The Spring Game - A Preview of Coming Attractions

Mining the Spring Game for insights as to what we can expect to see when the regular season kicks off

Apr 21, 2023

A common theme echoed from college football beat writers across the nation goes something like this:

Spring games don’t matter. The teams are never split fairly, especially up front on the offensive line, which usually renders at least one offense a stationary object. Defenses are always ahead at this point in time. Key players are sitting out, quarterbacks aren’t live, penalties are selective, and the clock is never handled the same way in consecutive years. It’s a glorified scrimmage. The only goal is to get through it without getting anyone hurt. If coaches had the choice they would just hold a regular practice to end the spring.

The facts are the facts, but I don’t buy any of the conclusions. The spring game is great for hosting recruits and seeing how guys play in front of crowd. It’s also a great way to generate excitement within the fan base, the noise from whom can help win games in the fall. In a basic, simulated way, spring games give coaches and fans a preview of how the team plans to attack on offense, and whether or not that strategy is likely to be successful. Based on the numbers, here are my expectations for the fall.

An obvious note of caution - the sample size here is tiny (two spring games and one regular season) - so the confidence margin is much wider than normal.

Grant Wells will start at QB and complete 68% of his passes

Last year, Wells completed 59% of his passes, but in 2021, in his final year at Marshall, he completed 66.3%. As I detailed last week, Wells struggled in the short passing game. With the anticipated shift to a more RPO-based offense and the addition of a couple elite receivers in the short (Jaylin Lane) and intermediate (Da’Quan Felton) passing game, I expect increased success on passes that travel less than 10 yards to drive a higher overall completion percentage.

In the 2022 Spring Game, Wells completed 52.4% of his passes for 178 yards, most of which came on two deep throws to Kaleb Smith. Overall, the 2022 quarterbacks completed 49% of their passes in the spring game, 10 percentage points less than Grant Wells did in the regular season. This year Wells completed 66.7% of his passes, and the team completed 58.8%. I am well aware that 68% is a pretty bold prediction, but it is right in line with the growth one might expect based on his second year as a starter at Marshall combined with the offensive system he will be operating.

I thought Kyron Drones really looked the part, but his fundamentals got sloppy on a couple occasions, and his performance made it clear that expecting a transfer QB to come in and learn the offense at the same time that the top three WRs are also coming in and learning that offense is not a formula for immediate success. In fact, that was basically the situation with Grant Wells and the receiving corps last year.

Granted, this year’s top three receivers have more natural talent than last year’s. Still, by any measure, last year’s receivers under performed. Half the battle is getting the quarterback to know where to go with the ball and when, and the other half is making sure the receivers are all exactly where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be there.

Think about how many passes were about a half step off when Drones was in the game. Odds are, film review will show that some of those plays were on him, and some were on the receivers.

In the Spring Game, even though Wells was working with backup wideouts, his receivers were usually in the right spots at the right times because they are more fluent in the offense. Jennings, Felton, and Lane are going to play a lot of snaps this season - they’re great players. Most of the time they will be where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be there. Sometimes they won’t. But dealing with that situation from one position group, the receivers, is preferable to dealing with it from two.

Consider the following hypothetical: Drones and the receivers, at this point, are each 75% likely to execute a passing play correctly, while Grant Wells, with more knowledge of the system, is 95% likely to make the right read and get the ball where it is supposed to go.

Drones + Transfer WRs = 0.75 x 0.75 = 50% likelihood of the play operating as drawn up
Wells + Transfer WRs = 0.95 x 0.75 = 71% likelihood of the play operating as drawn up

With his athleticism, maybe Drones can make something of the 50% of plays that don’t work as intended, but the difference between he and Wells would be too great to eliminate.

Ultimately, the coaches will assign values like in the formula above, and the result will determine the starter. It always does. Based on the hypothetical, which I believe to be in the ballpark of the current reality, Wells is too far ahead to be caught this year. For that reason, if Wells stays healthy, I think he will be the clear QB1 in 2023.

The Hokies are going to run the ball a lot more in 2023

One reason why I expect Wells to complete a higher percentage of his passes this year is because he will throw on a lower percentage of plays. Consider this, if we remove sacks, the Hokies ran the ball 33 times in the 2022 Spring Game, compared with 52 carries in 2023.

In the 2022 Spring Game, the top rushers by yardage on both teams were quarterbacks. The tailbacks only carried the ball 19 times. I get that you don’t want to injure the starters, but normally the backups would be competing for the third string role, which usually gets a few carries in each game during the regular season. However, in the 2022 Spring Game, 10 carries were split between the three RBs not named Keshawn King or Jalen Holston (Malachi Thomas did not play).

We saw a very different rushing attack in the 2023 Spring Game. Presumed first string RB Bhayshul Tuten played, but did not get a carry, and Malachi Thomas, his presumed backup, got only three. But the next two backs on the depth chart, Bryce Duke and Chance Black, combined to gain 152 yards on 31 carries, leading me to conclude:

The Hokies will again go four-deep at RB, which is a good call due to the likelihood that one of the top four backs will deal with an injury at some point.
The coaches wanted to see if the offensive line could execute the changes made to the rushing scheme. Remember, for a good chunk of the game, the maroon team featured most of the starting o-line and they were matched up against mostly starters in the front seven for the white team. I suspect the offensive coaches liked what they saw.
The 2022 Spring Game run rate was 47.6%, which translated to a 52.9% rate in the regular season. In this year’s Spring Game, the run rate was 54.1%. While I doubt that will get pushed up past 59%, I do think 57% is a reasonable expectation, and possibly 58% if the defense plays well and the Hokies spend more time playing with a lead this year.

The offense will be much better in 2023

Taking out sacks, which are mostly irrelevant when the quarterbacks are not live, the offensive team stats were better in this year’s Spring Game:

The 2022 Hokies struggled throughout the season with getting behind the chains. They found themselves in way too many third-and-long situations. As a result, they struggled to sustain drives.

Here is an interesting stat (again, sack yardage has been removed):

2023 Spring Game yards per play: 5.9
2022 Spring Game yards per play: 6.0

If I had not run the calculations myself and you had presented me with the above, I would not have believed it. The entire operation looked so much smoother this year.

Looks aside, in what world is 5.9 better than 6.0? The world in which 5.9 is not skewed by two Kaleb Smith TD bombs. In an all or nothing world in 2022, the Hokies too often came up with nothing.

In this year’s Spring Game, the offense was able to sustain drives. They ran 103 plays this year, compared to 76 last year, resulting in 609 yards (vs. 458 in 2022).

Part of the added focus on the running game is making sure the offense stays on schedule and stays on the field. We saw big improvements in both during the 2023 Spring Game.

Putting it all together

The 2023 offense has the potential to be good, not just improved. A lot will depend on the offensive line, where so many of the younger guys (many of whom are in the two-deep) are still a year away. However, every other position group is both talented enough and deep enough to put together a good year.

How do I define a “good” offense? Average at least 30 points and 410 yards per game, and have multiple offensive players make at least one of the All-ACC teams.

And what about the defense? Obviously, I have not said word one about Chris Marve’s guys in this article. I thought they looked ok, but given that everything was a base look, I take less away from their performance. The one conclusion I will draw is that Dax Hollifield will be sorely missed as a run stopper.