1) Could some of our offensive/defensive struggle be by design? Could we be treating the first four games as a preseason of sorts? Forcing Kyron Drones to read defenses, testing new personnel and keeping the offense/defense vanilla? Are we figuring things out in the the third quarter, or are we going back to what we already know works? — vtlee

Chris Coleman: I don’t think so. As an example of why I don’t think that’s the case, Virginia Tech is using motion on 76% of its snaps in 2022. That’s a +44% relative usage to the average FBS offense during the 2022 season. (Data from @football_SIS and compiled by @jbuddavis.) In other words, that’s a whole lot of motion and eye candy.

A couple of days before the Vanderbilt game, I saw somebody who I know talks to Brent Pry every week, and Pry had told him that the Commodores were going to play the Hokies tougher than a lot of people expected. He was 100% expecting a fairly tough game (though I believe he did think Tech would win). When that is your expectation, you aren’t going to hold anything back.

One thing that hasn’t happened much so far is the motion man being involved in the play. We saw slot receiver Takye Heath get a carry against Vanderbilt, which went for a good gain, and Jaylin Lane had one carry as well, but that’s it. Sometimes people only notice motion, eye candy or smoke and mirrors when it works or if the motion man gets the ball. When it doesn’t work, they assume that the offense is bland and vanilla. That’s not the case with the Hokies this year. It seems to be the same type of stuff, except it’s not working because teams have been playing Tech a little bit differently.

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