Virginia Tech Spring Game Video Review, Part 2: The Schemes

Virginia Tech
Today we’ll look at some offensive and defensive schemes from the Virginia Tech Spring Game. (Jon Fleming)

The Spring Game finally pulled back the curtains on what Virginia Tech has been working on. In the big picture, we saw stripped down versions of the Joe Morehead offense and the Brent Pry defense. That’s what I expected to see, though I’ll admit to feeling a little relief—after writing thousands of words on these schemes, it’d be just my luck to see them roll out with something completely different.

Superficially, the offense and defense didn’t look very different from what Tech trotted out in the Fuente era. The offense had a lot of spread-gun formations with a TE at wingback, while the defense had personnel and alignments on the field that were almost identical to what we saw last year. The big differences—reads, terminology, play-calling, etc.—are “under the hood.” Still, there were some key things I looked for, both in terms of what I expected in play calls and the limitations inherent to a Spring Game.

Virginia Tech Offense 

Inside Zone Reigns Supreme

I didn’t chart plays, but just about every running call in the first half was a version of Inside Zone. I think I’ll do a piece just on this play in a little bit because it’s that stinkin’ important. But for now, think of Inside Zone as the Swiss Army knife of football plays because of how adaptable it is. It was the core of the Morehead offense, and it was an even greater part of Coach Glenn’s offense. Here, it forms part of a triple-option call:

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