What Happened Against Rutgers
There is more to what transpired on Saturday than many realize
If you have not read Chris Coleman’s Trust Issues article from yesterday, take a few minutes to read it and digest his key points. I’m going to disagree with most of them.
Note: An earlier version of this article stated that Rutgers scored only two touchdowns. The article has been amended to state that Rutgers received help on two out of its three touchdowns.
The earlier version also said that Tech came out ahead of Rutgers in six out of eight advanced metric KPIs. That number has been corrected. Tech was better on five metrics. In offensive stuff rate allowed, Rutgers was better.
On fourth-and-goal at the Hokie one yard line, trailing 23-7, Virginia Tech successfully defended the play-fake-throw-to-the-tight-end-on-a-quick-out play that had gashed them all day.
The Hokies promptly scored 16 points to tie the score.
Suddenly, the crowd was back into the game. All the momentum was behind the Hokies.
Then Rutgers dialed up a bubble screen to the wide receiver on the short side of the field.
Perfect call.
30-23, Rutgers. It should have been 30-23 in favor of Rutgers, but Virginia Tech linebacker Jaden Keller ran down the smaller (and seemingly faster) Ian Strong and, with every ounce of remaining energy, dove and made a shoestring tackle.
It was a level of all-out effort rivaled only by Jimmy Williams running down Virginia’s Alvin Pearman in 2004.
The Hokies once again kept Rutgers out of the endzone. Jai Patel’s field goal made it 26-23, Scarlet Knights.
It felt like Tech was going to go down the field and win the game. Keller would be the hero. We would all be talking about this team’s character and heart.
Then Robert Longerbeam tipped Kyron Drones’s third down pass up in the air and made a brilliant interception.
Game, set, and match Rutgers.
Even though, as Chris Coleman noted, Rutgers could have easily led 43-7 at one point, by the end of the game, it still felt like Tech should have won.
Las Vegas basically called everything correctly up until the final interception.
There is a lot of negativity on the internet now regarding the team. The numbers suggest little of it is justified.
Defensive tactics
Chris Marve has received a lot of criticism for failing to adjust to what Rutgers was doing in the RPO (run-pass option) game, so let’s start there.
It was clear going into the game that the Hokies would key on RB Kyle Monangai and make someone else beat them. As I wrote in Friday’s preview:
At 6’3”, 213 lbs., Kaliakmanis runs better than you would expect, but he is not a mobile quarterback. Against Akron last week, he did not register a single carry.
Do not discount the importance of 2023 Rutgers QB Gavin Wimsatt’s threat on the ground when evaluating last year’s game. He carried the ball 11 times for 87 yards and a touchdown.
Kaliakmanis is no such threat, which will allow the Tech defense to dial in on tailback Kyle Monangai.
Expect the Scarlet Knights to run Kaliakmanis more than his skillset would suggest they should, as they attempt to make the Hokie defense honor backfield fakes.
I doubt the Hokies will.
Tech’s defense will likely send a free hitter toward Monangai on every play, forcing Kaliakmanis to keep the ball on any true option plays. The Hokies will give him some yardage, content to make him pay the price of accumulated hits.
Lots of hits, few running lanes for Monangai, a low completion percentage, and a natural tendency to throw interceptions could have the Tech secondary licking their collective chops.
Look out for the safeties, perhaps former receiver Jaylen Jones, to possibly nab a pick this week.
All of the above played out exactly as I had predicted, except the very end. For the most part, Rutgers did not challenge Tech’s defense in the deep middle of the field.
Instead, they stressed the Hokies horizontally on play action rollouts and RPO triple options. The result was, as expected, a lot of QB keepers, but also a lot of short passes to the tight end
Those plays kept working, so Rutgers kept calling them. Completing short passes made Kaliakmanis look, in the stat line, more accurate than he really was.
Why didn’t Marve adjust?
Because the interior of his defensive line was getting pulverized.
Tech rotated four players at the two defensive tackle spots (Kemari Copeland got in on three snaps as the fifth DT). Here are their preliminary PFF grades (keep in mind 60 is the baseline):
Aeneas Peebles - 46.6 (48 snaps)
Kelvin Gilliam - 54.1 (45)
Wilfried Pene - 31.5 (34)
Josh Fuga - 38.4 (31)
It is pretty evident from the numbers that there are some undisclosed injuries at DT. I am very confident that Copeland is injured, and I suspect Fuga is playing hurt.
Pene has started one game this season and got the third most snaps among the defensive tackles on Saturday. He also received the standard Brent Pry public praise a few weeks ago before he ascended up the depth chart. Remember, entering the season, Pene was considered a distant fifth, or possibly even sixth DT.
These are all tell-tale signs of injuries among this position group.
So, if you’re Marve, what do you do?
Change the scheme, enabling the LBs to get out into the flat easier while depending more on the DTs to plug the running lanes up the middle
Bring a safety down and line him up over the tight end
Stick with the game plan going in, but encourage the LBs and DEs to watch for fakes more closely
If he went with #1 above, the Hokies would get gashed up the middle by Monangai.
If he went with #2, the Hokies would be just a single missed tackle away from a long run - the back-breaking type we all remember from last year.
So, Marve went with option #3.
Was it the right call? Most likely, yes.
Rutgers ran, what, six or seven of those play action roll-outs that resulted in throws to the tight end. In contrast, Monangai and his backup Samuel Brown combined to carry the ball 40 times, almost all of them right up the gut.
Tech’s goal was to force Rutgers to grind out long drives, with the bet being that the Scarlet Knights could not consistently do so and end up with touchdowns.
Tech won that bet. Rutgers only got in the endzone once unaided. Rutgers needed help the other two times:
9 play, 31-yard drive after Jaylin Lane’s fumble on a punt return
6 play, 61-yard drive aided by a questionable 15-yard personal foul called on Tech for a late hit out of bounds
Rutgers had lots of other scoring opportunities, but the Scarlet Knights failed to capitalize, as Tech probably figured they would:
two missed field goals
fumble inside the Tech 5-yard line
turnover on downs at the Tech one-yard line
The score prediction model, which factors in betting odds as well as past performance, had Rutgers scoring just over 22 points. The defense allowed 24 (the other two came on the safety), despite all the troubles at the point of attack.
All told, Marve made the correct tactical decisions, and they kept the Hokies in the game.
Offensive issues
If you look at the advanced stats that I incorporate on the game review card at the top of the article, the Hokies came out on top in 5 out of 8 KPIs.
Where they lost, they lost decisively - passing EPA per play, passing explosiveness, and offensive stuff rate allowed.
So, what gives? If I had told you before the game that Tech’s rushing EPA per play would be roughly 10x that of Rutgers, you’d have predicted Hokies in a route, right?
A number of factors conspired to drag down the Hokies’ offense:
Tech’s stuff rate allowed was 24% in this game, meaning that one out of every four rushing plays went for no gain or negative yards
Falling behind early, combined with the high stuff rate, forced the Hokies to throw the ball more than they would have otherwise preferred, often in predictable situations
The receivers again struggled to get open
What’s wrong with the passing game?
Chris Coleman noted that defenses seem to be playing more zone against the Hokies this year. He thinks it’s confusing Drones.
The numbers, however, suggest that the issue lies more in the receiving corps.
Beating a zone requires receivers to find soft spots in the defense and “sit down”. Possession receivers, rather than speed guys, really thrive against zone defenses.
Outside of Stephen Gosnell, the other three senior receivers appear much better suited to beating man-to-man defenses.
A case in point was the first-down play on the final drive. Da’Quan Felton found a soft spot in the Rutgers zone in the middle of the field. The ball hit him in the hands about nine yards from the line of scrimmage. Anticipating a hit, or trying to run before he secured the catch, Felton ended up dropping the pass.
Another issue is that too often, it seems, the primary wideout on a given passing play is not getting open, forcing Drones to look to secondary receivers.
If Drones were truly getting confused, we would see him throwing more passes into double and triple coverage (signifying a mis-read). Instead, we see him holding the ball too long.
A quick scan of the PFF grades shows Drones outplaying most of the receivers by a considerable margin. Receivers not named Jaylin Lane have been, at best, barely above baseline.
And Lane had his worst offensive game of the season (46.6 for a preliminary PFF offensive grade, which does not include the special teams fumble, but does include a critical drop on a third down pass that hit him in the hands).
In particular, the Hokies have gotten almost nothing out of Da’Quan Felton this year. For such a big guy (6’5”, 216 lbs.), he plays awfully small.
Can you remember him ever out-muscling a defender to make a catch? And when was the last time Tech threw a fade or jump ball his way? Right, never.
I would expect Ayden Greene, with all his upside, to start taking snaps from Felton, perhaps as soon as Friday night in Coral Gables. We might also see Chance Fitzgerald start rotating in more.
Final thoughts
The Hokies are a disappointing 2-2, and Pry is talking about being a play or two away, which only generates more groans from the fanbase.
But he’s not wrong.
Tech is much better at a number of positions this year.
Linebacker play was solid, if unspectacular, in this game. The offensive line held up well aside from the safety allowed (which was, admittedly, truly heinous).
The culture is clearly excellent in the football program. Nobody quit or committed stupid penalties when the game was close to falling out of Tech’s reach.
I noted earlier Jaden Keller’s hustle play on Rutgers’s last drive. I will also call out Xavier Chaplin, who, despite getting injured last week and being literally carted off the field late in Saturday’s game, only missed one play all day. His preliminary grade was a stellar 89.0.
In order to reach its full potential, the team needs to:
Get Brody Meadows back and plug him in at left guard
Figure out the receiver rotation
Get healthy at defensive tackle
This team is much closer than it might appear to being what we all expected coming into the season. The numbers bear it out.
Pry is being quiet about injuries, but they are having a major impact on individual performances, limiting the coaches’ tactical options.
But no one is quitting. Guys are playing hurt, hustling, and giving it all they have.
This team is much better than last year’s. Fans quitting on it now would be even more foolish than quitting on the 2023 team at this same point a year ago.