What Happened at Miami

Despite having win overruled, Virginia Tech flashes potential

When people, myself included, predicted Virginia Tech would be at least in the playoff conversation for most of this season, it was performances like Friday’s that we envisioned.

Miami was worthy of its #7 ranking, and if you throw out records and just look at how Virginia Tech played, you would probably peg them somewhere between 20th and 25th nationally.

Is all that really out the window now?

Believe it or not, the answer is no.

Virginia Tech is 2-3, but many people who watched that game mentally attach an asterisk to the official result, if not outright allotting Tech the win.

After all, there is what the record book says, and what everyone knows to be true.

Bobby Bowden officially won 377 games as a head coach, but we all watched him win 389. The word “vacate” does not change what happened on the field.

Reggie Bush won the Heisman Trophy. Then the trophy was revoked for, frankly, asinine reasons. Eventually, the whole thing became such a farce that the trophy was reinstated.

I don’t know if that will happen with Hokies’ win at Miami - I’m not holding my breath - but the whole nation watched the Hokies go toe-to-toe with Miami, and regardless of the final play, it was clear the game was not a fluke.

Miami dropped one spot in the AP poll, but two teams actually leap-frogged the Cranes: Oregon and Penn St. (Ole Miss fell from #6 to #12 following its loss to Kentucky).

Virginia Tech is unranked, but had one has to think that had the Hokies entered the game at 3-1, though unranked they probably would have left Coral Gables with more AP votes than they had when they arrived.

Miami outplayed Virginia Tech

A quick review of the advanced stats from the game review card at the top of the article shows that Miami was the stronger side of the course of 60 minutes.

Virginia Tech’s running game was much better Miami’s, but there are limits to how much abuse Bhayshul Tuten can take. If the touchdown that was called back for a phantom hold is any indication, P.J. Prioleau may be in line for more carries. He appears to be a closer, albeit smaller, analog to Tuten than is Malachi Thomas.

The passing game was more of the same. Drones once again graded out much higher than his receivers. EPA per play was again negative (note: unless a team runs a Paul Johnson-esque option-based offense, it is pretty much impossible to win a game with a negative passing EPA per play).

Ayden Greene played more, and caught three passes compared to Da’Quan Felton’s one (really two, counting the Hail Mary), but he popped that pass up in the air in the first quarter that Miami intercepted.

That said, the numbers shifted in Miami’s direction only after the fake field goal attempt (more on that below). By that time, injuries and exhaustion had taken its toll on the Tech defense.

Losing APR for a few drives really hurt because there were undisclosed injuries further down the depth chart at defensive end. CJ McCray played only two snaps - he’s clearly hurt. Jorden McDonald did not play at all. He’s most likely hurt (or something happened off the field to make him unavailable).

That meant Tech really only had three defensive ends with game experience (APR, Cole Nelson, and Keyshawn Burgos). Tech rotated those three for as long as it could, trying to keep them all fresh enough.

But the inability to get off the field (Miami converted 10 out of 15 third down opportunities) resulted in elevated snap counts, which led to dehydration, cramping, and exhaustion. As a result, Tech had to play redshirt freshmen Jason Abbey (#31) and Aycen Stevens (#42) for a combined 19 snaps, almost all of which came down the stretch.

Abbey and Stevens played pretty well, all things considered. Tech didn’t give up anything easy, but Miami still moved the ball and scored touchdowns on its final three drives.

Elsewhere, as predicted in the preview, Keonta Jenkins really struggled. The situation at the star linebacker position is emblematic of what is going on at numerous positions.

The experienced starter is being supplanted by the more talented, and younger, backup.

It’s true at star with Kaleb Spencer making plays all of the field. It’s true at will with Caleb Woodson outplaying the more experienced (though still beat-up) Keli Lawson. It’s true at receiver with Greene and Felton. And in fits and starts, we’re seeing it on the line with Brody Meadows and Bob Schick.

The quicker the Hokies get through this transition, the better.

Coaching calls

Brent Pry has taken a lot of heat for his clock management and overall decision making during the game. On closer inspection, much of the criticism is unwarranted.

Timeout at the end of the first half

After Kyron Drones is sacked back on the Miami 40 yard-line, forcing a fourth down decision, Pry called a timeout. There were 25 seconds on the clock.

This decision has garnered significant outcry from fans, and after the game Pry said that if he had the call to make again, he’d let the clock wind down to about five seconds, then call a timeout to set up the field goal attempt.

The problem with that scenario is that with 25 seconds left, Pry didn’t know that John Love was about to drill a 57-yard field goal. In fact, I’m pretty sure he was undecided as to what to do when he called the timeout.

Here were the three options and their clock implications:

1. Go for it on 4th and 10 - Leaving the offense on the field was clearly Pry’s initial lean. In this case, you want the 25 seconds. A conversion would get Tech inside the 30, with 15 to 18 seconds remaining, which would leaving time for possibly two more plays before attempting a field goal. Failing to convert would leave 18 to 20 seconds for Miami to move the ball 20 to 25 yards with one timeout.

2. Attempt a field goal - Draining the clock makes it a one-and-done play, but leaving time slightly increases the possibility that Tech might fake the attempt. Again, if you’re going for the first down, you want more time on the clock. Miami knows this and did not go all out to block what it knew would have to be a line drive kick. So, more time on the clock may have enabled Love to hit the field goal - we’ll never know.

3. Punt - The safe play would have been to just pin Miami back inside its own 20 yard-line. In that case, the extra seconds, of which maybe 15 would have remained, would not have changed Miami’s calculus. The Canes would have taken a knee and gone into halftime done by a touchdown.

Fake field goal

In hindsight, you want the points. And in not converting, momentum totally shifted to Miami.

What Pry knew, but viewers at home and in the stadium only later discovered, was that Tech’s defense could not hold out any longer.

Miami got the ball four times in the second half. The only drive that did not end in a touchdown was the first one, the one in which Kaleb Spencer intercepted Cam Ward’s pass at the Virginia Tech five yard-line and returned it to the Hurricane redzone, setting up the field goal attempt. Note: that was the third Hokie takeaway inside its own 10 in the past two weeks.

The Hokies needed to hold serve and score a touchdown. Replays show Miami did not expect the fake - Tech had it blocked up beautifully. Well, everyone except Parker Clements, who totally whiffed on his block.

What I couldn’t tell, but one of the film analysts probably will comment on later in the week (Brandon Patterson at TechSideline or French at The Key Play), is whether or not Clements’s assignment on that play was any different than it normally is on a field goal attempt.

Meaning, if Tech had called off the fake and just attempted the kick, is there a high likelihood that Miami would have blocked it, given Clements’s whiff?

Takeaway

This game is an important measuring stick of where the Hokies are as a football team in 2024, and the relative strengths and weaknesses of the coaching staff.

The numbers confirm what our eyes have seen the last few weeks - the caterpillars are playing too many snaps, and too few are going to the butterflies. It is time to give the more talented (though less experienced) players the majority of the snaps.

The turnover has already happened at defensive tackle, will linebacker and left guard (sans injuries), but is still in flux at star linebacker, free safety (true freshman Quentin Reddish played 32 snaps and graded out at 66.9), and wide receiver.

The current snap allocation gives Tech almost no margin for error. There are too many seniors grading out in the 40s while their backups are in the 60s. It’s time to hit that switch.

The game management stuff is overblown. Very few coaches are great program builders and great in-game tacticians. Fuente was the latter. Pry and Kirby Smart are the former.

Yes, for those who don’t watch much SEC football, Georgia’s head coach is routinely criticized for his game management. In the eyes of his detractors, game management is the main reason Alabama has dominated the series between the two teams since Kirby took over in Athens.

But here’s the thing. If you accept that very few head coaches are elite at program building and tactical management in games, then you have to prioritize one over the other.

The program builder may botch time management in a critical game, but it only matters if the players on the team are good enough to keep the score close. If the team is trailing by two touchdowns at the end of the first half because it lacks well developed, talented players, then it doesn’t matter how good the coach is at clock management.

Tech only had a chance to win at the end of the Miami game because Pry has gotten the roster to a place where the third and fourth string defensive ends are good enough to hold their own on the road in the fourth quarter against a legit top-10 team.

Compare the Tech defense’s performance in the 4th quarter on Friday to its 4th quarter performance against Miami in Lane Stadium in 2011. Both defenses were beat up, gassed, and playing guys way down the depth chart.

In 2011, Miami’s Lamar Miller was breaking off one 30-yard run after another down the stretch.

In 2024, Cam Ward had to work not one, but two miracles (the Restrapo catch-on-his-back and Ward’s escape-two-rushers-two-handed-push-pass-to-the-tight-end) to get Miami down the field for the go-ahead touchdown on the Canes’ final drive.

So, let’s hold off on the pink slips. Things are ok in Blacksburg.

Onward to Stanford.