What are your grades for the 2014 football season?

Nova Hokie 95: Let’s start with the offense. I was in a giving mood in the midseason report and gave the offense a B-, though that was graded on a heavy curve. Here at the end of the season, I’ve dropped that to a C- for a number of reasons. Most of all, though, one of the reasons I was so giving in the midseason – the promise – didn’t really show up in the second half of the season. I still think many of our offensive players show a great deal of promise, but I don’t think it was exhibited as much in the second half of the season as it perhaps could have been. That’s not to say there weren’t bright spots. JC Coleman’s resurgence was a positive, and the OL showed some signs of grit for sure. But overall the offense seemed to stagnate in the second half of the season. Injuries played a part, sure, and that helped keep the grade from dropping into the D range. Let’s just say that if we were ignoring grades and going the elementary school route, I’d give this a “Shows Promise, Needs to Buckle Down.”

Defensively, it’s reeeeeeeally tough to give a grade. I mean, our defense certainly fell off during the second half of the season, but it’s pretty easy to pinpoint that to the loss of Chase Williams. Other losses exacerbated things, but you could see a marked difference in the defense before his injury, after his injury, and then when he came back. Andrew Motuapuaka is going to be a good one – I’ve repeatedly compared him to James Anderson’s struggles this year – but for 2014 he just wasn’t ready. Statistically the defense improved during CW’s absence, but to me the “eyeball test” says there was a drop. I gave the defense a B in the first half, and I think I’m going to maintain that – great stats or not. In essence, I’m giving the defense a C for the Pitt-Miami-BC trio of games and an A for the stretch of games including Duke, Wake, UVA, and Cincy. Ahh, what the heck. Let’s call it a B+ since there were more good than not-good games!

...