Know the Enemy: West Virginia

0:45 Welcome back, corner podcast. My name is Curtis Wilson, I'm Brian seagull buddy, we're back on a Tuesday, its West, Virginia hate week. Hey let's get heyo and man. Hey hey tweek part 1 of the Season West Virginia weak man. And man, we got a lot to uncover tonight but God, it's it did in two nights. It's Thursday night in Lane Stadium, Thursday night, Thursday night, the place where Thursday Night Football originated and people knew it could be something big. And I think it's the 26th anniversary, something like that.

1:29 This year of, actually playing West Virginia, on the Thursday night, I know where it like 20, where year 22 from One of the nastiest games ever in the series. When Andre Davis wants to fuck off for three touchdowns and way Ward killed, a kid on that punt return. It's still in probably every single person watching tonight or listening has seen that play but if you're not you hokey fan or a young hokey fan, go to stop pop, press pause or step away from the live stream. Go to YouTube Type in Wing, Ward, Virginia Tech. And let it do the search.

2:14 Nothing but fire, buddy, you doing I'm doing good man. I'm doing good. It was a, it's been a good week, so far. Been got some work done today. Got to do a little segment on on a wad radio today, with Adam Epstein radio 910 here in the r-va, the best Sports Programming in the RV, a, if you did. Then catch my man. Sigler out here 2 p.m. can check in for a quick hit. There was awesome second hit there, right. I went, I went through and I I was I was cleaning everything up there.

2:55 We had the, I think the J mu beat writer was on there first and then we had the, the 24/7 writer for UVA was in the middle slot there. So, Yeah, I kind of felt I kind of finish things off there for that segment. Very nice. Very nice. Well y'all like we've said at the beginning, this is West Virginia, it is hate week but before we get into know, the enemy of West Virginia. We've got to recap, what happened? Last weekend, lot of things went on before, and during that game, the Hokies take a win over Wofford 6:33, Hokies go to two and one slightly off our predictions slightly off, we're about 20 points short, on each side. But nonetheless, a win, is a win in this situation. And before we get into the actual game itself, let's talk about the injuries in game and before the game, you know, you had three key starters, not even playing, and Keshawn King, Colin garbett, and Josh fuga.

3:59 And Brian, when you saw on didn't see, or when you heard saw that, those guys weren't playing, did it? Did it hurt your gutter? Was it more of a We can win without them today. Yeah. I mean I know we alluded to it a little bit last week when we were doing the the preview episode, I was going to be fine. If King and Caleb Smith, both sat this one out. We need them more this week than we needed them against against Wofford. Obviously, Caleb Smith played, got a little banged up on a deep ball kind of late in that second quarter, but we had quiche Shaun King out.

4:39 We had Taiwan garbage out, Josh fuga, sat I'm okay with that. Like I said that, that's, that's a setup where you're going to need those guys. For this stretch, we've got coming up, so not just West Virginia, but the entire October stretch, which is probably the most difficult section of this schedule this year, having those guys as fresh as we can have them for that for that push. I think it's going to be more important than whatever they could have given us against Wofford. So after it moved by the coaching staff and unfortunately As I said, Smith got banged up mid game seems to be. All right. As has been practicing so far this week. Same story with Silas Zante went down but apparently could have went back in but precautionary just kept him out again.

5:25 It was Wofford game was in hand. Yeah, I need to push it. Anyone that got nicked mid game with where that's for, was when it was basically, they weren't able to do anything offensive ly other than get a little first down and then essentially You either get a sack or tackle for loss. Nobody was going back in the game as far as king garbett and food go. You already hit the nail on the head, you don't play them this game. Now could that score had been potentially uglier with King in the game? Yeah. And does the offense? Maybe need confidence. Maybe. Yeah. But on the other hand, he's Sean King. Is the game breaker on that offensive for he and Caleb Smith and like you said, even without you would have been found Caleb not playing, which I think was still resulted in a Hokies win.

6:08 Caleb. Slightly Nick than the immediately pull them. Is it one of those you could win back in probably but it's one of those weeks to wear if you're hearing about these guys injuries and West Virginia was last Saturday I think every single one of them would have been on the field. I think Caleb would have came back. I think Silas would came back. I think it's showing roster management that sometimes a little Nick you don't need a guy to go back in games in hand, let's move on. Yeah, with Caleb it seems like it's like a rib issue, which those things can linger. We know that. That's pain tolerance. Oh, right, let laying out for that, that, uh, that, that deep ball I think is what kind of probably triggered that for him and it's pain tolerance, but at the same time, if it's one of those lingering things and you feel like you can take care of things without him sit him down. He came out, he went back and when he came out in the second half, he wasn't wearing any pads, he was just in the Jersey. So he knew his they was over.

7:10 We at that point, we were handling them very much seem like Unless something drastically changed in the the trajectory of the game that was going to be in hand at halftime. You know, we came out, didn't play as well in the second half as I was hoping. But, you know, again, as you said, a wins a win. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right, let's kind of take a quick high level overview of some things. You wanted to see last week, Brian. I think we did see a few of these things. The first is you said you wanted to get away from the predictable, play calls the predictable Run play calls. Early and drives. And I think from what I saw watching the game and getting in, we saw a lot more passes, a lot more quick plays on first down in the ball, in the air, versus running the ball. Yeah, they definitely were hitting more of those passes in early Downs.

8:04 That I think that helped get the offense in a little bit more Rhythm. We still didn't finish as many drives, as I would have wanted to go against that defense. And I think that's Stills. You know, that's where we're still a work in progress, with the with finishing drives and closing out drives, we had the you know, the Miss block on the on the 4th and 1 on the first drive, after you had some productive plays before that, that got us in a pretty good position there. To get some points. Then you had a couple others where, you know, one thing here, one thing they're killed killed a drive when you cross the 50s so that means there were still some points left on the field there that I feel like yeah. If we can clean some things up you know that's going to be a little bit better.

8:46 Looking number than I think we ended up with on Saturday. Yeah probably somewhere between seven and ten more points probably somewhere closer to 40. Like we thought it would be. But that that fourth and short play Early eight. Okay, it's often off-tackle play and I told you like if you're going to put Jalen Holston there I absolutely hate that play call for him. He does not have that sort of quick kick to get there if the play isn't blocked perfectly and like I like you've been telling me so many times. If certain plays aren't blocked perfectly you will lose in that case it wasn't in that case we lost and you know print fry who right there seemed very aggressive similar to the PC game. Did not pay off.

9:29 Now comes back later. We have a fourth and short. He tends to go a little more passive and I think something me and you've talked about a couple times not only on here, but just in passing conversation. It seems like Brent ply. Is he looks at the data in the statistical points of what you should and shouldn't do. But then he consensually plays it by gut because there are times where you're like, oh he's going to go for here. He kicks the field goal. There are times like take the points, he goes for it. So it's like to me it's a, he's kind of finding his rhythm as a head coach of wendigo when to push and when not to push and right now it's kind of been a healthy balance thus far in the season. Yeah.

10:10 You wouldn't call them aggressive, you wouldn't call him passive. It's definitely situational and I think it's relative to game Flow. I think it's relative to where we are on the scoreboard. I think that's the big thing that we're looking at. At this point is that he is, Aggressive. I feel like when he needs to be or when he feels like it's to his advantage and then plays it more statistical when it's something that, you know, could be advantageous to punt. Keep us keep the field position. When the game is a little tighter, when things are a little still in the balance. So I like the mix there so far. Most of the times that he's roll the dice, I would have rolled the dice, and most of the times when he's punted, I would have punished.

10:57 So, Have any big problems with what I've seen on that front. I probably would have went I'd probably would have been a little more aggressive not necessarily this Saturday but overall then he's been so far. But again that's why he's got the money and I don't armchair I can be a lot more aggressive than he cans and because he's the one that's got to go to the podium and answer for it. Absolutely. Now the other thing I want to get your take on this from, you know, playing at a Collegiate level. Do you feel like that we played down Saturday, or did it feel more like a controlled? We're going to win this game?

11:38 There's no need to press. There's no need to go outrageous. They aren't as good as us because I want to get your take on that. Yeah, I think the big thing for for that is that I wouldn't say we played down to the competition. I think that there were times where we were not as effective. As we want to be that some execution wasn't there and that took points off the board. I mean I you know, when you say play down I don't think there was one of those things where we got pushed around where we look like, it wasn't a Richmond game if we want to put it that way, from a couple years back, you know, we didn't, we didn't feel like we were almost out matched or evenly matched in that game. We definitely could do the things that we wanted to do. We just didn't always execute as Crisply as we could, or should have against the level of Tolerance? Absolutely.

12:37 Well, that's kind of what I wanted to hear. That's kind of, was my fault with never felt like down, it never felt like the last couple years where there were teams you feel really felt better than and you felt nervous getting into the quarter. You felt like, from Jump Street, we move the ball, we got aggressive, we didn't take the points. The next time we took the points, they the defense had everything under control. So yeah. Alright, let's take a look. Look at the offense just kind of chitchat about a few things here and there. And then we'll look at DNA before we before we jump in there. We got a little question here from Clark I what's your favorite piece of memorabilia and your case behind y'all. All right so mine is not even hung up at the moment.

13:21 I have she rearranged the room last week Clark I have a lithograph hand-drawn copy of Lane stadium in the snow. I Clark hit me up on Twitter. I can tell you exactly who did it. Was someone that lives down in the Southwest? Virginia area gave it to a friend of mine. And and that friend gave it to me of my birthday present this year. So soon, I'm hoping right about there where you see the golf club and the guitar, right above the VT blankie. That's where I'm going to try to get it. I've got to find the brain because it's an offered frame, but you see probably my favorite is going to be the the pendant The Shield right behind me here in the corners a little dark you can't see it but it's just actually sorry over here right here. Yes, it's yeah, that there is signed by Darryl Tapp himself so that's probably the the one that I covet the most Darryl. Tapp one of my favorite all-time Hokies probably easily in the top three for me and got that.

14:29 I'm trying to remember when it was Determine what game it was that. It was spring game. I want to say 2004. Okay. Okay, so while we were young kids, while we were kids. Yeah. Oh man. That one. That one goes way, back. That one goes way back way back. Absolutely. I hope to have this hung up soon. I've also got here on my left. I've had a couple times, you see it? I've got the, the map of Virginia in a would cast with all the counties outlined in the BT. Crying the middle of it. That's probably number two favorite as well as my plethora of hockey game cups. So yeah, we've got quite a few things and actually I'm looking over here, I've got both of the I've got both of the beer mugs out from hardihood not now so it's pretty pretty sweet. Oh, all righty.

15:30 All right, so let's Now flip it. All some question clock, we appreciate that. We appreciate all you guys out there in the chat. We see you tonight. Lowcountry Brian Cox Clark Robbie. Matt appreciate you guys listening and watching tonight. Let's talk about the offense for on something. You said last week, we needed to happen. Is we needed to see something go on with the wide receiver running? Man, did we see it from two guys this week? Yeah. Jaden blue and Christian Moss big big days for the Hokies blue getting in the end zone. Making a couple NFL caliber catches especially that one kind of down the seam between two Defenders, elevating making the catch, bringing it down, moving the chains, there and Moss. A lot of stick moving routes a lot of possessions Type type, type things early on in the game to get him going, he was really probably the standout player in the first quarter. When we were kind of a little under unsteady as we kind of got our footing, you heading into the second quarter. They're absolutely.

16:35 And for blew it couldn't happen to a better individual everything he's went through to not only have a good game but to catch a touchdown pass and to just feel like kind of the weight because we've been here and he's been nicked and then he's been trying to come. Seen in play but we haven't seen it. Develop on the field. Clearly developing on the field last Saturday and then Chris Moss. We heard his name several times in the fall camp and was it one of those was it just noise at coaches are trying to talk somebody up and get somebody moving and this game we saw it and he had the one miss though, the Oneness on the comeback which was if he catches the ball the guy fell down behind him. He's probably dead to rights in the end zone so I'm sure they're probably going to be working on some come back. Drills this week, like secure the ball first, secure the ball. First, somebody else, what about Gallo getting back to the game. One type production.

17:28 I mean he did very little against BC and I mean to say we win that game with him to a little production is kind of unbelievable and now getting him back in and it's pretty awesome. And yeah we kind of talked about it last week where it seemed like BC was big-time keying on those short flat routes to the tight ends. We We had it heavy in the rotation against ODU. They were jumping on pretty quick. I think just with some of the different Personnel. We had some different play, caller different play calls this week that got a little bit more spacing in that kind of second level of the defense. I think that helped Gallo get get open on a more regular basis. And I think that'll that'll bode well. We'll see it.

18:14 We'll see if we can keep that up against West Virginia this week. And then it returned a Jalen Jones, man. I mean only one catch but that was a pretty sweet catchy made and looks like he's starting to get his Groove. I know it was later in the game but again, just get him on the field. Getting those reps. Obviously ran more than just the one Rowdy caught but the wide receiver room with Caleb with Gosnell, you know, with Lofton and now with blue and Moss, sort of making an impact, it's the depth of slowly. Building. It's taken three games to get more than three deep and I'm missing somebody there because Brian had the none of that was the six we talked about, right? We talked about in the other six, we talked about earlier in the season, so getting that there's really good. And I know, God knows becoming a steady Eddie God knows catching like three or four passes the game. I think he's went one, two, three but every time it's like a big first down catch and it's moving the ball down the field, which is Really key.

19:18 Yeah and when we got the depth chart this week, for the West Virginia game, we were looking at it. We were like okay well this depth chart for the wide receivers finally looks like what we thought it was going to look like in Fall Camp. Right? We got you got blue and Smith on the outside. You got Lofton in the slot and then backing them up. You've got now, moss and Jones outside with with Gosnell on the slot. It's kind of what we thought this was going to look like from Jump Street and you know, heading into a big game like Like West Virginia, that's kind of, you know, a good a good Comfort note to kind of feel like, you know, the wide receiver room is finally starting to starting to take some shape here and you know, talk about Jalen Jones. Yeah. He got the catch what impressed me was that, that yak that the yards after the catch. And and how he runs with the ball in his hand, he kind of runs with purpose.

20:11 It reminds me a lot of it. This is not a comparison in terms of ability with this is a As in terms of what it reminded, me of just seemed on the field. Anquan Boldin, right? Yeah. Uh, okay. He like Angry resentful wide receiver. Yeah. Possessed. Like don't get in the man's way. You are going to feel it. So yeah, again, that room is slowly developing in. You wish it was quicker but, you know, hopefully better now than ever. And now talking about never, let's talk about the Well, because we still saw some struggles. Their first question, I want to ask for, we get into your grades and dog house and a couple other things. When you saw Gwen Moore went down early and you saw shit come in.

21:00 Did that shock? You and then when Silas went down and he came back out, give me some stuff on Bob shit because I mean I think they're me and you're expecting. Okay, here's your chance to put the other more brother in or potentially Chaplin. Yeah, it was interesting seeing Bob, stick out there, but I think we're probably at a point where, when we look at the the other players that could go in. I wonder if more and chaplain are deep enough in the Playbook, or comfortable enough with the Playbook. We're Rudolph. Feels like he can lean on them and extended periods. Okay? Or periods. Where we're not, you know, game game isn't fully in hand. That's my that's my thought at this point. As far as why they didn't get in but he talked about it a little bit too is that that unit still trying to gel when you're trying to jail you probably lean on the guy that's had Had the more work the more experienced shit got in there, held up pretty good. I've got no real major notes on on how he did there. I think it was a solid outing for him, nothing super impressive but you know sometimes at all an offensive lineman has to do is be anonymous and good thing. If you don't know the in sik and less, unless you were looking for him sik, was mostly Anonymous. So that's, that's about as good as he could do. I think in that type of sub n Roll for First, big game that might be the best.

22:28 That's the quote of the day right there. That if you're an offensive, lineman remain anonymous and it's a thousand percent. Correct. Because if you don't know the name essentially, nobody's getting hit and nothing's getting blown up and sometimes that's all you need to win football games, right? I mean and you kind of mentioned it in Lebron was alluding to was coach prize comment after the game of, somebody asked him might have been any better like you know why didn't the younger guys play? And he's like, you know, Joe Rudolph. Big thing is getting this first. Unit to gel together and it's not happened yet. And the question is, let me ask you, this is, does it come a point in time where if they aren't gelling? Rudolph makes a move where it's like, okay, I've got to figure out why we're not gelling and I've got to move someone out.

23:16 Yeah, I think he's going to get to that point. I don't think he wants to. I think he knows that in terms of ability, these are his best five at the positions that they're Playing. But at some point, if it's not working you got to, you got to do some mix and match and I don't think we're at that point yet. But okay, you know, I think we're getting to a point where if we don't see some progress the next couple weeks, then that's going to be probably where he starts making some moves. But I mean, the grade for this week is honestly a day, communication is still a big problem for this unit. I don't think they necessarily The Sara Lee impose, their will against a team that has subpart talent and some of that was because of missed assignments miscommunication with assignments miscommunication with blitz pickups, you know, on that fourth down.

24:10 I don't know whose responsibility was because I don't have the play call, but it looked to me like Silas and Jesse blocked the same Defender and there, and there wasn't that that's not a situation where they're working to the next level. Those are going to be cut off blocks. It's a backside play. There's not going to be anything too, intricate there. They should be blocking the same down linemen and letting one go completely free into the backfield. The only other option there is maybe that was drinks guy, but Drake had a cut-off on a guy that was the outside linebacker. So it looked like that was probably some sort of miscommunication on the offensive line part there and we saw that a lot throughout the game.

24:52 There was, there was some sometimes stuff on the inside where I should have been working to the next level and kind of just hung around on a combo block. These are things that take plays that could be, you know, five to six yard gainers, 8-yard gainers and turn them into one or two. And that's the big problem we've had is it still on those early Downs, were not productive enough where we're giving the offense a chance to be in those second and manageable and third and short situations consistently enough even against a sub Park opponent like Wofford. All right, and And Brawn, I think we probably can. All guess who's in the dog house this week but go ahead. Tell us who's in the dog house this week.

25:32 We're putting Parker Clements in the in the dog house this week. Not a good day. Overall run blocking and pass blocking. I was looking at PFF grades somehow. Grant Wells has a higher PFF grade in pass Pro. Then Parker Clements Not good. Not great. Bob migrated. All right, let's move off the offensive line and you know, hopefully that is improved this week because I think it has to be and let's talk about quarterback, play in general and let's talk about, you know, Grant Wells obviously definitely his best game is a hokey maybe one of his better games as a college quarterback, you know, over 300 314 in the air. 74 percent complete. Ian percentage two touchdowns no picks and kind of looking you text.

26:31 What did you text me about what you saw him doing? It was going through his progressions. Got better. That's it. Sorry, we pray for your good. Yeah, he was going through progressions, a lot better this week in the. Again some of that can be chalked up to a step down in competition level, but it still was his most consistent Day by far. I'll take seventy four percent completion, all day, every day, especially since there's only a couple out there that were truly badly thrown Balls by him. Yeah, and only one really bowl. That was kind of put In Harm's Way the whole day. So that was early with it, that cover to ball. He kind of tried to fit in.

27:18 I don't think it was caught but it was it was one of those you go. Oh no. Okay yep. Yep. He left it a little bit lower than you wanted to little bit lower. Maybe put a little bit more air on it. Get it. Get a little bit closer to the sideline a little bit. Deeper. Yep. Yeah, so it was close but that was the really only close call all day and I think you took care of the football well and he saw the feel a little bit better. He still occasionally will stare down, his primary route, kind of out the gate of the snap and that's something that I think he needs to work on but You know, I give him a solid b-plus on the day, you know, not a whole lot of big critiques for him.

28:08 I know a couple couple folks were killing him on the timeline but I mean these are things that we're going to have to kind of massage as we go throughout the year. You have to live with it. It's what it is. You have to live with what he is and I mean I know Jason Brown did get some run near the end of the game which to me is good. Getting the backup quarterback involved just in live game action. Where you has rough sea? Made a few throw pillows, it's good to have on tape. It's good to talk to. So I was very glad to see that. Now one room that you know, I don't know if you put this on the offensive line with the running back, room did not have a good day. Three point. Three yards a carry. We didn't have King, which me, and you've already looted. Tube that's fine.

28:54 David Halston had an okay day chance flag. Probably probably, maybe the worst. He's looked this year. Maybe trying to, maybe he was one of the guys that was trying to press to improve trust. Press to impress, the coaching staff and you know, but lo and behold we think it's man, this is what I running back room is you know, Christ you comes out in the Can have and I know that that time game was in hand we had warned them down a little bit but you what was your take on Bryce? Do today Ryan, I mean I think you had a good day. We showed Some solid Vision, good burst in the hole.

29:38 My thing was that he ran through contact to finish the run. That that's a big thing for me. So he showed that and then obviously you showed his ability in the passing game with that wheel route that he took for a touchdown. Wells, put it right right in the basket there. And you know, made a big catch, you know, not quite full extension but you know had his arms out, cradled it in there, took it to the house, I like that. When we look at King being out, we knew that there was going to be probably be some sort of step back in terms of production level from this room on the day. And we got that And I think, you know Holston at this point I mean, I know he's been banged up but more or less, he is what he is.

30:26 And he's a guy that's going to be able to get you some some hard running yards but he's not going to break a bunch of big plays. He's just not that type of back and I think you were right when you talked about chance black pressing a little bit. I think there were times where you know, a little bit more patience, maybe would have paid off for him. But I think he was trying to one of those were hit the home run to early in the in the snap and you ended up blocks, didn't develop things weren't there and now you're getting to one or two yard gain instead of you know what could potentially been a modest. But solid gain when you're trying to hit the hole hard and break to the second level too quick.

31:09 Absolutely, the one thing about due to, I know you talked about running through contact, obviously showing his hands has when he saw it, he went When he saw the lane, he went there was and that I know you talked about the vision you've got to have good Vision, but even there some guys that have really good Vision that essentially tend to wait and they're trying to make the perfect whole happen in his case. I know one was like a five yard run and it was like going to the left side of the line and he saw it and just cut it in and got four. And like you said, he ran through the contact to me that decision, making right to me as a running back, having the great vision but Guys who decide to say, I'm cutting it right here, I'm going to hit the hole and I go back, and I think the Jalen Holston run, we pointed out at BC, where that left side of line had it sealed and he was kind of waiting there. The linebackers coming in the whole meet him because he doesn't tackle you and you get through him. There's a lot of green are in front of units that decision-making saying, I've got to go now and again, when you see a guy have it that that kind of gets you pumped up. All right, let's flip over to defense for a couple minutes here and let's just talk about it. I mean they held offered under 200 yards but it seemed very unspectacular.

32:28 It wasn't like, you know, man. Of amount of sex. We had a significant amount of tackles for losses, but I think something we noticed is we saw very heavy rotation of a lot of different players throughout the game. Not just at the end when it was primary, just younger guys. All throughout the game. There were times where Keyshawn artist played like three Series in a row and we didn't see Dax at all. Yeah, there were long periods of the, the second line being in the game throughout throughout the game. It wasn't just, as you said, sprinkled into the third or fourth quarter. When the game was in hand, we saw a heavy rotation and that's taking to account that we had to starting defensive lineman already out. So we were already a little bit into the depth chart by default there but we saw, you know, DJ Harvey get a lot of run this week even more.

33:26 So than last week we saw A lot more Bri on Murray on the field than we saw the last week and we saw those safeties. And in Sam backers, get irritated a lot more to. So we there was a heavy dose. We saw, you know, Lawson got in there, we saw a lot more Keller this week. It was a it was a really heavy rotation across the board and, you know, you say 200 yards under 200, but it was very unspectacular, there were first down here, first down there, then they punt. First out there wasn't a ton of three announce it wasn't a ton of like abject domination.

34:09 Yeah, we're you know, pushing them into it like several, you know, third and 15 in longer situations. It was very much, a two yards, three Yards. No yards punt. You know, first down three yards, three yards, no yards. Like there were a lot of those type of drives where they get a get a first down here, get a few yards and they punt it back to us. So and I think some of that was by Design, not necessarily just because we had some of the younger guys in or guys that are less experienced. But I think some of that had to do with how we were playing them and Anjali, how we were playing them in preparation for what we're about to see this week?

34:53 Yeah, I was going to ask you that. Let's look at defensive back room. Real quick. We allowed 70% completions, including DJ hard. Let a big one. Go downfield. But when you looked at the tape, how are we playing? Because it felt to me, we were playing off a ton and we weren't pressing any, it was a lot more read, react this week and a lot less blitzing. I mean, we talked about it last week. This is more of a West Coast type spread very similar to what they're going to be doing with the air raid with with West Virginia, which we're going to preview here in a little bit. I think they were kind of getting them set up for that. More of a read, react type, secondary approach, you know, there's not going to be a ton of getting in these guys faces and pressing them at the line of scrimmage.

35:43 We look at West Virginia and I think some of that was by Design getting guys out there getting them comfortable with those looks because it is a little bit of a different approach that. I think what we would like to do against a more typical, you know, spread offense got it now but because of that I think we saw it again and in every every week we keep talking about it. Brian do. The tackle informed looked better this week than it has all year and it's been significantly improved all year, but it seemed like rapping and getting guys. Down quick. There were no chances for them to go any further than where ever, they caught the ball.

36:25 Yeah, that's going to be key with that read and react. You've got to be able to come up and make the tackle in the open field, and we did that consistently. We didn't give them a ton of extra yardage. You after they made the catch, that's going to be key going forward. And hopefully, we can keep that type of play up heading into West Virginia this week. Yeah. Now let's talk about defensive line because obviously we were down a couple and when that happens, there are some guys who stepped up in the two biggest or without towel on garbage, CJ, McRae and Cole Nelson. Really took a big step up into a point where I think defensive line again, much like the wide receiver room is slowly.

37:07 As we start playing more games slowly, starting to make itself deep vs. These are Still the only two good guys to play. Both guys had a sack. Both eyes were getting after the quarterback and it's great to see that. Yeah. And you know, I'm going to revise some of what I said at the start of the season. I was concerned about this defensive line to start the year. Yeah. From a deaf perspective especially d-tackle with really only having three proving guys, you know, we talked last week about Pinette coming in and getting, you know, so many efficient snaps and kind of closing that distance between his play last year versus what he's doing this year. You know, we've seen Cole Nelson. Now Step Up CJ McRae coming on the scene is going to be huge. He had some good plays against gets BC, we saw some more a lot more this week with him, getting kind of a steady rotation in that in that defensive line room. So if we can continue to to make these strides on the defense of wine that's going to help us.

38:14 Because as we were talking about, you know, when you can't bring the pressure like you want to get certain types of Defense certain types of offensive attacks. Getting pressure with four is going to be key. Mario, Kendricks had a good game, he was living in the backfield. So if we can get more of these guys were, we can get pressure with for more consistently. That's only going to be better down the road and we won't have to necessarily worry about whether we're playing a certain type of offense or not. Absolutely. And then with those guys taking those steps now that, you know, Kendricks and Pinette of kind of entrenched behind fuga and Pollard, you got for their and with McRae and Kendrick. Along with garbett and Jalen Griffin.

38:56 He's not been spectacular, but he's been very steady at the other end position. It's like, okay we are now we've sort of got a little more depth with where you feel comfortable rotating guys in and out to say, hey, this is your series, go out there and do it. And, you know, it's kind of funny, there's something around a lunch pail. It's like Casey Price. He's getting his yard dogs ready. And hopefully he can get them Feast on Thursday night. All right. One. I'm scary play as of hokey fan on Saturday and it was late in the game. We were punning, we had punted deep there. Guy attempts to make a return and Shamari Connor is on special teams as a gunner. And he absolutely lays the wood to that punt return. And we're like, yeah, heck of a hit, you know, I'm, we're all jacked up.

39:46 It feels like the old days and you come back and you see the ref with the headset on looking at the damn video and you're like, oh no, you did that go mother. Yeah, we were big-time concerned especially with what we got, you know, coming into Blacksburg on Thursday. You know, we don't want a guy like Connor out for a for a half. Because of some bullshit call like that, thankfully targeting was reviewed, no targeting. I was definitely on the edge of my seat. That holds I was like, come on, let's go. We can't we can't lose this guy. But I mean they were talking about on the live broadcast you know, that he did weeks, the tweaks to the rules. Yeah.

40:31 And you know now it's literally top portion of the helmet. This It's no longer just, you know, anything above the facemask, huh? So I think that definitely played in our in our favor, their thanks. So as much as the rule still needs to be fixed some because as much as they've overstepped the boundaries for targeting, they started bringing it back in because if you saw the hit and you put it up there, Matt Jones, who was in The End Zone, saw it. He, it was shoulder and the reason it got that look like it was a targeting those. Because literally the way the guy moved once Jim. All right, pop, It literally didn't look like the head hit. So, you know again, we held our breaths, we got through it but that they still need to make it more. You can't punish a guy I think me and you I think you said a couple times.

41:24 It's almost like the first ones just to penalty 15 yards. The next one's an ejection. It's like it needs to be layered. You can't just continue your out a quarter for one you've made 12. Perfect hits today. 12. Perfect kids. Oh, this one's going to get you done for the next half of the next games. Well, my problem is that they don't take into account. The aiming point of the defender, true true. Because the aiming point was that the chest and then you see the offensive player, the guy with the ball is reacting to the hit coming and now all of a sudden you got helmet-to-helmet contact. The aiming Point needs to be taken to account if you're launching and you're leading with your head high from the get-go. Lutely call that a targeting.

42:11 We need to that type of play, out of the game. That's fine. But if an Aiming point is that the breastplate of the guy with the ball are down. All the signs are there. You know, he's ducking down and getting in defensive position to take the hit and now all of a sudden, you know, it's a helmet to helmet or something like that then, Yeah, I mean that has to be taken to account. That's the modification that I'd like to see to that rule. Abso-freaking-lutely? All right, so let's put a bow on it, Wofford weeks over twenty, seven, seven win. And let's flip over to just take a look at some, some using college football notes Here in the first one brine for me and you, and probably all the folks in the chat and watching live a relief, the national championship will kick it. 7:30, this Year versus 8:30, still a Monday night, which sucks.

43:05 But at least we're getting the bed by 11:00 then the stupidest thing. Let's kick it at 8:38. And I are you kidding me? Why our apologies to Grayson wimbush out there? The on the west coast, he can take the creation, can take a half day and had, well, this year, we actually can go to it. Yeah. Because if the sub far this year, so Grayson exactly by taking whoever's in it and go Heckle the fan bases there. So I love them. It's for us that our fans that watch legitimately from Labor Day weekend, Labor Day, Thursday night, until the national championship game regardless. Who's playing you just you just rewarded us instead of punishing us. It's a huge day after the night.

43:49 It's a reward for 80% of the college football watching populist 85. There's not that many out there. All right, I'm including, I'm including the Mountain Time Zone in the Mountain Time Zone. It's two hours. 5:30 that's pushing it, man. It's five. Thirty. Thirty minutes early. Go grab your dinner. That is the upside. You get two happy hours, five o'clock, somewhere, and get your ass on the bar and watch the game. All right, the official move acc's. Officially moving to Charlotte. Like should have happened two decades ago, probably not in 2022.

44:33 But finally done. I mean seriously like Charlotte's one of the biggest growing hubs. So I mean sure Joe has been up and coming for a while, it me is one of the Premier East Coast cities. Now it is one of the biggest banking institutions and everything, so making the move there made perfect sense. It's where they do media day. I mean we're going to do media day down here but we're located up here and it's just like that makes zero sense. So, you know, good for the conference. Hopefully, it shows that they're trying to take some things seriously and keep the conference alive. Maybe third gives you better than that. Move moving alone is not going to do it. I'm just saying.

45:21 All right, third piece of news here. This is pretty cool for us, especially Lee since you know, me and you've known the family pretty much since we were kids, Mackenzie Lauder Hokies catcher last year on the Super Regional, team has joined the BT softball team as a student coach. I know her her dad, and her mom and her whole family or super ecstatic for her to continue to stay up there and do something she loves man. Yeah, I mean that's going to that's big for that family. I mean, that's a, that's a softball family. That's a coach. They are it just? It goes hand-in-hand man.

46:08 Who had a deal with us in high school and it's classes. Yes, he did. Hey, but hey, it was good. Algebra teacher for me, I got like a b-plus and I was not good at math, at that point in time. All right, bra before we get into Know, The Enemy West Virginia. Let's take a quick pause for a message from our digital Partners 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 on-site, SEO and social media. No commitment to buy anything. You can get your free report by visiting. Grassroots digital studio.com forward slash free Dash. Website Dash report now back to the episode. All right, Brian well, let's get to it. No, the enemy West Virginia and let's just start right out the gate here, Braun, and let's start with the quarterback because he is the biggest name in this game and that is JT Daniels.

47:08 The 6226 quarterback from maitre, d, high school, I'm in California in 2018. He was a five star QB. He was the number two QB in the country. A top-20 player. He transferred from USC where he originally committed to Georgia when he lost his job to Spencer. Spencer. Last year, transferred again to West Virginia. Now this year, you know, a lot of them written in knowing about him but just kind of doing a quick view on him from the first few games this year. I mean, is it still? Is it still there? I mean he still saw the quarterback, he gets the ball out really quick especially on early throwing Downs, accurate.

47:52 In the short intermediate game probably could see improvements in his deep Ball, but he can still make all the throws. But his biggest thing is Poison the pocket. He doesn't really panic when things don't look good, or when the pocket pocket collapses around him. He does a good job is still getting the ball out but sometimes that's to his detriment. He hangs on in the pocket there when the pressures coming and dangerously. So He had a couple balls when we were looking at the, the pit game where, you know, guys are hitting his arm as he's throwing the ball, and he had 44 times, that is his hand got hit as he was throwing the ball. None resulted in a turnover or an interception or anything like that in two of them were completions.

48:39 So, you know, does the Luck run out for him in this case? You know, if we can get some pressure on him will see. he, but he does do a good job of hanging in there and delivering Yeah, absolutely. I know he threw the pick six in the pit game, which was I mean, he I remember watching that game, he telegraphed that pass and when pit the pit Corner saw, he jumped that route and housed in essentially. That was the game. But you know, so far this year and he's put up some pretty good statistical data. You know, complete 64 percent of his passes. He's got over 750 yards already in three games 66.

49:20 Touchdown only two interceptions, never been a real threat to run at all and he's not really that athletic of a guy but you know, overall he is who he is, that 64%, he's at 63 8 for his entire career, he's got it close to 6,000, you know, over 5,500 is uni passing yards. So he is a good player on this team and I tell you what the guy, he's throwing to primarily his favorite Target. Price forward Whedon that wide receiver 63 220 for also 2018 class. North Carolina got played down in Holly Springs down in, Fuquay Varina, probably a lot of folks listening here tonight, probably familiar with that area. Look them up no offer from Tech when he came out. And you know, so far this year he is been kind of tearing it up.

50:14 You know, almost 300 yards, through three games for touchdown. Owns averaging. Just a little over 12 yards per catch. What's the tape tell you about this big body guy? Yeah, he's probably the best all-around light out we've seen so far this year, you know, I li Jennings and they flowers did some some really good stuff but this is more of a prototypical NFL level type receiver, great blend of size and speed and he's a great route Runner. He's got good hands. High Point skills are off the charts. He'll he's really good at High Point in the ball but he will you will have a drop every now and again.

50:58 So there's some opportunity there where, you know, key third down could potentially get, you know, drop one that gives us the ball back and I have seen him occasionally disappear for stretches in the game. But when he's out when he's feeling it, when he's in the zone, he's as good as as anyone you can really watch on tape. He's they use that NFL typed. Talent. Nice. Anybody else in the wide receiver room, catch your eyes that we need to kind of keep an eye on this week. Yeah, the guy opposite him. Caden praise. There's also someone, I would, I would watch both of these guys are big, body NFL type receivers, you know, you talked about, you know, Ford weed and 63 220 for appraisers, 64 211, and both of these guys are quick there.

51:47 These are not just stick mover in Me a big, big body receivers. They have the quickness to beat you deep. They had the quickness to move, kind of underneath the coverage and get open and get some run after the catch as well. Yeah. And you mentioned Prather, you know, 64 210. So again, you say, big body, definitely, big body. Not quite the statistics that Ford Whedon has, you know, right at 200 yards, right out of 11 per catch but still you see those scores and numbers. And it's like, he said, if he's opposite, he's probably definitely going to be getting the looks this week. Now, we're gonna look at the running back room next and, you know, as we were kind of decide who to look at, you know, Tony math is just had a big game against Houston last week, but the guy that's really called. Our guy, our caught our eye is CJ Donelson the halfback tight, end, whatever you want to call them 62 240. He's from Miami Florida, he is a true freshman. He was a three star in the 2022.

52:50 Yes. And, you know so far this year, he's averaging almost nine and a half yards per touch. What's the tape telling on him run? Yeah, I mean, he's the guy that's listed as a tight end but he primarily lines up in the backfield. He's he's a tree running back. He reminds me of kind of a trimmer quicker. Brandon Jacobs. Okay he runs the ball. All right, you kind of kind of upright running Style. Isle big guy can can Barrel you over, but he also is he's quick enough at the second level where he can hit some big runs. He had a couple big runs against Pitt. I think one, especially early on in that game that I think set up their first score there.

53:36 And, you know, you had a couple Red Zone, touchdowns against Kansas, and then another one again, spits. Oh, he's really effective, inside the red zone as well. So that's somebody that we need to keep an eye on because they don't run the Malt ball very much so but when they do, it's usually usually pretty effective and especially with with CJ Donaldson here. Yeah, and you mentioned a touchdown, he's got six total for the year already and we're in game, three on. Did you notice anything like with past Pro? Is that a another reason they are putting him back there. See, a better pass protector for when it's those are eight shot times when they're going downfield. He is showing the propensity to be a good blocker early, but he's still, I think learning the offense a little bit. He's definitely, more of kind of a package guy. Used them pretty heavily against Towson, but they used in more in packages against Pitt in Kansas, okay? Got it.

54:37 And, you know, it's kind of shows only two receptions for 10 yards this year as well. So not exactly, you know, lighting the world on fire as a tight end but definitely doing a lot of damage. Like I said, not and a half yards, a carry just under 300 yards for the season so definitely got, we've got to keep an eye on now. Ryan, let's go ahead and talk about the offensive line where a known face to just about everyone and Hokie Nation a Actually two very well-known, guys, the former hokey Doug Nestor and the guy that everybody felt like was coming to Blacksburg as one of the top prospects on the offensive line.

55:17 Why am I alone? What has the offensive line looked like with sort of the switch over to the air raid? They look pretty good that they're still not an elite off of the line, but they look pretty good. I would, let's talk about my land first. He's probably their best overall lineman at this point. He's playing left tackle for them, he's good in the Run game in the past game, but he's also a guy kind of similar to Brock Hoffman. He's gonna, he's gonna get some penalties, he had a couple procedure penalties, against Pitt, had a personal foul call against Pitt. It had a couple other penalties since then so he gets penalized pretty heavily more so than you would think for an offensive, lineman of his caliber of play. So that's something.

56:09 We might be able to take advantage of as the game goes along they move Nestor out to right tackle. Now he's probably their best overall run blocker, but he still like he was when he was a hokey kind of kind of mid and past Pro, right? But but but when they like to run they like to run his Direction. Action. He does a good job in the Run game and then you got your name. You haven't mentioned Zach, Fraser, the center number 54. He's kind of the opposite of Nestor. He's really good in the past Pro, but he kind of gets pushed back a little bit in the Run game. All right, have you seen that? I mean, I know it was a few plays during the pit game that clearly the line broke down. I mean, are they like a roller coaster ride? Where sometimes they're doing great. And then, all of a sudden, three, four, five, six plays in a row.

56:57 They just look like dog crap. Yeah me they never were able to really assert themselves against Pitt in the running game. They had again a couple big runs and then they finished pretty well in the Red Zone but they didn't do a whole lot kind of between the 20s short of those couple couple big runs by Donaldson. So if we can keep them behind the sticks, that's probably going to be the most effective way to negate what they can do there in the Run game. All right, well, let's kind of talk about this offense. We've met And it four or five times, this is clearly an Air Raid Offense, something that you know how money back at Valdosta State in the 90s came up with and then Mike Leach brought to the Forefront of Texas Tech in the early 2000's.

57:43 In one of his very first quarterbacks is their offensive coordinator, which is Graham. Harrell kind of give us a breakdown of some, of the stuff we normally see narrate and they do anything a little bit different. Yeah. I mean it's a fairly prototypical are a, but they do have a little bit more of a run emphasis than your traditional air raid. They like to employ Tempo, especially when they connect on a good run or pass on some of those early Downs, they'll get going back to the line of scrimmage. They're hurrying up there trying to get the next play out there. Trying to keep you on your toes. Keep you from being on the sub and then working those mismatches you know contrary to last year though they're not a eight running team but they can be effective when they hit a home run.

58:31 You know we saw Donaldson hit a couple long runs against Pitt. We've seen math is get one or two here there especially last week against Towson so they can still hit that, but there's no Levi Brown out there this year, so don't expect to get completely gashed. Like we did last year when we played West Virginia in Morgantown, The rush is kind of used as a drive starter not really used as a drive started. You know, sometimes it is, sometimes, it's not, but it's more used as a change of pace from kind of that quick hitting pass game that's, you know, prevalent in the air raid. Got it. How much do they push it down for you because you have so many Air Raids where the push down field is almost like an old school.

59:24 An old-school NFL philosophy where it's we're only going to take about two or three shots in a half. And then you kind of when I say that is because they're playing primitive, all right? You look at it tunnels and Bubbles and quick outs. Getting the ball out quick. Do they have a tendency to go deep alive or is it more of they're trying to Papi Papi Papi for a quarter and a half? And then all of a sudden once you come up then over the top they go. Yeah they kind of suck you in with that and they'll work some double moves off. Off of that. And they, the receivers they're both. Again, we talked about, they're both big out there but they've got, they've got wiggle, they've got speed so that helps them both in the short game. And when they decide to go deep though, so they have the ability to do both but they usually stay in that short to intermediate Zone, most of the time, but they will take a shot here and there.

1:00:16 All right, got it. So, so sort of a balanced, not your typical original Airaid, where it was just a ton of perimeters then down, Where again, we've seen it, develop where there are some teams in area Concepts that are just attacking downfield, a ton. So very good to know that you know they're not just trying to stretch you vertically and horizontally they will stretch you vertically as well. So yeah that's one of them to keep an eye on but they're not just taking shots downfield all game either. Absolutely. Now Brian let's let's flip over to the defense here in just a second but there's a comment. I want you to throw up out there from our coach Rob like Compton talking about that. If you give the space if you press they, burp goes back to what we saw.

1:01:03 Right against Wofford why we playing off. There it is, right there. All right. But now let's flip over to the defense and let's talk about the guy who probably should be playing in the NFL, right? Right now, I'm still trying to figure out why he came back for more seasons at West, Virginia. And that would be Dante Stills, the 64 285 column strong side defensive end. Call them a three technique. He is a damn good player, he was a four-star. When he came out in 2018, he was a top D top player in West Virginia that year. He was a top-10 defensive lineman, he was a top, 150 overall player. He was a stud when he came out and he's lived up to it every single, basically, his entire time at West Virginia, Yeah, he's an absolute monster on that three-man front playing. That defensive tackle has a Relentless motor really quick off convert speed to strength.

1:02:05 Really effectively they use them a lot in stunts. They'll bring them all the way across the the line of scrimmage. And he's got a spin move that for a guy. His size is as Elite as you can imagine. He's other moves are not as effective. Effective at the snap, but that motor is what really sets him apart. He keeps working keeps working. So he's a guy that if you're not staying on your block holding your leverage, he's going to eventually get to the quarterback. Yeah, I mean, he calls Havoc for them last year and in this year so far. I mean he's already at eight tackles 34 lost a couple of sacks his career numbers, 120 tackles it again. This is as a plan to end on a three-man front. 120. Tackles forty seven tackles for loss in over 20 sacks. That's Ali.

1:03:02 Again I think I think what he was projected like a second round pick last year and he came back which is just insane. Because usually you get a grade that how you go especially defensive lineman you will be taken. All right, let's talk about somebody who has to clean up what he does and that would be Lee and let me go Pogba KP o GBA, he is a Otis I try. He is a six foot one or 230-pound linebacker Winston-Salem. North Carolina at Parkland. High School came out in 2019 is a three-star. He originally committed to Syracuse where he was for a couple years.

1:03:46 Then he went to Juco route in 2021 and then transferred as a Juco to West Virginia and you know so far this season 18 total. Tackles and one fumble recovery. So some solid numbers up front. What are you seeing on tape? Yeah, he's got, he's a great athlete and has good speed for the mic position. He's another kid with a great motor never gives up on the play. They'll send him on blitzes he. He's a guy that can kind of disrupt the backfield in the Run game and in the past game, but he does struggle to sometimes shed blocks in the Run game.

1:04:29 So he does struggle from at that from time to time, so we can get up to the next level. On him. We can neutralize him a little bit. All right, so there's some key, some of those plays, we like you've been mentioning before, like he's going to be stagnant instead of going up to the next level. Let's hope we can get in his face. Alright, next, I want to talk about here is Marcus. Floyd Marcus fluid is a defensive back, he is 6 foot 194 pounds Louisville. Kentucky is where he is from completely, unrelated out of high school on any service. When he came out in 2018, he started by going to An in-state Murray State. So in FCS program all hook, you should be very familiar with and then decided to transfer to West Virginia in December of 2021. Where is he lining up?

1:05:20 Brian? What's he doing for the Mountaineers? Yes, he's a former Corner. Most of the snaps he was playing at his former stop. He was playing corner but now he's playing What's called the the cat safety in this 33 stag defense, similar to a Rover type of position, he's above average and cover and coverage especially when he can read to react versus being in man and he's a good tackler. Use them. Occasionally as a Blitzer. He does. Kind of similar to leak Pogba, he can disappear when you put a body on him. So if he gets blocked he doesn't do a good job of shedding and getting and making the play.

1:06:02 He's at his best when he can just fly up into the spill area and make a play in The Run game. And like I said, he's above average in that that's own coverage, that reading react coverage. Did you see any sort of plays where he was left on a man? Like, if they went to some sort of cover zero recover one, where he was forced to cover a slot? He did okay but he doesn't have Elite level speed to keep up with guys and his technique is not that great. I mean, it's just average. So it's one of those things where we potentially look for a matchup, like a Dwayne Lofton or Jaden blue in that slot. If we get the right looks and maybe not going over the top, but try and some of that quick twitch type stuff where you feel like there's his skill set is not that I saw A few times and he got matched up in man where crossers were kind of plays that we could take advantage of him, okay? All right.

1:07:03 Make a note of that right there. All right about we take a look at one more defensive player and then before we get into the defensive breakdown and that is the defensive lineman Taj Alston. Six foot four 255 pounds, another North Carolina, kid from Lumberton. North Carolina down there near Fayetteville. He attended copia Lincoln Community College out in Nebraska and then he committed to West Virginia as a three-star in 2019, so far this season as an end, he's got a tackle for loss couple forced fumbles, which is very interesting to see what's the tape showing on him in.

1:07:46 How does he do opposite of steals? He does pretty good opposite instills especially when the quarterbacks dropping back. He is more of a pure pass rusher. He's more of the true defensive end and this type of three-man front whereas Stills is more of the balance player. But he has really good speed off the edge, but he does struggle to make plays in The Run game when you run directly at him, when you put a big body on and he can be blocked. So I imagine we run away from steals a little bit. Run at Taj Alston and tried to neutralize his pass rush as much as we can, by chipping. Yeah, and we definitely need to do that because last year, against the Hokies have four total tackles including a sack and a half in the game last year down.

1:08:36 In Morgantown. So obviously, he's familiar with the Hokies. Obviously he's familiar with some of these offensive line we're gonna be playing now. Brian, let's flip over. Let's talk about the defense itself. You've mentioned a couple times already. This they have not changed it yet. They're still in the 33 stack. And what you've seen, especially against Pitt and Kansas this year and why those teams were able to come out and get on top of the West Virginia Mountaineers. Yeah. So they're very average against the rush attack and that's the big thing. Pit was able to establish the line of scrimmage pretty early in that game. And it kept going, you know, throughout the game where they were able to run pretty consistently against that front especially with Hammond.

1:09:17 He haven't had a lot of success against that front there at attacking defense, as most three threes are they do a good job of blitzing design. It, you know, confusing offensive lines, with how they bring. Pressure and where they're bringing it from and they rely on that pressure as they are at best, a work in progress, on the back end. You know, when you look at that that secondary, you know, you got five key guys there and only one of them was recruited by West Virginia, out of high school, everyone else is a transfer and most of them are transferring from FCS and G5 programs.

1:09:57 So it's really an interesting interesting defense to face because there's a lot of new faces on the backend, pretty much all new faces on the back end, compared to what we saw last year will guide in up front. You know, it's kind of the the same old song and dance with Stills. You know, coming through there and Alston so if we can hold up in the offensive line category, which is probably where we're struggling with the most overall on. All fence right now. Yeah. If we if we can hold up the you know there's some opportunities there but you know occasionally you'll see them adjust to a four-man line. They did that in the second half against Pitt when pit was big-time gash in them in the running game.

1:10:42 The Bandit position played by Jarrett Bartlett, he ends up lined it up opposite Alston with with Stills we went down into a more 433 technique. Are you glad that we got that on tape though? Are you glad that they sort of had a show that hand early against West Virginia about if they couldn't when they, when the three-man front is getting gas there, they've got to show the foreman and we're Partners got to come down and you glad that's on tape for our coaching staff. Yeah, we saw it some last year so it's not something that we haven't seen before. But okay, it's good to see what it looks like in this current version of the defense with some of those new faces on the back end. Got you, got you got you?

1:11:28 All right, so there is kind of a overview of both the Mountaineers offense and defense and some of the key players will be looking at to not have good games alms Thursday night. Now, let's go to the Hokies for this game and Prime as I was looking at the data and Diving and looking at one thing. Then the other, something that caught my eye is third. Conversions in on both sides of the ball because West Virginia is one of the better than the country. They are completing 54 percent of their third Downs, which is a unbelievable number. I'd love to get 44%, but as I was digging and is probably all of us, heard Saturday, Virginia Tech doesn't give up their downs and it's not one of those were in the top 20 to top 15. We're number three in the country. And the Hokies are allowing Only 17% of third down conversions defensively.

1:12:31 So in one of those games where as the high-powered offense against the, you know, high-powered defense, That's got a, it's got to break one way or the other. And is there anything you foresee? That might assist the Hokies in keeping that, you know, 17% as the norm for Thursday night. I mean I think one thing that's helped us is that we got to practice a little bit of what we're going to get against West Virginia. Against Wofford, I think we've kind of seen what we can do with that style of offense and now we've had a correction period, right? Yeah, they went out there, they corrected some of those mistakes.

1:13:16 We got some young guys to get some reps against that, that style defense. So that's I think that's key but the Key is going to be keeping everything in front of you and tackling. Because if you don't tackle, then that third down percentage is going to go up this week. Yeah we've got is we've got to be in the right position and then when we come up we got to make the tackle and make sure that they're not getting more than a yard or two after the catch in this in this offense. Yeah, it said big piece. Another key of ours, it's the tackling in space and so much with the are a concept is where they catch the ball as where they've got a fall. If you can do that consistently, you it will frustrate an Air Raid Offense.

1:14:03 Consistently because instead of getting the five or eight, they're getting the 224 and putting them in unfavorable down in distances as you get deeper into the into the place. And then that Means we can get into a little bit more of what we like to do with, with dialing up pressure on on those third and long situations, 10 years back and go. All right, so I said it was both sides of the balls and, you know, as bad as we are at converting, we are 90th right now in the country and that's a thirty-six percent. So basically, when I have every three, third downs, we convert the are one of the worst defensively.

1:14:43 They're 112 out of 131 teams and they Roughly only stop team's 46 percent of the time. I'm hoping that our number can come up to their mean because if you tell him he we convert close to 50% of the time on Thursday night, I will feel really good about our chances at winning this game because the less time that offenses on the field. It's the best thing for us. Yeah, the big key is going to be getting them off. The field on third down and staying on the field. On third down, lengthening this game or sorry shortening this game is going to be key for the Hokies.

1:15:24 I think, possessing, the ball and shortening, the game is going to be key for the Hokies in terms of pulling out of w, because if they're going fast, and they're running, a bunch of plays and they're going up and down the field, they're going to get some points off those. And eventually, those points are going to not work in our favor because I don't, I don't see us as a quick straight. We're not going to be able to go out there and stack points and match them score for score. If it becomes that type of game, abso-freakin'-lutely, Brian and that's kind of where it's the next kind of, And that we've been talking about about our key is, the Hokies Run game against the West Virginia run defense. The West Virginia is in, thanks for putting that up, thanks low country, living for that.

1:16:10 I had heard that I do think Kings going regardless, I think it's one of these. He's at 35 percent on Thursday he's going because him and 85% is probably still better than any running back. We've got and for this running game, you know, can we Open it up. They're giving up roughly about 120 a game. It's roughly about middle of the pack. It's not Elite, it's not great, but it's not god-awful, but the whole thing is what kind of Brian's been mentioned about getting that going, if we're converting third Downs to hold, you back in and slowly, but surely if we're gasps, shing gasps, shing what has to happen with that, back-end Brian.

1:16:53 If we're Gathering them for, for 27 yards, every play. Babies are going to play up in the Box a little bit more to help stop the run, help support the run. And eventually that's going to hopefully open up some stuff on the back end. We just have to be able to in a position to take advantage of that guy. Take advantage of it. But you've already mentioned, it is a flawed back in and it kind of shows, they do give up a lot more passing yards, then rushing yards. So again, getting the Run game going and getting them to have to get into situations where they're uncomfortable on the back. End is so cute. Now our success on the back end is predicated on getting pressure on the quarterback. They are not a great back-end team. So I think that's one of those things where we talked about Gala.

1:17:37 If you if we start getting Gallo going and him a or Drake going in the flats early and we're picking up significant that immediately is going to make the safeties. Both the probably the Bandit and probably the the Rover got to come up and if that's coming up more and more, if they're trying to come up to me, 50 the cat the cat safety is calling her over for god sakes but if they're coming up more and more than you know, Guess what? There's going to be Lanes to throw down to those crossers. We've been talking about some of our better plays this year. All right, last piece in this this is just mind-blowing to me. So West Virginia has given up 100 points this year in three games.

1:18:24 So that means they're giving up over 30 points a game. The insane part is Brian. They've given up 63 in Red Zone trips. They finished in the Red Zone 10 times. They've been scored on not times called by a touchdown. I don't think that's good times. Any of my Ferris Bueller fans know the reference nine. But seriously you know right now work at we've been down there eight, we are converting 75% of the time which you know, you want more than that. But to say that, you know, we what was the thing, we just talked about in The Walker game, we didn't finish drives. This is a team that just allows teams to finish drive. That seems at will if you get inside the 20 yard line, Yeah, it's one of those when we looked at earlier with the the third down, its kind of Unstoppable, Force against an immovable object.

1:19:28 Now you've got the reverse of that. Exactly thing that's somewhat struggling to finish drives against the team that does nothing, but let teams finish drives. So, yeah, you got the, you've got a team that does that decides to trip up and fall down in the team. That does Au Lait and gets out of the way you can go score that touchdown. So, they're kind of the keys to what we're seeing with some of the data, some of the players in Brian, we have come, you know, every week we've got to do this and we met predictions beginning of the season. And now, it's time for this game prediction. And since you left last week I do get the honor this week sir. And this one was tough me and Brian we set about 30 minutes. This afternoon had a phone call just chatting a little bit of everything about what we can go over tonight. And all the data points.

1:20:21 Say it's going to be a good game because of the contrarians of what's going on each side of the team is going to be a good game but it seems like everything leans, West Virginia they've got a okay defense versus where and they got a really great offense where we've got a great defense statistical wise. And I often say, it's not as bad as last year y'all last year were one of the three right now, we're ranked. A third. So we've actually improved offensively this year, whether we know it or not But I kept going back to thinking it's Thursday night. It's Lane, it's a sellout Justin what's?

1:21:01 It's going to be in Okie colored coveralls to get the chant going? And I think it's going to be one or two big plays that completely swing this game. And for all those out there, if you can take off Friday, if you're going to the game, you better take off Friday because you're not going to be any condition to work if you are working on Friday. My condition is you need to call somebody tomorrow and say you're not working because I think this is going to be a thriller to the end in my prediction. I'm going to stick with what I had at the beginning of season. I think the Hokies pull this one out, I think it's a war and I think the Hokies take it by Point Thirty One Thirty.

1:21:43 I like your optimism and we actually have West Virginia scoring the exact same amount of points. The problem is, I got the Hokies only scoring 24 of them. I've got this as a solid game front to back. We're in at the whole way. We're slowing them down. Just enough. We give up three touchdowns. We give up three field goals. We still keep a good defensive performance overall, but we don't quite do enough and the offense doesn't quite do enough to get that W. Bronze, basically, saying the offense is not going to finish a few times. Yeah, I still I'm not fully trusting this offensive line yet and I think the communication and the way that West Virginia likes to the bring, the the Blitz and the pressure from a lot of different areas if that communication has not taken a step since Wofford, Then that's going to be problematic. And when you're trying to close the game out, Anyway, you're trying to come back.

1:22:50 You know, down one score trying to finish out your going to be throwing the ball. There's going to be that pressure and I'm just questioning whether we can hold up. Alright, so there you go. I got 3130 VT bronze. Trying to be the realest of our group saying, 3024 say I mean it's weird Pig against each other. Sometimes it's what happens. All right, Brian. So let's flip it. Let's look at our big screeners this week. What's going to be on your big screen and some point in time during the day? Saturday, I've got Florida at Tennessee, that's going to be my big screener. Tennis tendon. Oh hey, man.

1:23:32 If we look at the, you know, the guys that are showing out, I mean, obviously, you know, we got one starter we're playing against this week that used to be on the Hokies. We've got another down in Louisville started on that offensive line. We got Hendon tearing it up in Tennessee that sees a Heisman front-runner. At this point tastes case playing good over Kentucky. Yeah. It's a tough look, man. It's a tough look. But when when I look at that one, Tennessee is actually a 10-point favorite here and that's a little too rich for my blood. Okay. So I'm going to take Florida in the 10 but I think Tennessee wins the game outright but I've got Florida and that in the 10 points here that is a lot to play. Especially I mean Tennessee's had very little success of the floor over the last Decade heck over the place full decade. So that is a lot to lay in.

1:24:30 Again, they got up for Utah and I think I think that's a sign that now for me I'm going to stay in the ACC. It is probably the game that is either going to in DJ ukeleles career or springboard him to actually doing big things. As Clemson. Wake Forest is going to be a high noon kick. So I'm going to miss probably about half of this game because of Baseball, I'll come in, check the second half, probably be following on the phone while I'm there. I do think. Clemson wins think Clemson's a seven-and-a-half one favor. I think Clemson wins out, right? I'm not touching. That spread that offense is that offense is to anemic, in the defense is too good. I am going to say the under a 55 and a half, I think it's going to be something like a 24:21 game. Maybe 2824, Clemson pulls it out. Not enough to cover but I think that's going to be an entertaining game.

1:25:30 There's actually a lot of entertaining games. You know, I chose this one and it was one more I think Saturday night in Corvallis Oregon State USC. You said it to me, when we talked earlier, this is a game, we're going to know if Lincoln Riley is for Real USC, in year 1 because that's a tough ass place to play in Oregon, state has been playing very good recently. Yeah, I mean I think it's his first big test. I think we'll see if this is a team that's ready to actually be competitive and challenge for a potential college football, playoff spot. Or if they're just a team that has some talent, but it's still a year or two away from making that step.

1:26:15 When you look at that team, though, they've got, they've got the players. Yeah, and you know, the question is has Lincoln Riley, instilled, that That winning culture enough in such a short period of time where things start to click when it gets tough a little bit. And so we think that there's going to be times where that game. It might be a might be tough for a little bit. We'll see how they react. Yep. Because because Oregon state scored over 30 every game. This year they did have a would present of State in which, you know, everybody will say. Well, if we look at the common opponent, Fresno State. USC won by 21. I listen to a podcast San Francisco, Niners podcast s in one of the guys went to Fresno. So he pays super attention to them and like their best player. Went down early, like early first half, so we didn't really get a reflection of Fresno State vs USC. So I'll probably be up till 1:00 in the morning. Saturday, I'm just going to go ahead and booked into 9:30. Kick have a couple late cocktails and some whatever's left over in the fridge.

1:27:23 Remember to tell everybody though, that the transitive property does not exist in college football, so you can look common opponent. All you want to with that doesn't mean shit. It don't mean shit. It don't mean. Shit in its wild in, I think the last few weekends with some of these games and some of the finishes have just been Perfect. It's why we love Sundays to don't get us wrong. We love Sundays. We have our team's Brian is currently wanted to go well probably kill someone who wanted to kill 15 years ago but I mean when I can run but accurate accurate but but Saturday's is where we live. It's it's I think when you're when you grow up in the South it's just it's just a little different on Saturdays and, you know, Brian, you went to us successful deep. Three school.

1:28:13 Where even though at 1,200 people on campus, Saturday's were wild on Hampton cities campus during a football game, so it's a little different Force. Alright? Alright, be quiet. Robbie that, that was one time after one too, many drinks. No comment. Never let anything breaking over the last little while we've been. All right at 90 minutes, brother. I think we're good. But all right. Well, that's going to wrap up this episode of The Boundary Corner podcast. I'm Curtis Wilson.

1:28:56 I'm Brian Sigler. Visit our website at boundary corner. Be t.com to listen to all of our episodes while you were there. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook. Facebook, Instagram, subscribe on our YouTube account. Thank you, all you guys out there listening on YouTube tonight. We really appreciate you interactions here. Also podcast sources Spotify. Amazon, Apple podcast, we are still there. Subscribe to your favorite, let it be there for you in the morning to listen again, it's always we let our buddy. Jason long plate. Us in play us out on October 2nd, he is going to be at the food, hubs possible pop-up, crunch Market at Golden, Cactus Brewery on 214, 5th. 6th Street Southwest in Roanoke.

1:29:42 So check him out there. Go have some beer, have some food. We thank you always for Jesus Christ. We thank you for listening. As always hate you West Virginia. Let's go okey.