Know the Enemy: Syracuse

0:30 Music and Welcome back to the Boundary Corner Podcast along with my partners Brian Siegler and Shelton Moss. I am Curtis Wilson in this episode is brought to you by Doctor Jeremy Counts down at the Main Street Pharmacy in Blacksburg. Your friendly neighborhood pharmacy located at 3 on One South Main Street in Blacksburg. Welcome to Sunday night boys. We haven't done a Sunday night when in 62 weeks.

1:11 It's been a while, man. It's been a while since we rolled on Sunday night. Not my favorite night, but you know what? We're here. We're doing it. We're we're we're going to put a good episode out there. I'm looking forward to talking a little bit about Syracuse and. Kind of putting a bow on the first half of the season for the Hokies? Absolutely. Sheldon, you've been a busy man this weekend. What you told us is we were chatting off air here. That's right. Been been working on the company dime. They've got me performing other duties as assigned. Other duties. You got to love that caveat, right? Like do you get emailed this or is it literally a face to face telling it something?

1:54 No, I just, I got to it's it's just the the nature of working in sports, like you got to work weekends. So you know, I've signed, I've signed up for the job. I can't, you know, complain about it too much, but hopefully there will be better days ahead. Absolutely it will. It will. And you know you're able to join us tonight, not on a Tuesday, because there are times where you cannot join us midweek. So it's great to have you here. As y'all can see, we are not a four pack tonight because our man Tally had to take his daughter for a collegiate visit today and was going to be getting back late this evening. So again, we get it. We get it. Things like this happen to all of us and. Somewhat impromptu, so we had to, you know, make it happen, Make it work. Life, man.

2:37 Yep. That's why that's what it is. I'm I'm, I'm, I'm happy for him and happy for her that they're, they're getting that opportunity. So absolutely what it's all about and it's Sunday night. Our me and Brian said we'll occasionally snap up because it is essentially sports. It's the peak sports season right now with collegiate and Pro Football going on. Get the Dolphins and the Eagles and game six Astros, Rangers have it. We're two days away from basketball getting going. Oh my God, it's, it's, it's, it's that time of year. Yeah man, it's great. Like next week is Peak Sports week. I don't care what anybody says next week is Peak Sports week of the entire year. Argue with me if you want but it. I mean it is.

3:26 I mean World Series will be starting. You're in the midst of right in the middle of the seasons. Things are starting to stay shape. College football poll comes out or the playoff picture comes out starts. It's just it's that magical time of year. Plus it's Halloween. Oh yeah, Halloween. And if we saying that, let's go ahead and make this announcement, we will be going live next Monday night because ain't no way. You ain't going to see us on Halloween night, man. I mean, you might see me start, start the the show on Monday night, you know, wearing like, AI don't know, screen mask or a hockey mask or some shit. But yeah, something like that. You know we're not going to do it on Halloween. Absolutely. All right. So tonight what do we have for y'all?

4:06 Well as always we've got know the enemy. We are going to be taking a look at Syracuse Orange man. Some of their players schemes for the battle in Lane Stadium on Thursday night which will be I think is a 730 kick. But before we get into that, we want to do a little mid season grades because it's almost in our bylaws we have to do a mid season grade like if not the sports Podcast post, we might have to be taken to trial because we didn't do one for our team and similar to some of the questions we had to ask. Brett, the bylaws, They won't even let us put the show out if we don't. Yeah, they won't. They're like you can't do it unless you do this episode this week. But we're going to do some mid season grades here and we're going to look at offense then defense and just kind of give where we feel as a team we are and let's just jump into that and let's start with obviously the most talked about room in Hockey Nation and that is the quarterback room and obviously right now Kyron Drones is leading the way. We did start out with Grant, Wells and Sheldon, I'm going to start with you.

5:12 What grade do you give that room for the season so far? Well, all things considered, I mean, I'd say give him AAB minus. I mean, I think Karen Jones came in for an integrant. Wells did pretty well. I think he's progressed in terms of his understanding of the, you know, the Mentals part of the game, making reads in the RPO game, making reads in the throwing game. I think his, his accuracy has gotten better, His confidence has gotten better and forgot that, you know, it was kind of a project coming out of high school, you know, first full time year as a time as a starter. I think there is, There's a lot to like and I think some of the, you know, PFF grades have reflected that he's done, he's done pretty well and still just a red shirt sophomore.

5:53 So I'm pretty, I'm pretty happy with that. I mean, obviously with Wells you can't really, you know, judge based off, you know, 1 1/2 games. But just looking at what Jones has done this year, I think I there's a lot of reasons to be very confident about how he's he's developed. So just a sophomore Brian? Right there with Sheldon I got AB minus and and pretty much similar reasons I mean. You know you you kind of discount everything that we saw from from Grant Wells. I'm I'm looking at this room primarily on what Drones has done and what Drones has been able to progress throughout the starts that he's had. Looking back, you know that last series against Purdue and then kind of how he's progressed as a as a starting quarterback since then.

6:35 It's really been good to see him get acclimated in the offense. As Shelton said, get a lot more confidence running the offense. I think that was probably the thing that took a little while to kind of get there is that he knows he's a, he's a gamer, he's a baller. But there are times when you got to rein that in. There's times when you got to unleash that and kind of getting that feel within the constructs of Tyler Bowen's system, I think is what took him a little while to kind of get under his feet. But I'm liking what I'm seeing and it's only probably going to get better from here. So looking forward to see what he can do on the back half here. Well, see, I'm not that far behind y'all, but I take into the account everything that happened. I meant like ACC Plus right there on that edge.

7:17 And here's why. Because again, the mistake was made to start Grant Wells to begin the season you slit, drones start against ODU and Purdue against probably the two worst offensive teams we've seen all year. How much better are we today? So I give him an A minus. In my opinion, drones is an A minus by himself. The well stuff and how that was handled up to this point put me just slightly above average. But to the court y'all both said the maturation of Kyron is impressive because he had to come in. Don't you wish we would have went Rutgers, Marshall, then Purdue, Old Dominion?

8:01 Wouldn't it that, but because he comes in against a six and two bowl eligible Rutgers team in a very good defense in Marshall, that's what he has to come out the gate against. And you saw him. He took his lumps, he took his things and now you're starting to see him get and improve more and more with the film. So I'm going to again AC plus right out of C in that room. I'm going to flip to the running back room next. And even though the stats aren't there, based on everything that's going on in front of them and everything that's happened, I think the way primarily Malachi Thomas and big shout out to Basil Tune give me AB Plus for that room. They are breaking tackles.

8:42 They are making positive yards and ever since the switch to drones we see we are every week. We're going up in the offensive rushing categories every week. I want to say we're averaging now like 178 since Kyron has become the quarterback. That's that's one of those things. If you take a look at the numbers out there, 178 puts you in the top 50, roughly. If you tell me we're a top 50 rushing teams, I don't think we lose the Purdue game. I think the Rutgers game is a lot more of a battle. At that point, we'll say you, Shelton. Yeah, I'd go, I'd go B plus. I mean, I think, you know, obviously baseball tunes been awesome.

9:23 You know, he's forced a ton of his tackles. I don't. I was trying to look up the numbers, but you know. A lot of his tackles obviously means you know you're you're early line and is not necessarily doing the job that you you want them to be. Ideally you'd like to have more you know breakaway breakaway carries but regardless you know he's he's he's brought a lot of explosiveness to that room and I think Thomas is a guy that kind of struggled out of the gate but he did have a really good game against Wake Forest. So put those two together I I'm overall I'm pretty pleased with that. It's obviously with running backs it's hard to judge because you know, so much of their success is dependent on other people, not just the online but also the the passing game too. But if you just try to isolate them individually, I think they've done very well. Yeah, I'm not too far behind you, Sheldon. I'm.

10:04 I've got AB for for this group. I think overall, I think if Thomas had been putting his output similar to what we've seen from Tuden, you know, in games other than probably the last two weeks, I'd probably have them ready to B plus or B but with him having a little bit of trouble getting going. That's that kind of brought it down to just a just to be for me. But you know, I think that looking at Tootin, he's really a dynamic player coming out of the back field. We've seen what he can do, catching the ball, making guys miss, breaking tackles. I like the way he finishes his run.

10:45 So seeing that out of that room, if we can just get marginally better offensive line play, you know, I think that room could really break out but. You know, they're starting to just kind of turn a corner a little bit, especially now with with drones in the game as well, giving them a little bit more space to operate. And and y'all both mention Malachi, Thomas Malachi over his last couple of games, averaging just under 6 yards a carry. That is really nice as a complimentary back to what we know Tootin can do. All right, let's flip over to the skill positions and let's talk about the wide receiver in the tight end. Brian, you leave me with this one where you feel, what do you feel this room is at? I got them at a mine is probably the best overall grade that I'm going to give on the whole team.

11:32 I think the wide receiver output, especially considering that Ollie Jennings has went down that room has really performed well overall. And you know looking at the tight ends, I think it's kind of up and down. You know we also had an injury there so there's been some and and other guys have been nicked up as we went along. So it's it's been a lot of. Couple big injuries in those those rooms, but they've still taken it in stride and really have kind of elevated the offensive play. It's kind of we've gone along through the season, so excited about that room and and excited to see what they can do down the stretch. What about you, Sheldon? What about the wideout room and any any scores, any PFF grades that jumped out to you? No, I mean, honestly for this one I, you know, I think we don't even need to look at the grades really. You can kind of just see the the added explosiveness. I mean I think Jalen Lane presents a yak yards after catch slash speed element that Tech has been lacking for for quite a few seasons even, you know during some of the Fuente years where they had some good wide receivers and you know obviously Ally Jennings beyond hurts a lot because you know he's going to be a big time player.

12:39 I think Felton's been, you know a little bit up and down. Would have liked to see more production from him but you know it's you're not going to get everybody the ball with you know a more of a a more of a run heavy offense so. I think they've done a pretty good job and I think the blocking for the most part has been pretty good too. Like that's something that, you know, I know that Coach Minds is big on the details. You look at the pit game, you know they run the ball outside constantly and those play, those plays don't work unless you get good perimeter blocking. So I think the biggest encouraging thing for me is the fact that our perimeter blocking is is much more up to par than it has been in recent seasons. Yep. And I'm with Brian on this one in both of y'all this room. It like you said, we really probably didn't even need to talk about it. But it's still fun to because I've got this one rated at an A. And you kind of look up and down and you talk about guys being up and down, Shelton.

13:24 But the up and down is for a good reason because there are so many guys to distribute the ball to. You know, Daquan Felton just the other day had like 3 catches for what, 1920 yards? A couple of them are stick movers, very important. But Steven Gosnell lit it up along with Jay Lane last week. They all have their niche rolls. Yes, you have Felton, who can take it off the top lane, who can make people miss in space, Gosnell, who's great at finding those zones. And then the two young tight ends with Gosnell and Wright. You know, those guys, you know, have a combined 25 catches, you know, 327 yards. They're averaging over 10 a catch. They're averaging over 10, actually over 12 a catch.

14:05 And when you had all that on the field, are there going to be games where they get one catch? Yes, but that catch may be a huge play. I go back to last week's game and that wheel route that was caught by Daquan right down on the sideline, how big a play that was. It moved us right to the other side of the field and like I said, with Felton catching a few first downs. So everybody's playing a role there. And and that's what we did not have last year. We had one guy last year who was effectively able to do that. And now we have multiple at different levels. All right, let's go to the offensive line. Brian, hold your tongue. You're going last on this one.

14:46 But Shelton, sorry, man, sorry, you're going, you're going to blow us up with some stuff. Shelton, what is your grade on the offensive line and your justifications behind it? Look, I'll go, I got to go D plus. I mean I'm sorry, but it's just been it's been rough. I mean you know there's there's ways with the events that we have now to isolate offensive line play from running back play. So obviously when you look at yards per rush, that's colored by, you know, quarterback scrambles, quarterback runs design runs and obviously running backs breaking up big plays. But when you'll get things like, you know, line yards per carry, you know, for most of the season, Tech was absolutely one of the worst in the country. One of the worst in Power Five, certainly. Now it has gotten better over the past couple weeks. I think they're last time I checked they were somewhere around like 107 out of 133, something like that. It was like below 125 for for some time. So it's just been a rough man and like I, you know, I, I watch the games on tape, you know, you can see it on film. It's just they're some, it's part of it. I think it's physicality but also part of it's just, you know, missed assignments and I don't know what the corrections are.

15:52 Obviously they've got to, you know, tweak the roster once the offseason comes around. But you know, we we could get into all the reasons why the personal is the way it is. But I just, I don't think the issues are correctable and I got to go D plus, I'm sorry it's been that bad. All right. I am a slight, just one plus below you. I'm at AD for that line. It could be lower. It could be almost a failure. But I will say this, of that line, the one thing that has kind of been a slight bright spot is seeing three guys who all have AFR next to their name have some of the higher scores. You know you shared with us last week. Xavier Chaplin scored, unbelievable in all aspects against Wake Forest. Braylon Moore scored very well.

16:35 Kayden Moore, which let we should do an episode. Just Brian discussing the center position and the difficulty and why a great bad grade to have there and then seeing Brody Meadows come on. Those guys have been bright spots. They're they're freshmen. So when you see missed assignments and stuff like that, obviously y'all know where we feel about the other guys and how we've discussed it. But it has been below average and to be three and four and the running game slowly getting going. Not having that good of an offensive line is something, but it's also what you just said, Shelton. Things have to be things have to be done in the offseason and it'll be interesting to see that now. Brian. My turn. Your turn.

17:16 D minus how low of AD minus on a scale of. Zero to two. So when I when I was first, my instinct was to give it an F and then I was like, no, and it's because of what you just said, Curtis. It's because we've got guys with freshmen next to their name that are showing some potential, that are showing some bright spots, that are starting to put things together a little bit on the offensive line. That shows that. Crook is getting is getting something out of them he we're making some progress on that front but I'm also with Sheldon. I don't think that what's there is I think we're we're we're kind of getting as much juice out of them at this point as I think we're going to get out of them the rest of the season.

18:00 I don't know if you're going to see necessarily the the, the, the steps that we've seen from those freshens going forward, it's going to be more like those little. Tick up, tick up here, tick up there and, but you're still looking at a right side. That's pretty atrocious and that's not really going anywhere, it seems. So, all right, last question, If there is a change on the offensive line, do we see it Thursday? I think if you're going to see a if they're going to make a switch that's going to be a full time switch, that's when you would see it in terms of the depth chart. So I guess we'll find out. What Tuesday when the depth chart comes out, if any, any adjustments have been made there, but you know it. Barring that, I don't see us making a significant leap going forward.

18:46 I think it's, you know, it might get into Shelton's range where I'd give it AD Plus, but I don't think we're really going up a letter grade here. Brian says no letter grade up. We'll we'll we'll see, you know, I'm sure we'll do something similar to this in a few weeks here and see how it feels. All right, let's flip over to the defensive side of the ball and let's start with the defensive line. So, Siegel, I'll get you to floor on this one how you feel about the defensive line so far. I'm giving AB minus. I think we've seen some really bright spots, especially from Antoine Powell Ryland, you know he's getting up there in sacks in the nation. We've seen him be able to impact the plays even when he's not getting to the quarterback, just with that speed and people having to identify him pre snap.

19:32 I think the. The interior guys have been kind of up and down, but I I like seeing Fidarius Payne really come into his own and really become an impact player on that defensive line. That's somebody we were hoping at the start of the season we would just get something out of in that rotation. And he's really kind of been, in my opinion, one of the best players on the defensive line, especially now that he's getting enough reps to kind of show that. So those are kind of the bright spots there. You know, I think there were some problems along there. They where they weren't giving enough to kind of help some of the other deficiencies we have in that running game. So that's probably where I'm knocking them down a little bit, but I think overall they've they've played pretty well so far this year.

20:18 Sheldon, what about you? Yeah, I'm going to give a solid C plus. Again, I'm grading on a curve. You got a bunch of C You got a bunch of seniors on that D line, and if they were freshmen, I might be more charitable, but. I just think, you know, to be honest, they just they don't have the dudes. I mean the interior guys have been kind of pushed around a little bit. I just, you know, when you look at guys like Kendricks and Pollard, yeah, they've done OK. But they just don't live in the backfield. Like they're not you know, eating up space and and getting to the QB and and you know, stuffing those run lanes. Obviously defensive ends have been pretty good. Felder Felder's pain has been awesome. AP Rs been really good. Both those guys have generated lots of QB pressures.

21:02 So you know it kind of a a kind of a hit or miss type of situation where you got a lot of production from your DS, but not so much from the D TS. I think overall it's been pretty average and we know that the Russian grades aren't very good. But again, part of that gets back to the linebackers, which you know, obviously we'll discuss very shortly. We will discuss them very shortly. I'm actually going higher than both of Y'all Shelton. You're a full letter grade below me. I think I'm going B plus because the middle. It's done what I expected. The interior has done what I expected. They have, not really. Significantly fallen off the Cliff. They played good at times. Pain has been the bright spot there, but really the edge guys have really stepped it up like Y'all mentioned with APR and you know you're seeing, you know Cray play solid. You're seeing those guys play solid and contribute and they are younger guys.

21:52 Again, I think maybe my curve was. I know what I'm going to get out of this group. So as long as they get what I expect and these outside guys do better, I'm going to be a little bit more lenient. And that's what I want on this one. And hey, somebody's with me. B plus on that. All right, Shelton, since you brought it up, I'll let you lead right into it. Where's your grade on the linebacker room? Yeah, I'm going D Mayas. I mean, I just don't know what very little redeeming qualities with this group. Look, they played, they played better against Wake Forest. That's no doubt about that. But for the most part, I mean it's just been horrible like so I mean we are again one of the, you know, bottom 10 percentile and pretty much all the rushing stats.

22:33 And when you look at the number of explosive plays, it's pretty clear that the linebackers are the problem because you know, in terms of success rate, I think Tech is more kind of middle of the pack. So like they're they're getting, you know, some stops. It's just that when when those running backs get to the second level, when they do have a successful play, it tends to be really successful. It tends to be a big play. So that's an indication that your second level guys aren't getting the job done. And you know, between Allen, Tennessee, who struggled and you know Kay Lawson who's had his moments, I just, I I just have a hard time looking at this group and seeing what you know, what they've done well. I'm just to me, I'm just average because I think we're a lot of those bad grades you see come at. It's when people who are not seeing the field anymore were there and we saw that numerous times and numerous games. I'm not saying Lawson and the rest of them are like blowing it out the water, but to me, I I kind of look at this and say here's the really bad part.

23:39 If I Add all this, I'm probably AD Plus. C minus low. But then what I saw happen though was the decision was made right? There's certain guys we have not seen on the field at the linebacker spot in weeks, at least not as much. Not as hardly any. And when I see that, it's like if I take a look at the snapshot of who's now playing significant reps, it's AC. If you so, Shelton, if you want me to do the whole thing, give me AC minus. What's the grading scale? It would be a 70 on the number if you ask me to look at as a whole. But for the guys who are significantly getting the reps now I'll give them for that mid you know mid C grade Ron yeah I'm I'm AC minus just bad run fits for for weeks and weeks.

24:31 You know, really the Wake Forest game is the only game I think you can point to and say they had. They did a really good job both consistently and with stopping the explosive plays, 'cause we still have some explosive play against Pitt's Pitt, even though we more or less held them in check. It's just it's it's been inconsistent in the run game. I mean if if you told me just to grade how they've held up against the past, I mean pretty well overall. I mean they we haven't been thrown on much mainly because they can run the ball against us fairly well. But if if we continue to see the type of play we've seen kind of I'd say even the last three weeks going forward, I mean this grade could maybe get up to AC plus I don't see it. Again similar to what I said with the offensive line, I don't know if this necessarily gets a full letter grade jump, but now if we see what we saw against Wake the rest of the season, then yeah, I can see a full letter grade jump. But I think, I think the last three weeks on a whole is more indicative of what they are capable of. I think the first few weeks was probably bottom of the barrel and I think it was some of that adjustment of all right, well, this guy has some ability here, but he's not doing the right thing consistently.

25:51 So we got to get him out of the game. You got to pull the guys out. They have ability and that's kind of the way it is. Again, that's I think that's how we look at things. It would be really interesting to Cindy at the end of the season. And this, I think this would go for every group would be pull it out and look at snap counts starting at ODU in a chart like by the end of the season where guys are who started getting more reps who lost their reps and then seeing how that overall play is, especially in the linebacker room. All right. We're going to look at the safety room next. And I'm, I'm going C minus and this was my seventy. It almost was AD plus because the safety room. Was struggling for a while there. And that's what happens when you have a guy who's converted from the offense in the offseason and you have a true freshman playing Nasir Peoples.

26:46 Although Nasir is a good player. Nasir was. This was the ship that steadied everything back there. Dalen Stroman's a great player. I have no doubts about that. But when the next two guys were young, that inexperienced or you're rotating canteen or delaying in? It really hurt that room a lot and that's why thankfully people's got over that injury and he's back because if he hadn't been back the last few weeks, this would have been AD plus grade for me. But with him back and kind of steadying the ship back there both in pass and run coverage, give me AC minus Brian, we said at the start of the year that depth was a big concern at the safety position and. We did. That played out like a motherfucker for about the first month.

27:32 Just I mean that that that's what happened. I mean we we ended up having a converted wide receiver and a true freshman as our primary safeties for large chunks of time in about 3 or four games. That's not what you want and and that and I'm not taking anything away from Jalen or or most, but sometimes you're just not quite ready for, for that type of responsibility that early in your career, that early in your transition to a new position. I think they are players that at this point are fine for series at a time here or there, maybe even 1/4 at a time here or there, but they're not ready to hold up for four quarters like that.

28:20 And when you have that coupled with inconsistent linebacker play coupled with an interior defensive line that kind of can get moved around a little bit, that's a recipe for big plays. And that that's what we saw. And you know, you know, you can, we can kind of stack it level by level here. But the safety, I mean that there's a reason it's called a safety, right? So at some point, they've got to make the play that stops the touchdown. Betray Shelton. Yeah, I'll go see. I mean kind of what you were talking about the with the linebackers. Curtis, this isn't a situation where obviously the personnel in the field is not what the coaches wanted to come into the season.

29:01 You got guys like most of those playing meaningful snaps. Jalen Jones and Kale Bootsen are two are the two worst graded safeties in the ACC. It's just been a constant revolving door. So it's kind of hard to judge. Obviously, like you mentioned, people losing Peoples was big. Stroman's been good. I think the guys that when you look at the guys that they they expected to start the season, the guys that they wanted in there, I think they've done pretty well. It's just been a constant revolving door. So again, you know, I I give, I give them AC grade, but it's with the context that they just have not had any sort of continuity there. Yeah, and hopefully with people finally coming back, like I said, steady the ship to what? Bryant Touché.

29:41 All of the above. All of the above. Love that one. All right, let's flip it one more room as we wrap up this segment and let's talk about the corner back room. Brian, I'll let you lead with this one. I'm going to go a a very solid B plus. So this is a 89 if we're, if we're on the 10 point scale it's a 89. I like what I've seen from the cornerbacks. The lane has been as advertised, strong, probably coming back and having his best year since his freshman campaign. I've liked what I've seen from Canteen especially, you know, him being able to get some turnovers in there, that's been big for this defense. So those guys have held up and I've liked what I've seen from the true freshman that have gotten some run at that position, you know.

30:31 So it's it's really been a good overall performance. The only knock I'm going to give is that they haven't been tested a ton this year, so I don't know how good they truly are. So that's kind of why I'm I'm holding back from putting an A grade on them yet. But overall, I like I I like what I've seen. So I'm going to give them AB Plus. Sean, what about you? Yeah, I'll go BI think. Canteen's been a good depth that he's, he's graded out really well in terms of run defense. Strong has been fantastic in coverage all season long. I I think overall, like you said, they haven't been tested much. So I think that's kind of where some stats can be misleading in terms of the the pass yards per game, allowed yards per attempt. It's still good, not as good, but still pretty good. So I think given you know what they've gone through this season with in terms of just you know, the safety rotations and some guys playing out of position, I'm sure it's affected them to some degree because obviously when you have younger players in there, you don't.

31:26 It's it's hard to, you know, trust that they're all playing their assignments that can that can hamper your effectiveness sometimes. But I think I'll tell you, all things considered, they've done very well, so I'll give them the B. Yeah, this is my highest graded group on the defense and A minus, it's the 90 to 91 just because it's kind of what, Brian, what you said there about the young guys have looked solid, they've been and it's primarily because they played them at the right amount, right, the right amount of snaps, the right. Times the right sort of coverages, they haven't been thrown into anything big. And to me, the other four guys are as advertised. You mentioned Canteen. When Canteen was brought in, it was nickel. He's coming here to play nickel. He can help us with the other spots in the rotation, but he's coming here to play nickel.

32:07 And so when you talk about his run defense grade, it makes sense. And he's definitely making, he's definitely making, he's making himself probably some money. You know at the next level with how he's playing that position and then showing the flexibility to play on the outside. So I'm going to throw this up real quick just because Andretta, you're back. We missed you last week. Tally is currently with his daughter Y'all, doing a little collegiate tour, so he could not make it tonight. Sort of a something that came up last minute, but again we get it. Yeah. Before we move on Curtis, let me let me make another note here. Imagine how good some of these grades could be if you didn't have campaign and delaying playing, rotating at safety for for part of these these large stretches of time, those two to three games that we were talking about earlier.

32:57 So you know, those grades could potentially be higher for those, for those players that they weren't having to take on those type of roles, you know, out of necessity because of injuries and targeting and everything else. Yeah, it's very true. It's it's a lot took it out again. That back half has played well. Even with everything that this has had to do, it's also a testament. Give a testament, a shout out to Coach Jones and Coach Prelu for having to wrap those up. There'll be some people disagree with you there, Jim. That's why I send a couple buddies, watch the game, listen to us. Hey, man, hey, man, we're we're we're still here. You know, I'm still I got I got the game all right above me. So I I I need Tua and Waddle to get some action going here because I need some points in my fantasy leagues. Well, I'm losing one league and yeah, we're not going to do it. Let me ask this and if y'all are listening out there, we got, we got a bunch of people watching tonight. All right, what's the one group between now? And the week after Thanksgiving, Y'all are saying that group's going to definitely improve.

34:03 And 1:00 you want to Well, never mind. I think the one we all want to improve is the offensive line. Could improve is, is can I put that motion on the table? Everybody wants the offensive line today. Everyone wants to see the onset line get better, yeah? Motion pass. But what's the group you think will improve SHOT in between now and the end of the season, based in your eyes? In my eyes I would say. I would say probably linebackers. I mean I thought they were good against Wake Forest. I just, I I trust prize instincts. I trust Mars instincts given the the specialty they have with those groups. And I would say I do think that it's more explainable given the youth in that room why they've struggled so much. I think if given the way the defensive line is played, OK in the run game, the corners have been good. The safety is not.

34:51 They're healthy. We think we'll be good. I think the linebacker, the linebacker crew is that one missing component. So if they if they get their act together, I think the defense can really take a big step forward. Marlon, about you. Yeah. I mean, if we're looking at the group, I'd like to see and prove the most. I'm with Sheldon. It's got to be the linebacker group, because if the linebacker group can improve and we stay healthy in the second area at the safety position, I feel like the running game or the run defense can be serviceable good enough not allow those big, huge explosive plays because outside of the explosive plays, we've held up fairly well against the run. It's really just been those really big Gashers that have you know really changed the tide in a lot of games, in the running game and kind of really put put those lopsided numbers in the stat sheets there.

35:45 If we can approve that linebacker position, you know, one full grade, get it up to like you know I had AC minus, let's let's get that thing up to AAB minus. I think we could be on to something there. So if they found a a consistent rotation and these guys continue to take steps forward in their play, I think that would be big. All right, I'm, I'm going to go different than both y'all completely. And I think it's the quarterback. Because I think if we continue to see the maturation of Kyron drones between these last five games and the end of the season, it it it, it could be something special because of the steps he's taken between the end of that Purdue game and what he did against Wake Forest, how quick it was. How quick it was, how quick he has moved, especially the 350 last week.

36:31 That's who I think could take a step because you're seeing it quicker and people can say, well, they're getting more tape on him. They had a lot of tape on him going to those last three games. Like like you had the Marshall tape and you had the Rutgers tape. Usually it's just a couple. I like that one though. I like that one. Yeah, the tight end room. Good. Good call out there, Derek. So definitely feed those into us. We want to see what you guys think about that and we are now going to move on to know the enemy. But before we do that, we are going to take a quick pause from our digital partners and Main Street Pharmacy. I can probably save you a lot of money and I can take a lot better care of you. That's pretty much it.

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37:58 Some of those options save people a lot of money. What motivates me? I get to take care of people and limit Blacksburg. That's all neat. As we take a quick break. We'd like to tell you about getting your free website report from our digital partner, Grassroots Digital Marketing Studio. They'll tell you how your website ranks on Google onsite SEO and social media. No commitment to buy anything. You can get your free report by visiting grassroots digitalstudio.com/free Dash website Dash Report. Now back to the episode. All righty. So let's hit it up here and let's talk about know the Enemy and let's talk about the Syracuse Orangemen. Shelton, you were mentioning some stuff, and since before we get into specific sides, Sheldon had some stuff just on Syracuse in general that he wanted to hit up before we get into the deep dive. So go ahead, Sheldon.

38:52 Yeah, it's been a pretty weird year for them because they started out really hot in the non conference play, you know, being up on some of their competition. But the results look pretty good. Since they've started conference play though, they have just absolutely fun off the Cliff. I mean it's kind of hard to really wrap your head around. I I saw a set on Twitter from Bill Connolly, so he does the biggest. So he looks at the biggest overachievers and the biggest under achievers based on, you know, performance relative to expected points. And he waits recent games more so it kind of looks at what you're doing recently. And he had Syracuse as the second biggest underachiever in the country. So they they have just, you know, kind of fallen apart these past, you know, 3-4 games.

39:33 And it's been kind of apropos of of Babers's career there. He's just been really up and down as a coach. He had that one great season in 2018 with ten wins and then two years later he goes one in 10. And now they've been kind of, you know, bats around 500. So I know that you know, Syracuse is a really hard place to win. But I I I think this might be a pretty critical stretch for them coming up because if you if you if you tank this season with you know Garrett Schrader as your quarterback you know there might be some some fans calling her head. So I this this is a big stretch coming up for Syracuse. So I think they're going to come to this game pretty motivated. You good, Curtis? Yeah, I'm good. Just hearing some noises out here, making sure everything's OK. Yeah and you know what I was listening to a the locked on sports Syracuse.

40:21 They have one of those and that guy was mentioning something similar. Sheldon, similar to what you talked about about how he's only had one good season. Is this it is this 5 game stretch starting with the Hokies on Thursday night. If if he doesn't effectively have a good turn around between now and the end of the this season, could they? Let him go, because there's only one season after this one less I believe, So it's very interesting to see how it goes. But now let's do flip, because like you said, the more recent results. Let's flip to the offense and talk about the most more recent results, because overall, this team is averaging 28 points a game. It's a solid number in the last three games. The one probably why you were so focused on that, Connolly. Article They're averaging eight points in their last three games, which are three losses to Clemson, to Carolina and the Florida State.

41:21 You know they're middle of the road team when it comes to yards and when you're middle of the row when it comes to yards and you look at who they played, and I'm not trying to disparage, we played Purdue as well and lost to them. They played Colgate, Western Michigan, Purdue and Army. It's not a murderer's road to start O and four. So now the question is. Let's take a look at his offense. And Brian is a guy that we definitely, as Hokie fans are familiar with and that's Jason Beck. He was the QB coach down at Virginia from 2016 to 2021. And what are we looking at with his offense and what can they do? Yeah, I mean, you're looking at the Smash Mouth spread, heavy zone read, ton of quarterback runs.

42:07 They have most of their success in the passing game, off of play action, off Sprint outs, off things where they're getting the quarterback out of the pocket or using some run action to kind of confuse the linebackers and and open up some pass lanes for the quarterback. But you're going to see a heavy dose of run, particularly with the quarterback expect you know, upwards of 20 carries or more for for their quarterback in this offense. We've seen it a lot with UVA. We're going to see it again now with with Syracuse. Curtis, we don't have you. Because I hit the mute button and forgot to welcome to me on Zoom meeting sometimes, Let's talk about Garrett Shader 64230. We know all too much about him.

42:54 Back in 2021, he led the comeback against the Hokies that essentially, in my opinion, that was a game that sealed Justin Fuente's fate. Yes? Yes. I was there too. I was there too. It sucked. But you know, so far this season, you know, 62% passing, you know, 8 touchdowns, 5 picks, but he has ran a ton. He is there. Get it up here. Where did it go? You ever have a number up? And then it just goes away. There we go. He has over 350 yards averaging just over 4 1/2. Just a little background on him. He was a pretty highly rated guy. Went down to Mississippi State to begin with in 2019. Was a top 250 player, top 10, dual break, quarterback high four or should mean low four start in 91. Had offers from a lot of different places all over the country.

43:48 And Brian, this is the this is what, Second you watched a lot of film on Garrett straighter in the last few years. Inadvertently. Yeah. It just seems like any any time out. Like half the time if I'm watching tape on other teams, it's like, all right, the last game was Syracuse. All right, the last game was what the fuck? All right. So I get to see Garrett Schrader again. I'd say overall he's an average thrower. The football he's he's he's not going to wow you. But he's also doesn't really have a ton of weaknesses either. Not not the most accurate thrower, but he can get the ball down, feel and and hurt you that way. Throws best in the short intermediate game when you roll the pocket, get him moving, get him where he can kind of throw in in those open lanes to one side, that kind of one or two read type.

44:37 Look, he's patient when he runs the football. I think that's the big thing about him. Why he's able to sometimes break those big plays is because he is patient when he breaks the pocket. Even though it's a design runner, even though he knows he's going to scramble right away, he still lets the blocks kind of happen so he can kind of get the most out of those those rushes. And he has really good acceleration. So he's got that ability to kind of bust a big play when he does get to that second and third level, the defense. All right, Sheldon, you had a couple of additional points on him and the one thing I asked you to look up was how he performs in their wins and how he performed in their losses so far this year.

45:18 Yeah, it's pretty stark contrast. So PFF created about 52 in their losses and it's around 80 in their wins. So a few interesting notes on Schrader overall. Pretty much middle of the road quarterback like Brian was saying. Not a ton of stats that, you know, stand out too much. Syracuse tends to throw pretty deep, so average step The target ranks 26th among Power 5 quarterbacks. On the flip side though, he does make a lot of turnover replays, so that's kind of, you know, the side effect there. He has been sacked a lot and his passer rating is 48, so kind of right next to Kyron drones. Lots of deep throws in this offense, Not particularly efficient throwing behind the line of the scrimmage, although they don't do it a ton.

46:02 The biggest thing I got out of this, and this is what Brian alluded to, play action. Syracuse is a completely different team with the run play action. So when running play action they complete about 80% of the passes. When they're not running play action, they completed about 55%. So that plus 25 point differential is the second biggest in the Power Five. So that's one thing they got to be watching out for is the the the PA throws. I would say you know overall he does get pressured a lot and according to some of the PFL numbers he has a he shares a high dream responsibility for those pressures. So some of it's on the opposite line. Some of it's on him, kind of a bit of both. But you know he he, he scrambles a lot.

46:43 As I'll I'll cite a step in in the coming second, so don't have to be aware of the run threat with Schrader. Yeah, absolutely. That is one thing. You do have to watch out for him. We've seen it already one time in the last few years. I don't want to flip next to probably. In my opinion, just looking stat wise, definitely their best run of the ball unless Lequint Allen, 195 pounds, 6 foot. From Millville NJ and Millville High School and you know solid prospect coming out 85. Had your pit offer, Rutgers offers. Had a UVA offer Well the top 25 player in the state of New Jersey. So a solid solid-state. Solid ranking there and so far this year and he is a red shirt. Excuse me, a true sophomore because he did play last year just under 5A game.

47:38 With seven touchdowns running the ball. Brian what else did the tape say? Yeah, I've been looking at at him run the ball, he's he's pretty solid between the tackles, but he's really more dangerous when he can get on the edge, use his speed to kind of get some some extra yards there. He also really likes to work those cutback lanes on those read options. You'll you'll see him bend it back and that's when he can can break off some of those bigger runs as well. They will get him involved in the passing game, you know mostly on swings and check downs. They're not running a ton of behind the line of scrimmage type stuff. But he's she's he's proficient in that as well. Catches good with his hands and can make people miss in space. Shelton, what additional info you have on him for the night? Right around 5 yards per carry.

48:26 His explosive plays are pretty solid. He's got 7 design carries, so 15 or more yards. Like Brian was saying, very heavily targeted in the passing game. One of the most heavily targeted running backs in all Power Five, with 25 passing targets. Yep, 25 passing targets, 23 receptions in, 150 in 157 yards. So you know, it's good to see Brian, as you broke down that tape there that it's not necessarily route trees, it's checkdowns. But that also it makes our linebacker room and our safeties have to pay attention to him on those outsides when he goes out for routes, even though they're not going to be complex as part of the offense, you still have to respect him because a 92%, you know catch percentage on 25 targets, that's pretty damn good for a running back in my.

49:15 And occasionally those are you know ones where it looks like he's staying in the block and he's kind of leaking out. And yeah, that's one where you look like you're about to get home, you look like you're about to get a stop and all of a sudden he dumps it down to the running back and you get give up an 8 yard gain on, you know, 3rd and 6th. So that's the ones you got to be careful of. All righty, let's flip. And who the Let's flip and talk to who the ball may be thrown to this week. And that's going to be Umari Hatch. Now we're mentioning Hatch, but I want to mention another name real quick, and that is Aranda Gatson. Rondo Gatson was going to be probably their big playmaker this year. He's like a six, five, £220, you know, a big player. They lost him very early in the season, so know that they don't probably have their best weapon out there and that's why we're looking at Hatch.

50:10 Of course, there's always got to be a Virginia kid on these teams, right? Amari Hatch, Freedom High School in Woodbridge. He was a top 20 fair in the state of Virginia back in the class of 2021. He was the 20th ranked player and you know so far having a good season, 346 yards. I don't have the reception numbers in front of me. He is their leading guy. And Brian, what are you seeing on the tape? What does he do for them? Yeah, you know what he's doing most. It usually lines up to the right hand side of the the the formation, but he's their biggest deep threat that they use on the on the team. He's targeted a lot down the field. He's the guy that they want to get involved when Schrader is throwing the ball deep down the field for for this offense targeted mostly on goes fades, they'll use him up the seam occasionally, but they will also use use him on some crossers and digs as well to get that kind of intermediate routes in there as well. So I mean he's really their guy that's going to get that, those big yards down the field.

51:12 So he's the one that we got to make sure is not a game breaker on Thursday all. Right. Sean, you said you did have one little note on Hatcher Mari, Hatcher Nadu, Mari Hatch. My apologies there. Yeah. Only note is that he is targeted on some a whole lot of depots, so 13th and the power of five and adjusted or excuse me average depth of target about 17 yards per catch so. You know he's he's he's going to be in a lot of deep balls. Also you mentioned he's from Virginia. It seems to me like there's been a lot of under the radar guys from this state that have gone on to play for other you know, low level power programs especially in the Northeast. I know Rutgers had safety or running back from Virginia that we played them a few weeks ago.

51:56 I can't remember the name but it's a it's a state that I think has is good at producing underrated talent but the high rated talent leaves a little bit to be desired. But that's a conversation for another day. Yeah, we talked about a few players from Pitt. I think we had two or three from Wake last week. Like, no, it was like 5 for Wake. It was not like two or three. It was literally like but but they did get Devin Claiborne who's a pretty highly rated guy, he is on that team and he obviously ran the kickback. So, but again it's that is another story that's February. We'll write it down. We'll circle the episode. We'll get, we'll talk about kind of the wrap of recruiting and then do some breakdowns on that. But there's still talent here and yeah that's where again I think that you know I'm I'm try to keep it in because we got one more piece on the offensive line is offering somebody like a hat who goes to freedom.

52:47 Freedom is a good fucking football school. Good football school, yeah. And and let's talk about, you know what what what is Pride been having to rebuild in the last year and a half or so that wasn't that great under the previous regime. And we're at a time right now where guys that were recruited in that time frame when things kind of fell off the map are becoming solid either rotational pieces or starters at these other universities. So that's why you see Pitt with like two or three starters in wake with five starters that are key players on their team that were kind of that mid to high 3 occasionally a low four player that is now playing for another ACC school.

53:33 So yeah we're we're we're still kind of in the midst of experiencing that. I think we're probably got you know one or two more years where that's going to be a topic of conversation throughout ACC play. I'm. Going to say this before we hit the offensive line, I think that's always going to be a conversation because as you start filling out your rooms, you're trying to find fits and there's guys that may not get an offer, they may not recruit as hard because of this is not quite what we need for this position. He's a good player but if he comes here it's going to be a tough hill to climb. But now let's talk about the offensive line. Shelton, while you were mentioning how bad their offensive line was, I had to look it up and I found it. They are 100th in the country at sacks allowed, nineteen over the first seven games.

54:18 Now where they do differ between the other guys down there, they are under 100 sack yards per game. So real quick, before Brian breaks down the tape. Shelton, did you get a chance to pull up their grades on the offensive line? I did, yes. And it's interesting, there seems to be a discrepancy in terms of the sack totals you mentioned and their overall pass blocking PFF grades. So they're actually graded pretty well in pass blocking 17th as a team. They just don't really have a ton of, you know, individual standouts on that offensive line. Nobody graded in the Top 40 in the ACC. In terms of offensive lineman, they're left tackle. Enrique Cruz is the worst graded run blocker in the ACC.

55:01 And their rushing yardage numbers are OK overall, but that's only because of Schrader's running the building. So Schrader's averaging about 6.3 yards per rushing attempt, you take out the sacks, and he also leads ACC in scramble yards. So kind of apropos of what I was mentioning earlier, he scrambles a lot. He can get out of the pocket, so even if the offensive line doesn't give a ton of time to throw, he can make place happen with his feet. So Brian, you watched the tape and I know you Sheldon said the grade doesn't reflect it, but the stats numbers reflect it. What are the tapes? Reflect about their past, bro. It's kind of a mixed bag. I mean, they give up some sacks that they probably shouldn't.

55:41 Occasionally Schrader hangs around back there too much or tries to escape the pocket too soon and kind of gets himself in trouble. So there's a little bit of that in there as well. I mean, I'd call them probably very average in pass pro and very average run blocking overall there. There's not really standouts, as Shelton said. Really across the board. It's just a fairly solid pass pro and then a run game that when they can get going, especially with Schrader, looks probably a little bit better than than it really is in terms of the actual blocking. All righty glad to hear some of this stuff is correlating between the numbers and the the actual. Taking a look at the tape itself, you said the left tackle is their worst run blocker.

56:30 Who's their best graded? Just one of those things to be paying attention to Thursday night. Yeah, give me, I'll, I'll look up in one quick SEC. I'll have it for you. Yeah, because again, while we're doing this, because we hear that, I'm sure Brian, your first thought is, well, if he sucks that bad and he. They're probably not going to be running to the left much, so probably they're not going to be looking at outside zone. There's probably, maybe an inside zone to the left side. It's probably going to be elsewhere on the line. Yeah, so their best graded run blocker is Christopher Blake. Apologies if I'm mispronouncing that. He is their left guard. So he's played. Yeah, he's played pretty much the the whole season. All right, so there you go. Probably.

57:13 It'll be interesting to see where they run the ball Saturday night. All right, let's flip over to the defensive side of the ball and let's talk about this defense led by Rocky Long. If you don't know the name Rocky Long, then you probably really haven't been paying attention to college football the last 20 years. Rocky Long, successful in New Mexico back in the late 90s, early 2000s, became San Diego State's defensive coordinator in 2009 and coached there for right out of decade, where you had some significant success with San Diego State. Brian tell me some other stuff about Rocky Long and the defense he runs. Yeah, I mean this is one of the godfathers of the the 3-3 stack. So along with his mentor Jolie Dunn, think about those Memphis teams back in the day.

58:01 This is, this is kind of one of the originators of the 335. But I will say looking at their their, their alignment, they will kind of switch up the front to confuse the offensive line. You'll occasionally see them go with like a 245 look sometimes in nickels sometimes just because just to kind of confuse things there and and and show a different look like most 33 stacks very stunt blitz heavy. So you expect that from the D it's going to be a handful for the offensive line to handle some of that. So hopefully that they are ready and more prepared than we were at the beginning of the season for these type of fronts. And yeah, I mean it's going to be another one of those where we've got to make sure that we keep Kyron drones off off his back as well because they again will bring some pressure there in the backfield.

58:51 All right, let's take a look at a couple of the key players there at Syracuse and let's start with the Rover. Justin Baron #8, defensive Back, 6 foot four, £230 from Suffolk Academy in Rock Hill, Connecticut Came out was an 84247 top 15 player in the state of Connected. A top 100 athlete when he came out. I think he was looked at as a wide receiver and then moved effectively, then inside linebacker, then eventually Rover and so far this year you know tackle wise leading the team 55 tackles, 5 tackles for loss. Where I really found it interesting was 4 pass deflections along with two force fumbles.

59:31 So obviously that guy's around the ball a lot. Brian what's the tape telling you about Justin Baron? Yeah, I mean he's a big asset in their run support. He's the guy that's primarily coming up from the stage position, making good plays, good fits and and and and making a solid tackle in the run game. Overall, really good with Fitz, really good in pursuit. I'd say he's much better in zone coverage than he is a man. He's kind of a little slow changing directions in man coverage. So that may be a spot where we can kind of take advantage. All righty, Shelton, any sort of deeper metrics on Justin Baron, the Rover for the Orangemen? Yeah, overall, pretty good in coverage, 62 passer rating when targeted, which is pretty solid.

1:00:16 He does have a pretty shallow depth of targets, so only about four yards is his depth when he's targeted in pass coverage. Not surprising, because he mostly plays in the box. And as a result of that, he also has eight run stops, which is a stat that PFF tracks. Basically a loss for the offense, which is tied for third and ACC at his position group. Very nice to know. So like you said, I think when I hear that, I hear Brian talking about mandate. He's not going to be going with guys like Wright or Gosnell up the seam or on wheel routes. He's going to be staying close to home, which obviously could stress potentially other parts of that defense. Now another guy playing down in the box is Marlow Wax. Let's talk a little bit about Marlow. Marlow, 6 foot £230 out of the state of Maryland. Kind of an underrated guy, an 83 three star when he came out in the class of 2020.

1:01:09 Went to Mount Saint Joseph down in Baltimore. Came out initially as a running back and other than Syracuse and Pitt, did not have a lot of D1. Excuse me, P5 looks. Had some interest from Marshall and and ECU. Sorry about that. But let's talk about this year. Second on the lien, second on the team in tackles at 53. Does have a pick and 3/4 fumbles. Brian, I say linebacker in A335 stack, we've already talked about the Rover, so he's definitely not playing that position, which also some people consider linebacker in A335 stack. Where is he playing?

1:01:52 Yeah, he's that Mike. Some also call it a Jack. Just kind of depends on the system. You know Mike, linebacker, a lot of responsibilities with that position, heavy blitz usage from all angles. They'll they'll move him around, they'll shove him around. So he's coming off the edge. He's coming up the middle, you know, A gap, B gap, C gap, whatever, whatever, whatever gap the offense has, he's going to be used in those for on the blitz game. He's great in pursuit, really good at shooting gaps and occasionally getting some some tackles for loss. But I'd say the only thing that I'd say we could maybe take advantage of is that he can get blocked. When he's running downhill against the run. He's not very good at shedding, shedding blockers and taking on those bigger, bigger players head on. He he much would rather run at an angle pursue. Shoot a gap, something like that, kind of to make that play. So that might be where we can take some advantage. All right, Shelton, any sort of deeper stats with Mr. Wax? He is the highest grade offensive or excuse me, highest grade linebacker for Syracuse.

1:02:59 Really good tackler. You're talking about the stop stat. He's got 32 stops on the season, which is second in the entire ACC. So very, a very big run stuffing guy. All righty. I, I, I find it interesting, Brian, once you talk about easily getting blocked when he gets downhill against the run, that'll be more interesting in how they line him up. Do they continue to move him like they have all season? Because especially if we get some of our run game going, we can engage him, could take out one of their best tacklers. All right, last piece, we're going to go. We're staying up front for the last guy as well. And I want to talk about Kevon Darden and Kevon Darden go to 247, you won't find a page on him. He was a walk on who is now a defensive tackle there. He's only 511, about £275 and so he's not that big of a guy when you hear defensive line because he does play defensive tackle and so far this year you know he does have 3 sacks, 14 total tackles with a forced fumble.

1:04:04 What I don't like hearing is every single guy at multiple levels has a forced fumble. Not a fan of that, Brian. Looking at the tape, I know you, you, you kind of an interesting guy to to watch from a tape perspective on all the things they do with him. Yeah, you know, as you said, former walk on. They play him at that shade nose. Sometimes he's head up, sometimes he's in the shade, but. They'll also kind of line him up in different spots whenever they mix up those fronts. So he'll be in a three technique, he'll be in a four eye, he'll be in a four technique. He just kind of really depends on how they're attacking and how they're mixing up their fronts. But his size is interesting for a nose, even in a in A33 stack nose because he is a very small, small player.

1:04:53 He's five 11275. That's about 30 pounds and at least a couple inches shorter and and and and lighter than you normally see a a nose at the starting end. You know that height probably not as big of an issue as the weight but he actually does a pretty good job of eating blockers Despite that size and he he slants pretty quick. So he's he's a guy that you know for what he lacks in size makes up with in quickness. So you get some occasional tackles for loss opportunities in that regard. Sheldon anything on him? No, I just got one on Anwar Sparrow, who's their their one of their highest graded D lineman. So he was Go ahead.

1:05:40 Yeah. So he was third in the ACC overall, big on the the run defense. Yeah, let me I can look up the numbers. But basically he's their, he's their top run stuffing guy. Sparrow is on that, on that D front. All righty. So we got Sparrow as their big run stuff for defensive line. You got Darden as a small undersized defensive tackle that they like to do a lot of things with. So it's going to be interesting to see how we handle this. And I'm going to flip it here and we're going to go next to the Hokie keys. And I'm going to start with you, Brian. What do you think is your biggest key for this game?

1:06:24 Biggest key for this game to me is going to be the offense. He's to stay ahead of the sticks. I think we, if we can get into those second and manageable 3rd and manageable situations, control the time of possession because that's what they're going to try to do to us. If we can control the time of possession and make them have to get away from what they feel they do best, which is running the football both with Schrader and with their running backs. If we can do that, I think that puts us in a better, better spot long term in that game. So if we can stay ahead of the sticks, that'll be a good, a good way to control that time, possession and and put them in difficult situations with their own offense. All right, Sean, what about you?

1:07:05 Yeah, for me it's all about contain, contain, contain. They got to contain the quarterback, Schrader. I think when you look at this offense overall, not to be disparaging of any of their players, but they're just really aren't a ton of individual individual standouts. Outside of Schrader and really their whole offense is just predicated on him getting out in space and making plays. And so if you take away that scramble game, that run game, I mean they just, they don't have a ton left and they've they've struggled a lot on early downs this season. Like you know one of the worst in the country on 1st and 2nd down. So you put them in, you put them in 3rd long, it's not, it's not going to go particularly well for them, but you still got to make sure that you contain the quarterback. So keeping keeping Schrader in check is definitely the biggest key for winning this ball game.

1:07:47 Yep I'm I'm with what you said there and it's the it's the it's attack responsibly because what you just said even more Shelton goes back to what my thought was they're not good on 1st and 2nd down. If you can attack them get them behind the sticks where they can't just run him up the middle it's going to put them in dire situations. And again, you're talking about the 100th, the 100th rated, you know, team sacks allowed regardless what the grades say, they give up those sacks and then you get APR, who's number six in the country. The Hokies, I believe, are in the Top 40 in the country in sacks, in team sacks. So there's that one piece attack, but attack responsibly, make sure you don't give him running lanes.

1:08:31 So lot of integrity there. I'm going to do one on offense here since tally isn't take what the defense gives you. They're pretty balanced defense. They do give up more passing than they do rushing, but take what they give you. Wake Forest decided to load the box and kind of drones sliced and diced them all night. So take whatever they give you. If they want to try to play more coverage, run the ball. I think we can run against this team. So there that is. Now before we get into our prediction and then a quick note about big screeners. This week, this segment is presented by Big is presented by Prospects. Prospects is a daily fantasy app where you can make entries based on player projected outcomes.

1:09:12 And Brian, did you hit the two you had last week? I didn't know you had Prize picks will match up any deposit up to $100. When you sign up with the code BC picks, it's right there. Bron's about to pull it up. That's the reason he's not pulling it up, because go ahead, pull it up. We don't have anything left yet. We're still, we have two games we know we're going to pick. We've got to find some other games. We don't have a line yet. We don't have to get until we get the line. Mine started coming out about 6:00. Yeah, we have dinner. Sheldon was working. Brian had things going on.

1:09:55 Tally's away. You will get this in a tweet between now and sometime Thursday with our picks. So again, there's the QR code if you need it. Let's go ahead and make the hokey predictions. And I'm going to start off on behalf of Jonathan Tally. Got a text from him here 2717. He is staying on the hokey bandwagon and going 2717 Hokies. Sheldon, what do you feel on this game? Yeah, I'm going to go Hokies by four. I think this is a game where my how do I phrase this is my my brain says Vt even though there's part of my gut that says it's going to be a let down loss. But I will say, you know, this is probably the first game in a while where I've been, you know, genuinely pumped for it because I think you've got a huge opportunity. You've got Syracuse coming on Thursday night. You win this game, you go to three and one in the ACC, four and four overall.

1:10:51 You're probably going to be projected to make a ball game if you win this game. And I think it's going to get the fan base entirely dock on your side if you lose. And I kind of like back to like, Oh well, we're, you know, we might go four and eight, five and seven. So I think there's a lot riding on this game. I mean I know it's a, you know, it might seem like just a matchup between 2 mediocre ACC teams and maybe it is. But this is a this is this could be a huge confidence boosting win for Vt. So regardless this they they got to win this game and so I got I got Hokies by 4 Brian. I've got the Hokies winning 2720. I think this is going to be the win that. If they're not already gets the fan base fully bought into what Pride is doing and and what the the team is doing and the steps that we're taking going forward to build this program back up.

1:11:45 I don't think that this is a monumental win if it happens. But what it What it proves is that you can go into a Thursday night game in prime time in your home stadium and beat a team that. At least on paper is as good or better than you are. There you go. And I think that's an important hurdle to get over for this staff and this team is going out there and taking care of the business consistently in those type of matchups. You know, we've seen Wake Forest, we've seen Pitt. Those teams are. Probably in the bottom three or four of the ACC, Syracuse is more of a middle of the pack team. If we can show we can get a victory against them, I think that will boost the confidence of the team. Boost the confidence of the fan base, Yeah, and I'm with you all.

1:12:39 I do think the Hokies win this game and I'm going to go 3021. I think the Hokies win comfortably and it's and it's and it's I like what y'all said, This is that game that can springboard things for the fan base especially. It's like we saw the pit game. It's like, oh, OK, we hadn't beat pit like that in years. We hadn't beat pit about multiple scores in years. You go to the FSU game, you show three good quarters, a football against one of the best teams in the country, and then you have another good game against weight where you do what you're supposed to do against the lesser team and to y'all's points.

1:13:25 I think a lot of people are on the side, regardless what happens this year. I mean, we're seven games in, we're already at three wins, took eleven last year to get there. It also what we were talking about, the issues that we're having, and I've said this a couple times, the issues we had last year, it literally lasted from game four to game 11, where there were issues starting with Game 2 that roughly by game five things were starting to change, right? Some guys weren't seeing the field play, Calling was changed. And I think now it's this is a real test for not only for the whole staff, but for Brent Prize, a head coach, because you're feeling good after weight, can you get everybody grounded and say that means nothing unless you don't go out there and beat their asses Thursday night? It's going to be a packed house.

1:14:11 It's going to be 730, it's going to be on ESPN. We're going to have about 3 1/2 million eyes on us. Go out there and do it. Show that we are on the way to being who we were. Yeah, and this is that step forward. So Tally was talking about before Wake how important Wake was to keep a bowl on the on the on the plate, right. Wake kept the bowl on the plate. This is where you start putting yourself into that conversation because it is a more middle of the road ACC team because it is on Thursday night and it's a game that has a bunch of eyes on it. So this is where you take that next step. You know you had, you had to get wake behind you to even get to this point where this game matters and this game has some stakes attached to it.

1:14:58 Now you're here. Go out there and handle the business. There you go. Sheldon, anything else to add? Yeah, I mean, it's like I was saying, it's just this is a game where you feel like everyone's coming in hype. It's Thursday night, and I'm not trying to be at Debbie Downer, but this is one of those games in Virginia Tech lore. Where you look back on it and say man what a what a classic Virginia Tech game to lose. So I just think it's AI, just think it's a big game and like you just got to win the ticket, the fan base on your side. Like if you go into the the Louisville week four and four, three and one, like I mean you're feeling pretty good. So it's just it's a big game. Can I say this? You talked about the classic left down game.

1:15:39 Let this be the place where it re goes the other way, where it did for years, where Thursday nights was you come and you're in play on Thursday night. You're not going to win. You're not going to win this game. And on some of those Thursday nights it was not only a win, it was a damn beat down. And can we peak that? Can we get through this thing of losing Thursday nights? Can we start going back the right way in what history tells us the way it should be? All right, anything breaking in the last hour and 17? Tally joined us live here. Hey man, the the, the links in in Twitter. Jump on, links in Twitter. Jump on.

1:16:20 He's driving. I think we missed you tonight, Tally. We know you'll be back next week, man. Maybe Tally will jump on to a space on Wednesday night or something. Who knows? All right, well, that is going to wrap up this episode of the Boundary Corner podcast brought to you by Main Street Pharmacy in Blacksburg. I'm Curtis Wilson. I'm Brian Siegler. And I am Shelton Moss. Visit our website boundarycornervt.com to listen to all of our episodes. See what we said years ago about Garrett Schrader. That'd be a good one, right? That was a long time ago. I think he had only started like one game at that one game then and he freaking torched us for 45. It's not so. We also have the merchandise shop at Boundary Corner store. Don't forget to follow us on Facebook, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, subscribe on our YouTube Your favorite podcast source including Spotify, Amazon and Apple Podcast As always, we let our buddy Jason Long play us in. Play us out.

1:17:17 Visit him at jasonlongmusic.com where you can link to all of his music, Apple, Spotify, YouTube. His Facebook and YouTube pages also got his upcoming live performances on there as well. He keep those updated. Support him down in Roanoke and, as always, we thank Y'all for listening and let's go. Hokey.