DG's Takeaways from West Virginia

[DiderotsGhost]

It wasn’t the outcome we wanted, but there were some reasons for optimism from a 40-14 game, as well as a few hard realities. Orange-colored glasses thoroughly removed at this point. But let’s not hit the panic button.


The Big Picture

It’s Just Game #1. In 2009, Chip Kelly traveled to Boise, ID for his first game as head coach at Oregon. It was a 19-8 debacle that included the famous LeGarrette Blount punch at the end. Some people were already calling for Kelly’s head after that game. He went 46-7 the rest of the way. That first game was arguably his worst. We have a tougher road ahead of us than that 2009 Oregon program, but the point is clear: it’s just one game. For a new coach, in many ways, that first game is the toughest game.

Very few great coaches were “great” in Year 1. This is one of the most surprisingly consistent themes in college football. Coaches that were not impressive in Year 1 include Pete Carroll, Nick Saban (at Mich St and Bama), Dabo Swinney, Jim Harbaugh (at Stanford), Bob Stoops, Kirby Smart, Bobby Bowden, Don James, Bear Bryant, and the list goes on and on. Weirdly, it seems like poor coaches are more likely to do well in Year 1 than good coaches (see Charlie Weis at ND, Brady Hoke at Michigan). There are a small number of exceptions (Steve Spurrier at Florida), but by and large, great coaches have rarely been “great” in Year 1 taking over a program.

Turnaround is not an overnight job. We’re going to have to measure progress as the season goes along, and even more importantly, in Year 2.

That said. I really hate losing.


The Positives

Playcalling much improved. Our playcalling last season was dreadful. The new staff seems much better on this front. I realize we didn’t have the points to show for it, but our 2 TD drives were beautiful, and most importantly, this staff seems to actually knows how to draw up plays to account for a blitz.

4th Down play for TD was great. Nice play call and nice pass by JG.

Tim Jordan was excellent. 118 yards on 20 carries averaging 5.9 yards per carry. When you consider that those yards came with an O-line that was struggling with getting a push, this is even more impressive. We have ourselves a RB! That said, I suspect this WV defense is not as good as it looked on Saturday, so let’s not assume that we’ll be anywhere near that productive against SEC defenses.

JG was good. It’s still crazy to me how much JG gets blamed for things that aren’t his fault. Dude went 19 for 25 (72% completion rate) for 172 yards, 1 TD, and 0 INTs with an O-line that put him in some awful spots early. He wasn’t the best QB on the field with Grier out there, but he played well enough. That said, he did have a few mistakes, most notably the awful 4th down rollout pass late in the game. I thought there were also a few underthrown balls that forced WRs to come back. Overall, JG was probably like an 8/10; very solid, but not spectacular.

Receiver play improved, much not as much as I’d hoped. Marquez Callaway looked very good out there. We got contributions from Josh Palmer and Jauan Jennings, as well. Would have liked to have seen more from this group, but definitely seeing improvement from last season. Unfortunately, outside of those 3, we didn't get that much.

First half D was good; struggled more later. I thought we played excellent defense in the 1st half, but less so in the 2nd half. This might suggest we’re still not quite there on depth.

Darrin Kirkland Jr. Feel like DK has been out for eons, but he played well. Led the team in tackles in his first game back. So much for rust. In fact, if there was any theme for the game, it was that guys who were coming off injuries looked like their old selves in Game #1 back.

Nathan Niehaus. Saw his first action that I’m aware of. Kind of a tough gig being Trey Smith’s backup, but I thought he played very well. No way he replaces Trey Smith, but part of me is wondering if he should be getting more playing time somewhere.

No Turnovers. This is pretty big given the line play.


The Negatives

The O-line in the 1st Quarter. If we were under any delusion of a quick O-line turnaround after last season’s debacle, that was cured. I rated the O-line a “C” in my write-up a few days ago. That might've been optimistic. It was an “F” in the 1st Quarter. This was a testament to why line play is so important; you can line up Peyton Manning at QB, Jamal Lewis at RB, and an array of all-time great WRs, and it doesn’t matter one bit if the O-line is collapsing within 1 second.

The O-line after the 1st Quarter. Pass protection improved after the early debacle, but I was still disappointed by the push we got on the run game. It simply wasn’t good enough against a defense that wasn’t that good against the run last season. The right side of the line seemed particularly suspect. While it improved, I’d rate the O-line aa “C” after the 1st Quarter. I’m hoping for improvement as the season goes along, but I’d still view the OL as our #1 issue.

Poor Communication on OL? Even more on the OL, I rewatched the game and it’s shocking how many times the O-line collapse results from a guy missing an assignment. Several collapses result from the DL going in between Kennedy and Ryan Johnson. Eli Wolf failed to block his guy at around 6:50 in the 1st Quarter. Chance Hall and Drew Richmond let a guy go through them around 3:30 in the 1st. Drew Richmond lines up improperly around 2:20 Q1 (and was borderline on a few other plays). Lot of issues were communication related.

The run defense was a big problem. It’s tempting to complain about the pass defense, but I’m more worried about the run D after this game. Run D was our Achilles’ Heel on D last season. It’s still an issue. Here’s the thing: we know Grier is one of the most gifted passers in college football. We’re not going to shut him down, but we need to be able to stop the run and make WV one-dimensional. We failed at that. Pettaway tore us apart multiple times, averaging 6.2 yards per carry. This is far from the best rushing attack we’ll see this year. If we stop the run, I think we cut at least 10 points off the scoreboard for West Virginia.

Pass rush was inconsistent. We did get in Grier’s face a few times, but there were also some plays where it felt like he had eternity to throw. We have to more consistently get a pass rush if we want to win.

Freshman DBs looked like Freshman DBs. Everyone is going to complain about the secondary, but it’s important to put things in perspective: we played one of the best passing attacks in the country. There were many passes that Grier made that NFL QBs struggle to make. You can only do so much. That said, Freshman DBs did make a few mistakes that were costly. I thought they played well overall, but as a DB, you can “play perfect” 18 out of 20 times and the 2 times you make a mistake result in 14 points for the opposition. I think the secondary will get better as the season goes along and this was a very tough test for a young secondary in Game #1.

Missed tackles. Micah Abernathy misses a big tackle at 3:45 in 1st Quarter that leads to a TD for WV.

Poor coverage. Trevon Flowers got beat at around 0:32 Q1, but Grier overthrew on the pass. Flowers got beat again by Sills at around 12:55 Q3; this time it was a TD. Tough assignment for a Freshman DB, but all the same, we have to get better.


Other Thoughts

Let JG air it out more. We have to let JG air it out more. He’s got the arm and we have big threat WRs. Obviously, we need to run with Chandler (if he’s not injured long-term) and Jordan, but we’re going to have to let JG go deep more to win games.

Ty Chandler. Losing Chandler was a big blow. The TV guys seemed to think he had an ankle injury, but from the replay, I thought it looked like a concussion. Don’t think we’ve ever heard what it was, so we’re left to speculate. Let’s hope he’s back before Florida.

We got bad calls and no-calls. In a 40-14 game, it obviously wasn’t the biggest factor, but certainly the calls went against us.

ETSU game will be useful. There’s a near 0% chance we lose to ETSU, but it will be very important for our O-line to get some reps together and get better prepared for that SEC slate.

Overall. We saw improvement, but there’s a long way to go. You don’t go from one of the worst offenses in the NCAA to one of the best overnight. What matters is how we progress through the season.


Evaluating West Virginia

Will Grier for Heisman. I knew Grier was going to be very good, but he was even better than I expected. He’s looking like an NFL QB right now.

David Sills V. One of the best Wide Receivers in the country. The Grier to Sills combo has to be one of the best in college football.

Biggest mistakes. I thought the biggest mistakes WV made against us was trying to run to the outside. When they tried outside runs, they got beat by our speed. It seemed to take them longer to learn this lesson than it should have.

Overall. I thought West Virginia’s offense looked sensational and it wasn’t merely our D doing that. This is one of the best offenses in the country. That said, I think we made their defense look better than it was.


Moving On

We have a reasonable shot at Florida. Not an easy game, but I don't think Florida is going to be as good as this WV team. Florida is in a similar situation as us; rebuilding after a terrible season.

A Murderer's Row upset is less likely. Not that most of us were optimistic about beating UGA, Auburn, or Bama before the season, but an upset seems even less likely now.

Measure performance by progress. That's really all you can do in Year 1. Hoping for a Bowl Game, but ultimately, I want to see evidence that this team is getting better as the season progresses.


GBO!

 

[Top Gun]

As usual your evaluations are mostly spot on. I always look forward to reading the analysis you prepare for this forum. The only suspect spot is that freshman DBs can't give up touchdowns against a great QB. You don't think Grier is going to throw touchdown passes? Our lines on both sides have to improve, if possible. Thanks again for all your insights.

 

[HuntlandVolinColo]

Yeah we got spanked and we weren't as ready as we needed to be but we were in this game until the middle of the 3rd quarter with a bad oline start, Ty hurt, bad calls/no call and giving up several big plays.

This was also a terrible match up for us with the cherry boys in the secondary.

Too bad this game wasn't later in the season, would have been a lot more competitive.

 

[eskimovol]

I would just like to add to your first point, Chip Kelly's first game back in college ball resulted in a loss to Cincinnati.

 

[timbowyn]

I thought tackling look bad. Was expecting a much improved defense. Time after time I saw players trying to tackle guys at the shoulders. Was pleased with the progress Guarantano made. Jordan was great!

 

[DiderotsGhost]

I would just like to add to your first point, Chip Kelly's first game back in college ball resulted in a loss to Cincinnati.

He's got a much tougher rebuilding job at UCLA. Mike Belotti and that big Nike money helped build Oregon into a borderline power even before Chip Kelly took over. That UCLA team is short on talent right now.

 

[UT_Dutchman]

Haven't had a chance to read it all, but watching LSU db's ours have a ways to go. Hoping for the best. GBO!

 

[UpstateVol613]

First off I respect you making this write up and admitting where your preseason predictions were incorrect.

A couple of things I noticed:

Brandon Jennings isn’t very good. There is a reason he never had substantial playing time for Bama. Absolutely whiffed on a lot of blocks.

The entire right side of the offensive line is bad. Ryan Johnson doesn’t have SEC talent and Drew Richmond is never going to live up to his recruiting ranking.

The defensive line is terrible. Absolutely no pass rush. They aren’t SEC caliber lineman. That position group needs to be top of the recruiting needs.

As for the secondary I am not quick as most to dog them. Many times they had 3 true freshman playing. Also Grier had all day with no pass rush. Not even Deion Sanders can lockdown a receiver that long.

I was impressed by JG especially given our line play. Kid is tough as nails and has talent.

Punter was better then expected.

I think you will see that Bob Shoop is a better DC then everyone was saying. The guy was good at Vandy and Penn St. He didn’t forget how to coach. It is most of these players aren’t SEC caliber.

Butch Jones gets far too much credit for recruiting. The guy could recruit skill position players but couldn’t recruit lineman to save his life. Other then Barnett and Trey Smith I don’t know if he had any decent lineman in his tenure. The game is won in the trenches on the line of scrimmage. You can throw a rock in a parking lot and hit a good skill position player. Good lineman are fewer and further between.

It was scary to watch us get manhandled by a Big12 team. We are going to see a lot more physically gifted teams in the SEC.

Be patient with Pruitt. I already see improvement in our team. You are asking him to create chicken salad out of chicken sh@#. These are the same 4 - 8 players.

 

[McDad]

Here's DG's write up after last year's opener.

Besides the names, has anything changed?

Anything improved?

 

[McDad]

Here is his post Vandy game/season in review.
Again, what's changed? Anything improved?

For years, I made a living by betting against “the herd.” I’d find investment opportunities that people hated but I knew were fundamentally strong based on deep research. I was one of the best in the US at it, but life as a start-up investment manager was tough in spite of my great performance record, so I switched careers and got into data science. Despite the career switch, I still have the same mindset - “the herd” makes knee-jerk emotive decisions and is frequently wrong.

I only mention this background because now is the time to go against the “herd behavior” in VN. Everyone is unhappy with the Vandy game, including me. It’s the worst we’ve played all season. It’s the type of game that will leave us miserable for 9 more months. Or at least 8 more months … when D4H and a few others pop in to make their 15-0 predictions for next season.

Many want mass firings and to start the 7th string QB! Let's try to analyze things more rationally. It was an awful game, but we should also step back and examine the overall situation. But let’s start with the ugly truths of the Vandy game.


The Ugly

Outcoached. We’ve struggled in many games this season due to some combination of lack of talent at O-line, lack of depth, inexperience, and poor execution. This is the first game where I felt like we were outcoached on both sides of the ball, but particularly on defense.

Quitting This is very unfortunate but we had players that quit on the team these past few weeks. This is an issue and let’s hope Pruitt “cleans house” in the offseason.

Vandy’s O clobbered us. Sure, the offense played poorly as well, but our defense was horrendous. Vandy’s OC outschemed Pruitt. Shurmur was 31 for 35 for 367 yards and 3 TDs. You’re not going to win many games where the opposing team’s QB has 90% accuracy and throws for over 10 ypa.

7 out of 10 possessions. Vandy *SHOULD’VE* scored on 7 / 10 full possessions (their kicker botched a chip-shot FG on one). In comparison, we scored on 2 / 11 possessions. We should’ve scored more, but our D gave us no chance to win this game. I don’t know why people are blaming Helton; no OC in this country was scoring 39 points with this O-line.

Missed tackles. How many missed tackles did we have? I don’t know if there’s a quick way to find that stat, but I’m sure it was a lot.

JG’s worst game. I thought this was JG’s worst game this season, as well. He’s generally been good this year, but he had a few bad decisions in this one and a few bad passes, too. That deep pass to Callaway, in particular, was terribly thrown. Don’t worry, VolNation, I haven’t changed my mind on JG. I still think he’s the future at QB and he’s one of the better QBs in the SEC, but this was his worst game this year. It’s not all on him, though. Felt like for the first time this season, the O-line struggles got “in his head.” He’s good and he has the potential to be elite nevertheless if we can get him more help.

D-line could be worse next season. The scariest thing IMO is that the D-line could be worse next year, as we lose all 3 starters (Phillips, Tuttle, and A. Johnson), as well as Paul Bain. Phillips had a breakout year this season. Tuttle came on strong at the end of the year, too. It really sucks to lose these 4 guys and know that we’ll still be “rebuilding” at one position group at a bare minimum next season.


First Year Coaches

Now that we got “the bad” out of the way, let’s look at the big picture. Coaches are rarely successful in Year 1 in the modern age of recruiting limits (Johnny Majors' turnaround at Pitt involved a signing class of 85!) There are few good examples of it happening and almost all turnaround jobs have taken at a bare minimum till Year 2, and sometimes, till Year 3 or 4. Year 1 is more of an extension of the previous coach than a reflection of the current coach.

Let’s look at some examples.

Nick Saban @ Bama. 7-6, with a loss to Louisiana-Monroe. Saban barely made a bowl game in Year 1.

Don James @ Washington. 6-5. Took till Year 3 to become competitive. Lost to 52-0 to Bama. Barely made a bowl game in Y1. Took about 5-7 years to turn Washington into a national power and eventually won a national championship and had 6 Rose Bowl appearances. James was, btw, Saban's mentor.

Barry Alvarez @ Wisconsin. 1-10. Took over one of the worst Big 10 programs historically. First three years were a disaster. Took till Year 4 to make a bowl game, but he went to the Rose Bowl and finished #5 in the nation that season. Ended up with 3 Rose Bowl wins before all was said and done.

Mike Leach @ Wash State. 3-9. Inherited a program in the dumpster. Took till Year 4 to make a bowl game and get a 9-win campaign. In Year 7, he has a 10-win season and was in the national championship conversation in what is arguably one of the toughest P5 jobs out there.

Dabo Swinney @ Clemson. 9-5. He went 6-7 in Year 2. Didn’t fully “turn the corner” till his fourth full year (5th overall year). Has finished in the top 15 every year since then, with 3 top 5 finishes, and a national title.

Jim Harbaugh @ Stanford. 4-8. Took till Year 3 to make a bowl game. Went to Orange bowl with #4 national finish in Year 4. Took over a Pac-12 doormat and molded it into a Pac-12 power.

The point. There are dozens more examples. The point isn’t that Pruitt is guaranteed to be a success. Rather, it’s that you really can’t tell very much about a coach from Year 1. The first year tells you more about the previous coach than the current coach. We’ll learn more about Pruitt over the next couple of years.


The Good Moving Forward

Our coaches can teach. Player development and recruiting are more important than anything else in college football. More important than X’s and O’s. Our coaching staff knows how to teach. The benefits of good player development can often take a few seasons to realize. It’s rare you see it immediately in Year 1.

JG is a top 5 SEC QB and we have him for 2 more years. He didn’t look it vs Vandy, but JG has been pretty good this year when you consider the O-line he’s played behind. He had two poor games IMO (Florida and Vandy), 1 great game (Auburn), 2 injury games (Bama + Mizzou), and 7 good games. This was only his first full season and many of the QBs that played better than him were Seniors. The things JG is good at are difficult to coach, namely toughness and accuracy. The things he needs to work on are very learnable and coachable (reading defenses, audibles, going through progressions).

Ty Chandler. While his stats don’t fully tell the story, I think Chandler is a top 5 SEC RB. 5.5 ypc in spite of getting little help from the O-line in most games. He also had 183 yards receiving. He’s a major threat and he’ll look even better if we can fix the O-line.

Tim Jordan. Also a very good RB. More dependent, however, upon good blocking to make things happen than Ty Chandler. He’ll also look better behind an improved O-line.

WRs. Assuming Jennings and Callaway return next season, we’ll be loaded at WR. Even if one of them leaves for the NFL, we’ll still have an array of options with Josh Palmer, Jordan Murphy, and Dominick Wood-Anderson (TE).

The O-line will get better. We have one of the top-rated O-line recruits in the nation coming in (Wanya Morris). We have a good shot at another (Darnell Wright). Another blue chip (Jackson Lampley), and 2 more good prospects. If we land Wright, we’ll have the best O-line recruiting class in the country. We might not be elite over night, but this O-line will be better in the coming years than it was this year.

We have a good offensive staff. Didn’t look it in this game, but I’m very happy with the offensive staff’s performance. Helton’s play-calling has helped us win 2 games we probably shouldn’t have won and almost 3 games (stupid South Carolina!). He’s had to outscheme opponents with a terrible O-line, which is not easy to do. David Johnson is one of the best WR coaches in the country. I like that we have Chris Weinke, as well.

Helton is a great QB Coach. He already molded Sam Darnold, a #3 NFL draft pick. If you don’t think recruits care about stuff like that, you’re being naïve. The great recruits want to be coached by coaches with great track records of development. Having Helton is a huge plus; not to mention the fact that we also have a Heisman winning QB on staff.

We don’t lose key players on offense. It’s possible that we could lose 1 or 2 players early, but in all likelihood, we’re returning almost every key player on offense next season.

Our secondary will be more experienced. We played a lot of young players in the secondary, so we’ll get better there as well.

The SEC East gets easier next season.This was actually the toughest the SEC East has been in over a decade. Mizzou, Kentucky, and Vandy all had teams with experience Seniors at key positions. We’re the only team not losing a lot of key players (outside of the D-line).


Overall

Wait till we have better cards. 5-7 sucks and the Vandy loss stings, but Pruitt was dealt a pretty terrible hand. This is arguably the worst O-line in UT history and losing both Trey Smith and Kennedy hurt badly! The O-line issues undermined the entire offense. Eliminate the OL issues and this is a different team. We win the SC game and the Mizzou and Florida games are both winnable. In spite of the ugly scores in both of those games, the games were lopsided primarily because of turnovers.

We saw improvement. It was a disappointing end, but we beat two top 25 teams, which is pretty impressive for a new coach, and certainly an improvement over last season’s 0-8 win-loss record in the conference. At our best, we looked pretty good versus Kentucky and Auburn, but we saw reversions as well, particularly versus Vandy.

Similar to Harbaugh’s 1st year at Stanford. I’m not suggesting the outcome will be the same, but it was pretty similar to Harbaugh’s 1st year at Stanford when he went 4-8, but managed to upset #2 USC on the road. Stanford showed hints of improvement during Harbaugh’s first two years, but still got blown out in many games. Three years later, they win the Orange Bowl and finish #4 in the nation.

Don't be knee-jerk. We're going to learn more about Pruitt next season. For now, best to hold off judgement. Get some more players in there that will give their all every play. We'll evaluate where we are in another 12 months. And again in 24 months. We'll have a better sense at that point.

Time to follow recruiting! At least for the next few months.

GBO!