Willis was ridiculously good throwing the football. His passes had great zip, he was decisive, drove the ball into receivers, and was extremely accurate. Not only that, he was leading his receivers perfectly and allowing them to catch at full speed and not break stride. He had 272 passing yards, and should have easily been 325-350. There were a couple drops in there including Tre dropping one that Willis dropped right in his arms that would have been a 40 yard gain. Willis did have 2 bad throws, one where he stared down receiver on an out route that could easily have been a pick 6, and the other where he air mailed a wide open Tayvion Robinson in the end zone. But overall a grade A+ game from Willis throwing the ball.

Speaking of Tayvion, he is the perfect slot receiver for Fuentes system. Fu/Corny can use him on a series of drag, crossing, and quick outs exclusively, and he’s the most dynamic individual players on the team. Outstanding acceleration and quickness, he gets himself open on every play. What a luxury to be able to throw well short of the sticks and still end up with first downs. This is a player with a clear complimentary skill set to our outside threats that will pay dividends all year. Barring injury, he leads this team in receptions. What a find.

The pass interference (or lack thereof) called on the drop ball to Kaleb Smith. Holy hell, what an egregious miss. Absolutely ridiculous miss by the official standing right there, and for the NATT crowd, that was a HUGE swing in the game. They call that appropriately there, Hokies go in and score and it’s 31-10 and the game is over. Sure, one can argue that poop happens, and you have to deal with adversity, and the Defense could have slammed the door and they didn’t, but I would counter with after the ODU score they did handle adversity from there, with an offensive TD and no more scores against. Either way, horrible non- call that played a big factor on final score.

That QB for ODU escaped some serious jams that extended a minimum of 4 drives. I know it’s super frustrating to see QBs get away from 3-4 defenders with clear shots, and trust me I wanted to fire the remote into the wall, but we had defenders in position, and the tackling will improve. It’s a clear change from last year when it seemed like opponents would break one tackle and there was no one else within 10 yards.

One last note, regarding Dax. Watched a lot of him. He’s just one of those guys who seems to absorb full blocks, meaning the blocker always seems to get a huge piece of him. He’s not good at knifing past a blocker or contorting his body such that he doesn’t receive the full brunt of the attack. That’s not to say he didn’t make plays, he did, and he improved as the game went along, but that’s just what I noticed. Once a guy starts to engage him, he’s really bad at shedding the block. Not ideal.

[Post edited by hokiesrule98 at 09/10/2019 11:22AM]