Kyle Tucker Blog

Ok. First, I'm double wall of texting today. So, please everyone scroll down or click here to read hokiej88's article he posted this morning.

I'm posting here because I wanted to respond to Kyle Tucker on his knee-jerk article and his reprimanding of anyone who wants to talk bad about Stinespring. So, here is the response I want to give to Kyle Tucker if his website offered more than 750 characters in response, or if his direct e-mail address were available on his blog site. Kyle, if you read here, I predict you do, please feel free to contact me through the gmail system. Otherwise, everyone, this is my response to Kyle Tucker.
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Kyle, Kyle, Kyle;
Your shortsightedness on the Bryan Stinespring issue is disheartening, considering someone in your position in the industry you work in. Not to mention your former stance on the issue until you were reprimanded by Beamer and Weaver, with the threat of losing your press pass? Your switch midway through last season from Stinespring-detractor to supporter was sudden and swift. We can only assume what occurred. And now, we’re supposed to trust your writings to have all of the integrity of a reporter who writes the true side of every story? Or we’re supposed to just take your flip flop in stride, and not think that *you* are the one reacting in a knee jerk fashion?

You accuse the current anti-Stinespring sentiment to be knee-jerk. That is ludicrous. You yourself were part of a negative Stinespring campaign over the past two seasons. If you really, really, REALLY think that the anti-Stinespring movement is rising up *only* due to the recent loss at GT and at home versus UNC – then you’re REALLY not paying attention and that’s why I said your shortsightedness is disheartening.

The most recent two games, with failed offense and an inability to take advantage of beneficial field position, are not the sole proprietors of an anti-Stinespring movement. They are, however, simply additional FACTS that continue to support our cause. FACTS, you see, not OPINIONS, like numbers, rankings, and statistics. FACTS that prove his inability to coach a respectable offense, over and over and over again. This isn’t a 3-year hiatus from formerly good coaching; this isn’t a bump in the road. This isn’t a knee jerk reaction to two bad games. This is building frustration from years, seasons, and tens of thousands of my personal dollars paying his salary – that have us fed up. Yes, I am taking the literal position that I pay his salary. As a graduate of Virginia Tech, who paid four years tuition and four years for my athletic card – and then a Hokie Club member since 1999 and consecutive year donator to the VTAF – and season ticket holder since 2000 – with him being a state employee at a state university – yes, I’m taking the literal stance that I pay his salary. I am not getting my money’s worth.

I ask you Kyle Tucker, if you were one of 119 writers for a paper (or collection of papers, like if there like an association of press people, see what I did there?), and you had been at your job for 8 years – no comment on whether or not you were qualified to even take over said job 8 years ago. And each year, you got worse at your job. And you were rated by statistics (page views, articles to receive high marks, something that could be measured) to be getting worse. And now, for the last three years, you were so bad that you were rated 99th or worse out of those 119 reporters. And every single year, your statistics got worse; you continually trended in the negative direction.

Would you expect your employer to continue to maintain your employment? Would you expect to continually have your contract renewed, and your income to increase from the $220,000 range to the $240,000 range to the $260,000 range? Would you expect to continue to keep your job based purely on the merits of your loyalty and friendship to your boss? Or would you expect your employer to take steps to find a better replacement for you that is better at that job. I work in Project Management. I can tell you, that when times are tough, companies have to make decisions they don’t like. People are moved, people are cut, contracts are removed with vendors, subcontractors who don’t perform are let go, even if you’re friends and loyal to them. It’s business. And I’m sorry, but major college football, to crest the next level, is business. It’s not a family thing anymore. If we want to surpass previous performance and expectations – we have to start at the top – and there needs to be a culture change to become a *major* college football power. That culture change is for winning, at all costs, means to an end, and sometimes that means letting a friend go. Sometimes that means pulling a friend aside and having the shoulder and neck muscles to say, “Friend, you know I love you, but you’re just not cut out to do this job. You’re just not at a point where we can move forward with you at this job.”

The standard response from Frank Beamer, Billy Hite, and Jim Weaver is always that we’re winning 10 games a year, we’re one of only three teams to have won 10 games for what, five years, in a row now? We’re “just like” and “comparable” to USC and Texas because of this? NO. In recent years, Texas and USC have gotten to hoist a certain crystal football. Why? Because they have the coaches to get it done. And they wouldn’t put up with the horrendous offensive statistics that we do. Look yourself in the mirror and don’t lie here, you truly honestly think the likes of Pete Carroll, Mack Brown, Urban Meyer – would put up with the meager offensive statistics for as long as Frank has. Nay nay I say. In major college football, you get two, maybe three years of a bad hiatus, and you’re out. You don’t get eight years, all trending downward.
I can tell you that we all love Frank Beamer immensely and he has a lifetime pass with us. That pass does not automatically transfer to his subordinates. He has to make a decision, that might hurt loyalty or friendship, which is better for the program. The program, the university, the history of the team, the future of the team – are more important that being “disloyal” one time. It’s unfortunate, but this is business.

Yes, the fliers are a tad immature. Yes, the websites use the word “fire”. Yes, these are tactics to draw attention. I’m sure someone in your position in your industry understands the act of drawing attention to get someone to read the meat of your message. I personally don’t think Bryan should be fired, totally from everything to do with VT football. I don’t think he should not be a part of the Hokies, nor be able to take any credit for their recent success. Win as a team, lose as a team. But, to take our step to the next level, to being a major college football team, we need an offense that can consistently even be ranked in the top half of the nation. And it’s unfortunate, but we need to step back and man-up and have the realization come to fruition, that this cannot happen with Bryan calling the shots on offense.

He’s apparently a helluva recruiter, and a great team coach, a player’s coach. All the players love him (to the point of man-hugging). All of this is good. This is someone you want around your team. But none of these facts make him a valid choice to be your offensive coordinator. None of these facts make him a good offensive scheme creator, or playcaller. How about head recruiter and offensive line coach? Bring in a new coordinator to run the offense. Yes, I realize this means I just cut Newsome, but his line has been getting beat in the trenches too. Newsome is apparently not the recruiter that Bryan is, so he would be the final cut since the number of assistant coaches is limited by the NCAA. (side note: Jim Weaver, I’ll triple my donation for the next 10 years if you hire Kevin Rogers to come back and coach the QBs and become offensive coordinator – Miami tried to hire him last year away from the Vikings but he declined it and they hired Whipple.)

It’s time to man up coaches. It’s time to stop throwing your players under the bus for not executing. It’s time to stop making young and inexperienced excuses. The inexperience is in the offensive coaching booth, not on the field. It’s college football, you’re on a constant revamp of talent, at least at each position every 3 to 4 years, right? It’s not like a cyclical drop or rise in talent to age/experience ratio is a surprise, right? If a once a four-year term with a dip in age and experience is a surprise to a coach, well then I guess he’s coaching at the wrong level of football. You can’t, use this as an excuse, never. You coach through it. I know someone who does, Bud Foster.

These are 18-22 year old kids. They are muscle memory machines. They need to be coached. They are robots. When A happens, I do B. When C happens, I do D. The players not executing is a projection of the coaches. Yes, Ryan Williams fumbled. It was a physical mistake. It happens. I’m not going to say it cost us the UNC game because we should have been downing the ball at that point up 13 because we should have scored 20 in the first half. Yes, Tyrod took some sacks on long developing pass plays. Maybe a mental mistake, maybe a coaching decree to not run, stay in the pocket as long as possible. Either way, coaching problem – your ~20 year old kid wasn’t prepared for a situation. Your fault. You see, you can’t blame Ryan Williams, or Tyrod Taylor, or any other player – because it’s a system, it’s a team, and the fault lies at the top. Quick, name a player who fumbled and cost us a game or one that stayed in the pocket too long in 2003, or 2005, or 2007. Can’t do it. You know why? That was just a kid, that was just a different muscle memory robot, you forgot their name. But I can tell you the name of the offensive coach that didn’t coach him and put him in a position to win, he somehow still has his job.

Over the years when I couldn’t get into Blacksburg for a game, or for away games, I watch them on TV. And yes, we have to sit through broadcasts to include Andre Ware and Jesse Palmer doing our games. Andre Ware, bless his heart and his Heisman Trophy, can’t count to seven or spell “coordinator”, yet somehow ESPN game him a job and lets him do Division 1 games. Even he can predict our offensive plays. He then piles on with enthusiasm when the defense clearly predicted it as well and stopped us for a 3-yard loss. Last week, due to work restraints, I couldn’t travel in for the UNC game. I had to pleasure of watching it on ESPN. That idiot bachelor guy, Jesse Palmer, in one stretch of jokingly-attempting to playcall a couple of our offensive series based on formation, down, and distance – went 80%. He went 8 for 10 predicting our plays. Don’t you think highly paid defensive coordinators of other teams can figure this out with all the game tape too? How must Ryan Williams feel when he gets the ball from Tyrod and there’s 9 guys in his grill, because they all knew exactly where the ball was going.

We run the same six plays out of the same three formations. All day, every day. It’s tiresome. It’s like Super Techmo Bowl from the original Nintendo system, but worse. On that game, there were actually eight plays to choose from. And some of those included misdirection. Or making a play look like another play you run, but doing something different. Don’t we have a playbook with hundreds of plays?

All the critics demand is a variety in playcalling. Turn past page 2 of the playbook on a regular basis. Use the top 10 talent we recruit. The NFL talent. Note: a variety in playcalling is not run middle, run middle, run middle, run middle, run middle, run middle, run middle, run Wild Turkey reverse thrown back double flee flicker. That one odd call does not mean variety. We want a mix up of runs and passes. Change the ratio of runs and passes. Run when you normally pass. Pass when you normally run. Pass in the red zone. Seriously, pass in the red zone.

Call a variety of plays. Call short passes across the middle on first down to the tight end. Call screen passes. Call wide receiver double move routes. Call option plays with someone like Tyrod at the helm. Call some runs delayed, draws, to the same gap you ran a blast a few plays prior. And most of all, for the love of God, call more plays to the wide side of the field and let our talent get in space and make plays. When you run plays to the short side of the field (to include reverses?!?!?!?!??!), any advantage you gained in trickery when they didn’t expect you to run to the short side of the field is immediately lost because there’s a 12th defender over there named sideline.

Just be willing to vary it. And secondly, be willing to admit your plan from Wednesday’s practice isn’t working, and you need to make an adjustment. Week in, week out, we have better talent across the board at every position than our opponents (save certain players on Alabama, Miami, and Nebraska – pretty much all season) – but we can’t score on them because our players are put in disadvantageous positions by the coaches. Even if we’re bigger, better, faster – the other team can stop us if they know where we’re going. Just ask Butch Davis last week, who told the ESPN sideline reporter that they’d be fine on D in the second half because they knew what 4 plays we were running. How embarrassing.

I think what’s lost in all this is that none of us are trying to take any credit away from Bryan for the past successes. Win as a team, lose as a team. But, those successes could have been more, I feel. What if once over the past 8 years, with our top 10 defenses, we sprinkled in one top 25 offense? I don’t think we’d be celebrating a 10 win season. I think we’d be celebrating a 13 win season. I think we’d be celebrating a different bowl berth. So, going forward, I fear we’ve seen the glass ceiling.

With Bryan at the offensive helm, we’ve seen the best he has to offer. And I’m tired of waiting for it to improve. Eight years is plenty of time. So we’ve seen as high as we’ll get. We’ll win 10 games, maybe tiebreaker our way to an ACC championship game. Maybe win that. Get to a BCS game. Maybe win that. Maybe. Not this year. Even though this team is more talented on offense than any of the past 7. And we’re not even going to do that this year.

I am steadily growing in anger at the situation, not knee-jerking to two bad games. I am steadily coming to the realization that Beamer and Weaver are satiated. And I am steadily considering my donation level for the coming future, if Stinespring is retained at the current capacity.
We’re not that trendy new jump-start program any more. We’re not that friendly loyal team that Beamer built from farm boys and mountain men. We’re not sneaking up on people any more with Beamerball. In fact we’re trending downward to the laughing stock of a team that is overrated every year. “They’re not that good, just wait until October.” If we want to take the step to the next level, it needs to start at the top. In the booth. The guy with the headset on who looks flabbergasted and out of place like someone just asked him to spell the square root of disestablishmentarianism.

FBS T-shirts here.