TSL Podcast 371: Vanderbilt Recap

Tech Sideline Podcast Intro Tech sideline is presented by First Bank and Trust Company the bank that puts you first they can meet your Banking and financing needs for personal agricultural business Commercial mortgages and so much more visit first bank.com to learn more what's up Hoke nation and welcome into episode 371 of the tech sideline podcast well it was a tough weekend a surprising tough weekend for Virginia Tech football as the Hoke fall to vanderbelt 34-27 in overtime we got the whole football crew on set to break it down so let's get it rolling episode 371 of the tech sideline podcast starts right now [Music] [Music] we're recording on Monday September 2nd 2024 from our high-tech studio in the Virginia Tech corporate Research Center remember to like subscribe and refer the show to a friend and head over to tech.com to check out our extensive editorial content subscriptions are just $12 a month for loads of content and for Virginia Tech students be sure to join on techsideline.com Tech sideline is presented by First Bank and Trust Company the TSL podcast is also sponsored by the Robertson and Cox real estate team the RNC team wants your listing list your home with them and your property will be advertised to tens of thousands of TSL site visitors and social media followers plus you'll get a free year of tech sideline and other TSL goodies and benefits as well visit RNC team.com to learn more and we'll drop a link in the YouTube description as well I'm your host for today Carter Hill filling in for giovan heer to our right is our lead analyst and columnist Chris Coleman across the way is our senior staff writer Andy bidder in the fourth chair drinking the Kool-Aid is our founder and general manager will Stewart and Nick Brown is producing behind the scenes well guys we all drank the Tech Sideline Adventures In Nashville Kool-Aid it appears like but before we get to the game will Andy how was your trip to Nashville this weekend I think it was a pretty good time other than the game itself I was I was six so I was pretty lowkey for me the first couple nights I I met you guys out there the last night there uh got the old wave through from the guy at the ID stand like you don't come on man you don't need to show it so yeah that's that's how old I was relative to the crowd there but no it was a good time Nashville is a fun town and it sounds like Hoke fans were out there in full force on Friday at least maybe a little more subdued on Saturday after the loss yeah what about you well my ID got checked multiple times did it really no the highlight of my weekend uh Saturday night was going to see Squeeze Play The Ryman Auditorium him so uh uh I I I'm not a live music guy I didn't know a thing about the ryen so I read up on the history it's phenomenal they have a thing when you walk so the Ryman a Auditorium was original Gran old opery through 1974 and when you go into the Ryman they have this Mosaic on the wall of everybody that's played there and it is mind-blowing to read through it like you see Stevie Wonder listed next to Johnny Cash and that sort of thing and squeeze was an excellent live show uh did everything off the greatest hits album which is what I know and they're old but they sounded really good and they were having a ball so ended the ended the weekend on a high note thing and it sounded like Thursday and Friday on Broadway was just littered with tech fans it seemed like yeah I mean you know I'm going to put a you guys saw the crowd on television and it was like that down on Broadway and uh Broadway is a pretty uh wild scene you know it's everything they say it is Chris I was holding down the fort here in blackburg I'm glad I didn't go yeah it would have ruined my my my trip because I've always want to go to Nashville it's on the bucket list but that game would have absolutely ruined it for me um and I might have ruined Nashville and a as a result after the game um instead it only ruined your weekend exactly yeah you know I just yeah just went home and it's it's funny how uh my mood for watching college football through the years is kind of swung on how Virginia Tech I used to watch a ton of college football when Virginia Tech was good and then when they weren't when they start when they stopped being good like really good I didn't watch as much and I think that's part of like maybe jealousy to a certain extent I watch another game and I'm like man I wish wish we were that well oiled of a machine um and I was excited about this year you know I watched that Florida state Georgia Tech game was I was really excited about it and I and I watched the whole thing either at home or or at the gym and was really interested in the game and I think because I thought Virginia Tech was was going to be good my interest in college football was rekindled and now after that game on Saturday I didn't watch a single down a football the rest of the weekend CED up Netflix yeah that was absolutely what I did yep yep no more football when did you write your column yesterday morning yesterday morning yeah I'm glad you got to stay in blackburg and instead of drinking away your SARS with your $15 beers on Broadway you can do it in blackburg so I the thing about the game and let's let's talk about the game itself as will continues to hold the Virginia Tech Vs Vanderbilt Recap Kool-Aid in the fourth chair because that's what it seemed like we all were drinking this last off seon I guess I'm not shocked Virginia Tech lost the game what I am shocked by is the manner in which they got beat I mean they just looked totally outclassed in a lot of different ways and quite frankly it just was a bad day for Virginia Tech football oh they were completely out coached in my opinion and uh you shouldn't go out there you know you know they're going to do different things offensively um but it shouldn't take you a whole half to adjust to them um you don't know exactly what they're going to do but you've got got a pretty decent idea and then the you don't attack downfield until the second half against a secondary that was 129th in the country against the pass last year is just just not well prepared in my opinion um there were times in that game and and I saw some fans on the boards talking about it seemed like Virginia Tech Defenders were taking bad angles and coming inside too much on those outside runs the truth of the matter in a lot of those plays Virginia Tech was out schemed because V built had an extra Blocker on that side of the field and it just made it look like virgin Tech players were running inside but in reality there was just an extra blocker out there and it took virgin Tech way too long to adjust to stuff like that when they did they dominated most of the second half but then couldn't close uh just frustrating and demoralizing Jerry kill man dude can coach I mean he was heavily involved on the sideline down there you know remember when um you know Virginia Tech would play Georgia Tech and Fuente would sort of Psych himself out about the number of possessions you're going to get in the games like you might only get eight possessions in the game or something like that that's what it was in the first half tech only had four possessions offensively and uh you know did not take advantage of them and really sort of beat around the bush with how they were you know operating their offense like I jokingly tweeted like you know you can throw it farther than two yards down the field because everything they did was behind the line or a screen or a swing pass I mean you got to stretch the the field vertically in some way and they just did not do that and then you saw the success they started having with that in the second half but uh you know in the leadup to this game I think all of us were pretty confident that Virginia Tech would win this game the one thing I did say repeatedly is that openers can be weird weird stuff happens in openers you don't quite don't know what your team is like you quite don't quite know what the opponent is like um this was a weird opener I mean it was and you know I don't know if this is necessarily indicative of the entire season but they didn't come out there prepared for this game as prepared as they should be for the scheme they were going to face or how they were going to come out of the gates and you know it bit them eventually they turned a game that probably shouldn't have been close into a close game and when you play a close game weird things can happen at the end the other team can take it everybody wants the hot young coordinators and Virginia Tech hot young coordinators just got schooled by a 67 60 some year old man and Jerry kill and also a very very experienced and older offensive coordinator and division 2 coach Tim Beck yeah I mean they were running they were running like triple options stuff basically I mean it it was it's a really tough defense to defend I mean you saw what New Mexico state did last year statistically I think they were like 15th in the nation running the ball so and and I don't think they had overwhelming talent in New Mexico State obviously Pavia I mean everybody thought that he was going to be great uh except for whoever called him a poor man's Trace Murley which was which was nobody it was a a glowing quote that pry had about comparing him to murly but uh uh yeah I mean I I I think that sometimes you can scheme it up like that and you know Virginia Tech had trouble with that they they came around in the second half but you know you can't play half a football game against any team certainly not a team in the power four you're going to run into trouble there will you had something as well in the fourth yeah so to amplify Andy's Point uh Virginia Tech only had one first one first quarter possession and yes they had four first half possessions but the fourth one came with 24 seconds left to go on the clock so it was really three for the first half so that first half went quick to hammer Andy's Point home what's crazy to me is this is a team that returned 95% of its offensive production and they went away from their strengths from what they did well in the first half that's what was so jarring to me I guess in the first half of play yeah I I think the first half was kind of interesting you didn't they didn't attack downfield and I don't know completely why that was a few of those plays it seems like drones was very quick to check down um so and I at one point Brent pry went over to him on the sideline on the bench and just you know not yelling at him but got up in his face and was talking to him a lot smacking him on the shoulder pads and things like that like he was not having a good game um and some of that like he threw the ball right into vandy's hands a couple times not even counting the the one the one that did get intercepted on the deflected pass um so I don't know if all of that was the there were no options to throw it downfield or he was just checking down really early um or even if the if tech maybe lacks confidence on him on the Deep ball remember we talked talked last week that he was nine of 42 last year on passes that traveled 20 plus yards down the field which was one of the lowest completion percentages in the country so if you're Vanderbuilt yeah you I mean you want you you want to you know Jam the line and keep everything in that in that box and if your drones maybe after having a tough year throwing the Deep ball last year maybe you're not so confident with it and or maybe if you're a Tech coach you're not confident in completing it because of of the issues last year um but that being said in the second half he was three of three so he's already completed onethird of the number of deep balls for lack of a better word than he did last year uh so it seems like the progress has been made there but it's unfortunate that didn't find that out earlier in the game because in the end that was the difference or it was one of the things that that would have been the difference well you say three to three should have been four- four right which might have you know speak and he wasn't necessarily seeing it out there early in the third quarter had a I mean they had three guys on the left side and it was sort of like a swing pass out behind the line and you know Vandy everybody bit up on that play and Ali Jennings is running free up the sideline just didn't see him I don't know if it similar design to what they ran later where they did hit Jennings for that 62 yard touchdown but you know maybe just an example that you know open a week just wasn't seeing things right go ahead yeah I was going to talk about that same play so I wanted to ask Chris about this since his experience was watching it was watching it on television I was in the in the end zone for that okay and I watched drones throw it out to the sideline and I heard tech fans making some kind of noise and I looked at my buddy and said what just happened he said look down the sideline and Jennings was running down the sideline completely uncovered when I watched the game on television last night the announcers didn't even mention it I didn't notice it um uh so it was uh so was it playside and not J was on play side okay so he was looking on that side of the field that's that's very interesting you know uh what was jenning's reaction was he was he doing that okay so so that shows that that wasn't a dummy route that that was a an option for him to throw the they missed him yeah yeah so every everybody's piling on the coaches for the game plan but how much of that was drones not having the confidence to to look down there and throw down there now by the way on that drive Tech scored anyway so that didn't quote unquote cost them anything but it's just a point to the overall play I don't it felt like a lot of those plays were design throws around the line or just like swinging out wide real quick even the pick that he had I mean that was actually a really well set up play if he got the pass back there was a blitzing linebacker on if he got the pass by him Jaylen Lane was cutting in on the inside screen and he had guys set up in front of him he probably could have gone a long ways on that play so you know sometimes it just comes down to execution on that stuff too so this is going to be a very honest question but Immediate Thoughts On The Hokies Football Game we talk about the slow start first off why the slow start and on top of that again with what you returned as a whole Prime mentioned the term Shell Shocked after the game you bring back essentially your entire starting lineup on really in all three phases you're playing in front of a pro Virginia Tech crowd Vanderbilt's game plan was not out of the ordinary compared to what they were going to do and pry used the term Shell Shocked how can you possibly be Shell Shocked in game number one for this team I think it was a poor choice of words um I I think certainly Vanderbilt did not have a home field advantage um that was a whole a lot of tech fans uh which makes the result even more disappointing it's like it's like when you lose to Boise State in the stadium and is so Phil of Virginia Tech fans right even though it's technically not a home game um yeah I mean look Bandy did some things that you expected the unexpected in this game because you knew you were going to have pistol elements cuz their offensive line coach was the former Nevada offensive coordinator you knew you were going to have New Mexico State elements and and you knew that it was going to look a little bit different because you're mixing it in with the returning Vandy player so you you didn't know exactly what to expect but you had a decent idea at least you should have and it shouldn't have taken them as long as it did to adjust I I think it comes back to season openers some come I mean you practice against yourself for a month so you know you could have strange ideas of like how far along you are like oh we're dominating this this this uh on this side of the ball it's like well are you that good or is the other side just not that great uh so you know sometimes it can be situations like that and sometimes it's just you know we always ask coaches ah did you expect this slow star it's like no didn't expect the slow star it just happens sometimes or some sometimes just the the players are not you know ready to go some some of that has to be self-motivational type stuff and we're talking about 18 to 22 year olds like getting them all motivated every single week I mean you'll see it from Great teams that just won't show up in a certain game Oregon didn't look great against U who was it Idaho Idaho I mean everybody was talking oh orgon might score 70 points in this game then they're in a contest down in the fourth quarter sometimes it just happens where a team doesn't you know come out of the Gates Strong the thing that concerns me is this two years ago where I feel like Virginia Tech was out schemed in the season opener like again you know ODU had a different offensive coordinator last week um or excuse me last year but you know they they were really able to isolate Tex Defenders and a lot of one-on-ones and create Running Room each other Virginia Tech won that game because they out talented Old Dominion but if you go back and watch it ODU had Tech schemed up and that's why that was a close game into like what the late third quarter early fourth quarter before Virginia Tech finally pulled away so and I get it you f when two years in a row when you're facing a different offensive coordinator you've got some advantages because you don't know what you're seeing on film but I mean that's how Virginia Tech won last year right when they flipped their offense after game four like pit was taken by surprise and w forest with just one game of film on that offense was taken by surprise um but now you've got a whole year to like study the tech offense so so the book is out to a certain extent so you have to do some different things that's why it was important to hit those deep balls in the second half um but uh at any rate you know I'm we're sitting here having how many having too many conversations over the last three years of of of saying I don't think virgin Tech was well prepared or or I think virgin Tech got out schemed or I don't think we're running the right scheme or or or whatever just too many too many things like that over the last few years you can further break down that first half and point to the poor tackling Tech was pushed around at the line of scrimmage at times the offensive line play wasn't there and then obviously there were a couple crucial coaching errors I mean it just kind of always something that culminates Al together and that's why Tech was down 17 to3 heading into the locker room Not much went right early in the game um I I think probably the the point I was disappointed the most was Vanderbilt's last touchdown of the first half when they just kind of drove it down Tech's throats more so than you know out scheme them per se um but at the same time at the same time like vanderbild how many total yards do they have do you remember off the top year 371 371 hit the over on by yourself yeah yeah I had the over yeah yeah so I'm not they probably ended up with about 50 more yards than I thought as far as the points I I had them scoring 17 and they scored seven in overtime and they scored seven off a turnover and they scored three off that special teams blunder that will will'll surely get to so they kind of like did about what I thought they were going to do offensively for the most part and I I didn't for see manso delay having the worst game of his career but which is another factor I mean just so many things but it's always something right forgin Tech is one and eight in one score football games under Brent pry and you know all the issues yesterday that that we have talked about or will talk about and then you know you go back to last year and the one- score losses you're running the ball all all over Marshall and then you just stop you play a quarterback on one leg who can barely walk for a whole half against puru you lose by seven which you know made a they reprised that in overtime when they brought dronin for one play run the ball run the ball right up the middle exactly and uh and then you go back to the year before that and and NC State one a one point loss was a whole bunch of penalties um eight pre- snap penalties as well that game yeah yeah um you know you had the Miami and Old Dominion losses you had Jaylen Holston who is not a pass catching running back in the game as a third downback and you're throwing third down passes to him and he's just not that type of player so it's just it's something different every week if if it was just one thing you could say oh you can focus on that one thing and fix it it's just it seems to be like a a different bad decision every week uh in close losses at least uh so Virginia Tech in game you know when they blow somebody out right great but they have not shown the ability to win close games except for that one liberty game and by the way that Liberty staff went to Auburn yeah Liberty staff was pretty checked out at that point I think they and then they went to Auburn and got completely out coached by this Vanderbuilt staff with with Jerry kill and you know who beat that Liberty team the next week by like 40 points New Mexico state New Mexico state right yeah I I think uh you mentioned the close games I mean the staff still has to prove that it can win some of those like every game that they've won uh they've blown the other team out and it hasn't really been close I guess you know maybe the military bull was close for a while but you know in the end when it comes down to to crunch time there it's not like they're making huge decisions they're going to swing the game one way or another and you know couple blunders in this one that you know handed points the other way and you see some of the small things there was a you know dcoin Felton had a holding penalty on a toot and run it would have been first and goal from the two instead of first and 20 from the 29 and that's a huge difference in that the the the mistake with the double numbers that basically gifted three points the drive at the very end you know Vanderbilt ties it up uh it's 20 727 at that point 151 on the clock and Tech runs a drive the last like 15 seconds 15 seconds I mean it's two incompletions there's a swing pass to the short side you know behind the line of scrimmage where toon had nothing to do could could do nothing with it and gets tackled out of bounds they punt it back without even forcing Vanderbilt to use a timeout they got lucky that Vanderbilt screwed up the end of that game and played for a long field goal because they I mean vanderbel could have run it a couple more times and they were gaining yards every single time they could have kicked an easier field goal so you know Clark Le almost you know handed the game back to Virginia Tech like here you have it no you have it here uh I think they sort of got bailed out there it's just some of these things that they they just need to work on in tight games because they haven't been able to win a lot of those so Andy did Virginia Tech in your eyes lean into the offseason hype a little bit too much I people say that I mean that it's just you know you you kept seeing all the talk about uh you know that AP riter had them in the playoff Fred McMurphy had them in the playoff a lot of people said they could win the ACC picking them to win the ACC uh you know I don't think the team was necessarily saying all that stuff they were confident uh maybe you read into that confidence or whatever but you know that stuff was out there whether they heard it or believed it or or whatever I I don't know if that's true but you know obviously you have to refocus after one week and as pry said it was humbling and he even said maybe they needed some of that humbling so maybe he saw them reading into some of that I'm not sure well you got the the Kool-Aid ready to roll well Kool-Aid is delicious there's no denying it you I drank quite a bit of this during the off season and later on I'll you can bounce it over here and I'll read you some not mean tweets but mean YouTube comments but you know the thing interesting thing about Kool-Aid is if you really pay attention to it here's a list of ingredients it's unfiltered water high fructose corn syrup because all the best food products have that listed as their second ingredient unfounded optimism positive viewpoints contains less than 1% of fact-based analysis and most most commercial products you can get off the shelf they don't have side effect War but Kool-Aid does it says side effects poor score predictions in incorrect Buy sell decisions and gambling losses on FanDuel yeah I just wish I'd read this before the season exactly I bought a 12pack at Walmart two weeks ago no it was funny too like I saw obviously Jake Lyman was there former host of the tech sideline podcast we're up in the vanderbelt merch and he's talking about how you know tech fans can typically drink the Kool-Aid but there are some facts to back it up this year why you should drink the Kool-Aid and if you can't drink the Kool-Aid this year what you can you drink it exactly exactly I think the biggest thing for me though and maybe this is a little bit dramatic but you you spend three years all of Brent price tenure trying to work your way back into the national conversation to the top of the ACC and while it is just one game and it didn't all go away a lot of that kind of was thrown to the Wayside in just 60 Minutes of football uh and it's so much deeper than that it's uh I I look at our the program itself and the program is kind of being run on what I call artificial money these days or artificial Revenue it's real money the revenue is so much of it you know they ran 12 million in the black last year but remember they got that football enhancement fund and that's 12 A5 million from big donors going directly in with another 12 a half matched by the university and that was a fiveyear deal and there's either one or two years left on that deal and if that deal is not renewed then bam that's like $25 million it disappears and if you're a fan if you're if you're a big donor and let's say you're putting in 200 Grand a year and you're like I'm getting that you just lost I I'm putting in this my two extra 200 Grand to hire the most expensive staff in Virginia Tech History and they just lost to a football team that's that had lost 10 games in a row yeah right so it's not just relevancy on the national scale it's how do the big donors feel that quite frankly are fronting the program right now and so the these are Big long-term fundraising issues for Virginia Tech and they're doing it without a head of the Hokey Club I mean Brad Worman is technically the head of the Hokey Club but he's the head of a bunch of other things too so it's not something he can dedicate his job full-time to so um I I just I look at it differently uh it's an important loss but not for the reasons of how most people think about it it's it's it's it's I think it's more important internally for Virginia Tech than it is externally and what people think do you think the level of frustration at the team and the players and The Angst that's out there that you're seeing in this open or is stronger because players are getting compensated now absolutely I mean in the past it's always been like ah they're there on scholarship and and but now you know you hear some of the Rumblings of what you know players are making I mean they're basically like Professionals in this sense and do you think that's fair that they can take more criticism now that they're being paid I'm I'm that's a good question and I I'm more apt to you got to know some of the situations I think I'm just not going to blindly criticize a player because he happens to be making money um because guess what if you didn't sign him you were going to sign somebody else who's going to make money like you you you have to have players right um but I do think that there there are some that that I just think have that maybe have lost it a little bit mentally lost that edge that that they had like man swane was great as a freshman and uh he wasn't quite as good last year and then he play made the worst game of his career last year and he or last week or this week and uh maybe I think he's lost a little bit of mental sharpness I think early in his career he was dominant as a freshman like it was a smaller sample size 400 snaps but at the same time he only got thrown at eight more times last year than he did as a freshman like they really went after him as a freshman and he answered the Bell great um he's always been one of Virgin Tech sought after players in the portal because of his own Talent but also because his younger brother was a five-star recruit and there's been the long rumored package deal with Ohio State right and well now boom his brother's committed to Ohio State and you got to wonder if some of the outside distractions there and his Market value's been driven up by by all of that that I just talked about and you got to wonder if you know that you lose some mental focus because of that and that is an issue for coaches these days and everybody's a free agent you're not signing them a contract it's like you have to worry about this stuff until later it's literally every year you have to worry about it so it's one thing to talk about NFL players getting paid and college players getting paid the difference is that NFL players are grown men they're a few years older these college kids that are getting six and in some cases seven figures thrown at them they're still very young you know and and and you even see NFL players make huge mistakes blow their salaries and do stupid things with their money and these are supposedly grown men with teams of advisers so to to play Devil's Advocate a little bit um you you it's h i can't quite figure out how to phrase this but remember yes they're making money but these are also kids that are experiencing this kind of stuff for the first time and they might not have the support system or the mental and emotional maturity to handle this I know if you'd thrown that kind of money at me when I was that age my goodness the 7-Eleven would have had no beer cuz it would have all been at my apartment you know so well you wrote that the fan base deserves better Chris and kind of a perfect example of that was like what was the split do you think this weekend you guys played that with by yourself I think it was probably 6040 Virginia Tech I agree and I did not think it would get over the 5050 Mark you know unofficially unofficial Buy sale I would have gotten that wrong but it doesn't count it was unofficial David bought it though he he let us know it Morgan Wallin bought he unofficially he unofficially bought it because it was not an actual buy or sale uh C doesn't count sorry but no I was I was very impressed yeah by the turnout by Hoke's fans and you know I tweeted that you know it's it's a bummer that they hokeys disappointed the home crowd like that so much in that game cuz you know it was definitely I mean they were ready to like explode in that uh stadium and go nuts for a win and then they they just let him down I think this fan base is pretty incredible like and I think maybe like you the Nebraska fan base is insane oh yeah years and years and years of of being let down and and they keep showing back up and uh I think Virginia te fans have been incredible with their support and uh it's disappointing because as soon as you seem like you have a little bit of momentum as a program you feel like there's none now after that loss and the fan base was clearly excited about this season and this game and they really showed out for the for this game and obviously yes it's a destination city still but what was it probably 15 or 20,000 tech fans probably 20,000 tech fans probably 20,000 you would think yeah so and they were there like y'all y'all got there Thursday right right and so this was like a bowl game because you don't get real bowl game experiences anymore cuz half the team Ops out and half the time you're playing in a cold weather game so who cares it it it very much had the look of an old school bowl game crowd when Tech used to go to Jacksonville 20 or 25 years New Orleans everybody go like wow look at all these tech fans it was just like that so that that that was this this was Virginia Tech's like first real bowl game experience in a long time for the fan base even though it wasn't a bowl but it was bowl like and they lost to a team that won that that had lost 10 in a row and I felt I just felt so bad for everybody who went and I I remember last year when I last year was my lowest point as a tech fan after the Marshall game and before the pit game and I remember walking from the RV lot in in at the airport all the way to Center Street you know hooping Tates the whole way and I remember thinking how many millions of dollars of tailgating supplies and equipment have I walked through between all the money spent on RVs and all the money spin on the parking spaces next to Lane Stadium it's just this fan base puts so much into it and I feel like they get taken advant taken advantage of is a harsh term because that implies you're doing something intentionally and Tech football the football C was clearly not trying to lose games and disappoint the fan base but uh it's kind of of the same feeling you know you put out all these efforts and you don't get rewarded and and I I want to see the fans get rewarded because they deserve to so where does this rank in terms of bad losses in the last 10 years oh it's it's not as bad as like ODU 2018 it's not as bad as either of the ODU it's not it's not as bad but it not as bad as I guess it's more than 10 years I was going to say J yeah the Duke 45 to 10 uh I mean it's not great I'm not going to you know sugarcoat this thing but um you know I was to a a power Conference team I know was on the bottom tier of the SEC but um you know you're not losing to an instate school that's in the group of five you know like they did at ODU a couple of times I thought those were both worse losses than this one uh yeah the Duke one the blowout at Duke Liberty in 2020 Liberty yeah the one at home they were 17 point favorites in game uh and to to lose the way they lost where they block the field goal and return it and then it's how you called timeout beforehand I that's pretty bad so uh it's not great that there's a long list of games that you can name that were worse losses than this one because this was a pretty bad one to start the season yeah they all kind of run together at this point I guess uh again it's not a bad loss from terms of like it's not one I'll remember for losing to Vanderbilt per se like it's it's one that I'll remember from a momentum standpoint we felt like we were we felt like the hokeys were establishing momentum as a program and again I felt like they gave it all back and I just I'm just tired of saying things like I I didn't feel like we were well prepared and things like that this pry pry era is so interesting because I hated just about everything schematically I saw from Virginia Tech for the first I guess for 14 15 games of his tenure and then for like the next nine nine games I loved everything I saw with it and now you're back to like feeling how you felt previously where the team just wasn't well prepared and well coach so which is it right they're just I I I don't feel any level of consistency in this program with anything and that's that's frustrating because you don't know what you're getting next so Virginia Tech offensively in this game 300 197 yards The Virginia Tech Offense Vs Vanderbilt of total offense 24 points in the second half 75 rushing yards off of 30 attempts which is just 2.5 yards a carry uh B toon nine carries 34 yards a touchdown in the air and on the ground Kiron drones 22 for 34 an interception two touchdowns in the air and 322 yards oi Jennings two receptions 92 yards a touchdown he was not even targeted though in the first half mention this the slow start in how Virginia Tech looked in the first half of play you're down 17 to3 what changed with the play calling and the scheme overall in the second half they definitely got more aggressive and I don't know if that's because the coaches just started saying okay I don't know if they if they called more deep balls whereas they W they didn't call as many plays with a deep ball element to it in the first half or if they just told drones look just start looking downfield more and and and don't check down as much like we have to challenge them downfield right I don't know which one of those it is that that that's a question for uh for B Brent pry and whether he would answer that honestly or not I I don't know I know that drones was not making didn't appear to be making good de decisions in the first half it's rare you see pry go over to a player on the bench and just put his hands on his shoulder pads and start talking to him normally priz there you know taking notes he doesn't go back to the bench all that often but he made an effort to go up to drones and encourage him like that was a slow start from drones it was almost like I don't know if he lacked confidence or was just playing tight or or whatever um I think he responded he played a great second half um if you look at Tech's offense I mean my gosh they scored 24 points in the second half I me they dominated most of that second half right until that last Drive where they you know just I don't want to get into that one but uh but it was it was that was more like it in the second half that's kind of what I was expecting they took advant AG of what was a poor Vanderbilt secondary which we kind of knew it was coming into the game I don't know I don't have an answer for it like I said every time they lose a close game it's something different well I mean they were kind of forced into throwing the ball you're down 14 after first half where you only had three real possessions how many are you going to get in the second half if it keeps going that way so you had to push the ball down the field and you know maybe unintentionally like you know sometimes you have to run to open up the pass and this this is a game where you had to pass to open up the run because they were clearly had everybody up and were defending the run and you know when you weren't giving them a reason to defend anything more than five yards down the field why would they change that and they you finally saw them attacking and I mean guys running free uh down the field I mean gnell caught a long pass you know Jennings had the long one had one that they missed him on that they didn't throw it to him there's another one across the middle I can't remember who it went to uh where there was a deep ball and then there was an underneath option that he I think it was it might have been Felton who was running wide open across the field so you know a lot of plays where guys were open and you look back and you go man you couldn't have done that in the first half I I can't imagine they weren't open in the first half it just didn't seem like they were trying to Target those guys so Andy how would you rate Kiron drones' performance overall in this one you I look at his PFF grade and he was the highest graded player uh on the offense by a good margin so uh you know I think he played well in the second half in the first half I don't know again I don't know if it was by design that everything was short or if he just wasn't looking down the field with some of those passes you i' probably give him B minus or something like that in the thing I don't know how much of the pick is on him sometimes it's just kind of fluky where a guy gets his hand on the ball and knocks it up in the air but you know like Chris said there were a couple plays where he threw it directly to vanderbel guys was very fortunate I there's one drive the first two passes that he had on that drive like neither of them were picked and probably should have been so uh he was begging for an interception at some point there and you know certainly not his aame uh so the way he rallied was impressive but I think you want to see start to finish pretty good game from your quarterback that's kind of my take as well like I think it was a difference between Night and Day first half and second half and uh and it's easy to use drones as an example because he's the starting quarterback but I think there's a whole lot of people that you can say had night and day performances between the first half and the second half the the whole team yeah also he wasn't helped out by his offensive line he was under pressure all day I mean there was the the one play where the guy hit Parker Clemens with the spin move and then you know drones eludes him and then Parker's running back to try to help him out and almost looks like he tackles drones on the play himself Xavier Chaplan graded out pretty well but you I seem to to hear his name called a couple times either on holding calls or you know guys coming by him and getting pressure so I don't think it was a great game by the offensive line and you know that was the concern coming into the season if if that o line is not great or solid or even decent uh then the rest of the offense can't really go yeah and let's talk about this a little bit um about the offensive line specifically they uh they talked about having more depth because they did play six or seven guys last year so you think you're playing seven or eight this year but according just looking at the PFF snap cats snap counts they didn't play a single backup offensive lineman like in a game where the the Run game was not going and you think well maybe you could try something El it's also the heat index is 100° maybe if there's any I mean granted the first half really wasn't good for rotation because you barely have the ball sure yeah but but like so you're like Brody me Meadows contributed a lot last year so you're telling me he can't contribute now right um montavis Cunningham can't get you at least a few snaps at right tackle for a struggl in Parker Clements yeah so let me jump in here and say looking at the participation chart on hookies sports.com they do list mavius Cunningham Bob chck Bob shik and birdie Meadows yeah Special Teams yeah yeah exactly um so you can differ initiate between offense and special teams on PFF so that's why I say that now unless they missed something and they've updated it today I don't know the grades are generally on the Sunday grades on PFF are preliminary so they can they're always subject to change later in the week but they they generally have their snap counts right ear early in the week so I don't know you just hear we talk about how the offensive line should have more depth than they should because they played six or seven guys last year and they returned everybody and added a transfer right but then they didn't play anybody and that that's a concern because that's either are those guys regressing actually are they the same players they were last year or like worse I mean that that's a that's a that's a discouraging sign for development so that's something to follow going forward into the season well you talked about the Run game and again just 75 yards on the ground and yes I get it you're down 17 nothing you have to throw the football but early on in the limited time that Virginia Tech had the ball they absolutely didn't establish the Run do you chalk that up to the offensive line as a whole is there or is there something else going on there too A whole lot I I think Vanderbilt's players were really aggressive coming forward and uh I think that was their their plan the whole time be aggressive as forward as possible going forward uh play smart but but really go after him you know I thought that in both the short passing game and the running game the short passing game being an extension of the running game I remember that one screen pass they ran that got tackled for a loss Virginia Tech and you know gnell couldn't get the outside linebacker AKA their whip linebacker so to speak blocked but like that guy was going after the ball like basically as soon as drones caught the snap he was all over the was that the third and 15 right before the field goal attempt I got one yard I I think it was earlier than that this was on the on on the left hand side of the field and I don't remember exct same result cuz they fig out why they like four Vanderbilt guys desc I I remember that one this one was just one guy and but he jumped on it like like you I don't care if it's a fake I'm just going to go right after it you know so there was that level of aggressiveness to the Vanderbuilt defense and you know you have to be prepared to uh to make them pay for for that aggressiveness and Virginia Tech didn't make them pay until the second half defensively for Virginia Tech in The Virginia Tech Defense Vs Vanderbilt this game vanderbelt had 371 yards at total offense 181 on the ground on 48 attempts Diego Pavia 12 of 16 190 yards in the air two touchdowns in the air 104 yard on the ground also scored with his legs Cedric Alexander 17 carries 69 yards a touchdown and then Quincy Skinner Jr four receptions 72 yards a touchdown he was defended by Monsur Delane to your point the whole game yeah and uh delay had the worst game of his career of course now as far as Skinner goes you know he's a fourth or fifth year guy who spent his whole career at Vanderbilt I believe his best season has been 20 catches last year and average 10 yards a catch um up until that game on Saturday a completely mediocre football player and so go goes up against delay like I said that was like delay's handled much better receivers than that before right he just did not show up to play for whatever reason on on Saturday but it's also an indicator of how much coaching matters like a guy looks like a bad football player and all of a sudden his offensive coaches change and he becomes a very productive football player yeah I I look at that performance and pby it was everything I thought he'd be I mean he was tough um you know he wasn't perfect I mean they put the ball on the ground two or three times in that game and I don't think Tech jumped on any of those uh loose balls there which is unfortunate sometimes you you hope for a 5050 uh range on that kind of thing but I mean he was tough even when when you know the tie game at the end or they get down at the end he leads them on a drive to to tie the game up and then in overtime he sort of felt inevitable at that point just running the ball he was going to get in the end zone and you know some pretty poor tackling on the touchdown that he got into the end zone but you know maybe that's just conditioning maybe he was just in better shape at the end there and and fought through those tackles to get it so uh he was everything uh as advertised very impressive and I thought Vanderbuilt had a very good plan for how to use him uh and just be effective with him running the ball so Andy how was the Vandy offense able to punch in the mouth defensively early on you know I think a lot of it was scheme I mean I think they played well on on the field physically and everything but sometimes with this triple options elements that they had in this thing and the quarterback keeping it sometimes you just scheme your way to to getting down the field and moving it and uh you know very impressed by how they you know if that was their first game running that offense you they brought in all these guys in the off season they they drilled it well in the offseason cuz I think I think they came out there and executed it very well and you know we I think there are a lot of questions we had certainly about you know Vanderbilt's offensive line they they opened up holes enough to make it work so I don't know if that they outplayed Virginia Tech or anything like that they they certainly out schemed them they played better than they did in the uh the first half and and ultimately the game to your point Chris you were talking about Virginia Tech's defense was so Stout in the second half they then take the lead they go up 2720 four minutes left to go and then everything kind of fell apart I mean vanderbelt went down the field vanderbelt essentially was not stopped in their final three drives of the game they just ran out of time on the second one and to Andy's Point earlier they played for a long field goal what changed for Virginia Tech defensively late in the game I have no idea and I don't know if they were just worn out from from uh the Heat and because you know except for a few days like this was a very mild month in blackburg there was even one week where it felt like of a fall it was getting down in the 440s wish would have stayed like that I know no kidding but then you go out there and heat index is 100 De is it's a little bit different um Virginia Tech didn't rotate quite as much at linebacker and I want to talk about this Jaden McDonald was Virginia Tech's best linebacker last year by far let me stop you guys Chris has an opinion about the Lineback imagine imagine he played One Snap really that's that's it okay he was their best Lineback backer last year unless he just had an awful preseason camp I just I can't really explain that so what was the most concerning part about Virginia Tech defensively then Delan Delan yeah Delane I think uh you certainly like to see your dline play better than that just in terms of you know blowing up plays in the back field I don't feel like they played on that side of the ball a ton uh certainly not in the first half better in the second half I mean that's supposed to be like a real strength of this team and you would you would hope that that would be uh you know stopping plays before they get started so again it's one week it was a bad show I guess we'll we'll see what they're made of when they come out this week against Marshall they'll have to choose their personnel maybe a little bit differently like I I thought it was interesting that that pan was basically the third choice defensive tackle in this game and played so much after being the lowest grader of Virginia Tech's defensive tackles last year and I know they said he had a good camp and everything but you know he played 26 snaps and was Virginia Tech low grader on defense even lower than Delane now the grades are preliminary at this point but he didn't have a great game Kamari copelan the fourstar Jo that everybody was so high on he only played 11 snaps but he was Virginia Tech High grader you know what what if you flip their snap numbers right so did Virginia Tech choose incorrectly their personnel the defensive tackle as far as H how many snaps each guy got because copelan played well fuga played well Peebles played well um APR uh APR defensive end you know he he was he was he was fine I think um and then Gil Gillum Gillum was okay um but but pan didn't have a great game or didn't seem to have a great game and so we'll we'll see how that rotation go goes in the future so much so so much of it is about sometimes making the right Personnel decisions who plays how many snaps and I don't know if they made the right decision there at defensive tackle and again not playing your best linebacker from last year it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me will you had something as well in the fourth chair yeah you guys you were asking about things that concern you about the defense and for me it's the the tackling um 13 Miss tackles yeah in general if if you look at the game the the Virginia Tech defense was on its heels and and Vanderbilt was you know when they blitzed the guy got a free run uh they didn't Blitz a lot but when they did the guy got a free shot at the quarterback or the running back they defended the perimeter runs very well and tackled very very uh very securely looking at the the early PFF grades V Virginia Tech tackling grade was 53.4 I think Vanderbilt's tackling grade was 63.9 it felt worse than that in in in you know in modern college football you have to have guys who can tackle in space and again preliminary grades one of the guys that really concerned me was Mo Phillips Mo's tackling grade is is a 41 and there were a number of times where Mo's knew what was coming and went to the hole and just did not make the tackle and you could see his own frustration after the play get up and clap his hands together he knew he should have had it the running back hurdled him yeah the one where I watched that play where Carpenter Carpenter's Alex what's his last name Alexander Alexander Cedric Alexander that's what I'm getting to see so Cedric Alexander you know Moe knew what was coming and filled the hole but kind of kind of stopped and didn't initiate the contact and the running back just just hurdled right over well he didn't keep his head up yeah defensive coaches teach you to keep your head up all the time for for a couple reasons for situations like that so you keep your eyes on the ball uh carrier but also to make sure you don't make contact with the very crown of your helmet and get your get your net compressed down into your spine you know yeah so you know and K jenkins's U um tackling grade wasn't great a couple of linebackers did have decent tackling grades but that's what concerns me is particularly when you got a you got a a quarterback like that's put putting so much pressure on the Primitive of your defense when you got a one-on-one match up you got to make the tackle second second best tackling grade on the team yesterday do you want to know who it was number one's Jaylen strowman who who might be out for a while from what we're hearing with Jaylen Jones really J Jones game he had the best game of his career how many snaps he how much we talked about him in the offseason and tackling and running defense instincts weren't great he he actually played pretty well in this game definitely the best of he played 44 snaps 4 even strowman when he was in there his tackling was good but uh he struggled with the option like at one point he bit down hard and just left his man to go around the edge it's like it's and there were time so there were times when Tech played without with a lack of trust I will say like you have to trust your guy to get his option man right and uh you know I saw uh I saw C Cole Nelson speaking of the option I saw Cole Nelson taking a little bit of the Heat and uh he didn't grade out well but I think they need to revisit that grade A lot of times he was assigned to the running back in the in the traditional option game so when the ball got to the outside side it always looked like Cole Nelson where's he going why is he going to the inside he read the play incorrectly no he's just covering his assignment the balls going to the outside because Cole Nelson did his assignment correctly right now it's up to everybody else to do their assignment and up to the coaches to not get out schemed on the edge um so there's always elements like that when you're defending an option and makes some players look worse than they actually are playing so I can't believe it's taken us this long to get to it but the the play that looms the larger to me Miscellaneous Game Stuff is the numbers violation in today's day and age of college football with all the guys upstairs I mean we saw walking they're all walking through the Press Box and everything there's probably 15 guys upstairs yeah 10 15 guys upstairs in today's day and age of college football how in the world can you miss having two number zeros on the field and because of that it cost Virginia Tech three points because vanderbelt had lined up for a 53 yard field goal their flag for a delay of game they then decide to punt and on the punt both oi Jennings Kelly Lawson are on the field puts him back in field goal range and Bandy goes up 20 to 10 well they actually line up for 54 yard and then when they marked off the first pedal it was five yards and marked off the next one it was like six yards so the the field goal was 5 it would have been good from like 60 so it wasn't going to matter in that situation Tech was in punt safe uh which means your defense is on the field except for the pun returner so like one of the safeties comes off and then you put your regular defense on the field that's when you're afraid there might be a fake right why do you think there's going to be what was it fourth and 15 uh it fourth and 15y long why do you think there's going to be a fake on Fourth and 15 it just that I get it you're from one of those situations on the field where it's it's a long field goal so you don't necessarily have confidence in the kicker to make it but you also don't guess that they're going to fake it on Fourth and 15 from basically Midfield so I thought that was an odd a little bit of an odd decision to be in punt safe uh right there which shows me that maybe maybe they hadn't practiced punt safe very much in the preseason which is why and maybe if if they had practiced it a little more in the preseason somebody in practice would have noticed oh look number zero and number zero were in the field together at the same time it's simple from now on you tell Kelly Lawson and and the other will linebackers all right Kelly Lawson is never to be on the field in a punt safe situation that's automatically one of the other will linebackers jobs um yeah I mean the mistake comes in in August I mean you have a whole month when you're practicing stuff when you're planning out who's going to be on the field even in situations I mean Ali Jennings is the the backup punt returner so but you've got to be aware of who's going to be on the field at all times and you know pry pra's like I saw at the last second I couldn't get the timeout and time people like if you saw it why didn't you call timeout I like CU you saw it the last second it's not like he saw it with 15 seconds left he's like man that sure is curious that we have two guys I'm going to let this run out and see how it plays out and they noticed like he would have called timeout if he could have done it in time but uh I I mean if that situation is going to arise like you just can't have those guys wearing those numbers like I'm sorry Kelly Lawson you want to wear number zero you got to wear something out like you know Bryce Duke last year switched his number from 22 to 23 for a stretch because I think uh he and U Mario Kendrick were on on the same field on some teams it's like you just can't trust for them to put a bib on and put a different number on that quickly in all those situations if it's a rare occurrence in those you know that's that specific Personnel is not going to rise much maybe you can excuse it but man I I just tell one of them like got to switch a number you just can't have it that's just a massive massive swing you you've got 99 numbers well actually I I guess 100 numbers since they do number zero these minus like four they're four tires right and would you dress 65 70 guys for a game you've got plenty of numbers to have everyone have their own unique number during games well and you also can just give a guy a different Jersey like PJ PR who is returning kicks later in the game they gave Caleb Woodson the 85 Jersey later or if everybody just has a different jersey number you don't have to worry about all this crap it would be easy but I mean during the week like you you have the full roster players and stuff so it's it's just you know number zero is a very cool number everybody wants to wear it uh you're sort of like dealing with that and I know some of that is like recruiting like oh yeah we'll promise you this number you get to wear this number and stuff so there's other factors you have to play into it is sometimes it's not as simple as just everybody gets a different number but uh you can't have that mistake then if you're going to do all that stuff be cool everybody gets the number that they want like that then you have to be on top of that and you can't make that mistake in that situation it bit him and it cost him a game that went to overtime you know you can do cool stuff if you're winning but but like like sure you like you can recruit well but like if you keep losing to teams like Vanderbilt at some point you're not going to recruit well anymore right and because you know you're going to get fired you win you'll end up recruiting well if you but you know but just by making bad decisions like that I don't know it's just well you go frustrating you go from it being 17 to 10 getting the ball back at your own 20 to being down 10 points because of that mistake like that that is the play I keep going back to that whole drive because the first play of that drive was the one where fuga knocked us straight up in the air and and Delane you know I'm not faulting Delane cuz you go up high to catch his this mess of bodies you know swiping at the ball there but man if if he he comes down with that and it's 17 to 10 and it's a short field and vanderbel feels like the walls are closing in them all of a sudden with these Hoke fans going crazy I mean that could be a completely different outcome and then you look at how that drive ended up you know still could have been a seven-point game Tech has the ball at the 20 I guess touchbacks after a punt uh you know still feeling good about yourself instead you're back down two possessions and mean that's just a crushing turnaround there by the way you said oi Jennings is the backup punt returner PR said postgame that jayen lane is banged up now he did I think return a single punt late in the game he did and I also asked him I'm like so were you banged up at all he's like no sometimes just all OS in there so I don't know if Jaylen was trying to cover for his anything that was bothering him in that game but you know price said it so uh yeah I would trust that the head coach if he's a if if the head coach is actually saying that somebody is injured then you know usually they try to hide that kind of stuff so I would believe him when he says that but but like if he's banged up and couldn't return like why is he back in the game at the end of the yeah that's what what was so confusing I think they're they're overthinking this and they're being too cute Jaylen Lane was a top 10 punt returner in the country two years ago and he was your number one backup last year has has Jennings ever been like a full-time punt returner uh I'm not sure but they said that in practice that he just he had the best hands back there he didn't drop anything the other thing too is they hyped up all off season long well if we if we if we lose Tucker Holloway we have Jaylen Lane right and Olie Jennings is the starter I know you had something well in the fourth chair as well uh no I totally lost my train of thought discussion appreciate the other part of that L Lane played 29 snaps yeah yeah he did which was the lowest number for the four graduate students so maybe he was dealing with something just didn't want to tell us afterwards right I was going to ask what were pri's exact words did he say injured or did he say unavailable I think he said banged up yeah I can't remember exactly what it was uh cuz there's all kinds of reasons you could be unavailable right H flipping to overtime vanderbelt scores on the first possession K drones speaking of banged up is cramping can't go so Colin schle comes in the game he darts to the left and picks up like 14 yards on the first play and then I believe a handoff on the second play and then they bring schle out of the game Kiren drones comes back in limping on the way to the field not limping but you know what I mean kind of hobbling on the way to the field and gets tackled immediately they pull him out of the game and put shle back in just another confusing sequence on Saturday after yeah it's like you bring in your quarterback who just had cramps in his legs and he he comes back in the game the first thing you do is is run the football with him yeah there might have been something going on with the helmet communication it's certainly Poss I heard something about that uh you could see before the fourth down play like vanderbel called timeout when Virginia Tech was sort of like scrambling to line up I think they really bailed them out because I don't think anybody had a clue what the actual play call was going to be on that last one so I think there might have been some helmet communication deals going on but even still uh I don't know if they had any timeouts they had one time out so I don't know why you just use it there instead of putting your clearly hobbled quarterback or somebody dealing with cramps in to to then run and proba even said afterwards you know he couldn't really run around you know thought might have to throw the ball there it's like well then you called a play where he ran the ball or you know I know it's was probably a read play but he had the option of keeping the ball uh it just seemed like a a curious decision to say the least yeah that was again like I go back to that I know there was some murmurs after the game about the helmet communication they had a time out well not only that but you have a a full backup system of relaying the play of the game they still have all the you know the guys dressed like Teletubbies on the side with the different colored shirts relaying plays and and they have the cards and and all that stuff I mean you've done this in college football for you know a hundred years getting the play in uh you know from the sideline so they should have been able to do it agreed I mean it's just uh I don't know it just seems like another kind of botched situation and I get like it's your starting quarterback and he's on the sideline say oh I'm fine I want to go back in the game yeah you got to you've got to override that as the head coach be like I just saw you limping off the field you could you know barely move right and it's just like sh had just run for 14 yards and was fast getting around the edge you know so uh a little bit of momentum built up there to a certain extent so I shouldn't have come down to that obviously but I don't know it's just one of those games where you can I didn't even right about that that part of it in my column yesterday because there were so many other things to write about but it's just one of those things where so many wh ifs happened there were four or five of them and if any one of them is different then Virginia Tech probably or certainly could have won the football game so looking at the season as a whole what are the season long impacts of this game how does this change the trajectory and how you view The Season Long Impact Of The Loss Virginia Tech as a whole it's hard to not view with them in a less positive light after after losing that game of course um but if you're a Virginia Tech fan you've been around long enough to know that the first game or even even sometimes the first month is not indicative of how the season's going to go and we know that you know from both ways you've seen 0 and2 starts turned into Conference Championship teams I thought I knew who the 2019 hokes were after four games and then they smack Miami the next week and go on a big winning streak right I thought I knew who last year's team was after four games and then they turned that around and started playing a pretty decent football conversely we thought Virginia Tech was really good in 2018 after the first game of the season and a few weeks later we sure were humbled weren't we um yeah so I don't have positive thoughts on this team right now but we have obviously we know we might feel differently in a month or two months or something we very well could I don't know um I know they give them themselves less Marg for erir that N9 and three record prediction doesn't seem right now because they're that mean now they'll have to steal one against you know Miami or Clemson or somebody to to make up for for that um which is going to be difficult and they'll have to play a lot better Clemson didn't look so hot last week gr playing Georgia but still I was looking at that score and at halftime I'm like man Clemson has zero points Virginia Tech has three points at halftime are we really which was the worst loss for the ACC from an ACC perspective it's probably Virginia te to the worst team in in the that's that's bad lot lot of people are going to do that against Georgia I think at least the mighty Miami Hurricanes Stomp the Gators in the swamp that's right but yeah you know as far as that goes I've got it's not so much the loss per se it's the trend I fully believe that Virginia Tech can still have a successful season I think for that 25 minute stretch where they play to their best of of their abilities on Saturday shows that they can be a very good team but I point I look at the issues in that game and and every other close game of the Brent pry era and you can't expect every single game to be a blowout even though like eight of them in a row last year were blowouts you can't expect that Trend to continue there's going to be close games this year and when you're one and eight in in one score games like can I really Express optimism until I see that turn around assuming that there's going to be close games the rest of the season they're not all going to be blowouts yeah I probably would feel better if I had predicted eight and four on the season than 9 and three but I don't really change my Outlook on the season too much uh based on one game because like you know like we said openers are weird you know strange stuff happens you mention all the examples in Virginia Tech History where they've turned around from a extremely bad start like that I mean this was this was the thing that you know drove fans nuts with Frank Beamer what made him great is like all our goals are ahead of us you know this is a non-conference game like people like oh man people talk about the playoffs it's like honestly this has no impact on that if you win the ACC you get in anyway so all those games are yet to play Down the Line uh obviously work to do before you can even start thinking about anything like that but uh you know I think they can rebound I think I think this week might tell us more about you know what this team's potential was just based on one week's performance last week if they come out and are not great again this week then yes I have a lot more concerns about that if they play well coming off the heels of a loss that should be plenty motivating for this team then you know I think hey maybe they can turn this thing around and still have a pretty good season so uh you know one week does not a season make and I think that's what the the coaches have to reinforce this week and remember ODU looks strong defensively at South Carolina too and that's after Mar South Carolina was fortunate to win the game South Carolina doesn't have someone who can pass the football and that's kind of a big deal I saw somebody complaining on on Twitter it's like oh man Beamer just doesn't know how to hire offensive coordinators I'm like what year is this what what what is this quote this tweet been taking place because it's you know the same complaints about Frank are taking place against Shane right now will you add something as well so you ask what this means for the rest of the season and for me it comes down to a four-letter word trust and yes I did that on purpose there's a loss of trust you know there there was there's hope versus trust you were hoping and trus in that this program would would ramp upwards in momentum is it is the third year of the coaching staff and then you see some of the gaffs in this game and you see the record one and eight in one score games under pride and I I think for for me and I think for a large portion of the fan base whether or not they're actually using that four-letter word trust they're thinking to themselves I don't trust these guys to get this team to nine wins and like Andy said it's really going to be hard now cuz that's this is one everybody was counting as a win so how much does this game make you nervous for going to an ODU or having Ruckers who can beat you in the trenches here at home those are just few examples a lot more nervous um I I think uh Virginia Tech's going to have much better quarterback play in my opinion than than South Carolina did but again how much of what what if the worst nightmares uh the worst nightmare scenario here is like if the book is totally out on Tech's offense from last year and all the smok and mirror stuff doesn't work this year what do you do yeah right so and maybe we saw some of that against Vanderbilt but I don't know we'll have a much better idea after you know the the next game or two um but those games are more of a current concern now how could they not be you've just lost to a team that's lost 10 in a row yeah and it it certainly kicks off this revenge tour that they're hoping for uh a little bit differently because you've seen them lose to all these teams in in recent years and certainly last week's performance is going to pop up when you're thinking about uh how they can do against these next three Andy you talked about in your five thoughts just to kind of wrap it up you can't let vanderbelt beat you twice still got 11 games left to go a lot left they're out there for you what did you kind of mean by you can't let the commodor beat you twice I it's just it's the classic coach speak yeah after the game I mean I laid out exactly what Brent pry is going to say to the media on Tuesday like thanks the fans for coming that wasn't us a lot of a lot of teachable moments it's on me we got to get them better prepared I mean it's almost paint by numbers uh what you can expect them to say I think the language will be a bit more harsh to the team uh than it will be in front of the media but you know that is the job of the head coach and like I said that's what made Frank a Hall of Famer is he was the steadying force in all the rough waves of this whole thing and that's what prize got to be here and you can't let one loss you know turn into a you know Snowball into a loss in week two and then all of a sudden The Season's lost I mean that's why you have to be a steadying force in this whole thing get them back to playing how he thinks they can play uh and turn around and come back with the w this week as always Tech sideline is Ad Read presented by First Bank and Trust Company as our presenting sponsor First Bank and Trust Company support has been invaluable to TSL helping us to bring you all the great content across all of our platforms they offer a variety of checking and saving savings account options that are sure to meet your banking needs including free checking visit firstbank.com to find the account that's right for you all right before we What's Coming Up On TechSideline.com go what's coming up on techsideline.com the rest of the week I know still a lot coming your way with Marshall coming in town on Saturday oh man you know it's normal week of content I think Tristan race is going to do an officiating article for us again uh there are probably a couple good examples in that game for him to to use um I think you know brand BR Brandon Patterson will talk about you know Marshall later in the week and I think he'll probably do a uh a look back on the Vanderbilt game as well um so man we're into uh regular season content no man it's kind of the same as it's always been yeah practices we'll see if my uh press conference prediction of what he talks about comes true we'll be watching what about you well anything well I will do a Monday thoughts later on today this is currently 20 after 11 on Monday so I'll spend the afternoon writing some stuff uh I did get to watch the game uh didn't really get to take notes on it because I watched it on my phone in the car on the way back a friend of mine was driving uh but yeah I'll have something later on today you got to pass me one of the koolaids before we go because I am certainly a victim of it here in 2024 1:11:10 - Tech Sideline Podcast Outro but for Andy bitter for Chris Coleman for will Stewart for Nick Brown Behind the Scenes I'm Carter Hill saying so long from episode 371 of the tech sideline podcast and we'll talk to you later this week [Music] [Music]