Starting with the offense (the defense will appear on the front page shortly), looking at what went wrong in the Carrier Dome:
Overall offense
The Hokies seemed to outthink themselves with the gameplan in the first half, and by the second half, they were playing catch-up (even after they tied the game) making things tough for personnel to execute.
They didn’t adjust to Syracuse loading the box and blitzing run, instead being content to dive into eight-and nine-man fronts, and jet sweeps against an undersized-but-athletic Syracuse defense wasn’t a good adjustment. Bubble screens often draw the ire of college football fans, but the coaches opted not to throw them to trips receivers with only two defenders over them, which could have not only gone for big yardage, but also slowed down Syracuse’s tendency to send the house.
Sweeps against defensive sets with two men on the line of scrimmage outside the tackle are tough to execute, even with pulling guards, and Virginia Tech didn’t do anything to back off the defense and change that.
Once the coaches did adjust, the team started running out of gas (though that was a bigger issue on defense), and then they went extreme catch-up mode to early, with more than seven minutes left and just a one-score deficit, going for deep passes after the defense had just been ground down.
On the early fourth down failure, the coaches had timeouts remaining, but didn't salvage a play that seemed doomed to fail, when the players were racing the play clock just to get the snap off. That would have been a good chance to calm the team down, set the tone, and pick up the conversion, possibly changing the outcome of the game.
QB
Jerod Evans didn’t have his best day, though until late, he was probably good enough to win the game. He was lucky on his first long pass, to fullback Steven Peoples, because it looks like the pass was intended for Cam Phillips (who didn’t think it was coming).
Evans’ short accuracy was iffy at times, and VT really needed him to execute. He short-hopped a couple throws in zone windows with his team running all-curls – a quick-hitter to slow down the pass rush and make the defense play coverage a bit – and his receivers didn’t always do a great job helping him out. To be fair to them, they did an outstanding job saving him on plays where he had no business completing a pass.
We also saw something that we’re used to by now: slightly overthrowing receivers deep. He outpaced Peoples on one well-designed screen fake, and overshot Isaiah Ford on a couple occasions (though one of those may have been on the receiver). The longer a throw is, the tougher it is to be accurate, obviously, and he’s generally not putting those in the areas where a defender can get them. On a better day, a couple of them hit, and we’re feeling very different this week.
Where Evans was pretty good, though not as good as Dungey, was scrambling. With his skillset, he’s comfortable tucking and running when the opportunity presents itself. He’s capable of making guys miss in the open field (as he did a couple times). He also made some mistakes in that phase of the game though, physically or mentally. He got spooked when trying to break contain and finding a defender there, which led to his interception and a couple instances where he ran out of bounds for a short loss – whereas we saw Dungey pull a play out of his hat, or at least get rid of the ball for no lost yardage.
Prior to the Hokies’ first failed fourth down, he had a big hole (like a 38-yard touchdown, potentially) on third down, but slipped trying to cut to the hole. You’d rather he see that running lane, sure, but he has to be able to hit it, as well. On the fourth down play, Evans audibled to s speed option to the short side of the field against a nine-man box, and both he and his running back started moving before the snap (which barely beat the play clock). With timeouts in his pocket, that probably would have been a good time for Fuente to use one to settle the team.
Late in the game, when Syracuse backed off defensively a bit instead of playing the run, Evans got a little antsy in terms of trying to force plays or feeling pressure that wasn’t there. When the team went down by a score in the fourth (after the comeback), he perhaps tried to do a bit too much – though part of that could have been the plays called.
