After our win against UVA, and watching BC hang on to defeat Maryland this past Sat, my mind shifted to VT's most recent game against Boston College. As I am sure many of you remember, VT's defense almost single handedly won us that game up in Chestnut Hill by creating turnover after turnover and taking to the house 2 (should have been 3) pick 6s. However, our offense could literally do nothing right that game. Tyrod had one long scramble, wrs dropped passes, OL missed blocks or fell down, and the well coached and very talented front 7 of the BC defense completely shut down our offense.
Our offensive coaches tried to blame most of the offense's problems that night on execution, but I am one of those intellectual football fans that believes that a team can win a game long before the game is even played. Yes, I am talking about gameplanning and scheming through film study to come up with a way to surprise the other team and put yourself in a position to take advantage of opportunities throughout the course of a given game. Unfortunately, Bryan Stinespring's gameplan for the BC game earlier in the season was not designed to take advantage of BC's weaknesses (BC's weakness on defense is its secondary) and our offenses' strengths. Going into the game, it was obvious from watching BC play many times before on tv that BC has 2 of the best defensive tackles in the country in BJ Rajii and Ron Brace. They are definitely the best defensive tackle combo in the ACC, perhaps the best pair of defensive tackles in all of college football, and the college football equivalent of the once dynamic duo of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Marcus Stroud and John Henderson, or the Vikings current pairing of Pat and Kevin Williams. Both of their defensive tackles will be playing on Sundays next season. It is literally almost impossible to run right at them up the middle. Many have tried and have failed. Even our beloved Bud Foster called Brace and Rajii a pair of "war daddys" in an interview prior to the game and said how they were going to be a nightmare for us to try and block. Yet, what did our inept OC, Bryan Stinespring, try to do most of the night? How about run right at them??!@##! Oh, he tried a few option plays, some token passes and a handful of runs outside the tackles, but the majority of plays we ran were runs between the tackles right into the strength of the BC defense right up the middle! And, guess what happened? How about the offense (predictably) got dominated by a highly ranked BC defense! I remember watching most of the game as our 3 starting interior OL, Nick Marshman, Ryan Shuman and Sergio Render struggled all night to block the 2 BC monsters in the middle on any play. And that is 3 OL trying to block 2DL.
But, fear not fellow Hokies for Bryan Stinespring has a chance to redeem himself (you know I am exaggerating right?) thanks to Bud Foster's defense getting us back to the ACCCG. Bryan Stinespring will need to come up with a much better gameplan for the VT offense to have a chance to be successful moving the ball and putting points on the board against a very good BC defense. But, one of the major keys to the game in my humble opinion is going to be Bryan Stinespring's ability to come up with a better gameplan! Our offense's success will be contingent on a better game plan compared to the previous one Bryan Stinespring used against BC. I am tired of Stiney using lack of execution by his players as an excuse! That is not really our offense's major problem, at least not the last time we played BC. It is time for him to step up and design a creative and attacking gameplan that will take advantage of BC's weaknesses on defense! And, because I want Bryan Stinespring to have some success on Saturday, I will help him out with a few suggestions on offense and hope he reads this or one of friends in Blacksburg is kind enough to pass the advice along to him. So without further delay, here are my suggestions for what type of gameplan VT's offense should implement on Sat in the ACCCG:
1) Run more option plays- Let's get Tyrod and Darren "Diesel" Evans out on the edge of the defense! No defensive tackles there!
2)Run Darren Evans outside the tackles- Our WRs have improved greatly as blockers since the season has gone along and we should be trying to run sweeps and tosses outside. BC has very good LBs, but I would rather make their 2 DTs run a lot all night laterally along the line of scrimmage in order to make plays. I think we can wear them down and tire them out by making them run excessively.
3) If we are going to run between the tackles, only run off tackle and pull a guard or center and let's run at their DEs instead because their d ends are nothing special (thanks for the suggestion JG)!
3) Lots of Wild Turkey with Greg Boone, but let's make most of the runs outside the tackles instead! Stiney, you can try a run or two right up the middle and see if Boone has any luck getting through the wall, but i would not count on that happening... Oh, and btw I loved Boone trying that pass out of the Wild Turkey, but let's call a shorter pass for Boone to complete this game before we try a bomb...
4) Rolling Tyrod Taylor out a LOT more on passing plays. Moving the pocket will give our OL an advantage and buy some time for Tyrod. It will also create more throwing lanes for him since he is not too tall and the BC defensive tackles are also both good pass rushers and we don't want them just pinning their ears back and rushing straight ahead on passing plays. Trust me, that did not work earlier in the season when we played them!
5) Getting Darren Evans and our TEs, Greg Boone and Andre' Smith, a lot more involved in the passing game! Let's get Evans out in the flats and throw him the ball. Get him the ball in space and let him make plays. The kid is fantastic with the ball in his hands. Why not throw it to him 4-5 times a game?? Can I beg you, Stiney, for 1-2 RB screens or even a TE screen with Boone?? Seriously though, we need to throw more to our TE.
