Our defense:
My biggest concern is can we contain Drones running. Our D practicing against Pavia and Johnson will help, but he's had some monster rushing games at 20+ carries a game. 2 of his last 4 were for 130+ yards albeit against BC and Tulane. Mobile QB's have traditionally burned us in the past.
Va Tech was 1st in conference play rush yards per game, and 2nd in yards per carry. 3 out of their last 6 games rushed for over 300 yards in games. Really need our Dline and linebackers to be stout. Maybe have Taylor spying Drones.
All indications seem that Drones is an adequate but not spectacular passer. But his running threat leads to easy throws. limiting him to that dimension of his game is key. Johnson running scout team against our defense will be good practice at contain for them.
Ironically this is one team where bend don't break might have actually been a good philosophy. Their one glaring weakness seems to be 3rd down conversion percentage, where they were near the bottom of the conference. Alot of their offensive success came from big chunk plays. If we can force them into an obvious passing down we have a good shot.
Our offense:
Tech was number 1 in conference play with lowest YPC against them. Terrible matchup for this offensive system. However they did have trouble early on in the year, specifically vs ODU, a very outmatched but option oriented offense, which indicates they might be susceptible to some early misdirection in obscuring their assignments in run D.
Tech's passing D was middle of the road, 9th in YPA against and QB Rating against in conference play. Pavia has to be the play here as we need his accuracy (even if its just intermediate throws) to prevent a total stacking of the box.
Another area of weakness for their D: Redzone conversion % and TD percentage, and they also struggled a bit on 3rd and less than 3 yards, 12th out of 14 teams in conference. If this offense can stay on schedule and sustain drives (probably this systems greatest strength) there is a decent shot of scoring once we get to the red zone.
I'll most likely continue to post little interesting stat tidbits in this thread as I observe them.
My biggest concern is can we contain Drones running. Our D practicing against Pavia and Johnson will help, but he's had some monster rushing games at 20+ carries a game. 2 of his last 4 were for 130+ yards albeit against BC and Tulane. Mobile QB's have traditionally burned us in the past.
Va Tech was 1st in conference play rush yards per game, and 2nd in yards per carry. 3 out of their last 6 games rushed for over 300 yards in games. Really need our Dline and linebackers to be stout. Maybe have Taylor spying Drones.
All indications seem that Drones is an adequate but not spectacular passer. But his running threat leads to easy throws. limiting him to that dimension of his game is key. Johnson running scout team against our defense will be good practice at contain for them.
Ironically this is one team where bend don't break might have actually been a good philosophy. Their one glaring weakness seems to be 3rd down conversion percentage, where they were near the bottom of the conference. Alot of their offensive success came from big chunk plays. If we can force them into an obvious passing down we have a good shot.
Our offense:
Tech was number 1 in conference play with lowest YPC against them. Terrible matchup for this offensive system. However they did have trouble early on in the year, specifically vs ODU, a very outmatched but option oriented offense, which indicates they might be susceptible to some early misdirection in obscuring their assignments in run D.
Tech's passing D was middle of the road, 9th in YPA against and QB Rating against in conference play. Pavia has to be the play here as we need his accuracy (even if its just intermediate throws) to prevent a total stacking of the box.
Another area of weakness for their D: Redzone conversion % and TD percentage, and they also struggled a bit on 3rd and less than 3 yards, 12th out of 14 teams in conference. If this offense can stay on schedule and sustain drives (probably this systems greatest strength) there is a decent shot of scoring once we get to the red zone.
I'll most likely continue to post little interesting stat tidbits in this thread as I observe them.
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