It was another disappointing start to a Virginia Tech football season as Brent Pry fell to 1-3 in season openers with a 24-11 loss to #13 South Carolina. Despite the new coordinators and massive turnover on the field, it was a familiar feeling of the Hokies doing enough to hang around with a tough opponent but never really threatening to win. It’s always unfair to judge a team off of one game, especially if South Carolina proves they are actually a top 15 team, so here are some areas I’m focusing on in tomorrow’s game against Vanderbilt.
To start, last season the Hokies offense had a lot of talent and put together some great drives but then immediately struggled when they got off schedule and did not gain 3-4 yards per down. Using play-by-play data from last season I was able to calculate the percentage of drives for each FBS team where they faced 2nd and 7+ yards and still managed to get a first down, the Hokies were 111th in FBS at 53.7 percent. Overall they had the 14th biggest gap between on-schedule and off-schedule first down success rate at 14.9 percent. The Hokies compounded that problem by also being average at generating explosive plays as defined as rushes of 12+ yards or passes of 16+ yards. Last season the Hokies offense averaged 8.4 explosive plays per game, 65th in FBS.
Against South Carolina the Hokies were able to convert more first downs after getting off schedule at 62.5 percent, but cratered on explosive plays, only creating 5. Against Vanderbilt the Hokies need to prove they can create more game breaking plays and not have to rely on their offense to stay on schedule through a 10+ play drive as their only way to score.
On the defensive side things get more interesting because what I perceived to be the Hokies problem in 2024 does not actually manifest itself in the data. I remembered the Hokies defense, despite grading out well by advanced metrics (19th in DFEI), as being terrible in situational football. My memory says they struggled to get off the field when they had the opposing team off schedule and they wore down in the fourth quarter. However, the stats tell a different story, the Hokies defense was 16th in FBS last season in off time first down success rate allowed at 51.5 percent and t-17th in 4th quarter points allowed per game at 4.8.
Sadly, the Hokies picked a poor time last Sunday to live up to my memory when they allowed South Carolina to convert a first down 60 percent of the time they got off schedule and gave up 14 4th quarter points. The Hokies also did badly in explosive plays allowed, giving up 9 to the Gamecocks, one more than their 2024 average of 8 per game (75th in FBS). The Hokies will have their hands full with Diego Pavia and a Commodores offense they had a hard time getting off the field last year (66.7 percent off schedule success rate). Demonstrable improvement in that rate will do a lot to improve my expectations for change.
The biggest area the Hokies need improvement on from the coaching staff though is on avoiding pre-snap penalties on special teams. After being plagued by multiple double number penalties last year the Hokies somehow lined up in an illegal formation on a critical 4th quarter punt that led to a re-kick and game breaking touchdown for South Carolina. I would like to see just one game where the Hokies manage to avoid such easily avoidable mistakes.
As last year’s defense shows perception is not always reality and while last Sunday’s game against South Carolina felt like the team had made no progress from last year, that is not guaranteed to be the case. The home opener gives the Hokies a great chance to prove they have made necessary, meaningful change in the offseason that just wasn’t reflected in a single game against a tough team.
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