It was a rough night/morning. Let's get to it, in no particular order.
- The offense did its job in the fourth quarter and kept ECU's offense off the field for two thirds of it.
- We muff a lot of kicks and got lucky it didn't cost us big time in this game.
- The defensive line finally decided to wear its man pants to a game. All four played well, especially defensive tackle Demetrius Taylor, who was in for an injured John Graves.
- One of my players to watch for this game was rover Dorian Porch. We got to watch him a lot because he played poorly, missing tackles and giving up yards through the air. He was eventually replaced by Davon Morgan, who played a decent game.
- Speaking of missed tackles, holy hell there were a lot of them, especially in the secondary and especially from free safety Kam Chancellor.
- Cody Grimm is the DEATHBACKER.
- YPP: VT 5.1, ECU 4.2
- On offense, there were yards to be had outside the tackles and Tyrod Taylor and Ryan Williams found them. Williams slashed the ECU D all night and had a particularly impressive run where he looked like he was going to be brought down in the backfield but escaped for a long game.
- The Hokies eventually wore down the ECU D and controlled the clock in the fourth quarter.
- There were some bad play calls last night. I don't remember specifics of a lot of them because of the state I was in, but I do remember a fake hand-off to the outside followed by a hand off up the middle some time in the first half.
- This was particularly bad because we had two back up linemen in the game (Via and Nosal) going against a pretty good defensive front. That kind of stuff won't work. Faking inside and then going outside might have, but we couldn't really rely on Via and Nosal.
- I'm concerned about the injuries on the offensive line. We have a center and guard out, Render's probably still feeling the effects of his strained pec and Ed Wang has stopped blocking anything with a pulse. It will be very difficult to get yards the rest of the way, so it's going to be up to Stinespring to find ways to do it. However, the interior blocking is going to be suspect and Tyrod isn't going to have any time to throw. Good luck, Stiney.
- Brent Bowden put three more punts inside the 20 last night. He's the best punter in the country. So we have that going for us. Which is nice.
- First Star: Ryan Williams
- Second Star: Demetrius Taylor
- Third Star: Matt Waldron