Jim Weaver
The easiest way to get over a tough loss is to tell the team what needs to be said about the game, and then immediately move on to the next game. There’s no reason to spend a lot of time looking back.
Some people were surprised by the Duke outcome, but when a team comes in with a 5-2 record it shows you that they are very capable.
Women’s soccer has been great this year. They are ranked #4 in the country and have one more regular season game before the ACC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament. The NCAA Tournament is a bidding process, and Tech could host again this year. They play #1 UVA this week.
Kendall Fuller is tied for the national lead in interceptions, and the Hokies as a team lead the nation in interceptions. The secondary has been on fire this year. They are very disciplined and very talented.
Aaron Moorehead
Anyone who watches the game knows why the Hokies lost. If you turn the ball over four times, that’s not going to win games in the ACC.
The receivers have made a lot of progress since the spring. They have put in the work, and the game experience has helped them. He never saw Willie Byrn being a guy who is arguably the #1 receiver. He thinks this group has a bright future ahead of it.
The Alabama game was rough, but almost none of those receivers had any experience, particularly on that stage. Day in and day out since then, they have had an “us against the world” mentality. People weren’t nice to the receivers after that game, but they are a lot better now.
Charley Meyer worked really hard to play, but he ended up tweaking both hamstrings during training camp. It’s tough to come back from that.
Coaching at Stanford was great. Blacksburg is more like the Chicago weather that he was used to growing up. He loves coaching under Frank Beamer. Stanford coach David Shaw told him “you are going to the greatest place you could possibly go”.
Working with Andrew Luck at Stanford was like working with Peyton Manning. He makes throws every day that make you say “wow, did he really just do that?” Both are very cerebral guys.
Moorehead feels like he knows what it takes to succeed at a professional level because he played in the NFL. You can use that to your advantage in recruiting as well. He certainly wears his Super Bowl ring when he goes recruiting.
When you try to make an NFL roster, you have to understand that you are trying to take someone’s job. Football feeds that guy’s family, and he doesn’t want to give that up, so you have to go in there with the mentality that you are going to take it from him.
Logan Thomas saw on film that he missed Willie Byrn a couple of times this past weekend. Working on his reads and progressions is something he’s working hard at. Byrn has done a great job getting better.
There are times when Logan Thomas makes NFL throws, and there are other times where you wonder if you need to scale things back for him. It’s tough adjusting to a new offense.
Moorehead likes to recruit high school wide receivers to play wideout in college because it’s easier to make the transition. They are in a position to contribute earlier. It’s a tougher transition when you play a different position in high school.
BC is a tough football team. Their front seven is a tough group. You have to execute very well against them. They have four games to get where they want to be, which is Charlotte.
Moorehead likes practicing on Sundays because it helps the players put the previous game behind them very quickly. It wasn’t acceptable to lose that game, but there’s nothing you can do about it. You have to put it behind you.
When plays presented themselves on Saturday, the Hokies didn’t make them. There were five opportunities for touchdowns in that game that they didn’t get. If you miss five times, plus turn the ball over, it’s not going to work out well for you.
Moorehead recruits in DC and Maryland, and he spot recruits in Indianapolis and Chicago. Recruiting has been great so far.
Jack Tyler
BC is always the toughest and most physical team the Hokies play. They love to recruit smashmouth type of players.
Everybody could have done a little bit more to get that win against Duke. Everybody shared in the loss.
Tyler feels like everybody was over the loss to Duke on Sunday morning. They had a good practice. The loss didn’t really change anything. The ACC Title goals are still on the table.
The defense is having a lot of fun playing together. The front seven and the secondary work great off each other. There is great camaraderie.
Tech has the best defensive coaching staff in the country, hands down. He feels like they could roll out a long snapper at middle linebacker and they would make as many tackles as Tyler.
Andre Williams at BC is a big back. He is tough to tackle behind a big offensive line. Tech’s defense likes to play physical as well, so it should be a fun game. There aren’t a lot of tricks. Just go and make plays.
Sam Rogers is a film room guy. He learned the offense quickly, and he works really hard. Tech fans are going to know his name for a long time.
Sam Rogers
A year ago Rogers was playing high school football. He didn’t have scholarship offers, except for Bucknell and St. Francis. Tech and UVA both asked him to walk on. His mom went to UVA, but he realized that Tech was the right fit for him.
When he saw how Tech responded to a 7-6 season, it helped make his decision. Most teams would be satisfied, and they weren’t. They showed a lot of character down the stretch. It’s the type of program that he wanted to play for.
Shane Beamer always told him that he would have an opportunity to play early. He expects big things from himself in the future.
Rogers was calling Shane Beamer a lot before he ever arrived to ask about the playbook, and he kept his nose in the playbook once he arrived. That’s how he’s been able to play early.
His whole life is football and school right now. Time management is tough.
Rogers’ brother was an All-American center at Hampden-Sydney.
When Rogers got hurt, he lived in the training room. It was a bad ankle injury, but it’s much better now.
Tech can’t worry about the Duke game right now. They have to have short memories. All athletes have to have short memories. You can’t let one loss beat you twice.
Jack Tyler is a great All-ACC linebacker. He’s a guy to look up to, especially for a guy like Rogers.
Frank Beamer
Saturday was a tough loss, and it was disappointing. They didn’t play their best, and they didn’t make some plays. But you move on to the next week. How will the team respond? That’s the issue now. They certainly have a challenge ahead of them this week.
Logan Thomas really cares about the team and he wants to go out on a winning streak. He tries really hard, and sometimes maybe too hard. Everybody could have done something better on Saturday, including Beamer. He takes responsibility, and it’s time to move on to the next game.
Beamer has seen Cody Journell make too many good kicks to lose confidence in him. Beamer thinks he might be thinking about it too much.
Football is a fun game. The Hokies need to play fun, relaxed and loose. They didn’t play their best against Duke. They need to fly around and have some fun.
Beamer anticipates Brandon Facyson playing against BC. He didn’t guarantee it, but he thinks he’ll be back.
Antone Exum didn’t have a lot come at him, but he did ok for his first start. He should be even better as he gets more reps.
There was plenty open in the passing game on Saturday, but the Hokies didn’t take advantage. If they had made some better decisions and some more plays, they could have put up some points.
On a punt, if the ball touches a player is out of bounds then the play has to be stopped by rule. If the Duke player had been inbounds, then it would have been a touchback. But the play can’t keep going when a player out of bounds touches the ball. The ball can’t be redirected by a player out of bounds, so you have to stop the play. That’s why the punt was ruled down at the one on Saturday. It’s a rare play, but it happened on Saturday. It ended up not being an issue, because the Hokies scored.
Beamer thought enough time had passed since the 1994 UVA to wear the All-Orange uniforms again. But he promises this time that it will never happen again.
BC is always a very tough football team. The offensive line is always big and rugged. They emphasize playaction pass and pounding the football. They are a very solid football team. They played their best against FSU and Clemson.
Monday was Day 3,258 of Virginia Tech’s continuous possession of The Commonwealth Cup.
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Journell has to keep his hips in side
So this really was the first time VT wore the hated all orange uniform since the 94 debacle with UVA. How could the equipment staff not remember!
I dont get why Beamer keeps defending CJ. Yes he has made good kicks in the PAST. But he is WAY OFF this year
All you Leal lovers gotta chill out. You act like we have Tom Brady or Peyton Manning on the bench. Logan had a crummy game, but he’s our QB this year. I have more confidence in our passing game right now than the kicking game. No fan has any idea how Leal will do in crunch time, but we won’t find out until next year (unless there is, perish the thought, an injury).
I’m not a Leal lover, I am a common sense lover. And a disruption lover. And how about a fan of change of pace when necessary. Football is about match-ups as much as it is about accuracy. When LT is waaaay off in his accuracy, put Leal in for a series and see how the defense reacts. There is a reason he is the #1 back-up… he is capable and trains to execute at least a set number of plays.
Leal-lover whatever- you are automatically saying he will not succeed, which is a generalization no matter what the situation is on the field (and only an assumption at the same time).
“If you turn the ball over 4 times, you don’t win in the ACC”……Duke did.
He really should have said 6 times…..the 4 INTs plus the 2 missed FGs. Our 6 beat their 4, hence why we lost.
Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!
That series of thank yous were for wvpargolf
Odd, what you write doesn’t sound like the sound bites on the Football Boards. Thanks for transcripting well so we have an idea what the coaches and players really said.
If DJ Coles did not run in illegal motion then we would have had the TD there on the pass play. Also, if Cody had only missed one of those field goals that would have made a big difference. Logan had a bad day throwing the ball but he had a great day running the ball. Logan is our QB. My advice to Logan would be use a little more touch on the short passes. I also don’t understand why we can’t run a toss sweep anymore out of the I formation especially against a team like Duke where we had a speed advantage.
Agree with you 100% about the toss sweep. We should use it a lot more.
dont you think after four years of playing Logan would be able to have some touch on the ball. dont see it changing now
I agree with DCL 100% it’s not going to change when it comes to touch passes and as bad as the previous coaching was I can be sure it’s not the first time he’s heard use some touch instead of being locked and loaded on every pass. Everyone’s so accepting of bad play from Logan Thomas and are so quick to get on anyone who has something bad to say about him, can it be that the coaches were all wrong about him at QB and let’s just be honest if not for our defense we would have had some really bad seasons. If we had any pause on offense the last two season include this one we would be in a better position. On a lot of the read options Logan keeps the ball and he shouldn’t, I don’t care what anyone else have to say about the leave Logan alone syndrome and our offense will not progress until he is gone. Logan won us some games but truth be told if our defense didn’t have to stay on the field repeatedly because of bad offense some of the close games wouldn’t have been. Come on Leal and even Bucky or Ford who ever gets the job post Logan Thomas, I will be so glad to see the team move from this nightmare.
Logan is he QB until he gets injured and Leal will have his chance next season. I’m sure that if Leal was the better fit or better QB that the coaches would start him.
Beamer is loyal, maybe too loyal. There’s a time for loyalty and there’s a time for change despite loyalty. I feel that we should give Leal his chance over the last 4 games – maybe try Logan at tight end. Leal got an offer from Oregon. Does Oregon have a good offense? Ha ha, you betcha. Give Leal a chance please.
One game back in the Division and we want to break in a new quarterback and TE? Not to mention removing our only run threat? Come on man, Leal’s time is coming, but Logan’s the guy now and we have to live with the good and bad.
Why does this come up everytime we have a bad game. Logan had won some games for us. Yes does he make some mistakes, yes, but he wants to be good now. Sometimes I can’t understand some of you guys.
I agree with the tendency to bad mouth someone after a bad game. Logan Had a bad game but will make a comeback. Reminds me of the merciless bashing of Sean Glennon, a good QB who did many good things for us. How quickly we forget.
Has nothing to do with loyalty. This is not High School. You don’t just move people around like that. Logan has prepared his body for QB for the past five years, not TE. In fact he has NEVER played TE….not even in High School. He had a very bad game. It happens to everyone. He is also the unquestioned leader of the team off the field and in the locker room. The other players hold him in high esteem and follow him. There are so many other dynamics at play here that you are not considering. He is the QB this year for better or worse, so get used to it. Leal’s time is coming, just not now.
if Leal wants to start then he should earn it in practice. Logan is the only consistent runner anyway. Just keep improving Hokies and we can sneak into Charlotte. shhh!
How consistent is he when he throw the ball? Until that happens I don’t care about the running and in some ways he is the biggest henderance to the running game. Everyone can keep your love affair with Logan if you want but I for one can’t wait until next year!
Good coverage – I like to read your coverage of the program even when I already listened to it. Good writing. Thkanks
Awesome as usual, Chris — thank you very much! The coaches and players are right — don’t want to have Duke beat them twice, gotta move on…