The good:
1. Braxton fukn Miller! For all the naysayers on this board, eat your crow with a tall glass of shut the hell up. Ok, I'm only playing, so relax. The best weapon we have on offense with Zeke a very close 2nd. We might be seeing that spin move again in NY in December when the Heisman is awarded. 8 touches (2 shy of what I said he'd get) with 140 total yards and 2 TD's. Not too shabby for your first game at H-back at all.
2. ZEKE. I bet any Bama players watching that game last night just cringed when they say him break that first run for a TD. He looks faster and even harder to tackle. Really puzzled as to why we run him more but I'll hit on that later.
3. Samuel. I wasn't sold on him as a weapon coming into this season. I WAS WRONG! Dude seriously runs with bad intentions everytime he touches the ball. I like that he delivers the boom on the defender when they tackle him. Good hands on that TD catch as well. Would love to see some two RB sets with him in the backfiled with Zeke.
4. Thomas. Had a couple nice catches but wasn't as big a factor in the game I was hoping.
5. Washington. At times it looked like VT had 8 dudes in blocking and swallowed up our D-line but Wrecking ball Washington delivered the knockout of the night on Brewer. Definitely a game-changer and you could feel VT's will dissipate quickly after Brewer left the game.
6. CJ. Best for last as they say. According to the ESPN report, he didn't find out he was starting until the first series. How is that for some added pressure. Cardale made some big plays in this game with his arm and his legs (didn't look pretty) which is saying a lot given the fact he 1-2 VT players in his face nearly every play. Plenty of CJ naysayers in here that will blame everything that went wrong on offense tonight on CJ though.
The bad:
1. Play calling. Really really missing Herman right now calling the plays. IMO, we tried to get too cute with our play calling by trying to keep Foster guessing. In doing so, we didn't establish any sort of dominate run game tonight. Sure we racked up 360 yards rushing but take away Braxton and Zeke's big runs and it's not all that pretty. Zeke got stuff a couple times but for the most part, he was picking up good chunks of yards against this Bear defense when they ran him. However, every time he would start to get going, we'd shift the play calling to something else. Hard for the O-line to establish themselves when you're shifting from run to pass on every play. If VT is bringing more dudes than we can block, then change the formation. Bring in two TE's, another RB and make it work. We started doing some of this in the 3rd and it was working but again, we went away from it the first time VT stuffed it. Most of the problems on offense tonight I would attribute to the play calling. If CJ truly didn't know he was starting until the first offense series, then that would explain why the gameplan wasn't set up for his strengths.
2. Speed option. VT disrupted this big time because they simply took the RB out as an option and it was a good gameplan for them when CJ was in there. He's not the runner JT or Braxton is at all. This play simply should never be called if CJ is the QB. PERIOD! JT made it look good when he came in to play though.
3. Campbell. Dude, catch the ball please. Enough said.
4. Thomas. Like I said earlier, made a couple good catches but was missing from the rest of the game. 2 catches for 46 yards is not what we needed from him last night. Maybe Fuller was simply shutting him down most of the night or CJ just couldn't get enough time to throw him the ball. Not sure but I expected more out of Thomas.
5. D-line. Seemed like VT had 8 dudes in blocking all night and our guys just couldn't get sustained pressure on the QB. Credit VT's O-line but I think the absence of Bosa was bigger than most of us expected.
6. LB's. We supposedly have one of the best LB cores in football. Where were they last night? Especially on those stupid throwback passes? Really? How do we get beat for 2 TD's on that sh*t?
7. Defense as a whole. We definitely have some room for improvement. Really held VT to 17 points but again, VT isn't exactly a juggernaut on offense so our breakdowns on defense really allowed them to stay in this game.
8. Turnovers. I'll give CJ a pass on the INT because the defender tipped it but a little bit of touch on that ball and he has no shot of tocuhing it. Zeke's fumble and Dunn's fumble though are just inexcusable.
9. Tackling. We tackled well at times and we didn't tackle well at times. Part of why we beat Bama and Oregon was our vastly improved tackling. We missed too many easy tackles last night.
Good overall win against a tough defense on the road in a hostile environment. This was a good wake-up call and should help identify things that need more work. I think a lot of us expected this team to return in 2015 and simply decimate everyone they play. This game showed us that we can't just show up and expect to blow people out. We're going to get everyone's best shot this year so our guys better be ready to bring it each week.
1. Braxton fukn Miller! For all the naysayers on this board, eat your crow with a tall glass of shut the hell up. Ok, I'm only playing, so relax. The best weapon we have on offense with Zeke a very close 2nd. We might be seeing that spin move again in NY in December when the Heisman is awarded. 8 touches (2 shy of what I said he'd get) with 140 total yards and 2 TD's. Not too shabby for your first game at H-back at all.
2. ZEKE. I bet any Bama players watching that game last night just cringed when they say him break that first run for a TD. He looks faster and even harder to tackle. Really puzzled as to why we run him more but I'll hit on that later.
3. Samuel. I wasn't sold on him as a weapon coming into this season. I WAS WRONG! Dude seriously runs with bad intentions everytime he touches the ball. I like that he delivers the boom on the defender when they tackle him. Good hands on that TD catch as well. Would love to see some two RB sets with him in the backfiled with Zeke.
4. Thomas. Had a couple nice catches but wasn't as big a factor in the game I was hoping.
5. Washington. At times it looked like VT had 8 dudes in blocking and swallowed up our D-line but Wrecking ball Washington delivered the knockout of the night on Brewer. Definitely a game-changer and you could feel VT's will dissipate quickly after Brewer left the game.
6. CJ. Best for last as they say. According to the ESPN report, he didn't find out he was starting until the first series. How is that for some added pressure. Cardale made some big plays in this game with his arm and his legs (didn't look pretty) which is saying a lot given the fact he 1-2 VT players in his face nearly every play. Plenty of CJ naysayers in here that will blame everything that went wrong on offense tonight on CJ though.
The bad:
1. Play calling. Really really missing Herman right now calling the plays. IMO, we tried to get too cute with our play calling by trying to keep Foster guessing. In doing so, we didn't establish any sort of dominate run game tonight. Sure we racked up 360 yards rushing but take away Braxton and Zeke's big runs and it's not all that pretty. Zeke got stuff a couple times but for the most part, he was picking up good chunks of yards against this Bear defense when they ran him. However, every time he would start to get going, we'd shift the play calling to something else. Hard for the O-line to establish themselves when you're shifting from run to pass on every play. If VT is bringing more dudes than we can block, then change the formation. Bring in two TE's, another RB and make it work. We started doing some of this in the 3rd and it was working but again, we went away from it the first time VT stuffed it. Most of the problems on offense tonight I would attribute to the play calling. If CJ truly didn't know he was starting until the first offense series, then that would explain why the gameplan wasn't set up for his strengths.
2. Speed option. VT disrupted this big time because they simply took the RB out as an option and it was a good gameplan for them when CJ was in there. He's not the runner JT or Braxton is at all. This play simply should never be called if CJ is the QB. PERIOD! JT made it look good when he came in to play though.
3. Campbell. Dude, catch the ball please. Enough said.
4. Thomas. Like I said earlier, made a couple good catches but was missing from the rest of the game. 2 catches for 46 yards is not what we needed from him last night. Maybe Fuller was simply shutting him down most of the night or CJ just couldn't get enough time to throw him the ball. Not sure but I expected more out of Thomas.
5. D-line. Seemed like VT had 8 dudes in blocking all night and our guys just couldn't get sustained pressure on the QB. Credit VT's O-line but I think the absence of Bosa was bigger than most of us expected.
6. LB's. We supposedly have one of the best LB cores in football. Where were they last night? Especially on those stupid throwback passes? Really? How do we get beat for 2 TD's on that sh*t?
7. Defense as a whole. We definitely have some room for improvement. Really held VT to 17 points but again, VT isn't exactly a juggernaut on offense so our breakdowns on defense really allowed them to stay in this game.
8. Turnovers. I'll give CJ a pass on the INT because the defender tipped it but a little bit of touch on that ball and he has no shot of tocuhing it. Zeke's fumble and Dunn's fumble though are just inexcusable.
9. Tackling. We tackled well at times and we didn't tackle well at times. Part of why we beat Bama and Oregon was our vastly improved tackling. We missed too many easy tackles last night.
Good overall win against a tough defense on the road in a hostile environment. This was a good wake-up call and should help identify things that need more work. I think a lot of us expected this team to return in 2015 and simply decimate everyone they play. This game showed us that we can't just show up and expect to blow people out. We're going to get everyone's best shot this year so our guys better be ready to bring it each week.
