Good, Bad, and Ugly: 2015 Regular Season Awards

When it comes to gameday, I'm usually the one firing away on the Gobbler Country Twitter feed- basketball or football. I generally, at least in football, try to provide a short good, bad, and ugly to give a synopsis of what I saw on the field. So for this article, I'm going to wrap up the season with the 2015 Regular Season with a set of Good, Bad, and Ugly Awards. Without further ado, let's get to the categories:

GOOD AWARDS!

The Jack Tyler Award for Generally Good Performance nominees are:

Isaiah Ford

Brandon Facyson

Travon McMillian

Adonis Alexander

Sam Rogers

And the winner is:

ISAIAH FORD

Facyson gets passed over for his penalties, Travon would've won the award but for just not getting enough carries over the year- and not establishing himself until late, and both Adonis and Sam have contributed, but I personally believe the steadiest player and the best offensive weapon on the team right now is Isaiah Ford. Ford is on pace to be the record holder for receiving yards in a year in VT history (And the first 1,000 yard receiver), with a combination of Michael Brewer and Brenden Motley at quarterback, and Scot Loeffler calling plays. I can't wait for Coach Fuente's offense and see how many yards he and Cam Phillips can rack up in 2016 (we're guaranteed both of them for another year). Ford gets open, he has fairly solid hands, he's more than capable of breaking tackles and evading defenders, and is generally your savvy veteran player- and only a sophomore at that. Next year he stands a shot at being a legit Hokie Great.

The AAA Garbage Good Frigging Riddance Award nominees are:

All the injuries we've suffered this year

Scot Loeffler and his offense

Greg Stroman at Punt Returner

The running back rotation

The ire around the coaching issue

And the winner is:

SCOT LOEFFLER AND HIS OFFENSE

Injuries always tend to hit us, Stroman might be back at returner next year- that's up to our new special teams coach, Coach Shibest- the running back rotation hurt but I don't know if it'd've saved us, and the ire around the coaching issue, while great to get out from under, isn't what's killing the team. Scot Loeffler and his offenses have been awful. Going back to his days in Auburn in 2012, they've ranked, by year, 117^th of 124, 91^st of 126, 86^th of 128, and 94^th of 128 in terms of yardage. In points per game? 114^th, 101^st, 94^th, and this year his best showing at 64^th. Yeah, if you're looking for reasons people think Beamer retired early, part of it is his hiring of Scot Loeffler and the pit our offense stayed in after we complained about the O'Cainspring era. Poor quarterback development and decisions, poor offensive line play, and poor offensive recruiting have stuck us in a hole that we hired Coach Fuente to dig us out from. Who knows? In some hypothetical universe where we hired an offensive coordinator that fixed the offense, maybe Bud gets his shot, we've got more continuity, and Beamer ends up retiring on more of a high note.

ESPN Stats

The Good Heavens, Where'd He Come From? Award for random surprising newcomer performance nominees are:

Adonis Alexander

Travon McMillian

Yosuah Nijman

Brenden Motley

And the winner is:

ADONIS ALEXANDER

Brenden Motley did more than I thought he could. I figured he'd be a complete garbage fire after watching him for a couple of spring games and not being able to hit the broadside of a barn. I expected to go winless, and we scratched out a couple of wins. Nijman was in the offensive tackle rotation all year after being converted to left tackle as a prep-freshman from defensive tackle. I think he needs work, but there's definitely a foundation there. A lot of you would pick Travon, and that would be true if not for the fact I was at the Spring Game and saw him do things that told me that he would be great SOMEDAY, if not necessarily right now. He had hype of SOME sort. He was a four star recruit and came therefore with expectations. Alexander was a lower ranked three star recruit that came with an offer sheet consisting of, per 247, App State, Charlotte, Ohio, Marshall, ODU, ECU, Wake, and us. That's not overly impressive. He enrolled early and was slotted behind CJ Reavis in the spring, but Reavis was kicked out of school. Alexander eventually won the starting Rover job by the Purdue game. He's recorded 4 interceptions, 34 tackles, a half sack, 4 break ups, and 8 passes defended. The kid is going to be great. And no one really expected to see anything out of him. He's yet another example of our coaching staff finding unheralded talent and putting them in the right position to perform.

BAD AWARDS!

The Daikatana Bad Game of the Year Award nominees are:

The Pitt game

The ECU game

The Duke game

The OSU game

The Miami game

And the winner is:

THE PITT GAME

Dems the pits. Look, almost every single game that Virginia Tech lost was a bad, heartbreaking game as per usual with us. North Carolina and Duke were Overtime losses on our own home field. Miami we just looked like a lost hot mess. ECU was a deceptively close yet somehow back and forth affair that just annoyed everyone and led to some odd comments from Frank and the coaching staff. But if there was one game that broke my spirit and my heart more than anything was the Pitt game. The offense looked completely lost- we only gave up 17 points but Motley threw three interceptions, was sacked seven times, we had a grand total of 9 rushing yards on 33 carries, only 100 yards of offense, and were 4-13 on third down. After a disheartening loss to ECU, we hope that the team would be up to Pitt. But no, wewe went up to their field, played exactly how we couldn't play against that team, and walked out thinking that game was as close as that score showed. It really wasn't. Pitt handled us. Even though the defense tried its best and only gave up 17 points? That game simply showed that whatever was left for the season, this team wasn't going to really be up for it. And that stunk.

The Stephen A. Smith Bad Man Award of the Year nominees are:

Andrew Motuapuaka

Sam Rogers

Michael Brewer

Brenden Motley

Travon McMillian

And the winner is:

TRAVON MCMILLIAN

I'll always give Brewer and Motley credit for enduring the complete HAMMERING they've had this year behind our offensive line. Motley especially toughed out a LOT of crap during his time under center. Sam Rogers is our all-purpose ‘hug a fullback' guy, but he's not winning this award. Andrew's getting an award later, and I've gone long enough without giving Travon his due. Travon pulled himself by his play out of the quagmire that was the running back rotation. In my earlier statistical article for the year I said that he's probably the best option we've got right now. Didn't that turn out to be the case? Sorry JC, sorry Trey. Nothing touches Travon when he can do things like this:

Or this:

Enough said.

The 2AM Half-Drunk Taco Bell Run Bad Decision of the Year Award nominees are:

Not Redshirting Dwayne Lawson

Continuing with that running back rotation for so long

Redshirting Tim Settle

Keeping Greg Stroman at Punt Returner

Playing a hurt Kendall Fuller at the beginning of the year

And the winner is:

NOT REDSHIRTING DWAYNE LAWSON

All of the other problems are just between annoying and inexcusable (the last one especially), but you just lost a year of eligibility for a player that played for five games, attempted 9 passes, attempted 14 rushes, and gave you exactly nothing. You could've just dealt with Durkin, but no, you didn't play Lawson and you didn't redshirt him to start with out of some odd thought you'd play him. That will always confuse me. Sorry, but I think that the coaching staff botched this one. Unless there was some threat that Lawson would've transferred if he was redshirted (in that case, WOW that's a problem), you should've redshirted him. And unfortunately for him, now he's got a coach that might not necessarily be tied to him at all. Just great things all around.

UGLY AWARDS!

The Ed Wood Ugly Performance of the Year Award nominees are:

Brenden Motley's Pitt Game

The Offensive Line's Pitt Game

Bucky Hodges' Disappearing Act

The Linebacking Corps

Scot Loeffler (all year)

And the winner is:

SCOT LOEFFLER (ALL YEAR)

I still don't get the entirety of why Bucky was so absent from the offense for several weeks. I still can't fathom how BAD the Pitt game was, because WOW that was an awful game to watch. The linebackers, which we knew were going to be a problem at the beginning of the season, failed to impress most of the year (Though Motuapuaka definitely caught on late and Deon Clarke was marginally less disappointing than Ronny Vandyke). But I'm sending another award to Scot Loeffler, because if I see another fake jet sweep QB dive again it'll be too soon. It was like he had zero plan for Motley when Brewer was injured, and even then, his plan was EXTRAORDINARILY limited. And if your plan had to be THAT limited or different for your backup, then you needed to either have a different QB behind Brewer that more closely matched him, or you needed to be better and more creative and coming up with a different plan. Because when the reporters or the viewers can call the plays out as they come? You can bet that paid defensive coordinators can. Again, the end of Loeffler can't come soon enough for my tastes.

The Super Bowl V Ugly Win of the Year Award nominees are:

The Virginia Game

The Georgia Tech Game

The Boston College Game

The NC State Game

Travon eventually winning the Running Back Competition

And the winner is:

THE GEORGIA TECH GAME

UVA we won but our offense looked clueless most of the game. Boston College we won ugly, but we really controlled that whole game. The NC State game surely had the ugliest quarter of VT football I've seen in a while. And again, that running back rotation really was confusing and the fact that it took as long as it did for Travon to come out on top and what he produced afterward shows that it was silly for as long as it went. But that Georgia Tech win has to be one of the nastiest, ugliest wins we've had in a while. Georgia Tech almost, if not literally, fumbled that game away. Our offense was lost yet again for most of the game (heck, one of the TDs that GT scored was on a rather dumb interception return for a touchdown). There were two good, long drives...and the other drives? In order! 1 yard, punt. 6 yards, fumble (GT turned into a touchdown). 12 yards, punt. Then the two touchdown drives. Afterward! 0 yards touchdown GT on an interception return. 69 yard, FG. -13 yards, fumble. 40 yards, missed FG. 8 yards, punt. 12 yards, TD (after GT fumble). 0 yards, punt. End game. Yeah. Not impressive against a GT team that is NOT good. We won. We won ugly. But we pulled it off despite everything.

The Jadeveon Clowney Ouch, that looked Ugly Hit of the Year Award:

Yeah. I've got one nominee, and I personally could watch it for a good long while.

ANDREW MOTUAPUAKA'S HIT ON CLINTON LYNCH

Yep. Gotta love Moto utterly plowing a Georgia Tech player on a clean hit. Have a good evening, guys. I might be here a while.

(Note: Thanks to Treadmill Horse for the constant vineage on the year)