I watched the game again and felt quite different from two days ago when the result of the game was still pending. Our defense actually stopped Pitt's offense in most of their possession. Maybe the worst case were when they went to the 2-minute drill and suddenly change from rushing to quick passing. Bud's defense didn't adjust very well there. Other than that, I think it's OK for our defense to give up a few big plays while maintain control in most of others. Particularly, after the 29-29 tie, our defense only gave up one scoring drive, which came after 3 three and out drives by Pitt. Guys, that's not bad. The game was so close, because our red-zone offense didn't shine, not because our defense was bad.
Bud's defense was not bad in the Pitt game
- Thread starter DesperateHokieFan
- Start date
My frustrations were with the rushing yards we gave up in the middle. Too many times their RB's were able to gain big chunk of yardage in the middle and that went on all throughout the game. We never fixed that. We would have easily lost this game if it weren't for the fact that their team started so slow in the first half.
I think people are too used to the idea of "if they got more than 20 points, we are gonna lose." mentality in the Beamer era. I agree this was not a game won by defense. If Cam didn't get us the tough 1st down at the end, we may end up with losing. However, this defense gave our offense plenty of chances to win. Those 3-&-out are precious. It kept their defense in the field for long time. If the record setting 6 FG has half or 1/3 turn to TD, the game would feel totally different.
Yes, we did give up 36 points, 5 TDs, but some of them were really earned by the Pitt offense. They became quite creative when got stuck in the whole first quarter. Throw back to QB, Offensive Tackle TD, and they did have a monster RB named Conner plus some big ugly in the offensive line who refused to give up a sack. I think Bud may want to modify his strategy in the 2-min drill situation. We gave up points too easy there. Other than that, I'm OK with this defense.
Yes, we did give up 36 points, 5 TDs, but some of them were really earned by the Pitt offense. They became quite creative when got stuck in the whole first quarter. Throw back to QB, Offensive Tackle TD, and they did have a monster RB named Conner plus some big ugly in the offensive line who refused to give up a sack. I think Bud may want to modify his strategy in the 2-min drill situation. We gave up points too easy there. Other than that, I'm OK with this defense.
That 2 min drill drive was all simple square-in routes that were all wide open.
You can't run a defense where one of the basic building block plays of football that have been around for 100 years don't have a defender within 10 yards of the receiver over and over and think that something wasn't badly broken with the scheme. My local pee-wee team can cover a basic square-in route.
Also, we're now 3/4ths of the way through the season...so at what point in time is the secondary going to figure out what they're doing well enough to stop with the blown coverages? And at what point will the players be taught that hitting a 240 pound running back up around the shoulder pads is bad technique? Again, my local pee-wee team has better tackling fundamentals than that.
You can't run a defense where one of the basic building block plays of football that have been around for 100 years don't have a defender within 10 yards of the receiver over and over and think that something wasn't badly broken with the scheme. My local pee-wee team can cover a basic square-in route.
Also, we're now 3/4ths of the way through the season...so at what point in time is the secondary going to figure out what they're doing well enough to stop with the blown coverages? And at what point will the players be taught that hitting a 240 pound running back up around the shoulder pads is bad technique? Again, my local pee-wee team has better tackling fundamentals than that.
It was not a great Defensive performance but the D did step up in some key situations. I think bud picked his poison He was determined to keep everything in between the tackles. They just so happen to have one of the best inside RB's in college football. They kept running running off tackle right on the opposite side of our whip. But Bud rather have Connor maybe get lose for a first down, than the fast WR take a jet sweep to the house. It is good to finally have an offense that can win games like this though. No matter how good your defense is there will be times when you have to keep up in a shoot out.
Nah, it was bad. Sorry, but when you're giving up over 8 yards per play, there's no real way to excuse it. Our secondary has been giving up big plays quite a bit this year, and even our front 7 got pushed around and let Conner run wild. Too many big plays, too many yards, and too many points. We should have won this game comfortably, and it wasn't just the offense's troubles in the red zone but Bud's defense was not up to snuff, and really hasn't been that spectacular this year.
My concern is that we didn't pressure the QB that much. The offensive blocking was really good and we didn't get much penetration. I think there was a lot of holding in this game that was not called just like the pass interference calls were lacking.
Our D was not good in this game. Hokiemtc said it well so I won't repeat it. Our OC called an atrocious game trying to run against an 8 and 9 man front. He finally figured this out but it coast us a ton of points. Our biggest blessing in this game was when the Pitt OC called three horrible plays on their last possession (a three and out). Their QB was passing well and we could not stop their RB. He tries running the corner twice (a play that had not worked all nite) and one other jackass play and punted. They run and pass they likely kill us. Our guys gave their all but in this case they needed help from our OC who should have had that game iced early.
I cannot cosign on the idea that yielding 36 points and 458 yards of offense, many coming on a few big plays, wasn't bad defense. Was it the worst defensive performance we've ever seen? Of course not. But let's not say it was acceptable... because it wasn't. Bud wouldn't say it was an OK performance, I know that for sure.
To be more specific, if Tech were to surrender 36 points on only 300 yards of total offense, that would suggest that external factors played a big role, such as turnovers giving the other team a short field. Conversely, if the Hokies only yielded 20 points on 458 yards of offense, it would likely suggest that Virginia Tech was able to turn the opponent over and/or shut down drives in the red zone (as Pitt did to Tech). Either of those cases is understandable to a degree and would not necessitate a significant amount of scrutiny... but giving up significant yardage AND points tells me that out team was not as defensively sound as they should have been -- and that is amplified when you see how many plays the Pitt offense ran. They averaged 12.1 yards per pass and 5.6 yards per rush!!! That isn't anything other than bad!
I cannot cosign this either. You can't have the 15th ranked total defense at this point in the season without having some impressive defensive performances. Yes, the D has yielded too many big plays... but part of that is personnel related, part of it is slow adjustments by coaches, and some of it is the sheer fact that some units provide a terrible matchup for our D. Overall Tech's defense has performed well this year. Absolutely dominating in a few games, very good in a couple of others, and average to poor in two. It's statistically better than 113 other defenses out there...
Eh. If you average out our FBS opponents, they're about 60th in total offense. UNC is kind of a wash, because we played them in a monsoon. Bud has out-schemed Fedora before, so I don't think it's just the weather (still would have won going away, IMO), but it was a historic game in terms of low output for UNC and that did factor in. ECU is 13th overall, and even though they're not from a power conference, that's probably our best overall effort defensively under normal playing conditions.
My concern is more that Pitt gashed us on the ground -- going about a half yard over their average of 5 ypc, while doing serious damage through the air as well. Tennessee is by no means a spectacular offense, but their ypc against us well above their average as well and they were also extremely efficient through the air with short fields. Even Syracuse's god-awful run offense was slightly above its average. None of these statistics are necessarily alarming, taken alone, but considering our defense has given up over 450 yards on average our last 3 games, and around 30 points, it does show a trend, IMO, and I do think teams are learning to scheme better. As far as big plays, we've given up 33 20+ yards or more plays, which is about average nationally. Going further, though, we've given up 20 plays of 30 yards or more, 82nd nationally, and to me that is troubling.
The things you mention in regards to personnel and defensive adjustments can't just be waved away, because those are parts of the scheming, preparation and evaluation processes important to fielding top defenses. Our defensive recruiting has been hit-or-miss to dreadful in recent years, and it has hurt us a lot on the field -- particularly up front and with our linebackers in terms of depth and health. I think that's happening to an extent again this year as the season has worn on.
So, yeah, you are definitely right that our defense has been good, and prior to the Syracuse game I might not hesitate to call it spectacular even. But the last few games have me somewhat concerned, and I stand by my statement that they have not been particularly spectacular this year -- especially against decent offensive competition.
I think we had a couple of key injuries on the d-line. This is very significant as we did not get hardly any penetration. Pitt had all night to pass and they are not known for being a good passing team. I agree with you to some extent as we do not have much depth anywhere. Lose a couple of key players and there is a huge loss of experience and talent to make up.
Maybe one of the things that are causing the multiple long gains against the D is with our sped up offense, the D is having to play more downs too. I don't have the numbers but the style of our O in the past also sometimes helped cover up our Definciencies(pardon the pun). The game would stay close and we could try to go all out in the end to stop a game winning drive, even though in the later years, we couldn't hold.
The biggest thing that stands out, especially in the Pitt game, and at times in the Cuse game, is our inability to get to the QB at times. Duke will be a challenge because they are like Pitt and have always seemed to give us fits. Look for a lot of QB runs, something hard for us to stop this year. If we can bring the pressure, I think we can be successful.
The biggest thing that stands out, especially in the Pitt game, and at times in the Cuse game, is our inability to get to the QB at times. Duke will be a challenge because they are like Pitt and have always seemed to give us fits. Look for a lot of QB runs, something hard for us to stop this year. If we can bring the pressure, I think we can be successful.
We go for a season high in yardage...and our OC called an "atrocious game"???? Get out of here man you are delusional. It takes time and mistakes to figure out the ebbs and flows of the game. It took us the first half. Even when it wasn't the greatest they couldn't stop us until they got us in the red zone. Second half was lights out. Far from atrocious
Points is the only stat that matters, and the OC called 6 trips into the red zone without TDs. That's pretty bad.
It's a good thing that we had that many trips into the red zone (where the yardage came from), but we have to finish those drives with better play calling. The calls got better in the 2nd half, but we left so many points on the field in the 1st half via bad calls that we were lucky it didn't cost us the game outright.
Yeah. I said in another post i can not stand these people on here criticizing our OC, or the O play calling.. Not me.. I am grateful we have who, and what we have right now. Red zone has not been a problem for us at all this year until the Pitt game. They just did a good job on us, sometimes the Defense wins that is just how it is. Just like running the ball. I do not blame a Run call here and there to maybe pop one through since the pass is what is expected. I like the job our O is doing this year because I have watched a horrible O system the past decade. We had 3 receiver with over 100 yards, and a QB with 400 yards passing.... I don't think he called that bad of a game. But Our Run game is very weak we should be able to line up on anyone and just run it in the redzone.
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