- The loss last night can be attributed mostly to two things. First, our defense was unable to corral the big play. They gave up 9 plays of 20 or more yards... that's just terrible. Our guys made a lot of mental errors and tackled poorly, which is the same reason they lost the games against Boise State and JMU. Where were our safeties on those long running plays by Stanford? They seemed awfully close to the line of scrimmage despite being our last line of defense. What's worse is they were burned by the same kind of cutback lane 3 times and never learned their lesson. Secondly, our offensive line imploded. They were subpar in both run blocking and pass protection. It's tough to write anything positive about the way they played... there were no holes for the running backs to run through and Tyrod was constantly having to sidestep blitzing defenders. The running backs do share in the blame a bit on that second point as they did not do a good job of picking up the blitz.
- There were also some minor contributing factors to the loss. This one is a little more subjective but I think Bryan Stinespring reverted to his old self and got uber-conservative in his play-calling. The offense was having problems running the ball between the tackles, but our boy BS didn't care. He kept calling straight running plays up the gut despite what looked to be a consistent effort to stop the run from Stanford. The few run plays that did seem to work were misdirection plays and option plays, but we didn't see many of those despite their success. With that said, I refuse to believe that the Stanford defense is anything special and I think our standard offense should have been able to create holes if they were playing up to their abilities... they just weren't.
- Tyrod Taylor picked a bad time to have a mediocre game. He wasn't terrible, but for maybe the first time this season, he just didn't have it yesterday. His receivers didn't drop any passes (as far as I can remember), but he was still only slightly over 50% for his completion rate. Tyrod did an exceptional job in sidestepping blitzing defenders throughout the game, but then failed to make throws once that happened. He did make some good passes and did some good things, but didn't show his usual ability to read defenses and determine the right time to pass and the right time to take off and run. His mobility hurt him a couple times where he should have been sacked for a minor loss, but got free and ran backwards only to be eventually sacked 15 yards deeper. But like I said, this was a minor factor.
So that's my review of the problems with our team from last night's game. There were a few bright spots, like Tyrod's scramble and throw to David Wilson for the touchdown, and the special teams doing and exceptional job in picking up on the fake punt. I loved seeing them shut that down. Jarett Boykin made some great plays as well. John Graves had a nice game... probably one of his best of the season.
There are some pieces to build on for next season. 4 of the 5 offensive line starters will be back, and the player being lost is not considered to be talented enough for the NFL (sorry Beau Warren). The group may actually end up being better with Andrew Miller in there at center, but we'll see. They weren't that great this season, so it's tough to imagine they'll be a lot better next season unless they learn to play with a mean streak.
A lot of the Hokies' success hinges on the development of Logan Thomas. He is an impressive athlete and a smart guy, so I think odds are good that he will be at least serviceable. Defensively, there is a lot of talent coming in and a lot of key players coming back.
The coaching staff is likely to look exactly the same, and I think that only hurts us. This staff has been together a long time and seems to have some obvious problems preparing our team for big games. We won't get to see a new offensive coordinator since the VT offense was considered to be very successful this season. So the FireBryanStinespring web site will not be dying any time soon.
I am optimistic about next season for the most part, but I'll be happy to focus on basketball and rest on VT's football laurels for a while.
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