Virginia Tech to Face Explosive Pitt Panthers in First ACC Contest
Big plays likely to determine the outcome under the lights at Lane Stadium
The over/under on Virginia Tech’s game with Pittsburgh on Saturday night in Blacksburg is 40.0. And yet it’s fireworks that everyone should be on the lookout for.
Don’t believe me? Check out these Explosiveness rankings for the Panthers:
Pitt Passing Offense - 18th
Pitt Rushing Offense - 47th
Pitt Passing Defense - 123rd
Pitt Rushing Defense - 112th
Put simply, Pitt generates a lot of explosive plays on offense and gives up a lot of them on defense.
In every other sense, these are the same old Pat Narduzzi coached Pitt Panthers that Hokie fans are used to seeing.
That said, the Panthers have struggled out of the gates, and there are a few key weaknesses the Hokies will look to exploit.
Attacking the Pittsburgh defense
Tech registered a few explosive runs last week at Marshall, but the Hokies are still 128th in Offensive Rushing Explosiveness on the year.
If Tech is going to hit on some big plays on offense, they are likely to come through the air. The Hokies are 17th in the nation in Offensive Passing Explosiveness.
Without Ali Jennings, and with Jaylin Lane still somewhat hobbled by a hamstring injury, here are the three likeliest sources of a big gain coming on a pass reception:
Da’quan Felton catching a deep fade against man-to-man coverage
Busted coverage in the middle third of the secondary
Catch and run by a running back isolated on a Pitt linebacker
Let’s break each of those down in a bit more detail.
Da’quan Felton vs. Pitt cornerbacks
The Hokies have a huge advantage in size on the outside. Da’quan Felton is 6’5” and weighs 215 lbs., while both of Pitt’s starting cornerbacks are shy of six feet tall:
Marquise Williams - 5’9”, 180 lbs.
MJ Devonshire - 5’11”, 190 lbs.
The Hokies would be crazy if they threw less than five fades in Felton’s direction on Saturday night. The 2016 Hokies, in one of Justin Fuente’s best coached games, drew the blueprint, and Felton is an excellent candidate to provide an encore performance.
Busted Coverage
The Panthers have registered three pass breakups and one interception through four games. Meanwhile, here are the longest completions (in yards) against the top seven players (by coverage snaps): 29, 52, 15, 19, 13, 22, and 40.
It is pretty hard to force a bust in press man-to-man on the outside, but the numbers suggest that a well designed play up the seem or on a delayed drag route could leave a Tech tight end wide open for a ~25 yard catch and run.
VT RB beats a Pitt LB in the flat
All three of Pitt’s starting linebackers have posted strong coverage grades this year. According to PFF, Solomon DeShields has the lowest grade among the linebackers at 67.1. Bangally Kamara has the best coverage grade on the team (81.7).
However, below the strong coverage grades hides a high passer completion rate. Opposing quarterbacks have completed 15 passes out of 18 attempts (83.3%) against the Pitt linebackers.
Bhayshul Tuten has demonstrated an ability to break tackles and rack up yards after the catch. Expect Tyler Bowen to attack this matchup, as it favors the Hokies. And be on the lookout for a wheel route out of the backfield. Bowen seems to like calling those.
Tech unlikely to win a boring game
Even if the Hokies come out ahead on the usual x-factors (turnovers and special teams), without an advantage in big plays generated, they are unlikely to win the game. Such is Pitt’s advantage in almost every other facet of the game.
Here, I will define a boring game as one in which yards are hard to come by, and points require sustained drives of eight-plus plays. If Pitt can force the Hokies to play that sort of game, the Panthers are likely to emerge victorious.
The key is the Success Rate metric. Recall, successful plays meet one of the following criteria:
the offense scored
1st downs which gain at least 50% of the yards to go
2nd downs which gain at least 70% of the yards to go
3rd and 4th downs which gain at least 100% of the yards to go
In coach speak, the Success Rate is the rate at which a team stays “ahead of the chains”.
All the data suggest that Pitt has a slight advantage in this metric in each facet, except their passing offense against the Virginia Tech pass defense, which is a push.
Both teams figure to play backup quarterbacks, and of the two, Tech’s Kyron Drones has logged more snaps this season, so perhaps he will give the Hokies an edge in Success Rate that might not otherwise be there based on the season stats.
However, at this point, Drones has played four out of eight quarters, so any advantage is more than a little baked into the numbers already. Still, Drones is the home QB in a night game, so some advantage should persist regardless.
Can the Hokies stop “simple”?
In a press conference earlier in the week, Brent Pry noted that Pitt is pretty
”simple” in what it does. Traditionally, Pitt beats Virginia Tech by being the more physical team, not by running the more complex plays.
So, perhaps the Hokies will demonstrate better gap integrity on Saturday. Either way, the matchup to watch is up front.
Hokie fans have bemoaned, with good reason, the team’s run blocking this year. Per PFF, the team has graded out at 59.6 this season, just below the baseline of 60.
However, Pitt’s run blocking has been significantly worse. The Panthers have graded out at just 51.8 through four games.
The team’s best run blocking grade this year came in week one against Wofford.
The grade?
Just 57.3.
Last week, at home against UNC, Pitt managed just a 52.0 run blocking grade. Yes, the Tar Heels have shown improvement defensively this year, but their defense has been a wet paper bag unit for years.
It might sound weird given the opponent, but with little threat of a passing game and poor play from the Pitt offensive line, if ever there was a game for the Tech defense to shut down the run, this would be it.
And they better do it with the front seven because Techsideline reported that Chris Marve practiced Mansoor Delane and Derrick Canteen alongside one another at safety due to the rash of injuries to everyone in Pierson Prioleau’s two-deep.
If the Hokies go with two cornerbacks at safety and a true freshman opposite Dorian Strong at cornerback, they will be asking for missed tackles in the secondary.
Final Thoughts
The model has picked the correct outcome in three out of Virginia Tech’s four games this season, missing only on Purdue. However, during testing, the model was right less often when picking the away team to win (70.4%) than the home team (78.4%).
Before the season started, most prognosticators had this game pegged as a loss for the Hokies. However, Tech’s 43.2% pregame win percentage belies just how winnable a game this is for the home team.
As I noted yesterday, if Tech is going to surprise everyone and go 5-3 in conference, the Hokies really need to start 1-0. That would leave Tech needing to win four out of six games against the remaining teams on their schedule not named Florida St.
The Hokies get Wake Forest, Syracuse, and NC State at home and Louisville, Boston College, and Virginia on the road.
Could a 1-4 Virginia Tech team turn it around and go 5-1 in that stretch of games? Almost certainly not.
But could a 2-3 Hokie team go 4-2 in those games? That would be a definite maybe.