“Wasn’t one of our better nites.” Pittsburgh Stiller De Dwight White 1979 after being beaten on Monday Night Football, badly, at Houston.

That’s pretty much it.

Not a pretty O&M day, and a day that was oddly bereft of major hitting by one side (more on that latter).  But ECU made one more (big) play in what could otherwise, and possibly should have been a 10 point margin of Purple and Gold victory.

1st Quarter, 1st VT drive, 13:16 remaining: See DeChris come up lame and leave the game to not return with a right thigh injury (deep thigh bruise was the unconfirmed first report). See OLine coach CNews age 14 years in the process. Did not look too awful, but it was bad enough: Replay Link. DeChris gets a fairly hard Block-in-the-Back downfield after the Interception. Must have caught a toe or landed awkwardly; as you can see him come up gimpy.

1st Quarter, 5:42 remaining: DeChris is now out, and in comes “the Incredible Bulk” at Dt for ECU. We did have 55 yards rushing in the 1st Quarter, but we did not crack 25 yards per quarter after that.

1st Quarter, 3:58 remaining: follow our Goalline man-in-motion to follow where we will run 98% of the time. Sigh. : (

1st Quarter, 1:15 remaining: textbook excellent Shield-Block on the edge by #7 of ECU to spring Pinkney. Brutal is better, but an effective Shield-Block produces the same results.

1st Quarter: VT up 80 to 60 in Total Yards, with a nifty 5.5 per rush.

2nd Quarter, 14:10 remaining: “Booooooone” from the H-back spot with a horrible “Look-out!” block as SG is sacked. If our 280lb. Te can not check Linebacker’s who weigh 50lbs. less than he does; who can?

2nd Quarter, 12:19 remaining: Christmas comes early for Virg who put up a basketball’esq 8 points on the day. But why did #17 for ECU just quit on the play? He could have covered that turnover; and I’ll take the over on his ears burning in filmstudy for that one.

2nd Quarter, 12:10 remaining: Nice steal for #37 Mr. Sykes over the top to end the play. The first steal of the year came a little late for my liking.

2nd Quarter, 5:16 remaining: Nice stick upstairs by my boy P.Stump #45 on the ECU sweep to the ECU sideline; P.Stump ain’t nobodies cat.

2nd Quarter, 1:12 remaining: #4 of ECU with a real sneaky steal over the pile on the VT kickoff return on #81 young Mr. Boykin. Welcome to D-1, (insert TOS violation here).

First Half: ECU had 3 Sacks and 6 Tackles For a Loss, we had 0 Sacks and 0 TFL; and our rushing yards dropped to a lowly 9 on the quarter in the second stanza!

3rd Quarter, 13:26 remaining: nice stick right in the back upstairs delivered by #6 Mr. Worilds on the ECU sweep to the right. One of our few real good defensive hits of the day.

3rd Quarter, 9:15 remaining: Usain Bolt Sean Glennon simply is not, watch this one with you fingers closed like taunt shutters over you eyes as SG runs the short-side option (unless this was a busted play).

3rd Quarter, 4:57 remaining: Friday and Taylor lay the second-team smack down on #74 and #2 for ECU while Virg’ gets hurt (cramps). Only real stoopid-ass jawing I saw out of us all day that was over the top.

3rd Quarter, 2:07 remaining: Why did Skippy sub Kass for Pinkney who was only nailing 92% of his passes at this point? I’ll be sticking with my low 90’s Qb all, day, long. Thank you very much.

15 3rd Quarter rushing yards for VT, ECU also starting to take control of TOP and the game-clock.

4th Quarter, 14:50 remaining: #25 gets his steal on vs. our wedgebuster who’s number I could not make out on the VT kickoff return. This was not rated PG-13.

4th Quarter, 13:22 remaining: #15 Eddie Whitney gets stolen on a late hit deadball personal foul by the ECU right-OT that was not called. No more shirt for Eddie.

4th Quarter, 5:47 remaining: Does ESPN play-by-play talking-head Dave Pasche look like Melvin from the 1983 movie Wargames or what???

4th Quarter, 3:36 remaining: O.Mart makes a sophomoric mistake and bites on the play fake of the belly-play up the gut, then Pinkney waltzes in for an nearly untouched 6 points.

4th Quarter, 3:31 remaining: #31 with the inexpensive-shot vs. poor Kenny Lewis Junior on KLJr’s pretty suspect kickoff return.

4th Quarter, 1:52 remaining: “Booooooooone” and Mr. Housewright combine to block nobody numbered #7 on the Play of the Game as ECU out Beamerballs Frank on the punt block that was the difference. Though the Pirates gobbled the bouncing oblong football up pretty favorably which does not always happen either. Just count down the Line of Scrimmage, that way every defender has at least one Chicago Maroon helmet in their way. But not today.

19 total yards on -6 passing and 25 rushing to close the game, as ECU racked us for 121 total yards in the final 15 minutes.

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Analysis:

•  Note that ECU had way more Steals than we did, some were questionable, but you see the pattern. One team came in with its shield held high willing to be carried out on the same. The other team missed its flight from Roanoke.
• VT starting Dt’s combo’ed for 0 solo tackles and 1 assist on the day. In other words they got freaking owned.
• Cam came to play, as did P.Stump. Pisano had a great directional kicking day, Bowden looked all-conference, Lewis and Smith were servicable. The rest? Not so much.

©Long Field Management (Lo.FM): This is a brand spanking new stat. I know this because I decided to invent it. But I also knew there was a highly subjective correlation between how a football team does on 2nd and 3rd and long and how often they will win. I used a very simple T chart format, and inserted “+” or “-” depending on how the long distance play went. I used “neutral” if the play cut the necessary  distance approximately in half.

VT’s Lo.FM: (12 Total)
-(INT) – - – - -(INT) -(Fumble) – - – -
neutral

ECU’s Lo.FM: (12 Total)
+ + + + +
neutral, neutral
_ _ _ _ _

Lo.FM breakdown: First of all, note that we had ZERO “+” plays when we faced a long-field. Now, to amplify our impoverished management of such extended down and distance situations, we had three potential Turnovers in our ill gotten attempt at navigating such. The Pirates on the other hand were more seaworthy, as they threw beyond the first down marker several times on long fields. Also be aware that two of the ECU “-” they picked up were on throw-away situations trying to run out the clock to end the game.

The Myth of Throwing to the Middle of the field debunked. I charted every single VT Pass. It’s simply downright pitiful. We threw one ball more than 16 yards all flipping day! We had 14 passes of less than 10 yards (8 of which were on, behind, or just beyond the LOS). We had 6 medium throws, and 1 long throw (which set up a TD) and nothing to the middle of the field beyond 10 yards. You see those things on the field called hashmarks? You need not guard the no-mans land in between when you play Tech if you are a Furman Safety. The trees outside can defensive coordinate against that. On to the Paladins, and a glorified scrimmage which we will win, but one in which we have metric tons of work to do.

b’street

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