs you over and gets an extra 2-3 yards by falling forward.  Doesn’t even matter if the first guy does not make the tackle.  We had plenty of guys in the area, coming to help.  Just slow him down.  But, we go for the big hit, and miss ever so slightly.  But that was enough.  The momentum took the first defender out of the play, and 15 yards down field VT is in comfortable FG range.  Of course we still had a chance in overtime I guess.  

But enough rehashing.  It was a sloppy game.  Looked like the first game for both teams, which it of course was.  Both sides made a lot of mistakes and either side could have won comfortably had they been a little more sharp.  But looking at the big picture, going into Blacksburg, with that many defensive starters returning for VT, and being essentially 1 play from winning and losing in OT is not terrible.  Terribly painful yes, but there are worse losses.  If our guys fight that hard and play that kind of defense and special teams all year, I think we will all be pretty happy with this team.  

The Offense

I’m trying not to be too worried about the offense, but I’ve seen some things that concern me.  VT’s defense is supposed to be loaded.  So maybe its not a problem.  But we were not sharp and did not look good running our base stuff.  And we were not exactly overwhelming against PC early either.  I know we gained 700 yards and scored 59 points eventually, but we were stuffed on 2 of our first 3 possessions.  Did not look very good executing.  Most of our success appeared to me to be simply from overwhelming physical talent.  Presbyterian just could not match up with us.  That won’t work against the rest of our schedule.  We need to be able to execute.

I thought the QB’s have played pretty well.  As I said Tevin had a good game against VT.  Particularly the last drive to put us ahead.  He showed a lot of guts and made some very tough plays.  I did not like Days’ fumble against PC, but Vad Lee looked great.  I was surprised by his speed.  I would not call it breakaway speed, but he was about as fast as PC’s secondary.  That should make him faster than, for example, most linebackers we will face.  As advertised, he appears to be a great passer.  I hope to see him continue to get reps.  We may be onto something here.  

The offensive line has not been as good as I had hoped.  Don’t get me wrong, its been good.  It may still in fact be “the best line since Paul Johnson was hired”, which is what its supposed to be.  But I was hoping it would do better.  I was hoping we would have more success against VT, and certainly that we would come out and manhandle PC.  Neither happened.  In both cases, the blocking by the skill position players may have been more to blame.  But nevertheless, the O-Line has not been as good as I wanted.  I would call it either “pretty good” or “good”, depending on how good VT’s defensive front ends up being.  I was hoping for great.  Maybe they will come around.

The A-backs have some significant ability to run the ball.  I’m excited about that.  However, I am a little concerned about the blocking.  We definitely do not have anybody that blocks as well as Roddy did, at least not right now.  I would even say we don’t have anybody that blocks as well as Peeples, except Orwin (who has been hurt for much of the first 2 games) and maybe Godhigh.  The A-backs have probably been the best blockers out of the skill positions to this point, but thats more indicative of problems elsewhere than of the A-backs doing anything good.  This needs to improve.

The B-backs have largely disappointed me to this point.  Laskey has probably been the best at the fundamentals of the position, although I continue to believe Sims is the best runner and athlete of the bunch.  Perkins is just a mystery.  Not sure when or if things are going to click for him.  Hope they do because I was very high on him based on his high school film.  I hope Snoddy lives up to his potential because it would be great to have a home run hitter there again.  Anyway, the running for the most part has been ok but not spectacular.  None have really blocked all that well.  

The WR’s have been the biggest concern for me, unquestionably.  There was some questionable route running at VT, including at least one example of a WR quitting on his route when he might have had a big play if he runs it out 100%.  But the main issue definitely has been blocking.  We have always had good blockers out there.  Thomas was excellent.  Hill and Melton were very good.  Those guys contributed greatly to our success running the ball.  I have not seen anybody in this group so far who is even adequate.  We left significant yards on the field at VT because of poor blocking on the outside.  Its a big part of our offense, and often is necessary to open up a defense that is concentrating on clogging the middle.  This is an area of significant concern for me moving forward.  

Defense

Overall I’m pretty excited about the defense.  Very good showing at VT.  VT’s offense was far from sharp, but still a lot of that was caused by us.  And outside of a couple of isolated breakdowns, it could have been a GREAT game for the defense.  Plus I thought we were a little unlucky on what was a very weak personal foul penalty to get VT out of 3rd and 12 (sound familiar?  sigh).  And while its hard to tell much from the Presbyterian game, we did hold them to virtually nothing early on.  They gained a total of 4 yards and 1 first down on their first 5 possessions.  That is dominant.  We did not do nearly that well against Western Carolina last year for example.  I think PC had something like 90 total yards through its first 10 possessions.  

The D-Line has pleased me to this point.  I was concerned that we lost 2 out of 3 starters, but I was optimistic about our young depth there.  And so far, it looks like I had reason to be.  They are not perfect, but they did prevent VT’s O-Line from getting much push.  And they were able to generate some pressure on their own.  One factor that should not be overlooked is the height.  We have several guys in the 6’6 or 6’7 range, and that height can really bother the QB if they get anywhere near him.  This happened quite a few times to Logan Thomas.  A lot of arms raised bothering a lot of throwing lanes and vision.  This is not a dominant group, but it is improved and its good enough for us to have a good defense.

The linebackers have been very strong.  I don’t want to get carried away because its early, but I’m very excited by this group.  They can move.  I mean serious speed.  And they are better at moving with a purpose and understanding what they are supposed to be doing.  In short, I think Groh’s prediction that year 3 is when the scheme clicks may turn out to be exactly right.  But unquestionably, this group is athletic.  Maybe the most athletic we’ve had in a while.  

The secondary is talented, and could be quite good.  For the most part they have played well, but did have several unfortunate breakdowns against VT.  Obviously the long TD pass and the last drive, specifically the last play, of regulation.  But there were others.  We have less experience at safety than I’d like, which was a direct cause of the first TD.  But overall the secondary has played well and has the ability to play even better.

I’m pretty psyched about the defense.  I suspect this group might be able to really clamp down on UVA this weekend.  That’s all I will say until the preview, but I’m optimistic that the defense might be back.  The special teams have looked more sound as well.  I hope the offense is not what ends up holding us back.  That would be some frustrating irony.  

Anyway, I will get a UVA preview up sometime this week.  Tough loss to start the season but this team still has a lot to play for, and it may just surprise some people.  The last time we had a good defense and an offense that struggled early was 2008.  That was a pretty good year.  

Let’s Go Jackets!

Week 1 - VT Preview Part 7

We will need to get Orwin plenty of touches tonight.  He is a difference maker, and is supposedly even better than ever after surgery to correct a toe injury.  He has been playing with this injury up to this point, allegedly.  I can’t believe this.  Because look at some of the following plays.  I characterize these as great plays because Orwin gets at least 4 or 5 yards more than a typical running back would get in the same situation.  In some cases, he gets even more.  See here:

The guy is simply a good football player.  

So there you have it.  My formula for a 24-17 GT win is the following - block well, execute the offense, get Orwin plenty of touches, and rely on improved defense and hopefully special teams play with new special teams coach.  I think we get it done.  

Prediction - GT 24, VT 17.

Let’s Go Jackets!

Week 1 - VT Preview Part 6

The thing we need to hope for is that Godhigh, Deon Hill, Bostic, Zenon etc can block as well has Roddy and Peeples, especially Roddy.  Here is a quick look at Roddy’s blocking ability.  He is the play side A-Back on each play, and each clip pauses when he delivers his block:

Roddy was consistently a very good blocker.  I’m told Godhigh is as well, and that is why he is starting.  I hope he is as good as Roddy.

Week 1 - VT Preview Part 5

And here is a bad play:

The only real difference in these two plays is the A-Back block.  Tevin makes the right read, and in both cases we have a chance for a big gain.  If the A-Back puts his man on the ground, both might be well over 10 yards.  Just get a decent block and its a 5-8 yard gain.  Miss the block and its no gain.  On those two actual plays, one goes for 8 yards and one goes for 0 yards.  One was a decent block, one was a missed block.  Obviously, this won’t always be the case.  Many of our plays don’t depend on the A-Back block at all (Like the B-Back dive for example).  But when we run a pitch, the A-Back block is crucial.  With a great block, there will often be open space for 10+ yards.  Any running back will have a big gain there.  If the block is missed, then even a great running back will struggle to get more than 3 or 4 yards.  This is why you hear Coach Johnson say “whoever blocks the best will play”.  The most important skill at A-Back is not running.  Its blocking.  Having a guy like Orwin is nice, but he still needs to be able to block.  (and thankfully Orwin is a pretty good blocker).

Week 1 - VT Preview Part 4

Scoring more than 17 points against VT’s defense won’t be easy.  But I think we can do it.  Our offense last year was probably good enough to do it if we played well, but we should be even better.  We return 9/10 of our 2 deep on the O-Line.  This is supposed to be our best and deepest O-Line since Paul Johnson got here.  That would be enough to get me excited by itself.  But we also have a returning, 5th year Senior QB, and starting B-Back (although not sure he is 100%).  So the key positions where we need experience, we have it.  In our offense, experience at A-back and WR is less important.  Plus, our guys actually have more experience than many talking heads are letting on.  Everybody can’t stop talking about how our WR’s have no catches ever.  But they’ve been on the field before and run the offense.  They have played snaps and blocked, which is 90% of the game for most of our WR’s.  We may have some growing pains in the passing game (although we do return some A-backs who have caught passes, most notably Orwin).  But our running game should be clicking wonderfully.  Well, if our A-Backs can block anyway.  Here is an example of how important A-Back blocking is for our offense:

Good play:

Week 1 - VT Preview Part 3

The last self inflicted issue to the offense came when we were trailing 34-26.  I guess its not fair to say this was entirely self inflicted.  VT’s defensive pressure helped.  But still, Tevin does not see an A-Back streaking wide open down field.  To make matters worse, the pre snap alignment made it fairly apparent what read to make.  The pass route was four verticals, meaning both WR’s and A-backs take off running straight downfield.  VT had 8 defenders in the box, and only 1 safety patrolling the middle of the field.  The likely coverage is that the 2 cornerbacks play man against the WR’s, and the safety is forced to choose which A-back to cover.  Before the snap, Tevin should have been ready to simply read the safety, and throw to whichever A-back the safety does not cover.  Its possible that I’m oversimplying here.  VT could have dropped into a different coverage.  The pre snap look could have been a decoy.  VT mixes up its defenses enough that maybe Tevin was expecting the non-obvious coverage (maybe rightly so).  Nevertheless, the obvious man came wide open, and would have been an easy pass and catch for a big gain.  

See the right side A-back below (especially in the replay):

There were also some self inflicted issues from the defense, but mercifully, I don’t have the defensive footage from last year, so I won’t be showing those.  I’m sure everybody remembers Attaochu deciding that merely stopping Logan Thomas on 3rd and 19 was not good enough.  We simply have to get him on the ground.  Forward progress?  What’s that?  That single play may have changed the game more than any of the plays shown above.  

And there were a few other busted assignments, mostly in the secondary.  Many of those contributed to allowing VT to convert 3rd and 7 or longer SIX times.  Six.  Sigh.  What may get lost given our poor 3rd down defense is how well the defense played on 1st and 2nd down for much of the game.  VT was a good power running team, with David Wilson and Logan Thomas.  On paper, they were supposed to push us around and really make it hard to get stops (like UVA did last year).  Well, we repeatedly forced 3rd and very long, only to let them convert with an easy pass (a couple of these were tremendous plays by their WR’s, but many were easy passes thanks to poor coverage).  This was probably our secondary’s worst game of the season, and might have been Logan Thomas’ best game of the season.  

Of course, VT had some self inflicted errors as well (every team does every game).  But I think we had far more than our fair share.  Clean up some of those and we might well have won that game.  

So enough about last year.  That was just to show that the teams were, in my opinion, fairly even last year.  VT had their usual advantage of being better coached on defense and special teams (they play some of the smartest football in the country in my opinion), but this game was very winnable.  

So what has changed heading into this year?  Well, first and foremost, VT lost a lot of statistical production.  They do return their QB, who every GT fan probably knows pretty well. He is a good player.  But just good in my opinion.  Not great.  Not as good as many people think.

They lost 2000 of their 2600 rushing yards.  And most importantly, they lost all everything running back David Wilson (who, by the way, is good enough that I took him with a late pick on my fantasy team).  I’m sure whoever VT will run out there at running back will be good.  But there is a big difference in being “good” and being David Wilson.  I can’t imagine there won’t be drop off here.  They also lost nearly 2000 of 3100 receiving yards.  Including Danny Coale, the guy who made the ridiculous juggling catch on 3rd and 11 against us last year.  If he fails to make that catch, VT is punting from its own end zone.  Instead, they have 1st and 10 near midfield.  VT also loses a couple of starting O-Linemen.

Now, VT is a good and deep football team.  The guys they are replacing those guys with are talented, and while they did not start last year, they did play in the rotation.  They have experience.  So how much drop off there really will be is a good question.  Probably the best thing for us is that we are catching VT in Week 1.  Anytime you are replacing several O-Linemen, you’d prefer to have a game or two for them to get in sync.  Groh needs to have some complicated blitz packages he can dial up to take advantage of a group of O-Linemen who may not communicate very well.  I bet he will.

On the other hand, VT’s defense is absolutely loaded.  They return 9 starters.  From a very good group last year.  There is speculation in Blacksburg that this may be one of their best defenses ever.  I’m not sure it will be that good, but its gonna be good.  So, our offense will have to deal with that.  

So VT should have a worse offense (albeit maybe only slightly) but a better defense.  However, I think we will be better on both units.  I’m making a couple of assumptions here though.  First of all, we lost a few players on defense.  Most notably, 2/3 of our starting D-Line, and Julian Burnett, arguably our best linebacker.  Certainly our most active linebacker (although some people feel he was not the best at playing his assignments, he was unquestionably very good at finding the ball and hitting people).  But I think our defense gets better because we have better depth and another year to learn the scheme.  It is Groh’s opinion that his defense learns the most and makes the biggest improvement from year 2 to year 3.  Its a complicated defense.  Takes a while for things to click.  I think this principle is similar to the fact that our offense was statistically better in 2010 than it was in 2008.  We had better playmakers in 2008 (Nesbitt for the full year, Dwyer, Thomas).  Yet our 2010 offense was better, in my opinion because our players across the board understood the scheme far better.  

So, let’s optimistically assume I am right and the defense shows significant improvement.  We will have a better defense, and their offense will be slightly worse.  Somewhat of an edge for GT (although we gave them 37 points last year so we need to be a lot better).  My guess is, if both teams play their to their average level (ie nobody plays an especially good or bad game) then we can hold them to somewhere around 17 points.