What Happened at Stanford

Finally, a perfectly boring game

Virginia Tech methodically dismantled Stanford, 31-7, this past Saturday in front of roughly five to seven people at Stanford Stadium.

Is the university community in Palo Alto still observing Covid-19 protocols, or what?

I knew going in that the Stanford student body and alumni do not really care about football, but it was jarring to see such an empty stadium.

It made Alumni Stadium up in Chestnut Hill look raucous by comparison.

Seriously, not a good look in a new league.

As for the game itself, the Hokies got just what they needed: a slow, uncomplicated, lightly flagged, low-play count game that, although the temperature was high, featured lower humidity than the Hokies have encountered in Nashville and Miami already this year.

The result, for the first time this season, was never in doubt. Compare this week’s excitement index of 2.3 with prior games:

• Vanderbilt - 7.8

• Marshall - 7.6

• Old Dominion - 4.5

• Rutgers - 4.8

• Miami - 7.1

That is entirely too much excitement given the opponents. Another word for excitement is stress. It’s a long season. The higher the percentage of low stress plays is compared to high stress, the better.

Individual play

Nineteen out of the 22 players (11 each on offense and defense) who played the most plays at each position graded out positively (or above the baseline of 60) as per PFF.

Bob Schick started at left guard and notched the offense’s lowest grade, a 52.3, on 36 snaps. Brody Meadows came off the bench and graded out at 71.0 on 26 snaps.

While I think Meadows is the better player, I wonder if there is some bias involved in the sample.

Schick is much better at pass blocking than he is at run blocking. On Saturday his run-to-pass snap ratio was 21:15, or 7:5 if we simplify things.

Meanwhile, Meadows is a road grader and still a work in progress on pass blocking. His run-to-pass snap ratio was 21:5, and his pass blocking grade on those five was 47.8 (compared to 71.0 in run blocking).

Schick was more balanced: 54.1 run blocking vs. 70.1 pass blocking grade.

Meadows’s pass blocking sample size was tiny, but it highlights a possible issue.

The Hokies risk tipping their pitches with their choice of who plays left guard on a given series. This was not an issue last week at Miami because Braelin Moore got hurt, forcing Meadows into the lineup alongside Schick.

But so long as both Moore brothers are healthy, Pry & Co. need to resist the urge to tilt the play calls toward their left guards’ strengths.

Team play

Finally, the Hokies put up a ridiculously high passing play EPA (0.7). Holding Stanford to a negative number was good, but expected given that the Cardinal started a backup quarterback.

Explosiveness also returned to the Hokie passing game (1.79), signified by Drones throwing for more than 200 yards on just 14 completions.

The numbers going into the game suggested that the Stanford front seven would be difficult to move, and that was certainly the case. In fact, the Cardinal offensive line did more to open holes for its trio of running backs than the Hokies o-line did for Bhayshul Tuten.

Stanford generated a half-yard more, on average, per running play than Tech’s did. The Hokies also got stuffed on 17% of rushing plays, compared to 14% for Stanford.

Of course, Tech led comfortably throughout the game, so strategically Tech was thinking more about preventing big runs than it was crowding the line of scrimmage.

When factoring in strategy, things were pretty much even in the trenches, with the Hokies winning the game through the air and likewise preventing any comeback attempt by shutting down Stanford’s passing game.

Final thoughts

We have reached the midway point in the season, and the team appears to be rounding into form.

Against Stanford, the Hokies finally looked like they are supposed to look. On offense, that meant run first, setting up play action to gain chunk yardage. On defense, Tech limited big gains, got after the quarterback (five sacks), and continued to generate turnovers.

The first six opponents were stronger than they appeared going into the season (Here’s looking at you, ‘Bama slaying Commodores of Vanderbilt).

Tech lost three, one-score games they easily could have won. Overt the course of a full season, that stuff generally evens out.

Tech might be primed to go on a run.