Latest / Boundary Corner Podcast / Know the Enemy: Syracuse

Transcript

Know the Enemy: Syracuse · Boundary Corner Podcast

• 0:30
  Music and Welcome back to the Boundary
• 0:47
  Corner Podcast along with my partners Brian Siegler and
• 0:50
  Shelton Moss. I am Curtis Wilson in this
• 0:53
  episode is brought to you by Doctor Jeremy Counts down at the
• 0:57
  Main Street Pharmacy in Blacksburg.
• 0:59
  Your friendly neighborhood pharmacy located at 3 on One
• 1:02
  South Main Street in Blacksburg. Welcome to Sunday night boys.
• 1:06
  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
• 1:13
  rolled on Sunday night. Not my favorite night, but you
• 1:18
  know what? We're here.
• 1:18
  We're doing it. We're we're we're going to put a
• 1:20
  good episode out there. I'm looking forward to talking a
• 1:23
  little bit about Syracuse and. Kind of putting a bow on the
• 1:26
  first half of the season for the Hokies?
• 1:29
  Absolutely. Sheldon, you've been a busy man
• 1:31
  this weekend. What you told us is we were
• 1:33
  chatting off air here. That's right.
• 1:35
  Been been working on the company dime.
• 1:38
  They've got me performing other duties as assigned.
• 1:43
  Other duties. You got to love that caveat,
• 1:46
  right? Like do you get emailed this or
• 1:49
  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
• 1:57
  in sports, like you got to work weekends.
• 1:59
  So you know, I've signed, I've signed up for the job.
• 2:01
  I can't, you know, complain about it too much, but hopefully
• 2:04
  there will be better days ahead. Absolutely it will.
• 2:08
  It will. And you know you're able to join
• 2:10
  us tonight, not on a Tuesday, because there are times where
• 2:13
  you cannot join us midweek. So it's great to have you here.
• 2:15
  As y'all can see, we are not a four pack tonight because our
• 2:19
  man Tally had to take his daughter for a collegiate visit
• 2:22
  today and was going to be getting back late this evening.
• 2:26
  So again, we get it. We get it.
• 2:29
  Things like this happen to all of us and.
• 2:31
  Somewhat impromptu, so we had to, you know, make it happen,
• 2:35
  Make it work. Life, man.
• 2:37
  Yep. That's why that's what it is.
• 2:38
  I'm I'm, I'm, I'm happy for him and happy for her that they're,
• 2:41
  they're getting that opportunity.
• 2:43
  So absolutely what it's all about and it's Sunday night.
• 2:46
  Our me and Brian said we'll occasionally snap up because it
• 2:50
  is essentially sports. It's the peak sports season
• 2:54
  right now with collegiate and Pro Football going on.
• 2:58
  Get the Dolphins and the Eagles and game six Astros, Rangers
• 3:04
  have it. We're two days away from
• 3:06
  basketball getting going. Oh my God, it's, it's, it's,
• 3:11
  it's that time of year. Yeah man, it's great.
• 3:13
  Like next week is Peak Sports week.
• 3:15
  I don't care what anybody says next week is Peak Sports week of
• 3:20
  the entire year. Argue with me if you want but
• 3:25
  it. I mean it is.
• 3:26
  I mean World Series will be starting.
• 3:28
  You're in the midst of right in the middle of the seasons.
• 3:31
  Things are starting to stay shape.
• 3:32
  College football poll comes out or the playoff picture comes out
• 3:36
  starts. It's just it's that magical time
• 3:39
  of year. Plus it's Halloween.
• 3:41
  Oh yeah, Halloween. And if we saying that, let's go
• 3:43
  ahead and make this announcement, we will be going
• 3:45
  live next Monday night because ain't no way.
• 3:50
  You ain't going to see us on Halloween night, man.
• 3:52
  I mean, you might see me start, start the the show on Monday
• 3:55
  night, you know, wearing like, AI don't know, screen mask or a
• 3:58
  hockey mask or some shit. But yeah, something like that.
• 4:00
  You know we're not going to do it on Halloween.
• 4:03
  Absolutely. All right.
• 4:05
  So tonight what do we have for y'all?
• 4:06
  Well as always we've got know the enemy.
• 4:09
  We are going to be taking a look at Syracuse Orange man.
• 4:11
  Some of their players schemes for the battle in Lane Stadium
• 4:15
  on Thursday night which will be I think is a 730 kick.
• 4:19
  But before we get into that, we want to do a little mid season
• 4:23
  grades because it's almost in our bylaws we have to do a mid
• 4:27
  season grade like if not the sports Podcast post, we might
• 4:31
  have to be taken to trial because we didn't do one for our
• 4:34
  team and similar to some of the questions we had to ask.
• 4:38
  Brett, the bylaws, They won't even let us put the show out if
• 4:41
  we don't. Yeah, they won't.
• 4:42
  They're like you can't do it unless you do this episode this
• 4:44
  week. But we're going to do some mid
• 4:46
  season grades here and we're going to look at offense then
• 4:49
  defense and just kind of give where we feel as a team we are
• 4:53
  and let's just jump into that and let's start with obviously
• 4:59
  the most talked about room in Hockey Nation and that is the
• 5:01
  quarterback room and obviously right now Kyron Drones is
• 5:06
  leading the way. We did start out with Grant,
• 5:08
  Wells and Sheldon, I'm going to start with you.
• 5:12
  What grade do you give that room for the season so far?
• 5:16
  Well, all things considered, I mean, I'd say give him AAB
• 5:19
  minus. I mean, I think Karen Jones came
• 5:22
  in for an integrant. Wells did pretty well.
• 5:24
  I think he's progressed in terms of his understanding of the, you
• 5:29
  know, the Mentals part of the game, making reads in the RPO
• 5:32
  game, making reads in the throwing game.
• 5:34
  I think his, his accuracy has gotten better, His confidence
• 5:37
  has gotten better and forgot that, you know, it was kind of a
• 5:40
  project coming out of high school, you know, first full
• 5:42
  time year as a time as a starter.
• 5:45
  I think there is, There's a lot to like and I think some of the,
• 5:48
  you know, PFF grades have reflected that he's done, he's
• 5:50
  done pretty well and still just a red shirt sophomore.
• 5:53
  So I'm pretty, I'm pretty happy with that.
• 5:54
  I mean, obviously with Wells you can't really, you know, judge
• 5:57
  based off, you know, 1 1/2 games.
• 5:59
  But just looking at what Jones has done this year, I think I
• 6:02
  there's a lot of reasons to be very confident about how he's
• 6:04
  he's developed. So just a sophomore Brian?
• 6:08
  Right there with Sheldon I got AB minus and and pretty much
• 6:12
  similar reasons I mean. You know you you kind of
• 6:14
  discount everything that we saw from from Grant Wells.
• 6:18
  I'm I'm looking at this room primarily on what Drones has
• 6:22
  done and what Drones has been able to progress throughout the
• 6:26
  starts that he's had. Looking back, you know that last
• 6:29
  series against Purdue and then kind of how he's progressed as a
• 6:33
  as a starting quarterback since then.
• 6:35
  It's really been good to see him get acclimated in the offense.
• 6:40
  As Shelton said, get a lot more confidence running the offense.
• 6:43
  I think that was probably the thing that took a little while
• 6:47
  to kind of get there is that he knows he's a, he's a gamer, he's
• 6:51
  a baller. But there are times when you got
• 6:53
  to rein that in. There's times when you got to
• 6:55
  unleash that and kind of getting that feel within the constructs
• 6:58
  of Tyler Bowen's system, I think is what took him a little while
• 7:01
  to kind of get under his feet. But I'm liking what I'm seeing
• 7:04
  and it's only probably going to get better from here.
• 7:06
  So looking forward to see what he can do on the back half here.
• 7:10
  Well, see, I'm not that far behind y'all, but I take into
• 7:12
  the account everything that happened.
• 7:13
  I meant like ACC Plus right there on that edge.
• 7:17
  And here's why. Because again, the mistake was
• 7:20
  made to start Grant Wells to begin the season you slit,
• 7:23
  drones start against ODU and Purdue against probably the two
• 7:27
  worst offensive teams we've seen all year.
• 7:30
  How much better are we today? So I give him an A minus.
• 7:36
  In my opinion, drones is an A minus by himself.
• 7:39
  The well stuff and how that was handled up to this point put me
• 7:43
  just slightly above average. But to the court y'all both said
• 7:50
  the maturation of Kyron is impressive because he had to
• 7:54
  come in. Don't you wish we would have
• 7:56
  went Rutgers, Marshall, then Purdue, Old Dominion?
• 8:01
  Wouldn't it that, but because he comes in against a six and two
• 8:06
  bowl eligible Rutgers team in a very good defense in Marshall,
• 8:09
  that's what he has to come out the gate against.
• 8:11
  And you saw him. He took his lumps, he took his
• 8:14
  things and now you're starting to see him get and improve more
• 8:17
  and more with the film. So I'm going to again AC plus
• 8:21
  right out of C in that room. I'm going to flip to the running
• 8:24
  back room next. And even though the stats aren't
• 8:28
  there, based on everything that's going on in front of them
• 8:31
  and everything that's happened, I think the way primarily
• 8:35
  Malachi Thomas and big shout out to Basil Tune give me AB Plus
• 8:39
  for that room. They are breaking tackles.
• 8:42
  They are making positive yards and ever since the switch to
• 8:46
  drones we see we are every week. We're going up in the offensive
• 8:50
  rushing categories every week. I want to say we're averaging
• 8:54
  now like 178 since Kyron has become the quarterback.
• 8:59
  That's that's one of those things.
• 9:01
  If you take a look at the numbers out there, 178 puts you
• 9:04
  in the top 50, roughly. If you tell me we're a top 50
• 9:07
  rushing teams, I don't think we lose the Purdue game.
• 9:10
  I think the Rutgers game is a lot more of a battle.
• 9:12
  At that point, we'll say you, Shelton.
• 9:16
  Yeah, I'd go, I'd go B plus. I mean, I think, you know,
• 9:21
  obviously baseball tunes been awesome.
• 9:23
  You know, he's forced a ton of his tackles.
• 9:24
  I don't. I was trying to look up the
• 9:25
  numbers, but you know. A lot of his tackles obviously
• 9:28
  means you know you're you're early line and is not
• 9:31
  necessarily doing the job that you you want them to be.
• 9:33
  Ideally you'd like to have more you know breakaway breakaway
• 9:35
  carries but regardless you know he's he's he's brought a lot of
• 9:38
  explosiveness to that room and I think Thomas is a guy that kind
• 9:41
  of struggled out of the gate but he did have a really good game
• 9:43
  against Wake Forest. So put those two together I I'm
• 9:47
  overall I'm pretty pleased with that.
• 9:48
  It's obviously with running backs it's hard to judge because
• 9:51
  you know, so much of their success is dependent on other
• 9:53
  people, not just the online but also the the passing game too.
• 9:57
  But if you just try to isolate them individually, I think
• 9:59
  they've done very well. Yeah, I'm not too far behind
• 10:03
  you, Sheldon. I'm.
• 10:04
  I've got AB for for this group. I think overall, I think if
• 10:08
  Thomas had been putting his output similar to what we've
• 10:13
  seen from Tuden, you know, in games other than probably the
• 10:17
  last two weeks, I'd probably have them ready to B plus or B
• 10:21
  but with him having a little bit of trouble getting going.
• 10:25
  That's that kind of brought it down to just a just to be for
• 10:29
  me. But you know, I think that
• 10:33
  looking at Tootin, he's really a dynamic player coming out of the
• 10:38
  back field. We've seen what he can do,
• 10:39
  catching the ball, making guys miss, breaking tackles.
• 10:43
  I like the way he finishes his run.
• 10:45
  So seeing that out of that room, if we can just get marginally
• 10:49
  better offensive line play, you know, I think that room could
• 10:53
  really break out but. You know, they're starting to
• 10:55
  just kind of turn a corner a little bit, especially now with
• 10:58
  with drones in the game as well, giving them a little bit more
• 11:01
  space to operate. And and y'all both mention
• 11:04
  Malachi, Thomas Malachi over his last couple of games, averaging
• 11:08
  just under 6 yards a carry. That is really nice as a
• 11:11
  complimentary back to what we know Tootin can do.
• 11:15
  All right, let's flip over to the skill positions and let's
• 11:17
  talk about the wide receiver in the tight end.
• 11:19
  Brian, you leave me with this one where you feel, what do you
• 11:23
  feel this room is at? I got them at a mine is probably
• 11:27
  the best overall grade that I'm going to give on the whole team.
• 11:32
  I think the wide receiver output, especially considering
• 11:36
  that Ollie Jennings has went down that room has really
• 11:39
  performed well overall. And you know looking at the
• 11:42
  tight ends, I think it's kind of up and down.
• 11:44
  You know we also had an injury there so there's been some and
• 11:49
  and other guys have been nicked up as we went along.
• 11:51
  So it's it's been a lot of. Couple big injuries in those
• 11:54
  those rooms, but they've still taken it in stride and really
• 11:57
  have kind of elevated the offensive play.
• 12:00
  It's kind of we've gone along through the season, so excited
• 12:03
  about that room and and excited to see what they can do down the
• 12:07
  stretch. What about you, Sheldon?
• 12:09
  What about the wideout room and any any scores, any PFF grades
• 12:13
  that jumped out to you? No, I mean, honestly for this
• 12:16
  one I, you know, I think we don't even need to look at the
• 12:18
  grades really. You can kind of just see the the
• 12:20
  added explosiveness. I mean I think Jalen Lane
• 12:23
  presents a yak yards after catch slash speed element that Tech
• 12:28
  has been lacking for for quite a few seasons even, you know
• 12:31
  during some of the Fuente years where they had some good wide
• 12:33
  receivers and you know obviously Ally Jennings beyond hurts a lot
• 12:36
  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.
• 12:41
  Would have liked to see more production from him but you know
• 12:44
  it's you're not going to get everybody the ball with you know
• 12:47
  a more of a a more of a run heavy offense so.
• 12:49
  I think they've done a pretty good job and I think the
• 12:50
  blocking for the most part has been pretty good too.
• 12:52
  Like that's something that, you know, I know that Coach Minds is
• 12:56
  big on the details. You look at the pit game, you
• 12:59
  know they run the ball outside constantly and those play, those
• 13:01
  plays don't work unless you get good perimeter blocking.
• 13:03
  So I think the biggest encouraging thing for me is the
• 13:06
  fact that our perimeter blocking is is much more up to par than
• 13:09
  it has been in recent seasons. Yep.
• 13:11
  And I'm with Brian on this one in both of y'all this room.
• 13:14
  It like you said, we really probably didn't even need to
• 13:16
  talk about it. But it's still fun to because
• 13:18
  I've got this one rated at an A. And you kind of look up and down
• 13:22
  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
• 13:26
  many guys to distribute the ball to.
• 13:28
  You know, Daquan Felton just the other day had like 3 catches for
• 13:35
  what, 1920 yards? A couple of them are stick
• 13:37
  movers, very important. But Steven Gosnell lit it up
• 13:40
  along with Jay Lane last week. They all have their niche rolls.
• 13:44
  Yes, you have Felton, who can take it off the top lane, who
• 13:47
  can make people miss in space, Gosnell, who's great at finding
• 13:49
  those zones. And then the two young tight
• 13:51
  ends with Gosnell and Wright. You know, those guys, you know,
• 13:55
  have a combined 25 catches, you know, 327 yards.
• 14:00
  They're averaging over 10 a catch.
• 14:02
  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
• 14:07
  games where they get one catch? Yes, but that catch may be a
• 14:11
  huge play. I go back to last week's game
• 14:14
  and that wheel route that was caught by Daquan right down on
• 14:19
  the sideline, how big a play that was.
• 14:21
  It moved us right to the other side of the field and like I
• 14:23
  said, with Felton catching a few first downs.
• 14:25
  So everybody's playing a role there.
• 14:28
  And and that's what we did not have last year.
• 14:31
  We had one guy last year who was effectively able to do that.
• 14:34
  And now we have multiple at different levels.
• 14:38
  All right, let's go to the offensive line.
• 14:41
  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
• 14:49
  blow us up with some stuff. Shelton, what is your grade on
• 14:53
  the offensive line and your justifications behind it?
• 14:58
  Look, I'll go, I got to go D plus.
• 15:00
  I mean I'm sorry, but it's just been it's been rough.
• 15:03
  I mean you know there's there's ways with the events that we
• 15:07
  have now to isolate offensive line play from running back
• 15:10
  play. So obviously when you look at
• 15:11
  yards per rush, that's colored by, you know, quarterback
• 15:15
  scrambles, quarterback runs design runs and obviously
• 15:18
  running backs breaking up big plays.
• 15:20
  But when you'll get things like, you know, line yards per carry,
• 15:22
  you know, for most of the season, Tech was absolutely one
• 15:25
  of the worst in the country. One of the worst in Power Five,
• 15:27
  certainly. Now it has gotten better over
• 15:29
  the past couple weeks. I think they're last time I
• 15:31
  checked they were somewhere around like 107 out of 133,
• 15:34
  something like that. It was like below 125 for for
• 15:37
  some time. So it's just been a rough man
• 15:40
  and like I, you know, I, I watch the games on tape, you know, you
• 15:43
  can see it on film. It's just they're some, it's
• 15:46
  part of it. I think it's physicality but
• 15:48
  also part of it's just, you know, missed assignments and I
• 15:51
  don't know what the corrections are.
• 15:52
  Obviously they've got to, you know, tweak the roster once the
• 15:55
  offseason comes around. But you know, we we could get
• 15:58
  into all the reasons why the personal is the way it is.
• 16:00
  But I just, I don't think the issues are correctable and I got
• 16:03
  to go D plus, I'm sorry it's been that bad.
• 16:05
  All right. I am a slight, just one plus
• 16:08
  below you. I'm at AD for that line.
• 16:11
  It could be lower. It could be almost a failure.
• 16:13
  But I will say this, of that line, the one thing that has
• 16:17
  kind of been a slight bright spot is seeing three guys who
• 16:22
  all have AFR next to their name have some of the higher scores.
• 16:26
  You know you shared with us last week.
• 16:28
  Xavier Chaplin scored, unbelievable in all aspects
• 16:31
  against Wake Forest. Braylon Moore scored very well.
• 16:35
  Kayden Moore, which let we should do an episode.
• 16:38
  Just Brian discussing the center position and the difficulty and
• 16:42
  why a great bad grade to have there and then seeing Brody
• 16:45
  Meadows come on. Those guys have been bright
• 16:48
  spots. They're they're freshmen.
• 16:49
  So when you see missed assignments and stuff like that,
• 16:51
  obviously y'all know where we feel about the other guys and
• 16:54
  how we've discussed it. But it has been below average
• 16:57
  and to be three and four and the running game slowly getting
• 17:01
  going. Not having that good of an
• 17:02
  offensive line is something, but it's also what you just said,
• 17:08
  Shelton. Things have to be things have to
• 17:10
  be done in the offseason and it'll be interesting to see that
• 17:14
  now. Brian.
• 17:15
  My turn. Your turn.
• 17:16
  D minus how low of AD minus on a scale of.
• 17:21
  Zero to two. So when I when I was first, my
• 17:23
  instinct was to give it an F and then I was like, no, and it's
• 17:27
  because of what you just said, Curtis.
• 17:29
  It's because we've got guys with freshmen next to their name that
• 17:33
  are showing some potential, that are showing some bright spots,
• 17:36
  that are starting to put things together a little bit on the
• 17:39
  offensive line. That shows that.
• 17:43
  Crook is getting is getting something out of them he we're
• 17:45
  making some progress on that front but I'm also with Sheldon.
• 17:50
  I don't think that what's there is I think we're we're we're
• 17:55
  kind of getting as much juice out of them at this point as I
• 17:58
  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,
• 18:04
  the steps that we've seen from those freshens going forward,
• 18:07
  it's going to be more like those little.
• 18:09
  Tick up, tick up here, tick up there and, but you're still
• 18:12
  looking at a right side. That's pretty atrocious and
• 18:15
  that's not really going anywhere, it seems.
• 18:17
  So, all right, last question, If there is a change on the
• 18:20
  offensive line, do we see it Thursday?
• 18:25
  I think if you're going to see a if they're going to make a
• 18:28
  switch that's going to be a full time switch, that's when you
• 18:30
  would see it in terms of the depth chart.
• 18:33
  So I guess we'll find out. What Tuesday when the depth
• 18:36
  chart comes out, if any, any adjustments have been made
• 18:38
  there, but you know it. Barring that, I don't see us
• 18:43
  making a significant leap going forward.
• 18:46
  I think it's, you know, it might get into Shelton's range where
• 18:49
  I'd give it AD Plus, but I don't think we're really going up a
• 18:52
  letter grade here. Brian says no letter grade up.
• 18:55
  We'll we'll we'll see, you know, I'm sure we'll do something
• 18:57
  similar to this in a few weeks here and see how it feels.
• 19:01
  All right, let's flip over to the defensive side of the ball
• 19:04
  and let's start with the defensive line.
• 19:07
  So, Siegel, I'll get you to floor on this one how you feel
• 19:10
  about the defensive line so far. I'm giving AB minus.
• 19:14
  I think we've seen some really bright spots, especially from
• 19:17
  Antoine Powell Ryland, you know he's getting up there in sacks
• 19:21
  in the nation. We've seen him be able to impact
• 19:24
  the plays even when he's not getting to the quarterback, just
• 19:27
  with that speed and people having to identify him pre snap.
• 19:32
  I think the. The interior guys have been kind
• 19:35
  of up and down, but I I like seeing Fidarius Payne really
• 19:39
  come into his own and really become an impact player on that
• 19:42
  defensive line. That's somebody we were hoping
• 19:45
  at the start of the season we would just get something out of
• 19:47
  in that rotation. And he's really kind of been, in
• 19:50
  my opinion, one of the best players on the defensive line,
• 19:55
  especially now that he's getting enough reps to kind of show
• 19:58
  that. So those are kind of the bright
• 20:00
  spots there. You know, I think there were
• 20:03
  some problems along there. They where they weren't giving
• 20:08
  enough to kind of help some of the other deficiencies we have
• 20:11
  in that running game. So that's probably where I'm
• 20:14
  knocking them down a little bit, but I think overall they've
• 20:16
  they've played pretty well so far this year.
• 20:18
  Sheldon, what about you? Yeah, I'm going to give a solid
• 20:22
  C plus. Again, I'm grading on a curve.
• 20:25
  You got a bunch of C You got a bunch of seniors on that D line,
• 20:28
  and if they were freshmen, I might be more charitable, but.
• 20:32
  I just think, you know, to be honest, they just they don't
• 20:35
  have the dudes. I mean the interior guys have
• 20:38
  been kind of pushed around a little bit.
• 20:40
  I just, you know, when you look at guys like Kendricks and
• 20:42
  Pollard, yeah, they've done OK. But they just don't live in the
• 20:44
  backfield. Like they're not you know,
• 20:46
  eating up space and and getting to the QB and and you know,
• 20:50
  stuffing those run lanes. Obviously defensive ends have
• 20:53
  been pretty good. Felder Felder's pain has been
• 20:55
  awesome. AP Rs been really good.
• 20:57
  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
• 21:05
  situation where you got a lot of production from your DS, but not
• 21:07
  so much from the D TS. I think overall it's been pretty
• 21:10
  average and we know that the Russian grades aren't very good.
• 21:13
  But again, part of that gets back to the linebackers, which
• 21:15
  you know, obviously we'll discuss very shortly.
• 21:17
  We will discuss them very shortly.
• 21:19
  I'm actually going higher than both of Y'all Shelton.
• 21:21
  You're a full letter grade below me.
• 21:22
  I think I'm going B plus because the middle.
• 21:25
  It's done what I expected. The interior has done what I
• 21:29
  expected. They have, not really.
• 21:31
  Significantly fallen off the Cliff.
• 21:32
  They played good at times. Pain has been the bright spot
• 21:35
  there, but really the edge guys have really stepped it up like
• 21:39
  Y'all mentioned with APR and you know you're seeing, you know
• 21:45
  Cray play solid. You're seeing those guys play
• 21:47
  solid and contribute and they are younger guys.
• 21:52
  Again, I think maybe my curve was.
• 21:54
  I know what I'm going to get out of this group.
• 21:56
  So as long as they get what I expect and these outside guys do
• 22:00
  better, I'm going to be a little bit more lenient.
• 22:02
  And that's what I want on this one.
• 22:04
  And hey, somebody's with me. B plus on that.
• 22:07
  All right, Shelton, since you brought it up, I'll let you lead
• 22:09
  right into it. Where's your grade on the
• 22:11
  linebacker room? Yeah, I'm going D Mayas.
• 22:15
  I mean, I just don't know what very little redeeming qualities
• 22:19
  with this group. Look, they played, they played
• 22:21
  better against Wake Forest. That's no doubt about that.
• 22:24
  But for the most part, I mean it's just been horrible like so
• 22:27
  I mean we are again one of the, you know, bottom 10 percentile
• 22:31
  and pretty much all the rushing stats.
• 22:33
  And when you look at the number of explosive plays, it's pretty
• 22:35
  clear that the linebackers are the problem because you know, in
• 22:40
  terms of success rate, I think Tech is more kind of middle of
• 22:44
  the pack. So like they're they're getting,
• 22:46
  you know, some stops. It's just that when when those
• 22:50
  running backs get to the second level, when they do have a
• 22:53
  successful play, it tends to be really successful.
• 22:55
  It tends to be a big play. So that's an indication that
• 22:58
  your second level guys aren't getting the job done.
• 23:01
  And you know, between Allen, Tennessee, who struggled and you
• 23:05
  know Kay Lawson who's had his moments, I just, I I just have a
• 23:08
  hard time looking at this group and seeing what you know, what
• 23:10
  they've done well. I'm just to me, I'm just average
• 23:15
  because I think we're a lot of those bad grades you see come
• 23:19
  at. It's when people who are not
• 23:22
  seeing the field anymore were there and we saw that numerous
• 23:27
  times and numerous games. I'm not saying Lawson and the
• 23:30
  rest of them are like blowing it out the water, but to me, I I
• 23:35
  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.
• 23:42
  C minus low. But then what I saw happen
• 23:46
  though was the decision was made right?
• 23:49
  There's certain guys we have not seen on the field at the
• 23:51
  linebacker spot in weeks, at least not as much.
• 23:55
  Not as hardly any. And when I see that, it's like
• 23:59
  if I take a look at the snapshot of who's now playing significant
• 24:02
  reps, it's AC. If you so, Shelton, if you want
• 24:05
  me to do the whole thing, give me AC minus.
• 24:09
  What's the grading scale? It would be a 70 on the number
• 24:14
  if you ask me to look at as a whole.
• 24:16
  But for the guys who are significantly getting the reps
• 24:18
  now I'll give them for that mid you know mid C grade Ron yeah
• 24:24
  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
• 24:34
  you can point to and say they had.
• 24:37
  They did a really good job both consistently and with stopping
• 24:41
  the explosive plays, 'cause we still have some explosive play
• 24:44
  against Pitt's Pitt, even though we more or less held them in
• 24:48
  check. It's just it's it's been
• 24:52
  inconsistent in the run game. I mean if if you told me just to
• 24:56
  grade how they've held up against the past, I mean pretty
• 25:00
  well overall. I mean they we haven't been
• 25:02
  thrown on much mainly because they can run the ball against us
• 25:05
  fairly well. But if if we continue to see the
• 25:10
  type of play we've seen kind of I'd say even the last three
• 25:14
  weeks going forward, I mean this grade could maybe get up to AC
• 25:19
  plus I don't see it. Again similar to what I said
• 25:24
  with the offensive line, I don't know if this necessarily gets a
• 25:26
  full letter grade jump, but now if we see what we saw against
• 25:31
  Wake the rest of the season, then yeah, I can see a full
• 25:33
  letter grade jump. But I think, I think the last
• 25:35
  three weeks on a whole is more indicative of what they are
• 25:38
  capable of. I think the first few weeks was
• 25:42
  probably bottom of the barrel and I think it was some of that
• 25:45
  adjustment of all right, well, this guy has some ability here,
• 25:48
  but he's not doing the right thing consistently.
• 25:51
  So we got to get him out of the game.
• 25:53
  You got to pull the guys out. They have ability and that's
• 25:56
  kind of the way it is. Again, that's I think that's how
• 25:59
  we look at things. It would be really interesting
• 26:02
  to Cindy at the end of the season.
• 26:06
  And this, I think this would go for every group would be pull it
• 26:09
  out and look at snap counts starting at ODU in a chart like
• 26:13
  by the end of the season where guys are who started getting
• 26:17
  more reps who lost their reps and then seeing how that overall
• 26:20
  play is, especially in the linebacker room.
• 26:23
  All right. We're going to look at the
• 26:24
  safety room next. And I'm, I'm going C minus and
• 26:28
  this was my seventy. It almost was AD plus because
• 26:32
  the safety room. Was struggling for a while
• 26:35
  there. And that's what happens when you
• 26:38
  have a guy who's converted from the offense in the offseason and
• 26:43
  you have a true freshman playing Nasir Peoples.
• 26:46
  Although Nasir is a good player. Nasir was.
• 26:50
  This was the ship that steadied everything back there.
• 26:53
  Dalen Stroman's a great player. I have no doubts about that.
• 26:57
  But when the next two guys were young, that inexperienced or
• 27:00
  you're rotating canteen or delaying in?
• 27:03
  It really hurt that room a lot and that's why thankfully
• 27:06
  people's got over that injury and he's back because if he
• 27:09
  hadn't been back the last few weeks, this would have been AD
• 27:12
  plus grade for me. But with him back and kind of
• 27:14
  steadying the ship back there both in pass and run coverage,
• 27:17
  give me AC minus Brian, we said at the start of the year that
• 27:22
  depth was a big concern at the safety position and.
• 27:26
  We did. That played out like a
• 27:28
  motherfucker for about the first month.
• 27:32
  Just I mean that that that's what happened.
• 27:34
  I mean we we ended up having a converted wide receiver and a
• 27:37
  true freshman as our primary safeties for large chunks of
• 27:45
  time in about 3 or four games. That's not what you want and and
• 27:52
  that and I'm not taking anything away from Jalen or or most, but
• 27:57
  sometimes you're just not quite ready for, for that type of
• 28:00
  responsibility that early in your career, that early in your
• 28:03
  transition to a new position. I think they are players that at
• 28:08
  this point are fine for series at a time here or there, maybe
• 28:14
  even 1/4 at a time here or there, but they're not ready to
• 28:17
  hold up for four quarters like that.
• 28:20
  And when you have that coupled with inconsistent linebacker
• 28:24
  play coupled with an interior defensive line that kind of can
• 28:28
  get moved around a little bit, that's a recipe for big plays.
• 28:32
  And that that's what we saw. And you know, you know, you can,
• 28:36
  we can kind of stack it level by level here.
• 28:38
  But the safety, I mean that there's a reason it's called a
• 28:41
  safety, right? So at some point, they've got to
• 28:45
  make the play that stops the touchdown.
• 28:49
  Betray Shelton. Yeah, I'll go see.
• 28:51
  I mean kind of what you were talking about the with the
• 28:53
  linebackers. Curtis, this isn't a situation
• 28:55
  where obviously the personnel in the field is not what the
• 28:59
  coaches wanted to come into the season.
• 29:01
  You got guys like most of those playing meaningful snaps.
• 29:04
  Jalen Jones and Kale Bootsen are two are the two worst graded
• 29:07
  safeties in the ACC. It's just been a constant
• 29:10
  revolving door. So it's kind of hard to judge.
• 29:12
  Obviously, like you mentioned, people losing Peoples was big.
• 29:15
  Stroman's been good. I think the guys that when you
• 29:18
  look at the guys that they they expected to start the season,
• 29:21
  the guys that they wanted in there, I think they've done
• 29:22
  pretty well. It's just been a constant
• 29:24
  revolving door. So again, you know, I I give, I
• 29:27
  give them AC grade, but it's with the context that they just
• 29:30
  have not had any sort of continuity there.
• 29:32
  Yeah, and hopefully with people finally coming back, like I
• 29:34
  said, steady the ship to what? Bryant Touché.
• 29:41
  All of the above. All of the above.
• 29:44
  Love that one. All right, let's flip it one
• 29:46
  more room as we wrap up this segment and let's talk about the
• 29:49
  corner back room. Brian, I'll let you lead with
• 29:54
  this one. I'm going to go a a very solid B
• 29:58
  plus. So this is a 89 if we're, if
• 30:00
  we're on the 10 point scale it's a 89.
• 30:04
  I like what I've seen from the cornerbacks.
• 30:08
  The lane has been as advertised, strong, probably coming back and
• 30:12
  having his best year since his freshman campaign.
• 30:16
  I've liked what I've seen from Canteen especially, you know,
• 30:18
  him being able to get some turnovers in there, that's been
• 30:22
  big for this defense. So those guys have held up and
• 30:25
  I've liked what I've seen from the true freshman that have
• 30:28
  gotten some run at that position, you know.
• 30:31
  So it's it's really been a good overall performance.
• 30:33
  The only knock I'm going to give is that they haven't been tested
• 30:36
  a ton this year, so I don't know how good they truly are.
• 30:41
  So that's kind of why I'm I'm holding back from putting an A
• 30:43
  grade on them yet. But overall, I like I I like
• 30:46
  what I've seen. So I'm going to give them AB
• 30:48
  Plus. Sean, what about you?
• 30:51
  Yeah, I'll go BI think. Canteen's been a good depth that
• 30:55
  he's, he's graded out really well in terms of run defense.
• 30:59
  Strong has been fantastic in coverage all season long.
• 31:02
  I I think overall, like you said, they haven't been tested
• 31:05
  much. So I think that's kind of where
• 31:06
  some stats can be misleading in terms of the the pass yards per
• 31:08
  game, allowed yards per attempt. It's still good, not as good,
• 31:11
  but still pretty good. So I think given you know what
• 31:15
  they've gone through this season with in terms of just you know,
• 31:18
  the safety rotations and some guys playing out of position,
• 31:22
  I'm sure it's affected them to some degree because obviously
• 31:23
  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
• 31:28
  their assignments that can that can hamper your effectiveness
• 31:30
  sometimes. But I think I'll tell you, all
• 31:32
  things considered, they've done very well, so I'll give them the
• 31:34
  B. Yeah, this is my highest graded
• 31:37
  group on the defense and A minus, it's the 90 to 91 just
• 31:41
  because it's kind of what, Brian, what you said there about
• 31:43
  the young guys have looked solid, they've been and it's
• 31:47
  primarily because they played them at the right amount, right,
• 31:50
  the right amount of snaps, the right.
• 31:52
  Times the right sort of coverages, they haven't been
• 31:55
  thrown into anything big. And to me, the other four guys
• 31:58
  are as advertised. You mentioned Canteen.
• 32:01
  When Canteen was brought in, it was nickel.
• 32:02
  He's coming here to play nickel. He can help us with the other
• 32:05
  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
• 32:10
  sense. And he's definitely making, he's
• 32:14
  definitely making, he's making himself probably some money.
• 32:20
  You know at the next level with how he's playing that position
• 32:22
  and then showing the flexibility to play on the outside.
• 32:26
  So I'm going to throw this up real quick just because
• 32:29
  Andretta, you're back. We missed you last week.
• 32:31
  Tally is currently with his daughter Y'all, doing a little
• 32:34
  collegiate tour, so he could not make it tonight.
• 32:37
  Sort of a something that came up last minute, but again we get
• 32:40
  it. Yeah.
• 32:42
  Before we move on Curtis, let me let me make another note here.
• 32:44
  Imagine how good some of these grades could be if you didn't
• 32:47
  have campaign and delaying playing, rotating at safety for
• 32:53
  for part of these these large stretches of time, those two to
• 32:56
  three games that we were talking about earlier.
• 32:57
  So you know, those grades could potentially be higher for those,
• 33:01
  for those players that they weren't having to take on those
• 33:03
  type of roles, you know, out of necessity because of injuries
• 33:07
  and targeting and everything else.
• 33:09
  Yeah, it's very true. It's it's a lot took it out
• 33:11
  again. That back half has played well.
• 33:14
  Even with everything that this has had to do, it's also a
• 33:17
  testament. Give a testament, a shout out to
• 33:19
  Coach Jones and Coach Prelu for having to wrap those up.
• 33:23
  There'll be some people disagree with you there, Jim.
• 33:27
  That's why I send a couple buddies, watch the game, listen
• 33:31
  to us. Hey, man, hey, man, we're we're
• 33:33
  we're still here. You know, I'm still I got I got
• 33:36
  the game all right above me. So I I I need Tua and Waddle to
• 33:40
  get some action going here because I need some points in my
• 33:43
  fantasy leagues. Well, I'm losing one league and
• 33:49
  yeah, we're not going to do it. Let me ask this and if y'all are
• 33:52
  listening out there, we got, we got a bunch of people watching
• 33:54
  tonight. All right, what's the one group
• 33:57
  between now? And the week after Thanksgiving,
• 34:00
  Y'all are saying that group's going to definitely improve.
• 34:03
  And 1:00 you want to Well, never mind.
• 34:05
  I think the one we all want to improve is the offensive line.
• 34:07
  Could improve is, is can I put that motion on the table?
• 34:11
  Everybody wants the offensive line today.
• 34:12
  Everyone wants to see the onset line get better, yeah?
• 34:15
  Motion pass. But what's the group you think
• 34:17
  will improve SHOT in between now and the end of the season, based
• 34:19
  in your eyes? In my eyes I would say.
• 34:26
  I would say probably linebackers.
• 34:27
  I mean I thought they were good against Wake Forest.
• 34:30
  I just, I I trust prize instincts.
• 34:32
  I trust Mars instincts given the the specialty they have with
• 34:36
  those groups. And I would say I do think that
• 34:40
  it's more explainable given the youth in that room why they've
• 34:43
  struggled so much. I think if given the way the
• 34:46
  defensive line is played, OK in the run game, the corners have
• 34:49
  been good. The safety is not.
• 34:51
  They're healthy. We think we'll be good.
• 34:53
  I think the linebacker, the linebacker crew is that one
• 34:56
  missing component. So if they if they get their act
• 34:59
  together, I think the defense can really take a big step
• 35:01
  forward. Marlon, about you.
• 35:04
  Yeah. I mean, if we're looking at the
• 35:07
  group, I'd like to see and prove the most.
• 35:10
  I'm with Sheldon. It's got to be the linebacker
• 35:12
  group, because if the linebacker group can improve and we stay
• 35:16
  healthy in the second area at the safety position, I feel like
• 35:20
  the running game or the run defense can be serviceable good
• 35:25
  enough not allow those big, huge explosive plays because outside
• 35:28
  of the explosive plays, we've held up fairly well against the
• 35:32
  run. It's really just been those
• 35:33
  really big Gashers that have you know really changed the tide in
• 35:39
  a lot of games, in the running game and kind of really put put
• 35:42
  those lopsided numbers in the stat sheets there.
• 35:45
  If we can approve that linebacker position, you know,
• 35:48
  one full grade, get it up to like you know I had AC minus,
• 35:52
  let's let's get that thing up to AAB minus.
• 35:54
  I think we could be on to something there.
• 35:56
  So if they found a a consistent rotation and these guys continue
• 36:01
  to take steps forward in their play, I think that would be big.
• 36:03
  All right, I'm, I'm going to go different than both y'all
• 36:06
  completely. And I think it's the
• 36:08
  quarterback. Because I think if we continue
• 36:10
  to see the maturation of Kyron drones between these last five
• 36:14
  games and the end of the season, it it it, it could be something
• 36:17
  special because of the steps he's taken between the end of
• 36:20
  that Purdue game and what he did against Wake Forest, how quick
• 36:24
  it was. How quick it was, how quick he
• 36:27
  has moved, especially the 350 last week.
• 36:31
  That's who I think could take a step because you're seeing it
• 36:33
  quicker and people can say, well, they're getting more tape
• 36:35
  on him. They had a lot of tape on him
• 36:37
  going to those last three games. Like like you had the Marshall
• 36:41
  tape and you had the Rutgers tape.
• 36:42
  Usually it's just a couple. I like that one though.
• 36:46
  I like that one. Yeah, the tight end room.
• 36:49
  Good. Good call out there, Derek.
• 36:51
  So definitely feed those into us.
• 36:54
  We want to see what you guys think about that and we are now
• 36:59
  going to move on to know the enemy.
• 37:02
  But before we do that, we are going to take a quick pause from
• 37:05
  our digital partners and Main Street Pharmacy.
• 37:08
  I can probably save you a lot of money and I can take a lot
• 37:11
  better care of you. That's pretty much it.
• 37:13
  My name is Jeremy Counts and I'm a pharmacist.
• 37:15
  I own and operate Main Street Pharmacy here in downtown
• 37:18
  Blacksburg. My brother's a pharmacist.
• 37:20
  I'm a pharmacist. My uncle's a pharmacist.
• 37:21
  My dad's a pharmacist. I remember he would give me M
• 37:23
  and Ms. to count in little pill counters.
• 37:26
  This is something I've always done and I'm just lucky that
• 37:29
  what I know so well is something that I can do and feel good
• 37:32
  about it and get back to. People pharmacies are your
• 37:35
  frontline defense. Pharmacy's job is to make sure
• 37:38
  you're getting optimal care for the lowest price possible.
• 37:41
  Also, we take the pressure off of emergency rooms.
• 37:44
  I'll tell people immediately when they need to go to the
• 37:46
  doctor, or I'll tell them if they just need a cream over the
• 37:48
  counter. If there's something that isn't
• 37:50
  commercially available, if it's something that's not available
• 37:53
  in a certain strength or a certain form or anything like
• 37:55
  that, we'll make it tailor made medications.
• 37:58
  Some of those options save people a lot of money.
• 38:00
  What motivates me? I get to take care of people and
• 38:02
  limit Blacksburg. That's all neat.
• 38:07
  As we take a quick break. We'd like to tell you about
• 38:09
  getting your free website report from our digital partner,
• 38:11
  Grassroots Digital Marketing Studio.
• 38:13
  They'll tell you how your website ranks on Google onsite
• 38:16
  SEO and social media. No commitment to buy anything.
• 38:19
  You can get your free report by visiting grassroots
• 38:22
  digitalstudio.com/free Dash website Dash Report.
• 38:27
  Now back to the episode. All righty.
• 38:30
  So let's hit it up here and let's talk about know the Enemy
• 38:34
  and let's talk about the Syracuse Orangemen.
• 38:37
  Shelton, you were mentioning some stuff, and since before we
• 38:41
  get into specific sides, Sheldon had some stuff just on Syracuse
• 38:45
  in general that he wanted to hit up before we get into the deep
• 38:49
  dive. So go ahead, Sheldon.
• 38:52
  Yeah, it's been a pretty weird year for them because they
• 38:55
  started out really hot in the non conference play, you know,
• 38:57
  being up on some of their competition.
• 38:59
  But the results look pretty good.
• 39:00
  Since they've started conference play though, they have just
• 39:03
  absolutely fun off the Cliff. I mean it's kind of hard to
• 39:05
  really wrap your head around. I I saw a set on Twitter from
• 39:09
  Bill Connolly, so he does the biggest.
• 39:11
  So he looks at the biggest overachievers and the biggest
• 39:14
  under achievers based on, you know, performance relative to
• 39:18
  expected points. And he waits recent games more
• 39:22
  so it kind of looks at what you're doing recently.
• 39:24
  And he had Syracuse as the second biggest underachiever in
• 39:26
  the country. So they they have just, you
• 39:30
  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.
• 39:36
  He's just been really up and down as a coach.
• 39:38
  He had that one great season in 2018 with ten wins and then two
• 39:42
  years later he goes one in 10. And now they've been kind of,
• 39:44
  you know, bats around 500. So I know that you know,
• 39:47
  Syracuse is a really hard place to win.
• 39:49
  But I I I think this might be a pretty critical stretch for them
• 39:54
  coming up because if you if you if you tank this season with you
• 39:57
  know Garrett Schrader as your quarterback you know there might
• 39:59
  be some some fans calling her head.
• 40:01
  So I this this is a big stretch coming up for Syracuse.
• 40:04
  So I think they're going to come to this game pretty motivated.
• 40:11
  You good, Curtis? Yeah, I'm good.
• 40:12
  Just hearing some noises out here, making sure everything's
• 40:15
  OK. Yeah and you know what I was
• 40:18
  listening to a the locked on sports Syracuse.
• 40:21
  They have one of those and that guy was mentioning something
• 40:23
  similar. Sheldon, similar to what you
• 40:24
  talked about about how he's only had one good season.
• 40:28
  Is this it is this 5 game stretch starting with the Hokies
• 40:32
  on Thursday night. If if he doesn't effectively
• 40:36
  have a good turn around between now and the end of the this
• 40:40
  season, could they? Let him go, because there's only
• 40:46
  one season after this one less I believe, So it's very
• 40:50
  interesting to see how it goes. But now let's do flip, because
• 40:56
  like you said, the more recent results.
• 40:58
  Let's flip to the offense and talk about the most more recent
• 41:01
  results, because overall, this team is averaging 28 points a
• 41:05
  game. It's a solid number in the last
• 41:08
  three games. The one probably why you were so
• 41:10
  focused on that, Connolly. Article They're averaging eight
• 41:15
  points in their last three games, which are three losses to
• 41:18
  Clemson, to Carolina and the Florida State.
• 41:21
  You know they're middle of the road team when it comes to yards
• 41:25
  and when you're middle of the row when it comes to yards and
• 41:28
  you look at who they played, and I'm not trying to disparage, we
• 41:30
  played Purdue as well and lost to them.
• 41:33
  They played Colgate, Western Michigan, Purdue and Army.
• 41:37
  It's not a murderer's road to start O and four.
• 41:41
  So now the question is. Let's take a look at his
• 41:44
  offense. And Brian is a guy that we
• 41:46
  definitely, as Hokie fans are familiar with and that's Jason
• 41:49
  Beck. He was the QB coach down at
• 41:52
  Virginia from 2016 to 2021. And what are we looking at with
• 41:57
  his offense and what can they do?
• 42:01
  Yeah, I mean, you're looking at the Smash Mouth spread, heavy
• 42:04
  zone read, ton of quarterback runs.
• 42:07
  They have most of their success in the passing game, off of play
• 42:10
  action, off Sprint outs, off things where they're getting the
• 42:14
  quarterback out of the pocket or using some run action to kind of
• 42:17
  confuse the linebackers and and open up some pass lanes for the
• 42:22
  quarterback. But you're going to see a heavy
• 42:24
  dose of run, particularly with the quarterback expect you know,
• 42:29
  upwards of 20 carries or more for for their quarterback in
• 42:33
  this offense. We've seen it a lot with UVA.
• 42:37
  We're going to see it again now with with Syracuse.
• 42:43
  Curtis, we don't have you. Because I hit the mute button
• 42:46
  and forgot to welcome to me on Zoom meeting sometimes, Let's
• 42:50
  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
• 42:57
  essentially, in my opinion, that was a game that sealed Justin
• 42:59
  Fuente's fate. Yes?
• 43:01
  Yes. I was there too.
• 43:03
  I was there too. It sucked.
• 43:07
  But you know, so far this season, you know, 62% passing,
• 43:13
  you know, 8 touchdowns, 5 picks, but he has ran a ton.
• 43:17
  He is there. Get it up here.
• 43:21
  Where did it go? You ever have a number up?
• 43:24
  And then it just goes away. There we go.
• 43:27
  He has over 350 yards averaging just over 4 1/2.
• 43:32
  Just a little background on him. He was a pretty highly rated
• 43:34
  guy. Went down to Mississippi State
• 43:36
  to begin with in 2019. Was a top 250 player, top 10,
• 43:41
  dual break, quarterback high four or should mean low four
• 43:43
  start in 91. Had offers from a lot of
• 43:46
  different places all over the country.
• 43:48
  And Brian, this is the this is what, Second you watched a lot
• 43:52
  of film on Garrett straighter in the last few years.
• 43:55
  Inadvertently. Yeah.
• 43:56
  It just seems like any any time out.
• 43:59
  Like half the time if I'm watching tape on other teams,
• 44:02
  it's like, all right, the last game was Syracuse.
• 44:04
  All right, the last game was what the fuck?
• 44:05
  All right. So I get to see Garrett Schrader
• 44:07
  again. I'd say overall he's an average
• 44:11
  thrower. The football he's he's he's not
• 44:13
  going to wow you. But he's also doesn't really
• 44:16
  have a ton of weaknesses either. Not not the most accurate
• 44:20
  thrower, but he can get the ball down, feel and and hurt you that
• 44:23
  way. Throws best in the short
• 44:26
  intermediate game when you roll the pocket, get him moving, get
• 44:31
  him where he can kind of throw in in those open lanes to one
• 44:35
  side, that kind of one or two read type.
• 44:37
  Look, he's patient when he runs the football.
• 44:40
  I think that's the big thing about him.
• 44:42
  Why he's able to sometimes break those big plays is because he is
• 44:45
  patient when he breaks the pocket.
• 44:47
  Even though it's a design runner, even though he knows
• 44:50
  he's going to scramble right away, he still lets the blocks
• 44:52
  kind of happen so he can kind of get the most out of those those
• 44:56
  rushes. And he has really good
• 44:58
  acceleration. So he's got that ability to kind
• 45:00
  of bust a big play when he does get to that second and third
• 45:03
  level, the defense. All right, Sheldon, you had a
• 45:07
  couple of additional points on him and the one thing I asked
• 45:11
  you to look up was how he performs in their wins and how
• 45:15
  he performed in their losses so far this year.
• 45:18
  Yeah, it's pretty stark contrast.
• 45:20
  So PFF created about 52 in their losses and it's around 80 in
• 45:25
  their wins. So a few interesting notes on
• 45:28
  Schrader overall. Pretty much middle of the road
• 45:32
  quarterback like Brian was saying.
• 45:34
  Not a ton of stats that, you know, stand out too much.
• 45:38
  Syracuse tends to throw pretty deep, so average step The target
• 45:41
  ranks 26th among Power 5 quarterbacks.
• 45:44
  On the flip side though, he does make a lot of turnover replays,
• 45:46
  so that's kind of, you know, the side effect there.
• 45:49
  He has been sacked a lot and his passer rating is 48, so kind of
• 45:53
  right next to Kyron drones. Lots of deep throws in this
• 45:56
  offense, Not particularly efficient throwing behind the
• 45:59
  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
• 46:04
  alluded to, play action. Syracuse is a completely
• 46:07
  different team with the run play action.
• 46:08
  So when running play action they complete about 80% of the
• 46:12
  passes. When they're not running play
• 46:14
  action, they completed about 55%.
• 46:16
  So that plus 25 point differential is the second
• 46:19
  biggest in the Power Five. So that's one thing they got to
• 46:22
  be watching out for is the the the PA throws.
• 46:26
  I would say you know overall he does get pressured a lot and
• 46:31
  according to some of the PFL numbers he has a he shares a
• 46:34
  high dream responsibility for those pressures.
• 46:37
  So some of it's on the opposite line.
• 46:39
  Some of it's on him, kind of a bit of both.
• 46:41
  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
• 46:46
  to be aware of the run threat with Schrader.
• 46:50
  Yeah, absolutely. That is one thing.
• 46:52
  You do have to watch out for him.
• 46:54
  We've seen it already one time in the last few years.
• 46:57
  I don't want to flip next to probably.
• 46:59
  In my opinion, just looking stat wise, definitely their best run
• 47:03
  of the ball unless Lequint Allen, 195 pounds, 6 foot.
• 47:09
  From Millville NJ and Millville High School and you know solid
• 47:14
  prospect coming out 85. Had your pit offer, Rutgers
• 47:18
  offers. Had a UVA offer Well the top 25
• 47:21
  player in the state of New Jersey.
• 47:22
  So a solid solid-state. Solid ranking there and so far
• 47:28
  this year and he is a red shirt. Excuse me, a true sophomore
• 47:32
  because he did play last year just under 5A game.
• 47:38
  With seven touchdowns running the ball.
• 47:41
  Brian what else did the tape say?
• 47:44
  Yeah, I've been looking at at him run the ball, he's he's
• 47:46
  pretty solid between the tackles, but he's really more
• 47:48
  dangerous when he can get on the edge, use his speed to kind of
• 47:52
  get some some extra yards there. He also really likes to work
• 47:56
  those cutback lanes on those read options.
• 48:00
  You'll you'll see him bend it back and that's when he can can
• 48:02
  break off some of those bigger runs as well.
• 48:05
  They will get him involved in the passing game, you know
• 48:07
  mostly on swings and check downs.
• 48:09
  They're not running a ton of behind the line of scrimmage
• 48:11
  type stuff. But he's she's he's proficient
• 48:14
  in that as well. Catches good with his hands and
• 48:16
  can make people miss in space. Shelton, what additional info
• 48:21
  you have on him for the night? Right around 5 yards per carry.
• 48:26
  His explosive plays are pretty solid.
• 48:28
  He's got 7 design carries, so 15 or more yards.
• 48:32
  Like Brian was saying, very heavily targeted in the passing
• 48:35
  game. One of the most heavily targeted
• 48:36
  running backs in all Power Five, with 25 passing targets.
• 48:41
  Yep, 25 passing targets, 23 receptions in, 150 in 157 yards.
• 48:47
  So you know, it's good to see Brian, as you broke down that
• 48:50
  tape there that it's not necessarily route trees, it's
• 48:56
  checkdowns. But that also it makes our
• 48:59
  linebacker room and our safeties have to pay attention to him on
• 49:01
  those outsides when he goes out for routes, even though they're
• 49:03
  not going to be complex as part of the offense, you still have
• 49:07
  to respect him because a 92%, you know catch percentage on 25
• 49:13
  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
• 49:17
  he's staying in the block and he's kind of leaking out.
• 49:19
  And yeah, that's one where you look like you're about to get
• 49:22
  home, you look like you're about to get a stop and all of a
• 49:24
  sudden he dumps it down to the running back and you get give up
• 49:26
  an 8 yard gain on, you know, 3rd and 6th.
• 49:29
  So that's the ones you got to be careful of.
• 49:32
  All righty, let's flip. And who the Let's flip and talk
• 49:36
  to who the ball may be thrown to this week.
• 49:40
  And that's going to be Umari Hatch.
• 49:42
  Now we're mentioning Hatch, but I want to mention another name
• 49:46
  real quick, and that is Aranda Gatson.
• 49:50
  Rondo Gatson was going to be probably their big playmaker
• 49:54
  this year. He's like a six, five, £220, you
• 50:00
  know, a big player. They lost him very early in the
• 50:04
  season, so know that they don't probably have their best weapon
• 50:08
  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
• 50:13
  teams, right? Amari Hatch, Freedom High School
• 50:15
  in Woodbridge. He was a top 20 fair in the
• 50:18
  state of Virginia back in the class of 2021.
• 50:21
  He was the 20th ranked player and you know so far having a
• 50:25
  good season, 346 yards. I don't have the reception
• 50:29
  numbers in front of me. He is their leading guy.
• 50:32
  And Brian, what are you seeing on the tape?
• 50:34
  What does he do for them? Yeah, you know what he's doing
• 50:39
  most. It usually lines up to the right
• 50:41
  hand side of the the the formation, but he's their
• 50:44
  biggest deep threat that they use on the on the team.
• 50:47
  He's targeted a lot down the field.
• 50:50
  He's the guy that they want to get involved when Schrader is
• 50:53
  throwing the ball deep down the field for for this offense
• 50:56
  targeted mostly on goes fades, they'll use him up the seam
• 51:00
  occasionally, but they will also use use him on some crossers and
• 51:03
  digs as well to get that kind of intermediate routes in there as
• 51:05
  well. So I mean he's really their guy
• 51:08
  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
• 51:15
  on Thursday all. Right.
• 51:17
  Sean, you said you did have one little note on Hatcher Mari,
• 51:20
  Hatcher Nadu, Mari Hatch. My apologies there.
• 51:24
  Yeah. Only note is that he is targeted
• 51:27
  on some a whole lot of depots, so 13th and the power of five
• 51:31
  and adjusted or excuse me average depth of target about 17
• 51:36
  yards per catch so. You know he's he's he's going to
• 51:40
  be in a lot of deep balls. Also you mentioned he's from
• 51:42
  Virginia. It seems to me like there's been
• 51:44
  a lot of under the radar guys from this state that have gone
• 51:48
  on to play for other you know, low level power programs
• 51:50
  especially in the Northeast. I know Rutgers had safety or
• 51:53
  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
• 52:00
  has is good at producing underrated talent but the high
• 52:04
  rated talent leaves a little bit to be desired.
• 52:06
  But that's a conversation for another day.
• 52:08
  Yeah, we talked about a few players from Pitt.
• 52:10
  I think we had two or three from Wake last week.
• 52:13
  Like, no, it was like 5 for Wake.
• 52:15
  It was not like two or three. It was literally like but but
• 52:18
  they did get Devin Claiborne who's a pretty highly rated guy,
• 52:22
  he is on that team and he obviously ran the kickback.
• 52:24
  So, but again it's that is another story that's February.
• 52:29
  We'll write it down. We'll circle the episode.
• 52:31
  We'll get, we'll talk about kind of the wrap of recruiting and
• 52:34
  then do some breakdowns on that. But there's still talent here
• 52:37
  and yeah that's where again I think that you know I'm I'm try
• 52:41
  to keep it in because we got one more piece on the offensive line
• 52:44
  is offering somebody like a hat who goes to freedom.
• 52:47
  Freedom is a good fucking football school.
• 52:50
  Good football school, yeah. And and let's talk about, you
• 52:53
  know what what what is Pride been having to rebuild in the
• 52:58
  last year and a half or so that wasn't that great under the
• 53:02
  previous regime. And we're at a time right now
• 53:06
  where guys that were recruited in that time frame when things
• 53:09
  kind of fell off the map are becoming solid either rotational
• 53:15
  pieces or starters at these other universities.
• 53:17
  So that's why you see Pitt with like two or three starters in
• 53:19
  wake with five starters that are key players on their team that
• 53:24
  were kind of that mid to high 3 occasionally a low four player
• 53:30
  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
• 53:37
  experiencing that. I think we're probably got you
• 53:39
  know one or two more years where that's going to be a topic of
• 53:42
  conversation throughout ACC play.
• 53:45
  I'm. Going to say this before we hit
• 53:46
  the offensive line, I think that's always going to be a
• 53:48
  conversation because as you start filling out your rooms,
• 53:51
  you're trying to find fits and there's guys that may not get an
• 53:54
  offer, they may not recruit as hard because of this is not
• 53:57
  quite what we need for this position.
• 53:59
  He's a good player but if he comes here it's going to be a
• 54:02
  tough hill to climb. But now let's talk about the
• 54:05
  offensive line. Shelton, while you were
• 54:07
  mentioning how bad their offensive line was, I had to
• 54:09
  look it up and I found it. They are 100th in the country at
• 54:14
  sacks allowed, nineteen over the first seven games.
• 54:18
  Now where they do differ between the other guys down there, they
• 54:21
  are under 100 sack yards per game.
• 54:24
  So real quick, before Brian breaks down the tape.
• 54:26
  Shelton, did you get a chance to pull up their grades on the
• 54:30
  offensive line? I did, yes.
• 54:33
  And it's interesting, there seems to be a discrepancy in
• 54:35
  terms of the sack totals you mentioned and their overall pass
• 54:39
  blocking PFF grades. So they're actually graded
• 54:42
  pretty well in pass blocking 17th as a team.
• 54:45
  They just don't really have a ton of, you know, individual
• 54:48
  standouts on that offensive line.
• 54:51
  Nobody graded in the Top 40 in the ACC.
• 54:54
  In terms of offensive lineman, they're left tackle.
• 54:56
  Enrique Cruz is the worst graded run blocker in the ACC.
• 55:01
  And their rushing yardage numbers are OK overall, but
• 55:04
  that's only because of Schrader's running the building.
• 55:06
  So Schrader's averaging about 6.3 yards per rushing attempt,
• 55:11
  you take out the sacks, and he also leads ACC in scramble
• 55:14
  yards. So kind of apropos of what I was
• 55:16
  mentioning earlier, he scrambles a lot.
• 55:19
  He can get out of the pocket, so even if the offensive line
• 55:21
  doesn't give a ton of time to throw, he can make place happen
• 55:24
  with his feet. So Brian, you watched the tape
• 55:27
  and I know you Sheldon said the grade doesn't reflect it, but
• 55:30
  the stats numbers reflect it. What are the tapes?
• 55:33
  Reflect about their past, bro. It's kind of a mixed bag.
• 55:37
  I mean, they give up some sacks that they probably shouldn't.
• 55:41
  Occasionally Schrader hangs around back there too much or
• 55:46
  tries to escape the pocket too soon and kind of gets himself in
• 55:49
  trouble. So there's a little bit of that
• 55:50
  in there as well. I mean, I'd call them probably
• 55:54
  very average in pass pro and very average run blocking
• 55:57
  overall there. There's not really standouts, as
• 56:01
  Shelton said. Really across the board.
• 56:03
  It's just a fairly solid pass pro and then a run game that
• 56:11
  when they can get going, especially with Schrader, looks
• 56:13
  probably a little bit better than than it really is in terms
• 56:16
  of the actual blocking. All righty glad to hear some of
• 56:20
  this stuff is correlating between the numbers and the the
• 56:22
  actual. Taking a look at the tape
• 56:24
  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
• 56:32
  paying attention to Thursday night.
• 56:36
  Yeah, give me, I'll, I'll look up in one quick SEC.
• 56:38
  I'll have it for you. Yeah, because again, while we're
• 56:41
  doing this, because we hear that, I'm sure Brian, your first
• 56:44
  thought is, well, if he sucks that bad and he.
• 56:47
  They're probably not going to be running to the left much, so
• 56:50
  probably they're not going to be looking at outside zone.
• 56:52
  There's probably, maybe an inside zone to the left side.
• 56:55
  It's probably going to be elsewhere on the line.
• 56:59
  Yeah, so their best graded run blocker is Christopher Blake.
• 57:02
  Apologies if I'm mispronouncing that.
• 57:04
  He is their left guard. So he's played.
• 57:07
  Yeah, he's played pretty much the the whole season.
• 57:09
  All right, so there you go. Probably.
• 57:13
  It'll be interesting to see where they run the ball Saturday
• 57:15
  night. All right, let's flip over to
• 57:18
  the defensive side of the ball and let's talk about this
• 57:21
  defense led by Rocky Long. If you don't know the name Rocky
• 57:24
  Long, then you probably really haven't been paying attention to
• 57:27
  college football the last 20 years.
• 57:29
  Rocky Long, successful in New Mexico back in the late 90s,
• 57:33
  early 2000s, became San Diego State's defensive coordinator in
• 57:37
  2009 and coached there for right out of decade, where you had
• 57:41
  some significant success with San Diego State.
• 57:45
  Brian tell me some other stuff about Rocky Long and the defense
• 57:49
  he runs. Yeah, I mean this is one of the
• 57:51
  godfathers of the the 3-3 stack. So along with his mentor Jolie
• 57:56
  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.
• 58:06
  But I will say looking at their their, their alignment, they
• 58:09
  will kind of switch up the front to confuse the offensive line.
• 58:14
  You'll occasionally see them go with like a 245 look sometimes
• 58:18
  in nickels sometimes just because just to kind of confuse
• 58:21
  things there and and and show a different look like most 33
• 58:25
  stacks very stunt blitz heavy. So you expect that from the D
• 58:30
  it's going to be a handful for the offensive line to handle
• 58:34
  some of that. So hopefully that they are ready
• 58:36
  and more prepared than we were at the beginning of the season
• 58:39
  for these type of fronts. And yeah, I mean it's going to
• 58:43
  be another one of those where we've got to make sure that we
• 58:45
  keep Kyron drones off off his back as well because they again
• 58:48
  will bring some pressure there in the backfield.
• 58:51
  All right, let's take a look at a couple of the key players
• 58:53
  there at Syracuse and let's start with the Rover.
• 58:57
  Justin Baron #8, defensive Back, 6 foot four, £230 from Suffolk
• 59:02
  Academy in Rock Hill, Connecticut Came out was an
• 59:05
  84247 top 15 player in the state of Connected.
• 59:08
  A top 100 athlete when he came out.
• 59:11
  I think he was looked at as a wide receiver and then moved
• 59:14
  effectively, then inside linebacker, then eventually
• 59:18
  Rover and so far this year you know tackle wise leading the
• 59:23
  team 55 tackles, 5 tackles for loss.
• 59:27
  Where I really found it interesting was 4 pass
• 59:30
  deflections along with two force fumbles.
• 59:31
  So obviously that guy's around the ball a lot.
• 59:34
  Brian what's the tape telling you about Justin Baron?
• 59:38
  Yeah, I mean he's a big asset in their run support.
• 59:41
  He's the guy that's primarily coming up from the stage
• 59:43
  position, making good plays, good fits and and and and making
• 59:47
  a solid tackle in the run game. Overall, really good with Fitz,
• 59:52
  really good in pursuit. I'd say he's much better in zone
• 59:56
  coverage than he is a man. He's kind of a little slow
• 59:58
  changing directions in man coverage.
• 59:59
  So that may be a spot where we can kind of take advantage.
• 1:00:03
  All righty, Shelton, any sort of deeper metrics on Justin Baron,
• 1:00:08
  the Rover for the Orangemen? Yeah, overall, pretty good in
• 1:00:12
  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
• 1:00:20
  four yards is his depth when he's targeted in pass coverage.
• 1:00:24
  Not surprising, because he mostly plays in the box.
• 1:00:27
  And as a result of that, he also has eight run stops, which is a
• 1:00:30
  stat that PFF tracks. Basically a loss for the
• 1:00:33
  offense, which is tied for third and ACC at his position group.
• 1:00:37
  Very nice to know. So like you said, I think when I
• 1:00:40
  hear that, I hear Brian talking about mandate.
• 1:00:42
  He's not going to be going with guys like Wright or Gosnell up
• 1:00:46
  the seam or on wheel routes. He's going to be staying close
• 1:00:48
  to home, which obviously could stress potentially other parts
• 1:00:52
  of that defense. Now another guy playing down in
• 1:00:55
  the box is Marlow Wax. Let's talk a little bit about
• 1:00:59
  Marlow. Marlow, 6 foot £230 out of the
• 1:01:03
  state of Maryland. Kind of an underrated guy, an 83
• 1:01:06
  three star when he came out in the class of 2020.
• 1:01:09
  Went to Mount Saint Joseph down in Baltimore.
• 1:01:12
  Came out initially as a running back and other than Syracuse and
• 1:01:17
  Pitt, did not have a lot of D1. Excuse me, P5 looks.
• 1:01:22
  Had some interest from Marshall and and ECU.
• 1:01:27
  Sorry about that. But let's talk about this year.
• 1:01:31
  Second on the lien, second on the team in tackles at 53.
• 1:01:36
  Does have a pick and 3/4 fumbles.
• 1:01:40
  Brian, I say linebacker in A335 stack, we've already talked
• 1:01:43
  about the Rover, so he's definitely not playing that
• 1:01:45
  position, which also some people consider linebacker in A335
• 1:01:49
  stack. Where is he playing?
• 1:01:52
  Yeah, he's that Mike. Some also call it a Jack.
• 1:01:54
  Just kind of depends on the system.
• 1:01:56
  You know Mike, linebacker, a lot of responsibilities with that
• 1:01:59
  position, heavy blitz usage from all angles.
• 1:02:02
  They'll they'll move him around, they'll shove him around.
• 1:02:05
  So he's coming off the edge. He's coming up the middle, you
• 1:02:09
  know, A gap, B gap, C gap, whatever, whatever, whatever gap
• 1:02:13
  the offense has, he's going to be used in those for on the
• 1:02:16
  blitz game. He's great in pursuit, really
• 1:02:19
  good at shooting gaps and occasionally getting some some
• 1:02:21
  tackles for loss. But I'd say the only thing that
• 1:02:24
  I'd say we could maybe take advantage of is that he can get
• 1:02:27
  blocked. When he's running downhill
• 1:02:30
  against the run. He's not very good at shedding,
• 1:02:33
  shedding blockers and taking on those bigger, bigger players
• 1:02:37
  head on. He he much would rather run at
• 1:02:41
  an angle pursue. Shoot a gap, something like
• 1:02:44
  that, kind of to make that play. So that might be where we can
• 1:02:47
  take some advantage. All right, Shelton, any sort of
• 1:02:51
  deeper stats with Mr. Wax? He is the highest grade
• 1:02:55
  offensive or excuse me, highest grade linebacker for Syracuse.
• 1:02:59
  Really good tackler. You're talking about the stop
• 1:03:02
  stat. He's got 32 stops on the season,
• 1:03:04
  which is second in the entire ACC.
• 1:03:07
  So very, a very big run stuffing guy.
• 1:03:10
  All righty. I, I, I find it interesting,
• 1:03:13
  Brian, once you talk about easily getting blocked when he
• 1:03:16
  gets downhill against the run, that'll be more interesting in
• 1:03:19
  how they line him up. Do they continue to move him
• 1:03:21
  like they have all season? Because especially if we get
• 1:03:24
  some of our run game going, we can engage him, could take out
• 1:03:28
  one of their best tacklers. All right, last piece, we're
• 1:03:31
  going to go. We're staying up front for the
• 1:03:33
  last guy as well. And I want to talk about Kevon
• 1:03:35
  Darden and Kevon Darden go to 247, you won't find a page on
• 1:03:40
  him. He was a walk on who is now a
• 1:03:44
  defensive tackle there. He's only 511, about £275 and so
• 1:03:52
  he's not that big of a guy when you hear defensive line because
• 1:03:54
  he does play defensive tackle and so far this year you know he
• 1:03:59
  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
• 1:04:07
  levels has a forced fumble. Not a fan of that, Brian.
• 1:04:12
  Looking at the tape, I know you, you, you kind of an interesting
• 1:04:15
  guy to to watch from a tape perspective on all the things
• 1:04:18
  they do with him. Yeah, you know, as you said,
• 1:04:23
  former walk on. They play him at that shade
• 1:04:26
  nose. Sometimes he's head up,
• 1:04:27
  sometimes he's in the shade, but.
• 1:04:30
  They'll also kind of line him up in different spots whenever they
• 1:04:34
  mix up those fronts. So he'll be in a three
• 1:04:36
  technique, he'll be in a four eye, he'll be in a four
• 1:04:38
  technique. He just kind of really depends
• 1:04:40
  on how they're attacking and how they're mixing up their fronts.
• 1:04:43
  But his size is interesting for a nose, even in a in A33 stack
• 1:04:49
  nose because he is a very small, small player.
• 1:04:53
  He's five 11275. That's about 30 pounds and at
• 1:05:00
  least a couple inches shorter and and and and lighter than you
• 1:05:03
  normally see a a nose at the starting end.
• 1:05:08
  You know that height probably not as big of an issue as the
• 1:05:11
  weight but he actually does a pretty good job of eating
• 1:05:14
  blockers Despite that size and he he slants pretty quick.
• 1:05:18
  So he's he's a guy that you know for what he lacks in size makes
• 1:05:22
  up with in quickness. So you get some occasional
• 1:05:24
  tackles for loss opportunities in that regard.
• 1:05:28
  Sheldon anything on him? No, I just got one on Anwar
• 1:05:35
  Sparrow, who's their their one of their highest graded D
• 1:05:38
  lineman. So he was Go ahead.
• 1:05:40
  Yeah. So he was third in the ACC
• 1:05:42
  overall, big on the the run defense.
• 1:05:46
  Yeah, let me I can look up the numbers.
• 1:05:48
  But basically he's their, he's their top run stuffing guy.
• 1:05:52
  Sparrow is on that, on that D front.
• 1:05:56
  All righty. So we got Sparrow as their big
• 1:05:58
  run stuff for defensive line. You got Darden as a small
• 1:06:02
  undersized defensive tackle that they like to do a lot of things
• 1:06:05
  with. So it's going to be interesting
• 1:06:07
  to see how we handle this. And I'm going to flip it here
• 1:06:11
  and we're going to go next to the Hokie keys.
• 1:06:16
  And I'm going to start with you, Brian.
• 1:06:18
  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.
• 1:06:26
  He's to stay ahead of the sticks.
• 1:06:28
  I think we, if we can get into those second and manageable 3rd
• 1:06:31
  and manageable situations, control the time of possession
• 1:06:36
  because that's what they're going to try to do to us.
• 1:06:38
  If we can control the time of possession and make them have to
• 1:06:43
  get away from what they feel they do best, which is running
• 1:06:46
  the football both with Schrader and with their running backs.
• 1:06:51
  If we can do that, I think that puts us in a better, better spot
• 1:06:54
  long term in that game. So if we can stay ahead of the
• 1:06:56
  sticks, that'll be a good, a good way to control that time,
• 1:06:59
  possession and and put them in difficult situations with their
• 1:07:02
  own offense. All right, Sean, what about you?
• 1:07:05
  Yeah, for me it's all about contain, contain, contain.
• 1:07:08
  They got to contain the quarterback, Schrader.
• 1:07:10
  I think when you look at this offense overall, not to be
• 1:07:13
  disparaging of any of their players, but they're just really
• 1:07:16
  aren't a ton of individual individual standouts.
• 1:07:19
  Outside of Schrader and really their whole offense is just
• 1:07:22
  predicated on him getting out in space and making plays.
• 1:07:24
  And so if you take away that scramble game, that run game, I
• 1:07:28
  mean they just, they don't have a ton left and they've they've
• 1:07:30
  struggled a lot on early downs this season.
• 1:07:32
  Like you know one of the worst in the country on 1st and 2nd
• 1:07:35
  down. So you put them in, you put them
• 1:07:37
  in 3rd long, it's not, it's not going to go particularly well
• 1:07:40
  for them, but you still got to make sure that you contain the
• 1:07:41
  quarterback. So keeping keeping Schrader in
• 1:07:44
  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
• 1:07:50
  attack responsibly because what you just said even more Shelton
• 1:07:55
  goes back to what my thought was they're not good on 1st and 2nd
• 1:07:59
  down. If you can attack them get them
• 1:08:00
  behind the sticks where they can't just run him up the middle
• 1:08:05
  it's going to put them in dire situations.
• 1:08:07
  And again, you're talking about the 100th, the 100th rated, you
• 1:08:12
  know, team sacks allowed regardless what the grades say,
• 1:08:14
  they give up those sacks and then you get APR, who's number
• 1:08:18
  six in the country. The Hokies, I believe, are in
• 1:08:20
  the Top 40 in the country in sacks, in team sacks.
• 1:08:25
  So there's that one piece attack, but attack responsibly,
• 1:08:28
  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
• 1:08:35
  here since tally isn't take what the defense gives you.
• 1:08:38
  They're pretty balanced defense. They do give up more passing
• 1:08:40
  than they do rushing, but take what they give you.
• 1:08:43
  Wake Forest decided to load the box and kind of drones sliced
• 1:08:47
  and diced them all night. So take whatever they give you.
• 1:08:50
  If they want to try to play more coverage, run the ball.
• 1:08:53
  I think we can run against this team.
• 1:08:56
  So there that is. Now before we get into our
• 1:08:59
  prediction and then a quick note about big screeners.
• 1:09:02
  This week, this segment is presented by Big is presented by
• 1:09:07
  Prospects. Prospects is a daily fantasy app
• 1:09:09
  where you can make entries based on player projected outcomes.
• 1:09:12
  And Brian, did you hit the two you had last week?
• 1:09:17
  I didn't know you had Prize picks will match up any deposit
• 1:09:24
  up to $100. When you sign up with the code
• 1:09:26
  BC picks, it's right there. Bron's about to pull it up.
• 1:09:31
  That's the reason he's not pulling it up, because go ahead,
• 1:09:35
  pull it up. We don't have anything left yet.
• 1:09:39
  We're still, we have two games we know we're going to pick.
• 1:09:41
  We've got to find some other games.
• 1:09:44
  We don't have a line yet. We don't have to get until we
• 1:09:46
  get the line. Mine started coming out about
• 1:09:49
  6:00. Yeah, we have dinner.
• 1:09:52
  Sheldon was working. Brian had things going on.
• 1:09:55
  Tally's away. You will get this in a tweet
• 1:09:58
  between now and sometime Thursday with our picks.
• 1:10:01
  So again, there's the QR code if you need it.
• 1:10:05
  Let's go ahead and make the hokey predictions.
• 1:10:08
  And I'm going to start off on behalf of Jonathan Tally.
• 1:10:12
  Got a text from him here 2717. He is staying on the hokey
• 1:10:17
  bandwagon and going 2717 Hokies. Sheldon, what do you feel on
• 1:10:22
  this game? Yeah, I'm going to go Hokies by
• 1:10:26
  four. I think this is a game where my
• 1:10:32
  how do I phrase this is my my brain says Vt even though
• 1:10:35
  there's part of my gut that says it's going to be a let down
• 1:10:37
  loss. But I will say, you know, this
• 1:10:40
  is probably the first game in a while where I've been, you know,
• 1:10:42
  genuinely pumped for it because I think you've got a huge
• 1:10:44
  opportunity. You've got Syracuse coming on
• 1:10:47
  Thursday night. You win this game, you go to
• 1:10:49
  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
• 1:10:54
  you win this game. And I think it's going to get
• 1:10:57
  the fan base entirely dock on your side if you lose.
• 1:10:59
  And I kind of like back to like, Oh well, we're, you know, we
• 1:11:02
  might go four and eight, five and seven.
• 1:11:03
  So I think there's a lot riding on this game.
• 1:11:05
  I mean I know it's a, you know, it might seem like just a
• 1:11:07
  matchup between 2 mediocre ACC teams and maybe it is.
• 1:11:10
  But this is a this is this could be a huge confidence boosting
• 1:11:14
  win for Vt. So regardless this they they got
• 1:11:17
  to win this game and so I got I got Hokies by 4 Brian.
• 1:11:23
  I've got the Hokies winning 2720.
• 1:11:27
  I think this is going to be the win that.
• 1:11:31
  If they're not already gets the fan base fully bought into what
• 1:11:35
  Pride is doing and and what the the team is doing and the steps
• 1:11:41
  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.
• 1:11:49
  But what it What it proves is that you can go into a Thursday
• 1:11:53
  night game in prime time in your home stadium and beat a team
• 1:11:57
  that. At least on paper is as good or
• 1:12:01
  better than you are. There you go.
• 1:12:04
  And I think that's an important hurdle to get over for this
• 1:12:08
  staff and this team is going out there and taking care of the
• 1:12:11
  business consistently in those type of matchups.
• 1:12:16
  You know, we've seen Wake Forest, we've seen Pitt.
• 1:12:21
  Those teams are. Probably in the bottom three or
• 1:12:26
  four of the ACC, Syracuse is more of a middle of the pack
• 1:12:29
  team. If we can show we can get a
• 1:12:31
  victory against them, I think that will boost the confidence
• 1:12:34
  of the team. Boost the confidence of the fan
• 1:12:36
  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.
• 1:12:47
  I think the Hokies win comfortably and it's and it's
• 1:12:52
  and it's I like what y'all said, This is that game that can
• 1:12:55
  springboard things for the fan base especially.
• 1:13:00
  It's like we saw the pit game. It's like, oh, OK, we hadn't
• 1:13:03
  beat pit like that in years. We hadn't beat pit about
• 1:13:06
  multiple scores in years. You go to the FSU game, you show
• 1:13:10
  three good quarters, a football against one of the best teams in
• 1:13:15
  the country, and then you have another good game against weight
• 1:13:19
  where you do what you're supposed to do against the
• 1:13:21
  lesser team and to y'all's points.
• 1:13:25
  I think a lot of people are on the side, regardless what
• 1:13:28
  happens this year. I mean, we're seven games in,
• 1:13:30
  we're already at three wins, took eleven last year to get
• 1:13:32
  there. It also what we were talking
• 1:13:35
  about, the issues that we're having, and I've said this a
• 1:13:38
  couple times, the issues we had last year, it literally lasted
• 1:13:42
  from game four to game 11, where there were issues starting with
• 1:13:46
  Game 2 that roughly by game five things were starting to change,
• 1:13:51
  right? Some guys weren't seeing the
• 1:13:53
  field play, Calling was changed. And I think now it's this is a
• 1:13:57
  real test for not only for the whole staff, but for Brent
• 1:14:00
  Prize, a head coach, because you're feeling good after
• 1:14:03
  weight, can you get everybody grounded and say that means
• 1:14:07
  nothing unless you don't go out there and beat their asses
• 1:14:09
  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.
• 1:14:14
  We're going to have about 3 1/2 million eyes on us.
• 1:14:17
  Go out there and do it. Show that we are on the way to
• 1:14:20
  being who we were. Yeah, and this is that step
• 1:14:23
  forward. So Tally was talking about
• 1:14:24
  before Wake how important Wake was to keep a bowl on the on the
• 1:14:30
  on the plate, right. Wake kept the bowl on the plate.
• 1:14:33
  This is where you start putting yourself into that conversation
• 1:14:37
  because it is a more middle of the road ACC team because it is
• 1:14:42
  on Thursday night and it's a game that has a bunch of eyes on
• 1:14:46
  it. So this is where you take that
• 1:14:48
  next step. You know you had, you had to get
• 1:14:51
  wake behind you to even get to this point where this game
• 1:14:55
  matters and this game has some stakes attached to it.
• 1:14:58
  Now you're here. Go out there and handle the
• 1:15:00
  business. There you go.
• 1:15:01
  Sheldon, anything else to add? Yeah, I mean, it's like I was
• 1:15:04
  saying, it's just this is a game where you feel like everyone's
• 1:15:07
  coming in hype. It's Thursday night, and I'm not
• 1:15:10
  trying to be at Debbie Downer, but this is one of those games
• 1:15:13
  in Virginia Tech lore. Where you look back on it and
• 1:15:16
  say man what a what a classic Virginia Tech game to lose.
• 1:15:19
  So I just think it's AI, just think it's a big game and like
• 1:15:23
  you just got to win the ticket, the fan base on your side.
• 1:15:26
  Like if you go into the the Louisville week four and four,
• 1:15:29
  three and one, like I mean you're feeling pretty good.
• 1:15:32
  So it's just it's a big game. Can I say this?
• 1:15:37
  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
• 1:15:42
  did for years, where Thursday nights was you come and you're
• 1:15:45
  in play on Thursday night. You're not going to win.
• 1:15:48
  You're not going to win this game.
• 1:15:50
  And on some of those Thursday nights it was not only a win, it
• 1:15:53
  was a damn beat down. And can we peak that?
• 1:15:57
  Can we get through this thing of losing Thursday nights?
• 1:15:59
  Can we start going back the right way in what history tells
• 1:16:03
  us the way it should be? All right, anything breaking in
• 1:16:06
  the last hour and 17? Tally joined us live here.
• 1:16:13
  Hey man, the the, the links in in Twitter.
• 1:16:16
  Jump on, links in Twitter. Jump on.
• 1:16:20
  He's driving. I think we missed you tonight,
• 1:16:22
  Tally. We know you'll be back next
• 1:16:23
  week, man. Maybe Tally will jump on to a
• 1:16:25
  space on Wednesday night or something.
• 1:16:27
  Who knows? All right, well, that is going
• 1:16:29
  to wrap up this episode of the Boundary Corner podcast brought
• 1:16:32
  to you by Main Street Pharmacy in Blacksburg.
• 1:16:35
  I'm Curtis Wilson. I'm Brian Siegler.
• 1:16:37
  And I am Shelton Moss. Visit our website
• 1:16:41
  boundarycornervt.com to listen to all of our episodes.
• 1:16:47
  See what we said years ago about Garrett Schrader.
• 1:16:49
  That'd be a good one, right? That was a long time ago.
• 1:16:54
  I think he had only started like one game at that one game then
• 1:16:57
  and he freaking torched us for 45.
• 1:16:59
  It's not so. We also have the merchandise
• 1:17:02
  shop at Boundary Corner store. Don't forget to follow us on
• 1:17:05
  Facebook, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, subscribe on our
• 1:17:09
  YouTube Your favorite podcast source including Spotify, Amazon
• 1:17:12
  and Apple Podcast As always, we let our buddy Jason Long play us
• 1:17:16
  in. Play us out.
• 1:17:17
  Visit him at jasonlongmusic.com where you can link to all of his
• 1:17:21
  music, Apple, Spotify, YouTube. His Facebook and YouTube pages
• 1:17:26
  also got his upcoming live performances on there as well.
• 1:17:30
  He keep those updated. Support him down in Roanoke and,
• 1:17:34
  as always, we thank Y'all for listening and let's go.
• 1:17:38
  Hokey.