And thank God for that. The Marshall teams from the early 00's are long gone. There's no more Chad Pennington. There's no more Byron Leftwich. There is only Brian Anderson throwing for 116 yards and no scores. I guess you have to hand it to the guy for not throwing an interception, but still, 48% completion is pretty darn bad. On the other hand, Darius Marshall, who possibly chose which college to attend by looking up his own name on the Internet, had a 61 yard run for a touchdown and averaged 6.4 yards per carry against our usually-stout run defense. Marshall (the university) might actually have something with this running back. Their defense on the other hand... disgusting.
Because of Marshall's horrid defense, VT fans need to keep their expectations tempered after this win. We did not come away from this game learning that we are world-beaters. We came away with this game knowing a few things:
1) Our running backs are going to be good. This is, of course, only true if the offensive line is capable of occasionally creating some holes for them to run through against a good defense. However, when you watch Ryan Williams and David Wilson run, you can see that they both have top-end speed, great acceleration, and deceptive power. Wilson broke tackles like he was being hit by a stiff wind. Williams broke more ankles than tackles, and proved that the best way to not get tackled is to not get touched. Josh Oglesby was decent averaging five yards per carry, but all that tells me against a run defense this bad is that he won't be able to muster up much of anything against the Nebraskas and Miamis of the world. Overall, I thought our running backs were the biggest positive from Saturday's game.
2) The defense is going to be dominant once again this season, but the players need more reps. Jake Johnson still made some mental errors and decided to chase some plays instead of staying home in his assignment, as did a few other players. I also think we need to create better pressure on the QB. One sack against Marshall is not great... we probably should have had 4 or 5. I've been disappointed with the pass-rush abilities of Nekos Brown... he just doesn't seem to have any moves to beat the offensive tackles. But otherwise, the defense was fantastic. Our defensive backs shut down the opposing receivers on just about every play. Our linebackers came in and sniffed out most runs before Marshall could get any momentum. Our defensive tackles were busting up the middle of that O-line and I think we've got a very good tackle in Antoine Hopkins. Demetrius Taylor is powerful and a man.
3) Special Teams was unbeatable. The kick and punt return games were both very impressive, and Jayron Hosley looks to be a very dynamic returner. Didn't I say that we should give Hosley a chance in place of Davon Morgan? I'm glad Beamer decided to do that... it makes me look like I know what I'm talking about. By the end of the game, Marshall decided to stop kicking the ball to our returners. Their final kickoff was a short but high kick that was fair-caught by Chris Drager... I assumed they were not interested in seeing what either David Wilson or Dyrell Roberts had left in the tank.
4) Tyrod Taylor is not one of the best QBs in the nation. I'm not even sure he's in the top 50. His accuracy just hasn't come along like we all were hoping it would, and he doesn't seem to have a good sense of when to throw the ball, when to tuck-and-run, and when to just throw the ball away. I'm hoping that more games this season will help him to figure out the quarterback position, but my guess is that when all is said and done, we have a QB who is somewhere between Marcus Vick and Bryan Randall. Ju-Ju Clayton looks to be somewhere between Grant Noel and Nick Sorensen, but I'll give him a free pass as he's still only a freshman.
5) We were able to fine-tune some things and I think we're ready for Nebraska this weekend. Nebraska is historically a run-heavy team, and we are historically a run-killing program, so you have to like our odds if those two things stay true to form. Not to mention this is a 3:30 game on ABC and our fans will be going nuts. I don't think this will be a high-scoring game, at all, but I do think we will win by 7+ points.
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