Last night, VT put the season on the line and traveled to Miami for what I considered a must-win game.  As is much too common, VT dropped the ball (literally in Dyrell Roberts case) and let Miami steal a 17-14 win.  Several suspect penalty calls, numerous fortuitous “mistakes” by Miami that turned into game-savers, and most of all, the atrocious play-calling by the VT offensive coordinator Bryan Stinespring, led to the loss.

The defenses for both teams were playing quite well in general.  Bud Foster dialed up a constant blitzing assault that worked pretty well in general.  Likewise, the Miami defense managed to lock down the VT running game completely.

For the most part, the quarterbacks played reasonably well even with the offensive line providing almost no protection.  Sean Glennon, who I have never been sold on, had a reasonable game with only one bone-headed mistake where he took a sack that pushed us out of field goal range.  Tyrod Taylor also played reasonably well and provided essentially the only offense we had in the second half.  Darren Evans was repeatedly stopped and our running game was virtually non-existent.  Boykins had a phenomenal catch while Roberts had the previously mentioned drop.

Despite having all the breaks go Miami’s way with the fumbles and penalties, Virginia Tech was still in a position to win the game.  Unfortunately, Stinespring was unable to come up with a gameplan and continued to make the wrong decision time and time again.  Miami’s defense was consistently able to stuff our inside running game but the few times we call an option or a designed QB run, we seem to be averaging 6-8 yards per play.  Obviously, we continued to attempt runs up the inside.  Brilliant!

The difference between Stinespring and good offensive coordinators becomes really apparent when you look at certain plays.  e.g. With our constant blitzing, Miami was able to able to capitalize by calling several screen passes… specifically designed to abuse the blitzes.  They did this with signficant success in the 3rd quarter.  Stinespring went the other way — With Miami completely shutting down our inside running game, Stinespring calls just that on a critical 3rd & 1.  Using Pickle, a guy who hadn’t touched the ball previously in the game.  Against a defense that has not let us run up the middle yet.  I guess his thinking is that they would never expect him to call a play they’ve been so successful at stopping… time and time again.  I think we all know how that play ended up.

I suppose my frustration is quite apparent.  VT has all the pieces but atrocious play-calling and gameplans are killing us.  How is that Beamer can’t see what every other Hokie fan can?  Something has to change and that something is Bryan Stinespring.