North Carolina @ # 14 Virginia Tech: (ORANGE EFFECT)

TV Coverage: ESPN 7:3opm
Announcers: Chirs Fowler, Craig James, Jessie -the hair- Palmer, and EA working the sidelines
Vegas Line: UNC+16.5 O/U=TBR

11 days off is no bad thing. My personal depth-chat is riddled with “tic-marks” and flat-out scratch-outs for Chicago Maroon names that are done for 2009. With said extra practice time (despite two canceled practices); you will see the best that the 2009 VT football Staff has to offer this Thursday night in Lane Stadium down on Worsham Field. The question that remains unanswered is … just how high is this 2009 pigskin O&M ceiling? Youth or inexperience has not helped in a couple of spots, and there are even some highly trusted sources who suggest to me that we are simply down on raw Coach God talent in a couple of key positions. Thus leading to a play on words borrowing on the colloquialism of “Bud lite” to describe the 2009 VT defense.

Be that as that be, I fully expect our best Coaching effort this Thursday night down in the New River Valley. Virginia Tech always has that one or two games in a year when it all seems to come together. Good offense, great defense and special teams. This year however, that is likely code for a good defense with a great offense and special teams. Will that be enough vs. a very rock solid UNC defense?

UNC Top-1o:

1. One-hundredth. Or 100th in Time of Possession for UNC thus far on the year. Only france is worse (109th) out of teams that we play. Which gives our 2009 defense a chance for some much needed rest.
2. Second! As in UNC is 2nd in Tackles for a Loss (TFL) on the year! Look for UNC to play in the VT backfield on Thursday night.
3. Third. As in UNC has only put up 20 points in the 3rd Quarter this season.
4. Zero. Four letters that perfectly describe the number of UNC wins vs. VT since VT joined the A.C.C. (0-5 overall if you need ‘em).
5. Five point six two. As in former gun-slinging UNC Qb Yates is down to a lowly 5.62 per pass attempt on the year. About half of T-mobile (9.78) for comparisons sake.
6. -6.5. As in UNC is on pace to finish with a -6.5 or worse Turnover Margin on the year; marking the 6th time in the last 7 years UNC has been negative in that all important vital (or statistic).
7. Seventeen. Meaning UNC is 17-34 on the road in their last 10 seasons. Hawk and Animal or Road Warriors the T.Heels basically are not.
8. Eighth. Meaning VT is 8th in Pass Efficiency Defense. We are indeed Defensive-Back U!
9. Nine. As in 9 times this year Coach Butchie has either gone for it or faked it on 4th down. They have converted 7 of those 9 4th down attempts. Bonus: VT is 91% at home in their last 10 years!
10. Could not find an epic 10. So how about this, thanks to unscripted T.Heel OLine departures 33 post-spring UNC returning OLine starts have left, which leaves UNC with only 33 remaining. That (now) ranks UNC as the … wait for it … 10th least experienced OLine in the whole darn A.C.C.

UNC offensive X’s and O’s:
Several trends start to jump out at you beyond the midway point in any given season when you construct a template for Team analysis. The metric that stands out here is the decline of the UNC passing attack in the month of October; and do bear in mind that the 2009 UNC passing attack was never great to begin with thanks to so many Professional pass-catching departures. That said, when you are down to only a paltry 118 yards passing per game in your last three games you are on a … well … Virginia Tech level of throwing the football. The caveat would be the T.Heel running-attack. If that were epic enough than all passing bets are off.

UNC however is only 85th in rushing behind one of the softer zone-blocking finesse oriented schemes you will ever see this side of Pee-Wee football. Seriously; the product name Charmin comes to mind when I watch the UNC OLine. The next person they truly hit will be the first. Though they do actually have at least two and possibly closer to three juxtaposed powerful Running-Backs (Rb’s) trying to do work behind such a pitter-patter OLine. Draughn has five 100 yard rushing days while splitting time during his last two seasons. He’s a former Safety that has had another five games north of 84 yards on top of that. That said, he also has been smothered by physical brute force defensive front-7’s to the tune of five more games in which he got snuffed out and held south of 3o yards rushing. Then there is the Brahma bull in cleats otherwise know as Mr. Ryan Houston who is listed at 245 lbs. though he plays like he is closer to 260. Ryan has 16 touchdowns on only 665 career yards rushing. Meaning Ryan is tough to stop close to the goaline. Then there is Greg Little who always seems to play well vs. Virginia Tech and who is UNC’s leading pass-catcher this year though he is now seeing time at both Wide Receiver (Wr) and at Rb.

The problem here is not at Qb, nor at Rb. The problem primarily lies in a OLine and said OLine’s wimpy Zone-Blocking scheme that only sports one possible conference all-star candidate (Kyle Jolly, blindside Offensive Tackle or b-Ot) outta the entire two-deep. Now compound fracture all of that with a starting Center (Lowell Dyer) who calls out all of UNC’s zone-blocking schemes being out since o9.12 with a bum shoulder and then the “thank you but no thank you” news from former starting Left-Guard (Left-G) Aaron Stahl who picked up his sky-blue diploma and said peace-out to UNC electing to not play football post graduation his senior year. Now throw in (pardon the pun) over 2,1oo yards worth of graduated pass catchers and you can easily riddle out just why UNC is only ranked 5th from last in Total Offense. UNC employs a blizzard of offensive formations. K.I.S.S. may be some of what is wrong here with so many new OLine and Wide Receiving parts.

For you pure arm-chair Qb’s, former players or Coaches:

• You will see shot-guns,
• single-Back sets,
• Trips,
• motion all over the place,
• misdirection,
• trickeration,
• pulling of each Guard,
• whatever.
• The UNC playbook is think indeed and not many plays in it collect much in the way of dust.

That said … all of this conspires to tell me that Bud has his most favorable match-up in front of him this Thursday night. Yates has amassed (pardon the play on words) 211 rushing on his Chapel Hill football career. No, wait, make that -211 yards in reverse while being Sacked; in fact Yates is one of the few A.C.C. Qb’s who is less elusive than Sean Glennon was. There is planted like a tree, then there was Sean, then there are statues, and then there is T.J. Yates.

This means that Bud can bully Yates and the UNC offense just as much as he damn well pleases. UNC does not protect Yates real well (83rd in Sacks allowed) and Yates has nearly nobody to throw to. I really like this match-up to favor the O&M stop-unit in no small way. So much so that I have spawned a match-up scale to give you some numerical objectivity regarding my comfort level in X’s and O’s evaluation…

This scale will be ranked from 0 to 10, 0=worst match-up for VT, 10=best match-up for VT, with 5 being middle of the road. (Match-Up Index for the UNC Offense, 8.75 or very much in favor of VT)

UNC defensive X’s and O’s:
The T.Heel defense or stop-unit is another matter. They are actually pretty good. Very solid up-front in fact which makes for a very interesting match-up for us/VT. Well, if they are not Seminole hungover and still playing FSU that is…

• 7th in Total Defense overall
• only allowing a parsimonious 2.4 per rush in their last 3 games
• or only 81 total yards rushing per game over those same 3 most recent contests!
  

  Nice stop-unit folks!

I do not care who UNC has played or not played; that is not half bad when it comes to brick-walling opposing rushing attacks in the finest Cask of Amontilla sense. UNC is good up-front and it all starts with future N.F.L. specimen sized Defensive End (De) one Rob Quinn; who has 7 Sacks and 12 Tackles for a Loss. Combined they add up to 125 yards in reverse or about a Touchdown and a chip-shot FGA worth of field position lost. Now mix in the 3rd ranked Defensive Tackle out of High School (M.Austin) and his shotgun ridding buddy in the middle who was 30th ranked himself (C.Thomas). In their second-layer (i.e. Linebackers, or Lb’s) UNC enjoys no less than 100% all-conference quality candidates playing shoulder-to-shoulder, a stellar three-of-a-kind. B.Carter, Quan “where is my career praise?” Sturdivant and 4.3 forty running Zac Brown are about as disruptive as they come. UNC might even be stacked with three Pro’s there folks.

For you pure Defensive arm-chair Coordinators:

• UNC runs a base 4-3
• with more than the normal pre-snap movement
• not much in the way of Blitzing
• pretty fair amount of both Safeties splitting deep deep coverage or Cover-2
• which leaves lanes for Slants and Quick-In’s underneath in the middle of the field
• which also leaves about 15 yard Flag Patterns towards the sideline in front of the deep playing UNC Db’s open at times.
• On obvious running plays UNC will cheat their Strong Safety (Ss) up morphing into a hybrid 4-4 look. That is the one time to try to throw long on the T.Heels.
• UNC will also shift into a 5-2 or even a Sixty-Two non-stack in short-yardage plays.

The Carolina secondary is a bit small at Cornerback; so look for some isolation for our taller Wr’s on jump-balls downfield. The UNC Safeties are 8th and 13th in tackles respectively for the season. This tells you two smart things; first the UNC front-7 is making plenty of stops and UNC has some real live depth up-front as well.

When you crunch the numbers you go sober in a hurry; even if you do not drink. As I mentioned above, UNC is 2nd in Tackles for a Loss with 63 on the year and 37th in Qb’s Sacked with 17 of those. When you tally all of that backfield penetration up it comes out to a staggering 378 yards in favor or UNC knocking opposing offense’s backwards. WOW! (Match-up Index for the UNC defense, 3.75 or somewhat in favor of UNC)

Conclusions, illation, and prediction:
The X-factor or wild-card will be … how will UNC respond emotionally after such a hurtful late game 3-24 the wrong way scoring deluge in favor of the Seminoles who stole one right in UNC’s backyard? 1980’s Noxzema jersey’s, L.T. and Julius Peppers on the sidelines and a national made for TV audience not withstanding; UNC unraveled just like I do whenever I see tall brunette Dutch girls with blue-eyes. Like Kayne West does when the Hennessy has him. Like Greg Norman did not once but twice at the Master’s.

My UNC sources tell me that Coach Butch Davis had viewed his FSU game as his showcase coming-out party to prove that UNC could not only play with but also beat the A.C.C. big-boys on the ESPN national stage. All UNC showed me was a first day of puberty home-alone and fully confused Peter Brady while Marcia was away at cheerleading practice. It could only have been worse if Alice the no-surname maid had walked in and ruined Peter for life.

That is about where I see UNC. They sure expended more than a few mental and physical bullets vs. FSU on ESPN last Thursday night. They did get beat; coming from ahead 24-6 to choke. Nevertheless, they did indeed play their asses off in terms of efforting and hustle. You can not fault that part of their game. Though I firmly posit that that will leave a powder-blue mark on their collective psyche. I also see a VT football team that should be a bit healthier for the first time since right before the Nebraska game. Such tells me that we/VT will finally play a bit faster; be a bit more explosive than we were for Georgia Tech. Thursday nights in Lane Stadium tend to do that to Tech team’s, 11 days and having fresh legs for it will tend to amplify all of that. IF UNC is able to quickly put their FSU debacle behind them, they do have the defense and kicking game -25th in Punting, 28th in Punt returns- to mess with Virginia Tech in a low scoring ugly Thursday night game. However, I do like the aforementioned TOP ranking for UNC (see Top-1o) and the fact that the T.Heels are a lowly 1o9th best in converting 3rd downs.

Thursday nights in Lane are sooooo off the hook because ... of more tailgating time with the later kickoff. Nighttime is the right time. of national TV exposure amps the team up and raises their level of play. Other. (tell us why Lane is so killer good on Thursday nights below) View Results  Loading ...

Then there is this…

…check VT out Home inside the always friendly and always bouncing confines of an Enter Sandman fueled Lane Stadium. Can you say Day and Night?

Can you say “MUCH BETTER IN LANE”? Dang. Most teams are a bit better at home. Less risk adverse; buoyed by their hometown crowd, maybe even a favorable benefit of the doubt call(s) from the zebras. Though, not quite on ^that^ level is my experience. So that is no small asset in our favor sports fans. Neither is the fact that the UNC offense plummets by 80 or so yards per game while their defense loosens up by about 35 yards per game. When you add it all up, that which favors VT at home and disfavors UNC as the visitor you get a net 232.1 yards to the Land Stadium good in favor of VT! WOW!

I’m not feeling any more of this deflating GT Chopped us down (right or wrong), our MNC bubble just illegally went “pop”  crap. What’s done is done. As such, I’ve noticed in life that self-pity or feeling sorry for myself typically only hurts one person. That would be me. That said, I am however feeling tricky as it is late in October; and that means that it is about time for all of these tricky to assemble 2009 O&M pieces to finally align in the finest Gestalt Theory fashion for a Thursday night Hokie football game that is greater than the sum of its O&M parts. That my friends is code for the fact that the nonpareil loyal Hokie Nation is finally in for a National TV treat.
Virginia Tech=26, UNC=8

“LETS GO!”

“HOKIES!”

b’street

Happy Hokie Halloween!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 6:26 pm and is filed under VT Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.