1st Quarter Report Card
A quantitative deep dive on Virginia Tech's performance through 3 games
From “good start, just need to clean up a few things” to “1-5 looks not only possible, but likely”, Virginia Tech’s prospects have taken a decided turn for the worse in the 18 days since its week 1 win over Old Dominion.
In this article, I will present a comprehensive look at the team’s overall performance and discuss it in the historical context. Then, I will look ahead to the next quarter of the schedule, when the degree of difficulty will increase.
To provide context on the first quarter report card for the 2023 season, here are the final grades and SP+ percentiles for the Hokies since 2015:
Letter grades are assigned based on a formula I created that considers the overall SP+ percentile of all of FBS teams. Those teams hovering around the 50th percentile earn a “C”, with grades scaling up and down symmetrically.
The Hokies, three games into the season
With a quarter of the season in the books, the Hokies have shown clear improvement on offense over last year. The numbers, as they stand now, are in line with the 2021 team that went 6-6 in the regular season.
In fact, they are even a bit better.
Right now, a seven-win season seems like a reasonable ceiling, based on historical data and considering the team’s 1-2 start. As I detailed over the summer:
Seven-win Tech teams are generally great on defense (80th percentile) and very bad on offense (37th percentile). In fact, only teams that win three games have averaged a lower SP+ Offense Percentile.
If the Hokies could get healthy at safety, a jump from the 68th to ~80th percentile in defensive SP+ is possible.
Six wins remains a definite possibility, but while this year’s team most resembles the 2021 team from a report card perspective, one gets the sense that the current team will either get healthy and play more like it did in week one or continue to field a lot of inexperienced players who will fare even worse against ACC teams.
Tech has been successful throwing the ball. Consider Grant Wells’s passing stats before he got hurt at the end of the first half against Purdue:
30 completions on 49 pass attempts (61%)
5 TDs, 1 INT
Over the course of a full 12-game schedule, that would be 40 TDs and 8 INTs. Even if one allows for some regression to the mean, say 25% less TDs and 25% more INTs over the course of the season, we're still talking about 30 TDs and 10 INTs. That is a massive improvement over last year’s 1:1 TD to INT ratio.
Of course, that is a moot point now, given all the injuries, but when this team was close to full strength, there is no doubt the offense had improved. How good it can be going forward will depend mostly on getting Jaylin Lane back and seeing a bit of improvement from the offensive line.
Last season, in EPA, Explosiveness, and Success, the Virginia Tech rushing attack ranked 105th, 103rd, and 101st, respectively, in the nation.
Just returning to that very moderate level of rushing success would likely boost the team’s overall SP+ offensive rating up over the 40th percentile.
Tech’s passing defense looks very similar to last year’s, from an advanced metrics perspective. The numbers are generally good, if not great, with the glaring exception of DB Havoc - after a good showing against ODU, Tech’s secondary (really the entire Tech defense) has not forced any turnovers.
The rushing defense, as the eye test has shown, is yielding too many big plays. At the same time, the front seven have done a pretty good job of playing behind the line of scrimmage (even if the tackling has been poor).
And, for the most part, with the exception of the 55-yard fourth quarter TD run last week, the rush defense has limited explosive run plays to 20-30 yards, as opposed to 50+.
Most Outstanding Player
Grant Wells (when healthy) - Kyron Drones may be the answer moving forward, as Wells is more dependent on a strong receiving corps and traditional run game, but when he was healthy, Wells was a difference maker. With a healthy Wells at QB, the Hokies were scoring 35.3 points per game (53 points in 6 quarters).
Most Valuable Player
Jalen Stroman - The secondary can survive without Nasir Peoples, but when Stroman is not available, it quickly becomes a house of horrors; there is a nearly 30-point PFF grade difference between Stroman and his backup, Jaylen Jones. Stroman has a PFF defensive grade of 73.1, but he has only played one complete game. Any time Stroman is not on the field, his absence quickly becomes apparent.
Best Freshman
Caleb Woodson - As a true freshman, Woodson has been thrown into the fire early. He has played 75 defensive snaps, and his defensive grade has increased each week. Against Rutgers, he graded out 63.4 overall, including a 75.1 in tackling and a 65.7 in coverage.
A step up coming in strength of schedule
Even though SP+ sees a lot of improvement so far in the Hokies, the team’s 1-2 record is disappointing, especially given the strength of their opponents.
Still, there is every reason to believe, based on the team’s play in the first six quarters of the season, that had they remained fairly healthy, the Hokies would be 3-0 or, at worst, 2-1 right now.
As it is, the team desperately needs a win at Marshall this week before hoping to steal a game at home against Pitt next week.
Many had marked the Pitt game as a likely loss prior to the season, and depending on how things go in Huntington, it may very well determine Tech’s bowl fate.
The Panthers sit at 1-2, but they still have strong SP+ numbers. Perhaps a bit surprising is their (comparatively) soft defense.
Florida St. looks like the real deal. Expect the Seminoles to be favored by at least two touchdowns when the Hokies roll into Tallahassee on October 7.
Virginia Tech will likely be an underdog in each of the next three games. With a win over Marshall and a Pitt loss to UNC, perhaps the Hokies will end up giving a point or two to the Panthers, but the next quarter of the season is probably going to be the most difficult stretch of the season.
A 2-1 record is possible, but 0-3 is probably more likely. The Hokies are trending down, but the numbers describe a team that is better than its record.
The three keys to this next stretch of games, in a macro sense, are:
How quickly does Ron Crook get more young offensive linemen on the field for meaningful snaps?
Does the team start to get some key players back from injury?
Does Chris Marve move either Mansoor Delane or Derrick Canteen to safety?
Time will bring more data, and more data will increase clarity. By the halfway point of the season, we should have a very good sense of where things are headed for this 2023 team.