We all know the basic answer to this year’s woes in the secondary: the defenders were young and in new positions, and they played their hardest teams up front. With the season over, I thought it’d be a good time to dig into those answers.
First, we can’t discount the problem of young players in new positions. The schematic complexity of secondary play is underrated. On every run and screen play each defender in the secondary has a specific assignment that varies by position, play, and what the offense does. No one just flies to the ball willy nilly. Foster’s safeties have a more involved role than most, often having gap/route assignments that require instant decision making. Detrick Bonner, for example, got victimized a few times by watching the backfield too long and letting receivers run by him. He would’ve had fewer moments like that in a more typical defense, and he’ll have fewer of them in the future with a season under his belt.
Defending the pass is even more complicated. It’s not like the old days where a zone defender would always sit in his zone and read the QB, and a man defender would always shadow one clearly defined receiver. At the very least, every college defense has rules for how to squeeze zones down and pick up defenders running through them, and every college defense has rules on how to seamlessly switch man-defense assignments versus motioning and crossing receivers.
We all know that Bud Foster doesn’t run a “at the very least” scheme. He requires his defenders to recognize and react to various combinations of routes, run exotic blitzes (and cover behind those blitzes with little or no support or with rotating coverages), and routinely alter assignments on the fly. That last one tripped up Kyle Fuller and the safeties quite a bit: more than a few times receivers got turned loose because no one could decide who had responsibility for deep routes.
This is all hard enough to learn on its own, but Tech’s schedule (and its own offense) presented an extra complication: rather than having an off-season and late summer to hone the basics, Tech played a host of oddball offenses at the beginning of the season. It started with the Hokies’ own protean spread-option/pro/pistol morass in the off-season, and continued with Georgia Tech, UNC, Duke, Clemson, and Cinci and their various takes on spread-option systems.
Rather than play things conservatively, Foster schemed aggressively against each of these teams and their unique styles. This was a big risk on Foster’s part, since his secondary wasn’t just young, but had safeties at corner and corners at safety. Compare the age and experience of this year’s DB’s with the crew we started against Cinci in the Orange Bowl and you’ll see the difference in both age and positional experience. Against these newfangled teams, this year’s secondary players learned a host of tweaks and outright scheme changes that undid quite a bit of what we’ve come to know as the Hokie defense.
For the first time in a long time, Tech’s defensive coaches didn’t beat their competition in practice and overcome their team’s steep learning curve. Tech’s secondary was slow to adopt the changes and suffered for it. Even worse, Pittsburgh and Miami gashed Tech with things the Hokies usually smear, but didn’t start defending well until the Florida State game. A lot of the mental errors made this year should be largely absent by next. I’m not saying Tech will hold UNC under 30, but it should keep them from hitting 48. I also think it’ll be good for the defense in the long run to have had an “experimental” season during a down year, as opposed to next season when the offense will likely be retooled. And as slim as Tech’s odds of winning are, scheduling Alabama to start the year should help VT’s defense in two major ways: it’ll focus them on a marquee opponent while also giving them a meat-and-potatoes offense to prep for at the beginning of the year.
Of course, the elephant in the room is that the teams that beat Tech brought more than scheme issues. Most of them had more on-field talent than in years prior. The Hokies, meanwhile, seem fairly stagnant on the talent front, and lacking the type of players needed to run Foster’s latest defensive revisions to beat the option game. In the secondary, this means corners and safeties who can play isolated man coverage like it’s the NFL in the 80’s. Foster was happier than ever to leave guys on islands just so he could bring numbers to stop the option, though he didn’t have the front seven to give Exum freedom to learn the position or protect Fuller when he was playing through injury.
The talent problem won’t be solved by next year, though some luck with injuries will go a long way towards lessening it. Also helpful is a much more favorable overall schedule, with tougher opponents at home or simply off the list. I don’t think next year will hearken back to the Terrordome days, but for the secondary players it should be a much better year. Beyond that, though, some recruiting needs to be done if Foster’s squad hopes to keep pace with the offenses of Clemson, Florida State, and potential opponents in major bowls.
I think one of the things people always fail to realize is that alot of our starters are highly ranked kids. The different between us and the Alabama’s of the world is our highly rated starters range all the way from FR. to SR. whereas Alabama brings in full classes of players like that. I think that we are going to have a heck of a defense next year my biggest concern is the lack of depth and experience at LB. If Drew Harris and JC Coleman can produce at RB then I think Trey Edmunds spends most of his time on defense next season that is unless he comes out and just makes people look a fool running the ball. RVD fits the mold of someone that could be a tremendous whip LB for us over the next couple of years Jack Tyler is getting better all the time and is a potential All American, Antone Exum is a HUGE DB, however he can lay the pads on people and also was close to the tops in the country last year in passes defended, Kyle Fuller if he can stay healthy the entire year is a potential All American Kyshoen Jarret was a beast last year at Rover and should only get better he also may reach All American status before he turns pro. Detrick Bonner has great potential but had his struggles last year in a new position he should be better come next season if not then Holland Fisher looks like he is going to be ready to come in and contribute from day 1. Also Michael Cole alothough he got beat a couple of times in coverage last year is instictual and played pretty well at times. I hope that James Gayle sticks around for his senior season, but if not we still have JR Collins (which I don’t think will be a starter next year) Dadi Nicolas reminds me alot of Jason Worlds only doesn’t have as long of a football background, Tyrel Wilson showed alot of burst off the edge is still not big enough to hold up in a full game against major competition but can cause problems in pursuit Matt Roth had some good practices and scrimmage time last year, Ken Ekanem as long as he is back 100% from his injury I am excited to see what he can do. Inside Luther Maddy and Derrick Hopkins should be beasts then Kris Harley really started coming on toward the end of the year and Corey Marshall is very versatile. I’m just excited about 2013 LETS GO HOKIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If we want to compete and win, then we need to recruit much better. We need the 4* and 5 * type athletes on both sides of the ball in order to compete and be successful. Clemson’s talent is better than ours and it shows on the field. We do a good job typically coaching up and developing talent, but its a lot easier to do with the better athletes .
I have to disagree on the talent comment (….The Hokies, meanwhile, seem fairly stagnant on the talent front, and lacking the type of players needed to run Foster’s latest defensive revisions to beat the option game……..). While I wouldn’t say they lived up to most our expectations, the 2012 defense played well on the year save three games (Pitt, Cincy and UNC). And I’m pretty sure a couple of key players (Maddy for one) were hurt at that time. Even in the loses to F$U, DaU and Clemson, Bud’s D held each of them to a hundred yards below their average (Maimi was only held 93 below). Throw in, as you pointed out, the backfield, (LBs as well) were learning new positions / schemes, it’s not hard to figure out that they started off slow.
To suggest the defense is ‘stagnant’ on the talent front, implies that they didn’t improve as they become more familiar for their new positions. To me, it also implies that the young talent didn’t develop throughout the course of the season. And that would not be accurate IMHO. Frye, Cole, Riley, Nicolas, RVD and Harley all played meaningful minutes with several others gaining valuable PT as well. Given all that and the fact that four Sophomores started, there’s a Fr or Soph at every position in the two deep, the 2012 and the upcoming 2013 classes are full of elite defensive recruits (particularly at DB) there is no reason to think that Tech isn’t set up well down the road.
S/F
Interesting fact, believe or not, Tech outgained nine of their 13 opponents (by 74 or better 8 of those 9).
Ave vs VT -/+ VT out gained
3-Sep-12 GEORGIA TECH * 447 288 159 326 38
8-Sep-12 AUSTIN PEAY 354 221 133 419 198
15-Sep-12 at Pittsburgh 400 537 +137 324 +213
22-Sep-12 BOWLING GREEN 373 266 107 396 130
29-Sep-12 vs Cincinnati 440 495 +55 402 +93
6-Oct-12 at North Carolina * 486 533 +47 394 +139
13-Oct-12 DUKE * 397 329 68 525 196
20-Oct-12 at Clemson * 518 295 223 406 111
1-Nov-12 at Miami * 440 347 93 421 74
8-Nov-12 FLORIDA STATE * 466 311 155 385 74
17-Nov-12 at Boston College * 350 296 54 401 105
24-Nov-12 VIRGINIA * 397 217 180 303 86
28-Dec-12 vs Rutgers 341 196 145 196 0
What you’re talking about seems to me more accurately phrased in your second paragraph–”develop.” I definitely agree that the players developed over the year (as most do), but unless they’re in a gene doping program, their talent level–their innate physical and mental capacities to play the game and resist injury–didn’t change.
This year’s defense seems to me to be roughly as talented as those we’ve seen in the past ten years or so. That’s including the young players you mentioned–they’re the group of promising young guys we have every year. I can’t look at this squad and say it’s better from top-to-bottom than the 2004 or 2006 teams, or that this year’s young stars will be better/equal to the ones from those older teams. It’d be one thing if this year’s youngsters pushed out older players across the board, but that’s not the case so much, especially in the secondary.
“Stagnant” does have a negative connotation, and if I’d been talking about how this year’s squad was generally good compared to the rest of the BCS defenses (which it was), I wouldn’t have used it. But for talking about how the defense is having a hard time landing a greater number of skilled players and for expressing concern over the future, it’s spot-on.
Clemson and FSU represented some of their harder teams later in the season….
We dont have the atheletes that Alabama has. They just keep reloading. Wehave good players, but usually takes the a few years to get to that point. We compete with what we have as most teams do but the elite do get the most 4 and 5 star players..Ithink overall we have been consistanly good over the years. Go Hokies!