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College Football 2019: Rise and Fall of the Transfer Portal QBs

Rhom

By Rhom,
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Ferrum Aeternum Council Member

Ferrum Aeternum

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7 hours ago, Triskele said:

Man, do they really schedule them this far out in advance?  

I have been marooned in LA for some time now but went to quite a slew of games in Corvalis once upon a time.  

What are the odds that Lane is still Ole Miss coach come 2027?  Impossible, isn't it? 

I wouldn't fear the 2027 Beavers too much.  The likeliest course from here is that Jonathan Smith continues an upward trajectory for three more years and takes a more prestigious job in 2023 and a new coach crashes and burns by 2026 and come that first game in Oxford you're facing a new coach taking over for the chump that followed Smith and failed.  

I’m mostly hoping I’m still around and in good health by then. :lol:

Believe it or not, that isn’t the farthest out series we have scheduled. We’ve got a few names on future schedules out as far as the mid-2030s! It is a bit ridiculous; who knows how college sports will evolve between now and then.

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HokieStone Council Member

HokieStone

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10 hours ago, Ferrum Aeternum said:

I’m mostly hoping I’m still around and in good health by then. :lol:

Believe it or not, that isn’t the farthest out series we have scheduled. We’ve got a few names on future schedules out as far as the mid-2030s! It is a bit ridiculous; who knows how college sports will evolve between now and then.

Yeah...the Hokies have a home and home with Ole Miss, where the game at Ole Miss is scheduled for 2037,  And a game against Alabama in 2035.  It's ridiculous.

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Rhom Council Member

Rhom

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9 hours ago, HokieStone said:

I'm gonna be honest with you...I don't really know anything about Kentucky.  You QB used to be a wide receiver or something?

At the end of last season, our QB depth chart looked like this:

Terry Wilson
Gunnar Hoak
Danny Clark
Walker Wood (injured)

Hoak transfers to Ohio State to sit the bench there.  Clark transferred to JUCO.  Wood’s injury lingered (and he was mainly just a local kid on a feel good scholarship.)

We recruit in a kid named Nick Scalzo and got a grad transfer named Sawyer Smith.  So going into fall practice we’ve got:

Terry Wilson
Sawyer Smith
Nick Scalzo
Walker Wood (still mostly injured)

Scalzo tears his ACL before school is even in session.  Terry Wilson comes out playing well.  He’s the guy that beat Florida last year for us.  In the third game against Eastern Michigan, he gets an illegal horse collar and tears his patellar tendon.

Sawyer Smith plays the next game against Florida and looks great.  We’ve got them beat (and physically out matched them on both lines) until some conservative play calling and a terrible kicker cost us the game.  The next week against Mississippi State, Smith gets hurt but no one knows how bad.  Coach Stoops plays him against South Carolina the next week in what I consider to be coaching malpractice.  He couldn’t throw the ball ten yards in that game he was so hurt.

With the entire roster of QBs devastated, in comes WR Lynn Bowden to run what begins as a glorified wildcat offense.  He proceeds to set SEC records for rushing yards by a QB.  He has played 8 games at the position and needs 239 in the bowl to pass Cam Newton for the season mark.  It’s a bit of a high bar, but please don’t take this as blind fan arrogance when I say I won’t be surprised if he gets it.

For 8 games, teams have known that we have no threat of a passing game... no one has stopped us from running.  We threw the ball two times against UofL (one was a flea flicker) and still ran for over 500 yards.  Bowden had 289.

He was just named the Paul Hornung Award winner as the most versatile player in the nation.  And our punter just received the Ray Guy Award as they best punter.  Our defense is one of the top in the SEC and our secondary which most thought was a weakness going into the season was one of the best in the league. We didn’t allow an opponent to score 30 in any game this year.

So our game will be this.  We’re going to run it on you and you won’t be able to stop it.  When you do contain us, we have the nations best punter to flip the field.  When you’re on offense, we have a solid defense.

If you can put up points, you can beat us.  But if you can’t score quick, we will drain the clock and choke the life out of the game.

Theres your Kentucky breakdown.  :lol: 

 

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HokieStone Council Member

HokieStone

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9 hours ago, Rhom said:

And our punter just received the Ray Guy Award as they best punter.  

 

Funny, because VT fans are convinced our punter was robbed, and that we have the best punter in the country.  But...you know, if we're debating punters...eh...

Anyway, normally I would say I wasn't worried about a QB that can't pass, and we have Bud Foster in his last game.  But...mobile QBs have always been a bugaboo for Bud, and we're undergoing a lot of staff turnover at the moment, particularly on the defensive side.  Bud announced his retirement at the start of the season, and this past week we elevated the safeties coach to be the new DC.  However, the rest of the defensive staff has been told they won't have their contracts renewed - so right now, in terms of defensive coaching, we have Bud Foster, the outgoing DC, and Justin Hamilton, the current safeties coach, and incoming DC.  People are expecting new coaches to be announced anytime, prior to the early signing period...but I would think it would be odd for them to coach in the bowl game.

No one is even talking about the bowl game.  Everyone is focused on the staff turnover, what new coached might be brought in - and how that will affect things next year.

Still, we had a great turnaround to the season after a rough start, only to be disappointed in the last game by losing to UVa for the first time in 16 years. (Although that may have saved us a Clemson beat down). So our guys may want to get that bad taste out of their mouth. 

 

 

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Rhom Council Member

Rhom

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7 minutes ago, HokieStone said:

Funny, because VT fans are convinced our punter was robbed, and that we have the best punter in the country.  But...you know, if we're debating punters...eh...

You know... we were up in arms with righteous indignation yesterday because while he won the national award... SEC "coaches" (or SIDs) only voted him second team All SEC.  :lol:

Bowls are such a crapshoot these days because in recent years, it really does feel like they've been even more exposed for the meaningless exhibition they have always been.  You never know what team will show up and want to play.

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HokieStone Council Member

HokieStone

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5 hours ago, Rhom said:

You know... we were up in arms with righteous indignation yesterday because while he won the national award... SEC "coaches" (or SIDs) only voted him second team All SEC.  :lol:

We had a linebacker voted ACC Linebacker of the week 6 times.  No other linebacker won it more than twice.  And yet, our guy was voted 2nd Team ACC.  :dunno:

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Maithanet Council Member

Maithanet

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6 hours ago, HokieStone said:

Anyway, normally I would say I wasn't worried about a QB that can't pass, and we have Bud Foster in his last game.  But...mobile QBs have always been a bugaboo for Bud

Considering how confused the defense looked against Bryce Perkins (admittedly, the only VTech game I saw this year), I would definitely be worried about facing another athletic quarterback.  Perkins is obviously more of a passer than Bowden, but it still seemed like the defense really couldn't make the adjustments necessary to corral him. 

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HokieStone Council Member

HokieStone

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7 hours ago, Maithanet said:

Considering how confused the defense looked against Bryce Perkins (admittedly, the only VTech game I saw this year), I would definitely be worried about facing another athletic quarterback.  Perkins is obviously more of a passer than Bowden, but it still seemed like the defense really couldn't make the adjustments necessary to corral him. 

Eh...he had a couple of really nice runs early, and then we shut down his running game (for the most part - he still got some yards).  The problem is...he then found his passing game.  One of the websites did an analysis, and the 2nd half he had against us was statistically his best passing all year.  He was underthrowing and overthrowing the whole 1st half...and then putting it on the numbers the 2nd half.  It didn't help that we had our 1st Team All-ACC corner come up with back spasms on gameday and have to sit out.  But we didn't do a good job adjusting to his passing in the 2nd half, for sure.  Like I said earlier...I have a little bit of mixed emotions about that, since we would have been the sacrificial lamb for Clemson if we'd won.

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