Happy Birthday Cheryl Beamer!!! Ain’t easy being the coach’s wife; kinda like the being Pastor or Rabbi or whatever Affiliations wife. God Bless and enjoy your special day.

That said; there was rumored to be a second-half of football up in College Park Maryland last Saturday afternoon. No matter how anticlimactic it twas.

This final 30 minute stanza was very reminiscent of the legendary Teddy Atlas’ of ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights color-commentary fame. Teddy is want to describe a fight with a lot of leaning and clinching and precious little action as a “silent contract”.

If you do not take any major offensive risks and don’t hit me overly hard I won’t either. Lets just make it to the final bell, get paid and get outta town.

Our final 20 minutes or so was pretty much a silent contract. Well, right up until the final 3 minutes when things got very chippy for both sides.  Frank and Coach Fredg’ both took the air outta the ball and there really was not a whole lotta action as mutual best friends appeared happy to get this one over with A.S.A.P. As such, there were precious little steals and precious few dynamic plays; well until the feisty ending that is.  So lets examine the few plays that were and pay a little homage to some senior Hokies that you will being seeing at home for the last time on Saturday vs. NC.State. Then lets vote in the Stiney Poll!

3rd Quarter 14:14 remaining:
Don’t often see this one sports fans; yet this defines how brutal life in the trenches can be and just how slippy the Terrapin field was. As Worilds gets totally pancaked on this play by the right Offensive Tackle (Ot) for Maryland as Jason’s footing gives way.

3rd Quarter 13:19 remaining:
Cody Grimm may not win the A.C.C. 100m championship this Spring. Yet he does indeed have the quickest 10-yard shuttle time on the 2009 VT football team and you can see that in full effect as Cody bombards the 7-Hole or D-Gap on the Maryland lefthand side for a cat-quick Tackle for a Loss (TFL) on this play. Enjoy Cody before he is gone folks.

3rd Quarter 12:58 remaining:
Check out the ellipse on the devastating downfield yet perfectly textbook legal Cut-Block by #81 Boykin. Note the Terp Free-Safety’s (Fs) leg nearly vertically inverted as he piledrives himself after Boykin flipped him out. Also watch R.Will bounce it outside escaping the flesh-pile of humanity in the pic thereby breaking 3 tackles in the process.

3rd Quarter 3:27 remaining:
Recall my Pay-MB pics of Zone-Blocking working to perfection in the first half. Here we see the opposite as the 5-hole (lefthand side) or 4-hole (righthand side) or C-Gaps if you will open up like Paris Hilton does whenever she has an attention craving. Maryland deals (blitzes) their Middle Linebacker (MLb) through uncontested and untouched through the 5-hole and this pass to Coale never had a chance. The Zone Pass blocking absolutely can not handle an one-sided overload just as my Maryland preview said; and you now know where the throwing-lanes by design for TT are. So why not blitz right through our C-Gaps all day long??? (see PIC below)

3rd Quarter 2:51 remaining:
#8 Mr. Cannon for Maryland unconditionally destroyed poor C.Mart on this play. Somebody yell “LOOK OUT” when you see the crackback coming. The life you save might just be Cam’s. WOW! (big PIC link)

4th Quarter 13:56 remaining:
Jake was all over the place on Saturday; on this play he is all over Hosley knocking Hosley silly on the attempted tackle during the Robinson scramble. O&M friendly-fire strikes again.

4th Quarter 11:28 remaining:
Well at least Stiney now passes in the Red Zone. Just so happened we were in our Red Zone with the ball on our own 1-yard line. Seriously; where the hell was our Wedge Play or simply a Qb Sneak up the gut? The idea at this point in time was to wind the gameclock to help protect Coach Fredg’s job. Why throw anywhere; much less on your own 1 yardline? Or conversely why not take a intentional Safety if you are concerned about getting TT cracked on the Qb Sneak? Then to mentally compound fracture matters we run everybody 15-20 yards down the fleld on a very slow developing play with our worst run-blocking Running Back (Rb) Wilson in on pass protect. Football still ain’t rocket-surgery folks. Most bewildering call I’ve ever seen Stiney make and it launched my 1987 freshman year clipboard across the room. (POLL BELOW)

4th Quarter 10:56 remaining:
Josh has regressed in no small way of late folks. Might be time to let D.Wilson move right on by him in terms of pure running production as Josh had 8 carries on the day for only 3`. That’s an average of 4.5 inches per run if you are keeping score at home. To make matters worse; Josh fumbles on the play and on a sopping wet and pot-marked football field the ball somehow bounces straight backwards outta the pile about 8 yards and into TT’s hands which results in a helter-skelter 18 yard gainer if there ever was one.

4th Quarter 4:56 remaining:
I counted 3 or possibly closer to 4 Hokies lined-up Offsides to close the game. Kudos to the Zebras for swallowing their whistles and not calling this to help both coaches simply get outta town. Coach Wiles however might wanna look at this. (big PIC link)

4th Quarter 4:19 remaining:
C-Mart had a very smart game in relief of Cody. A good knee day for C-Mart if you will and he sure stole the Gunner for Maryland at the end of this Hosley Punt Return. Who knows how good C-Mart would have been on two good sticks??? I’m saying some version of all-A.C.C. and C-Mart certifiably has given up his body for good ole V.P.I. You dare not ask for more than that. (big PIC link)

4th Quarter 4:20 remaining:
Things got a little inexpensive (i.e. cheap) to end the game as our Wr’s stole so many Teripins that even I was ready to call 5-o or yell: “Book ‘em Danno! In fact Boykin was even whistled for the very rarely seen Illegal Crackback to try to help calm things down. Guess our Wr’s did not sign Teddy’s so-called silent-contract?

4th Quarter 3:36 remaining:
EPIC hit by #1 of Maryland on Wilson that launched Wilson into a headlong about 400 degree summersault in the air. One has to wonder if this was a retaliatory hit due to previous deluge of steals on what was otherwise a very sleepy second-half? For whatever reason, (perhaps running too high) Wilson has been on the receiving end of some epic licks this season folks. More than his fare share for such truncated P.T. (playing time). I included a Sargent Friday orange body Chalk Drawing in the pic to help you see the violent looking orientation of Wilson’s body on this play. (big PIC link)

4th Quarter 1:52 remaining:
Watch #43 for us one Jeron Gouveia-Windslow get totally mugged on this Teripan Punt return. The Terps were a bit frustrated to close; you’d be frustrated too if your helmet had a early 1980’s Snakeskin stripe that was en vouge for about a day longer that Moon-Boots were.

Time To Throw:®
Virginia Tech:
Sacked=1
Hurried=1
Pressured=5
TT Hit=5
TT tipped=2
TT dropped=5

Maryland:
Sacked=6
Hurried=0
Pressured=13
Terp Qb’s Hit=16

As you can see, we enjoyed our finest day of pass blocking in a long long long time. But why? The answer is quadra-fold…

• First, Propers to C.News and the OLine, they did indeed pass-block better.
• Second, R.Will had by far his best pass-blocking day of his VT career; he scored 3-4 U.C.F. take-down or knockdown blocks on the day.
• Third, TT did a much better job of stepping forward or up into the pocket; typically into the C-Gap throwing lanes and then stepping back to buy more time. Note the near absence of half-roll-outs vs. Maryland folks. This was much more a pocket passing day with a very nice U shaped Cup that quite often eloquently formed in protection of TT.
• Finally, Maryland’s DLine is less than epic as pass-rushing goes.

Still yet, we were better at protecting TT. No ifs ands or buts. Been years since I have been able to say such with a straight face and it sure feels good. Not to mention that TT is now relatively injury free to close the year unlike 2007 and 2008 when he hobbled to the finish-line. If not for 4 drops on the day TT would have thrown for 74%, and then if his two deflected throws get through he goes all the way up to a sizzling 80% passer. Amazing what TT the passer can do when we actually do give him time!

Why did we wait until barely 4 minutes remaining in a clearly already decided football game to play Ju-Ju? Why do this if we are so injury adverse regarding T-mobile? Then why did we only give Ju-Ju reps on handing the ball off? Why not let him wing it downfield them simply take a knee 4 times in a row if we had infact advanced the pigskin while trying to coach Ju-Ju the thrower up? Ju-Ju entered the game a 20% Passer and he left the game a 20% passer; however at least he was 100% on handoffs.

Stiney's Red Zone call on our own 1 yardline that resulted in a Maryland TD was ... ??? A great call and a chance to be unpredictable. Stiney lost "leverage" on his mind. Even first year Pee-Wee coaches know better. View Results  Loading ...

Maryland on the otherhand was very user-friendly to put it mildly. We lived in the Terps backfield mutually vs. the run and pass. Then we really did put a whole lotta licks on Robinson the nifty running Maryland Qb. A record setting 16 in fact upon which the Terps only managed 3 positive plays. Time To Throw is the master of all things obvious part. Nevertheless, when you hit the opposing Qb just 10 times per contest (or more) your odds on winning go up in a hurry.

“LETS GO!”

“HOKIES!”

b’street

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