Throughout his 22 years as a football assistant, Virginia Tech quarterbacks coach Brad Glenn spent most of his time up in the booth.
In the first five games of 2022, Glenn was down on the sideline where communication was easy with his players. But ahead of last week’s road clash with Pitt, Glenn decided to move back upstairs where he was more comfortable.
“It was just like a security blanket,” Glenn said. “It was like going back home again. It’s different because you see spacing different. Football is a game of space. And you just see the spacing a little different than you do from the sideline.”
In Acrisure Stadium, the former offensive coordinator (from 2012-2021) was a sounding board for Tech’s current OC, Tyler Bowen. Bowen is in his first full season as an offensive coordinator on the FBS level. He had an opportunity to call plays in a bowl game at Penn State, but most of the experience comes from his days at Fordham. Glenn’s presence has added a boost to that room during games.
“I kind of keep a sheet up there of the things I see,” Glenn said, “because communication’s coming from all over the place on the headset. … I’m sitting right to his right, so he can see what I write down really easily. So it’s almost like you’re getting two guys kind of calling the game. He can see the plays that I like in certain situations without me having to tell him. He can see it because I’ve got it written down.
“I used to have a guy like this in the press box for me that would kind of call the game as he sees it. It would be sitting there, I would see what he calls. In some games, I was in my own rhythm and I rarely ever would look at that page. And then there were some times when I would get stuck, and I would need confirmation from another set of eyes, or I would need a play suggestion from another set of eyes.”
Head coach Brent Pry and the staff ran Glenn’s move by the quarterbacks, specifically Grant Wells. The Charleston, W. Va. native was used to chatting on a headset with his offensive coordinator after a series so there was a comfortability level there from both parties.
Glenn said he felt like the move actually improved the communication due to the time restraints of talking on the phone after a drive versus being next to the player on the sidelines.
“I actually think we may have communicated a little bit better because we know we’re pressed for time when that happens,” Glenn said. “When I’m on the sideline, I’m there all the time. He can come to me or I can go to him within the defensive series at any point in time. … [With the change], we both knew that it was kind of a little bit of a sense of urgency. ‘Hey, we’ve only got a few minutes to talk through things.’ I think it went well.”
Coincidence or not, the Hokies had their best offensive performance of the season at Pitt. They posted 403 yards of total offense, averaged 5.2 yards per play, picked up 20 first downs and had five plays of 20-plus yards.
Wells completed 25 of his 47 passes for 277 yards. Kaleb Smith was his favorite target — the Louisa County product caught nine passes for 152 yards and was named ACC Receiver of the Week. Wells also threw a touchdown, which came on a 43-yard strike to Da’Wain Lofton in the third quarter.
“It wasn’t the first read,” Glenn said of the throw. “We were looking over to the boundary, and he kind of scanned back. And the thing we talk about, too, is calm eye transition. If you’re looking all over the field and looking at everything, you’re seeing nothing. I think he had pretty calm eye transition on getting back to Lofton and doing it quickly.
“I think he scanned [the field] pretty fast and got to it, and we had an explosive play out of it.”
Glenn likes the current level at which Wells is performing. Through six weeks, he said Wells is doing everything the right way on 85-90% of plays over the course of the game. The challenge is correcting that remaining 10-15%.
Glenn noticed that they’ve showed up in clumps, often due to impulse decisions and not moving on to the next play.
“Maybe he’s hanging on that last mistake,” Glenn said. “What we talk about all the time, if you’re still thinking about the play we just ran, you’re getting ready to make a couple more mistakes. It’s just push that aside, be where your feet are, play the play that’s coming up right now.”
Running back Malachi Thomas is back, which provides Virginia Tech with another weapon out of the backfield. And though receiving options are thin — only four players have double digit catches: Smith, Nick Gallo, Lofton and Keshawn King — the offense is slowly expanding.
True freshman tight end Dae’Quan Wright is a perfect example. He’s played in just two games but has nine catches for 78 yards, and he’s athletic enough to play in the slot. His emergence and the return of Thomas have both helped Wells and the unit.
“To have [Malachi Thomas] back in the run game is really big for Grant,” Glenn said. “Dae’Quan’s a young guy, but he’s a … matchup nightmare for other teams. So, the more and more weapons we can put with Grant, the better he’s going to be, and that’s with any quarterback in any offense.”
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It is always amazing when people realize something that you would think they should have known from the beginning
This is pretty much confirmation that Tyler Bowen is in way over his head. It’s not great that it took the HC 6 games to figure out what everyone else knew. As I said before, Pry has a history of bad decision making. They need to make the OC assignment change from Bowen to Glenn permanent.
What happened to Blumrick? He was touted at the beginning of the season but seemingly rarely gets touches?
Exactly. Was going to be nightmare matchup for LBs and Safeties and the guy hardly ever touches the ball. It’s totally ridiculous and no one ever asks the coaches and the coaches never mention his name. But he has shown he can catch the ball and make plays when given the opportunity. I try and keep things positive but this kind of thing makes no sense to me. Especially when you need targets and especially of his size that can catch the ball and has some experience. Come on coach!
I guess we will see if it is a major difference this week. Seems to me Malachi Thomas and man coverage had more to do with improvements, but the coaches can take credit if they think that is the difference.
Great article – shows Pry and Coaches saw a need to change and they did MID-SEASON…maybe a game late…but I’ll take it…now lets get that D better…Tisdale will help!
Yes thank you so much for not waiting until next year to make changes and not giving up on this year. I wanna see my guys having some success this year, specially the seniors even if they don’t win the game!