1) After watching some replays and reading Brandon Patterson’s article (specifically first two videos), it seemed ODU was selling out to stop the run by sending all their LBs forward at the snap. On those plays, is it on Wells to read the defense and pull the ball back to run it himself or throw it? Or are they designed handoffs? – Lumbee09

Chris Coleman: If some of those plays were read options, then yes, there were times when Wells probably should have kept it. However, unless we know the actual Virginia Tech playbook, we don’t have any idea of knowing whether those are read options or designed handoffs all the way.

It can be reversed as well. For example, on the Logan Thomas touchdown run to beat Miami in 2011, that play appeared to be a read option with David Wilson as the running back. That wasn’t the case, because the coaches admitted after the game that it was a quarterback keeper all the way, and that the fake handoff to Wilson was simply used as a decoy the freeze the linebackers and safety. Thomas was not given the option to hand it off. It looked like a read option, but it wasn’t.

With that in mind, I can’t tell you whether those are read options or designed handoffs to the running back. I can only guess, and my guess is that the vast majority of them were designed handoffs. I’m basing that guess on last season. We didn’t see Wells carry it on designed runs very often for most of the season, but once it became clearly obvious that the Hokies couldn’t run the football, the coaching staff began putting it in his hands a little more often.

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