I Don't Know What to Think

My blog title comes from some of my text exchanges with other close Irish fans during the game yesterday.  Somehow we pulled a win out of our hat when the chips were down (way down!) yet I cannot help this feeling of dread, both about the future and the poor performance on both sides of the ball.

Okay, you have to give Virginia props for the great game.  As usual, it was a game of the century for another opponent and the place was rocking even though we tried to shut them up early.  Another nobody quarterback puts in a Heisman worthy performance against us (Johns was 26/38 for almost 300 yards in the air!) and both lines got out muscled on key plays in the game.  How does that happen?  Can't blame jet lag for that one.  The Colonel nailed it when he stated Virginia was consistently winning the "want to" game over our boys.

Heroes

DeShone Kizer - 8/12, 92 yards and 2 touchdowns.  Not bad for a kid who has never really played and all accomplished in the most trying of circumstances.  Hoping this gives him the courage and confidence to sling it in the coming weeks because the QB spot has to play well for us to win.

Will Fuller - This guy keeps playing like this and he is a Biletnekoff award winner for sure.  Basically won the game because of his two td catches.  Incredible speed and route running, will have to be double covered going forward which will open up some other things.

Procise - 9 yards per carry and a lot of hard headed running.  Would like to see him convert more 3rd downs but overall a great day and we can expect to see him carrying the ball A LOT more in the coming weeks.

Goats

Brian Van Gorder - I felt we were out schemed by the Virgina offense throughout the game.  We could not get consistent pressure on the QB Johns and our lack of speed on the edge was exposed on jet sweeps and reverses several times.  I did not see a lot of missed tackles but did see poor coverages and guys out of place.  That is coaching and play calling in my view.  We had the athletes but gave up over 400 yards and 27 points to an ACC bottom feeder.  C'mon!  GT will absolutely cream us next week if the defense does not step up.

Malik Zaire - Love the kid and I am absolutely crushed that his season has ended both for him and the team.  But he was 7/18 passing and did not respond well to the pressure.  Seemed out of synch in the first half in particular.  One bomb to Fuller was mostly Fuller.  Malik ran well but not on third down when we needed to convert a few short plays.  Kizer may have made the biggest play of the game when he ran for 4 yards on 4th down to buy us one more set of downs.

Offensive Line - ZERO for TEN on 3rd downs!  Absolutely ridiculous to say the least.  With this line and our backs, including Zaire, we should be over 50 percent against Virginia.  This is the stat that kept Virginia in the game and kept destroying our momentum.  Also, the line let pressure get to Malik too often and simply got out muscled on short yardage.  We had 460 yards of offense so obviously a lot of our plays worked but not at critical moments that could have changed the course of the game.  Take away 100 yards on two Fuller pass plays and we don't look so hot.

Now we face the hardest part of our schedule with basically our 3rd string QB and RB.  What are the odds of that set of injuries and player departures?  If we somehow pull out a great year it will go down as one of the best "against all odds" stories of all time.  Unfortunately I feel that we are in for some big trouble without Malik.  He was just too important in the overall scheme for the big games against GT, Clemson, USC and Stanford.  The nightmare scenario is that we lose all those games and perhaps one other in an upset and chalk up another 7-5 minor bowl bid year for Kelly.  Not his fault but it won't look good for anyone. 

The good news is that that the subs stepped up yesterday and confidence is the secret sauce in college football.  The adversity could make the team stronger and better, particularly if they learn from the weak points of the performance yesterday.  Next week will tell us a lot about this team and this year.  Fasten your seat belts for Tech.

GO IRISH!  Beat Yellow Jackets!

The Godfather