“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”
How to start? Do I start by railing against yet another poorly called offensive game? Do I rail against a defense unable to adjust? Do I rail against referees who can’t even figure out how to spot the ball? Or do I rail at all?
I dreaded this game all week. You know how you just have a feeling sometimes and even though you don’t want to have that feeling, and you hope desperately that you’re wrong, you know you’re not? That was my feeling. The feeling that, no matter the preparation, no matter the way the offense has looked in the last few games, that the outcome wasn’t going to good. And it wasn’t.
I will start, as a lot of bloggers seem to have, by patting Georgia Tech on the back for a minute. Just for a minute. It’s all I can stand. They played a good game. Their defense was inspired, and their offense kept at it, even though the first half for them was shaky. I won’t pat the Hokies on the back. While the Yellow Jackets played well, they were still beatable. Sometimes a team just comes out on fire, and you know that no matter what you do, it’s just their night. It wasn’t exactly like that for GT. They were beatable. We just couldn’t deliver.
The game recap at Tech Sideline put it best for me. This game wasn’t lost in the second half. It was lost on our first three offensive possessions, where we failed to produce anything resembling offense. Things should have been solidly on our side. The defense was on point, and having no trouble stuffing the option. Georgia Tech couldn’t stop shooting themselves squarely in the foot, with dropped exchanges, and stupid penalties. All we would have had to have done, was put some points on the board. Instead, we ran Ryan Williams up the gut, over and over and over again. And we did this, when instead, we should have been either A. passing against a defense that couldn’t cover the pass, or B. rolling Tyrod out and letting him scramble and run, because the defense clearly couldn’t stop him either. But we didn’t. If we had put points up early, we wouldn’t have had to worry so much when the Georgia Tech offense did get it together. We were able to match them almost score for score in the second half. Imagine if we had been 17-7 going into halftime. Not such a tough road ahead, that way.
And speaking of tough roads, now we much once again take the cross your fingers, hold your breath and wait route to the ACC Championship. Has it ever been a smooth road for us? It seems like every year we manage to make this as difficult as possible a goal to attain. I sometimes wonder if my heart can take it. I’m not disappointed about missing out on a National title. That was never going to happen, anyway. And even if we had somehow gotten to the game, we would have been stomped like a narc at a biker rally by Florida.
The road ahead looks pretty rocky right now. We can only win out, and hope that GT and Miami don’t. Stranger things have happened. (We still owe GT for beating Miami for us a few years ago, anyway.) So, we’ll just keep playing. Some games we’ll play well, some we apparently won’t. And at the end of the day, it will be what it will be. What else is there to do?
Like you, I wasn’t really bothered by the national title talk been evaporated- as you said, it was never going to happen.
But I can’t agree with fingering a poor offensive showing in the first half for this loss. I’ve seen this opinion expressed on several blogs that I enjoy (including yours), but I gotta say, I think it’s a real stretch.
If the offense had played better early, this line of thinking goes, VT could have survived the defensive cave-in of the second half. The problem with this theory is that it’s easily inverted: had the defense been stronger and turned the ball over to the offense (which was coming alive) more in the second half, the early offensive struggles wouldn’t have mattered. In the end, the Hokies got one good half each from their offense and defense, and it wasn’t enough. The balance of the game tipped when VT showed itself unable to stop the run in the second half. GT was so completely dominant in this one area that it pretty much negated any advantages the Hokies had anywhere else.
If this was the first time the rush defense had been a problem, I’d likely write it off to just Paul Johnson coaching a great game (which he did) or the Jackets just executing exceptionally well in the second half (ditto). But Nebraska and Alabama don’t run the flexbone, and Tech couldn’t stop their running game either. It seems weird to say it, but run defense is unquestionably a weakness for VT right now.
That’s probably true. We are still a long way from having balance. It’s just such a foreign concept to see a defensive weakness, especially one as large as the one that was uncovered in the GT game. Dare we suggest that Bud is merely mortal after all?
Bleaux Leaux, you’re right in saying that both the offense and the defense share in the blame for the GT loss. However, your claim that it’s easy to flip the argument to saying the defense should have held in the second half shows a lack of appreciation on your part for how the triple option works.
GT only loss this season came when Miami forced them to play from behind by getting off to a fast start. And if the triple option is properly executed, that’s really the only way to beat it.
The reason Tom Osborne’s Nebraska teams were so successful wasn’t just that it ran the triple option better than it had ever been run, but also because the Blackshirts were good enough to prevent their opponents from getting an early lead.
Sure, Foster deserves some criticism for failing to make adjustments once Paul Johnson had put a blocker on Chancellor, but Foster at least had a good game plan, as evidenced by the first-half domination the defense displayed.
Stinespring, on the other hand, had a terrible game plan. He called a halfback run between the tackles on 17 of 43 plays, when that play resulted in a gain of 5+ yards only three times. More damning still, on short yardage situations Stinespring ran the play out of the jumbo set (3 TEs, 1 WR), telegraphing the run and allowing GT to stack the box with – in at least one instanced – all 11 defenders!
The offense and defense did what they could with the game plan they were given and the plays that were called for them. As for the coaches, Foster deserves criticism for not making proper counter-adjustments. But Stinespring completely failed to produce.
Let’s not forget that the majority of the offensive burst in the second half came when VT was in its hurry-up or two-minute offense, in which Tyrod, not Stinespring, calls the plays.
PS – Forget the national championship. I want to see VT go undefeated in conference play once. Just once. To prove it can be done.
You and me both, hon.
Remember, we’re not really looking for a Miami loss, because if GT wins out and Miami loses, we’re SOL. We need AT LEAST one more GT loss. So um…go hoos?
…sorry i just threw up in my mouth.
No, definitely not a Miami loss. I was just referring to GT beating Miami for us in 2005 to send us to the ACC Championship. I’ll be rooting as much as I can possibly root for a UVA win on Saturday. (My brother, the UVA guy, will be so thrilled.)
Illinois Hokie-
You clearly don’t know me, but in the interest of civility (and because I’m not really interested in dragging this out) I’ll shrug off your rather pretentious assumption that I don’t understand the triple option (suffice to say I‘ve spent a little time in and around it). It presents its challenges to a defense just like any other offense, but the idea that if you don’t get out in front early it can’t be beat IF it’s being run properly…well, if by “run properly” you mean “run to perfection” well, obviously that’s true. But it’s also true of just about any offense.
Let me be clear: I’m no Stinespring fan. But “we lost because we didn’t get an early lead” doesn’t carry any more or less weight than “We lost because we had the ball for about five seconds in the second half.”
Football Girl-
I feel your pain. I work in C’ville, and the folks at work were raggin’ on me because I have to pull for the Boo Hoos this weekend.
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