Second-half was not all-bad. Though our road home from here now looks a bit tougher than I had forecasted way back in August.

@ ECU
@ Maryland
State
@ france

Suddenly our closing docket does not look as inviting as it did right after Boston College. Suddenly we are knee deep in our own O&M blood as the 3 L 2009 Hokie ship continues to take on water. How much damage did UNC do to our collective psyche?

I do not know about you; though I am v-e-r-y curious to see how our Staff and our baller’s respond to this much adversity.

You just do not learn as much about people when then win.

You learn a whole helluva a lot more about folk when the get beat.

Looks like school is in session this Thursday night down in Greenville. Yet lets take a closing look at the final 30 minutes of play from last Thursday night in Lane and see if anything from UNC suggests anything to us regarding our ECU chances. Then lets hope that we are not operating under TMI (too much information).

3rd Quarter 14:12 remaining:
Chop-blocks ain’t all on Gah.Tech folks. See the UNC Wr cutting Virg’ down to size at the top-right of my pic? That’s 4 uncalled in this game and I am only at the 51% mark of my film-study. (big PIC link)

3rd Quarter 12:57 remaining:
Watch DeChris #62. He does exactly what you teach in practice on #40 . He keeps right on “chopping his feet” and slowly but indeed surely moves the UNC Middle Linebacker (MLb) about 6 yards off the line-of-scrimmage (LOS) after pulling downward and then turning up the gut; and how odd is that kinda Fold-Block? A+ efforting from DeChris who did not have a good nite; though he was nails on this play.

3rd Quarter 10:56 remaining:
How many men are you supposed to have on the LOS? I’m pretty sure that 3 is not enough. We

got lucky here, as our right-side grade-school looking airplane wing went uncalled; as did our 3 Wr’s; 0 of whom are on the LOS. 2009 has not been an epic coaching year at VT folks.

3rd Quarter 10:17 remaining:
Respect on R.Will before he is gone folks. Dood broke 6 different ankles on this play with a series of shake-n-bake 1970’s stylized moves and just look at the balance -which requires not only tremendous lower-body strength; it also mandates enormous coordination- that R.Will professionally showcases on this play! Also behold the 3Q 9:20 remaining run and the breathtaking 36o spin that finishes by R.Will knocking the UNC Fs on his ass; and R.Will was not even going full-speed! (big PIC link)

3rd Quarter 9:54 remaining:
This is a truly gutless play by Brooksy on the attempted roll-up of #94 downfield. This is trying to hurt somebody folks. Nothing more, nothing less. This is the worst I’ve seen outta a Hokie since Grove at wvu late in the 4th Quarter in 2003. And I am being polite in my choice of language at this time.  (big PIC link)

3rd Quarter 7:05 remaining:
Watch poor B.War’s nite come to a crashing end as his left-leg goes down for the count. B.War gets over-powered up top as you can see in the pic; this leads to his lower-body corkscrewing below which is bad enough. However; when Brooks gets knocked into you while you are defenseless from you right; you get hurt. That is also code for Via must get better in a hurry or maybe, just maybe, we see Serg’ at Center vs. ECU.

This is NOT a pretty pic! You have been warned. Look closely at just how far B.War is bending. Those are his arm’s pointing upwards of all the nasty looking things. Which gives you an idea of how far out of pronate alignment his lower body was.  Now imagine the amount of torque or the bending-moment his lower-body was taking on this play?!? (big PIC link)

3rd Quarter 7:04 remaining:
WAR you can’t coach Hite!!! Or maybe you can? Propers to Coach Hite for crossing UNC’s mental wires up as 98.6% of the time -all things being normal- you follow the VT Fullback in motion from the broken T on the goalline and you follow the play. “Not so fast my friends!” T-Mobile runs right and may or may not have fumbled right on the goaline. You be the (line) judge. (big PIC link)

3rd Quarter 4:46 remaining:
Poor ‘Quell. Dood gets lit-up by over 6oo lbs. of UNC on this play and totally pancaked for it! (big PIC link)

3rd Quarter 3:36 remaining:
Poor Virg’ gets trap-blocked by the pulling L-Guard of UNC. ’nuff typed.

3rd Quarter 2:34 remaining:
‘Quell gets some get-back on this play as he really pops Houston #32 upstairs at the end of this run. I’ve noticed this before … ‘Quell hits much harder when ‘Quell is unaccounted for; which tells my Sports Psych background more than a little.

3rd Quarter 2:11 remaining:
Watch the punkish move by Little who belittles the undersized Cody Grimm after the nice TD throw and

nice recognition by Yates who was 91% in the 2nd-half. Little even goes “big” Ben Wallace and does a double bicep pump on the 200 lb. Cody. Should have been one flag for taunting; possibly two.

4th Quarter 14:14 remaining:
#67 Via tries to take out #52’s right-knee on this play with the yet again catty looking cut-block downfield. In fact, I am so sick of looking at this both for and against all year long; from here on out … no more Chop-Blocks (2 on 1), no more Cut-Blocks (1 on 1) … from here on out these are all “cat-blocks”. You get the play on words don’tcha? (big PIC link)

P.S.A. LINK! Please help if you have any information. Thank you.

4th Quarter 11:53 remaining:
Did the football break the Orange Line leading edge of the Goalline? I don’t know? (big PIC link)

4th Quarter 8:32 remaining:
See #2 Morg’ holding his head/neck after this hit on the UNC Tight End (Te)? Always see what you hit. (big PIC link)

4th Quarter 2:07 remaining:
If the O&M bow bursts this could be the play of the year for all the wrong reasons. #27 is right there uncovered waiting to hit R.Will and moving in the right direction to do so before R.Will got stripped. A masterful job of tacking the ball with the game on the line folks; this is Via’s guy; more on that below. If you look closely at the pic on the right; you can see the upper white stripe on the the football inside the orange ellipse. Then you can see where I’ve highlighted #91’s right-arm for your convenience. (big PIC link of #27)

4th Quarter 1:46 remaining:
Watch Houston #32 of UNC simply bulldoze ‘Quell on this play. So much so he drew a “WOW” from Jessie “the hair” Palmer up in the ESPN Thursday night booth in Lane Stadium. Not often does someone who rents his lettuce from Joe Stalin have anything that entertaining to say. Also note that UNC ran right on every play but this one during their final two series; and this one was a designed cut-back. Right at Gibby, Battle/”Taco” and Worilds/Friday. Watch this trend in our final three games as Jake has now been benched in favor of Gibby. Something happened to “Taco” on this play as well as he took himself outta this pivotal sequence of Red-Zone plays.

4th Quarter 0:02 remaining:
Now for something totally unexpected. I thought Butchie might take the always sage (intentional) Delay of Game to give Barth a better angle. However; I counted 4 Hokies that did NOT even bother to try to block this game-winning FGA!?! What the hell is up with that? Surely we were not in a FG-Fake Safety set with only 2 seconds left in the game??? Did we quit?  Were we in the wrong-defense? Or other??? I truly can not stand this. You come in with your shield held high; and you get carried out on the same if need be. But you fight till the bitter end either way.

Time To Throw (T3):®

Virginia Tech:
Sacked=3
Hurried=0
Pressured=10
TT hit=7

UNC:
Sacked=2
Hurried=2
Pressured=4
Yates hit=3

T3 Analysis:
You do not need my 36 hours of Calc and Stats to see that this one favors UNC in no small way. The killer part was that we got next to no pressure on the gun-slinging Yates to close the show. This was a big part of Yates hitting 91% of his second-half throws. To compound fracture all of that would be the fact that even though our protection was not awful -well, not by VT normalized standards with fair to good time to throw on 50% of TT’s called passing-plays- Tyrod only nailed 1 positive play outta the 7 times he got hit on scripted throws. That is very un-TT like folks. I read earlier this week where Tyrod said he was not thrilled with being told not to run this year. This is in stark contrast to what O’Cain and Stiney have reputedly said all year. This does however jive with what I’ve been saying all year.

Conversely, it should be noted that Yates connected on positive plays 67% of the time when he was hit on the night while finishing with -9 rushing in the process. Pretty amazing for a Qb that I had said to be statuesque pre-game. Yates also benefited from fair to good time to throw on a whopping 73% of his called passing-plays. Which makes his 67% completion percentage on the evening seem a touch low. And speaking of touch; to have such heinous looking throwing mechanics; Yates sure throws a soft Flag or Fade route in the Red-Zone. It’s a wonder he does not have more passes deflected than he already does.

Grades: (Reader’s Note: not too may passed this week, so I’m throwing out the lowest grade for most for this semester)

• Cam Martin. I is for Incomplete. Poor Cody is doing what he can; he gets a B+. Though Cody is wearing down with Cam getting nearly no reps on Defense at this point in time. Cam got zero snaps this week; in case you are keeping score at home.
• ‘Quell Rivers. ‘Quell gets either the highest C+ or the lowest B-. Take your pick. He is something of an impoverished man’s Smith or Hawkes; playing about two years too early.
• Via. Via scored 4 good pass blocking plays outta 5; thanks in no small part to such a gigantic wingspan or reach. Via can get his hands on opposing pass rushers long before they can engage him. However, he got overpowered on 4 outta 8 rushing plays upstairs; and it was his guy who mugged R.Will and stripped the ball from the same. I was surprised that Butchie did not blitz Via in fact. The early word is that Via will start vs. ECU and ECU has a impoverished man’s Mt.Cody in one Linval Joseph who is as bullish as they come at Nose-Guard (Ng).
• -13 minutes and change in Time of Possession. F- for that. Only 3:45 of such in the all-important and game determining final stanza for VT.
• North Carolina native Josh Oglesby with 1 carry on his personal home-coming night. A less than thoughtful I for Incomplete.
• Matt Reidy sure hustles his guts out for all of us. Even though he is no better than a C- baller he is the kid who works so hard you just have to give him a B every week.

Who would you start at 'Backer if you were Bud Foster? Jake Johnson. (needs seasoning; let him play through it) Lyndell Gibson. (FREE Gibby!!! Best play-maker we have) Quillie Odom. (FREE Q!!! Best run-stuffer we have) View Results  Loading ...

Up Next:
ECU. The Pirates have some very nice looking front-lines. I dare type the best combined front-walls in all of CUSA. They are a bit better vs. the run on defense; and are now running the ball better on offense since they recovered the services of Lindsay at Running Back (Rb). 27th in Rushing Defense and 29th in Pass Protection say so. 66th year Qb one Pat Pinkney has been a bit uneven this year as we like to say in boxing circles. Pat has had some ankle and shoulder woes before; and one ECU source told me last week he (PP) was missing practice time. He looked a little better Tuesday night; though not quite as good as we got last year. Further, ECU has a nice Punt-Game and quality Turnover Margin. Just what you need to deal with VT this year.

No doubt ECU does not feel too bad about their chances after beating us last year. No doubt we are indeed their Super Bowl, World-Series and Heavyweight championship fight all rolled into one. No doubt that having 9 days and not having to travel on Wednesday night is a big advantage. We will take ECU’s best punch right on the chin. I just hope our 5-3 O&M whiskers are up to the challenge.

“LETS GO!”

“HOKIES!”

b’street

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