Great conversations over the last two days sorry I missed most of it. I took two “sick days” from vt football (the first days off in probably 2 years)…so I spent 48 hours doing what I usually do…programming my brains out. I decided to channel my anger into a new feature for FanFoc.us called “GameZone” – basically a live chatroom for games. It will have controls to punish belligerent fans and a fun “game” where the best comments from fans get emphasized.
I actually spent a ton of time reflecting on the game. I’ve identified a number of things that bugged me in the game – mistakes on special teams, tough day on defense (weak pressure from the dline, suspect secondary play and terrible tackling), bad clock management and a really rough day on offense. It’s hard to know specifically who to blame for each of the issues above – but obviously Beamer, Foster, Stinespring are all at least partially to blame.
We all know VT could have won this game. Losing to ECU is not inexcusable but after similar issues in a number of recent high profile games…something is wrong. I feel that overall Frank Beamer and Bud Foster have held up their ends of the bargain. Foster is a no brainer and while I hear the complaints from some of the hokie faithful about Beamer …many of the issues in my list above do come from the top. But you know what else comes from the top? An average of 9.5 wins a season for the last 11 years. There is no way I ignore the overall body of work and I will fully support Beamer for the foreseeable future.
Which leads us to what I believe is the root of the problem – the offense. In all our heartbreaking losses, our offense has come up short – in many cases (as was the case on Saturday) been pathetic. The numbers back me up, this is not a sporadic problem; the offensive problems not limited to specific seasons, individual players or recruiting classes – it has been a trend since stiney took over at offensive coordinator.
I have decided that Bryan Stinespring is the weak link in the VT coaching staff and this needs to be addresses now. Let’s face it, Beamer is no spring chicken and the next 5 years will probably decide his coaching legacy. I am not calling for Stinespring’s head or resignation…in all by the most extreme of cases, changing a coordinator early in the season is ludicrous. Still, Beamer needs to do something now. What would I do? I would let the hokie nation know that I am taking this seriously and address a ton of questions by publically putting Stinespring on notice. Set known benchmarks that state your expectations for the offense – we can then talk about the results after the season but it should be clear that the performance has been unacceptable and people’s jobs are on the line.
This team is proud and still has a lot to play for – my goal is to start addressing the problems now and head off the circus that we all know is ahead if the bad play continues.