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Not to replace @HurricaneVision's weekly post. Just some shorter notes, yet still a long post (fair warning).
- Coach Richt did some of his best work last night and in undervalued ways. People complained about the INT at the end of the half. And, I get it. He had a tremendous opportunity to help the defense stay off the field for the rest of the 1st half. We got the ball with about 2 minutes left and moved the ball. Our defense had allowed less than 100 yards to that point. But, he kept pushing the ball downfield and Rosier threw a pick. Bad outcome, great philosophy. The approach pays dividends in how they play their Safeties. I will rarely have a problem with [even poor] results when we err on the side of aggression.
Further, there was one example yesterday that showed me something really promising. To begin the 3rd quarter, we ran this:
Above, you'll see Richards ran a deep post and Berrios ran underneath it inside for an 18 yard pitch and catch. When it happened to open the half, it was positive. But, I turned to my section crew and said "we missed Richards on the post over the top!" To begin the 4th quarter, we ran this:
Above, you'll see a different formation, but similar concept. Richt came back to it. I loved it. When I saw Richards push upfield and break for the deep post, I jumped. Rosier seems to have come back to this specific earlier miss. This is a sign of Richt and his offensive staff noticing the miss earlier in the game and intentionally coming back to it. Really important stuff and, while we've seen him come back to stuff that works often, I was extremely excited to see Coach Richt come back to optimize.
We still struggle in RZ TD conversions. We still have too many short, non-TD drives. We were only 38% on 3rd down conversions. We left points on the board. And, yet we still closed this out with 28 points. There's a lot to be excited about as things continue to come together. The above example as an indicator of offensive coaches likely working together to come back to optimize is a great thing if we continue to see examples of it.
- I won't say too much on Coach Diaz I haven't said in other threads. @HurricaneVision will do his screenshots later in the week. As he and I said elsewhere, VT used motion men to move back and forth and reveal a lot of our coverages. You can simply watch our Safeties roll up and down, as well as our underneath defenders follow across. No big deal because, again, defenses are combinations of coverages and fronts. Those who continue to harp on the "Diaz is too cute" narrative are overdoing it, IMO. It's like the offseason "gimmick" quote set talking points for our own fans.
We can acknowledge Diaz likes to move guys around (sometimes too much) in his front in order to create advantages to get upfield. We can acknowledge he has blitzed too often and sometimes kept our best pass rushers in coverages through zone blitz. But, he has consistently adjusted and here are our results so far:
- We're 10th in the nation in yards per play
- We're 12th in the nation in scoring defense
- In ACC games, we're right at 30% in 3rd down conversions. Paradoxically, our two cupcake games where we played a lot of base defense against spread teams makes our 3rd down conversion percentages and rankings worse.
We're not perfect and perhaps our rankings get worse immediately after ND, but this is what we are so far, which I maintain since last week is above average.
Some individual player notes:
- Rosier's next evolution, and it can still happen this upcoming week, is moving defenders around with his eyes a bit better. He could have held Safeties and DBs a bit better last night.
- Homer's that dude in the cutback and forward lean. Would love to see his yards after initial contact.
- Deejay Dallas needs to come in more for our 5WR sets. Incredible balance and feel. He's a nightmare in the middle of the field. Hint: that's where we can kill ND.
- Herndon saved us last night with a big, big play. Would love to see him work inside the hashes more.
- OL did a fine job in pass pro. A guy like Darling is so much better in zone blocking than he is at the POA. They rotated Mahoney in at his spot at times. St. Louis is quietly having a great year.
- BRAXTON F'IN BERRIOS is all balls. Every time he makes a play, I do the Major League II giant marbles gesture. While his catches over the middle are great, and of course his TD, he most pumped me up when he absolutely drove the guy he was blocking into the ground on a long Rosier run early in the game. The one where we stalled out, IIRC.
- Richards changes everything for us. Just see above. He seems hobbled, though.
- As I've said in other threads, RJ Mcintosh is basically gone. He's the perfect Sheldon Richardson role in the NFL. The Seahawks took Malik Mcdowell 35th overall last year for that role and it wouldn't shock me if someone picks RJ somewhere in R1 to play the same role.
- Norton had an awesome game yesterday.
- Nothing more can really be said about our awesome DEs. Garvin is a weirdo with a 7 foot wingspan. Chad Thomas is a knife. These guys are critical this upcoming week.
- Our LBs can be even better. Shaq played a solid game. Despite missing a tackle early on the QB, I don't remember seeing him miss another one the rest of the game. Mccloud played less, but didn't stand out as negatively as he had in previous games. On a critical 4th down, Pinckney basically guessed the snap count, jumped inside a gap and VT's play would have been blown up regardless of the botched exchange. We'll likely boom or bust with ND like this a handful of times.
- We showed some textbook stuff at DB. I give credit to position coaches for stuff like this. #1 Michael Jackson's PBU with his long arm was basically how you're taught to play the ball. #2 Watching Redwine and Jaquan aggressively fill the alleys more than I remember in previous games. Jaquan's forced fumble was textbook.
I'll leave the rest up for discussion and to HV's thread. But, like I said before this weekend's game "take a strong look at the WVU vs VT game," don't think that ND is unstoppable, either.
What a special feeling being in and leaving that stadium, by the way. It was absolutely rocking all night.
- Coach Richt did some of his best work last night and in undervalued ways. People complained about the INT at the end of the half. And, I get it. He had a tremendous opportunity to help the defense stay off the field for the rest of the 1st half. We got the ball with about 2 minutes left and moved the ball. Our defense had allowed less than 100 yards to that point. But, he kept pushing the ball downfield and Rosier threw a pick. Bad outcome, great philosophy. The approach pays dividends in how they play their Safeties. I will rarely have a problem with [even poor] results when we err on the side of aggression.
Further, there was one example yesterday that showed me something really promising. To begin the 3rd quarter, we ran this:
Above, you'll see Richards ran a deep post and Berrios ran underneath it inside for an 18 yard pitch and catch. When it happened to open the half, it was positive. But, I turned to my section crew and said "we missed Richards on the post over the top!" To begin the 4th quarter, we ran this:
Above, you'll see a different formation, but similar concept. Richt came back to it. I loved it. When I saw Richards push upfield and break for the deep post, I jumped. Rosier seems to have come back to this specific earlier miss. This is a sign of Richt and his offensive staff noticing the miss earlier in the game and intentionally coming back to it. Really important stuff and, while we've seen him come back to stuff that works often, I was extremely excited to see Coach Richt come back to optimize.
We still struggle in RZ TD conversions. We still have too many short, non-TD drives. We were only 38% on 3rd down conversions. We left points on the board. And, yet we still closed this out with 28 points. There's a lot to be excited about as things continue to come together. The above example as an indicator of offensive coaches likely working together to come back to optimize is a great thing if we continue to see examples of it.
- I won't say too much on Coach Diaz I haven't said in other threads. @HurricaneVision will do his screenshots later in the week. As he and I said elsewhere, VT used motion men to move back and forth and reveal a lot of our coverages. You can simply watch our Safeties roll up and down, as well as our underneath defenders follow across. No big deal because, again, defenses are combinations of coverages and fronts. Those who continue to harp on the "Diaz is too cute" narrative are overdoing it, IMO. It's like the offseason "gimmick" quote set talking points for our own fans.
We can acknowledge Diaz likes to move guys around (sometimes too much) in his front in order to create advantages to get upfield. We can acknowledge he has blitzed too often and sometimes kept our best pass rushers in coverages through zone blitz. But, he has consistently adjusted and here are our results so far:
- We're 10th in the nation in yards per play
- We're 12th in the nation in scoring defense
- In ACC games, we're right at 30% in 3rd down conversions. Paradoxically, our two cupcake games where we played a lot of base defense against spread teams makes our 3rd down conversion percentages and rankings worse.
We're not perfect and perhaps our rankings get worse immediately after ND, but this is what we are so far, which I maintain since last week is above average.
Some individual player notes:
- Rosier's next evolution, and it can still happen this upcoming week, is moving defenders around with his eyes a bit better. He could have held Safeties and DBs a bit better last night.
- Homer's that dude in the cutback and forward lean. Would love to see his yards after initial contact.
- Deejay Dallas needs to come in more for our 5WR sets. Incredible balance and feel. He's a nightmare in the middle of the field. Hint: that's where we can kill ND.
- Herndon saved us last night with a big, big play. Would love to see him work inside the hashes more.
- OL did a fine job in pass pro. A guy like Darling is so much better in zone blocking than he is at the POA. They rotated Mahoney in at his spot at times. St. Louis is quietly having a great year.
- BRAXTON F'IN BERRIOS is all balls. Every time he makes a play, I do the Major League II giant marbles gesture. While his catches over the middle are great, and of course his TD, he most pumped me up when he absolutely drove the guy he was blocking into the ground on a long Rosier run early in the game. The one where we stalled out, IIRC.
- Richards changes everything for us. Just see above. He seems hobbled, though.
- As I've said in other threads, RJ Mcintosh is basically gone. He's the perfect Sheldon Richardson role in the NFL. The Seahawks took Malik Mcdowell 35th overall last year for that role and it wouldn't shock me if someone picks RJ somewhere in R1 to play the same role.
- Norton had an awesome game yesterday.
- Nothing more can really be said about our awesome DEs. Garvin is a weirdo with a 7 foot wingspan. Chad Thomas is a knife. These guys are critical this upcoming week.
- Our LBs can be even better. Shaq played a solid game. Despite missing a tackle early on the QB, I don't remember seeing him miss another one the rest of the game. Mccloud played less, but didn't stand out as negatively as he had in previous games. On a critical 4th down, Pinckney basically guessed the snap count, jumped inside a gap and VT's play would have been blown up regardless of the botched exchange. We'll likely boom or bust with ND like this a handful of times.
- We showed some textbook stuff at DB. I give credit to position coaches for stuff like this. #1 Michael Jackson's PBU with his long arm was basically how you're taught to play the ball. #2 Watching Redwine and Jaquan aggressively fill the alleys more than I remember in previous games. Jaquan's forced fumble was textbook.
I'll leave the rest up for discussion and to HV's thread. But, like I said before this weekend's game "take a strong look at the WVU vs VT game," don't think that ND is unstoppable, either.
What a special feeling being in and leaving that stadium, by the way. It was absolutely rocking all night.
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