Frank Beamer teleconference: Bruce Taylor iffy for Pitt, Tariq Edwards sounds like he’ll be out
Virginia Tech head coach Frank Beamer held his weekly Monday teleconference today. Here are a few nuggets to come out of it:
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** First up, some very vague injury updates. Linebacker Bruce Taylor is still recovering from an ankle injury suffered against Georgia Tech. The Hokies held him out of the Austin Peay game as a precaution, even though he dressed.
“We’ll see,” Beamer said of Taylor’s condition this week. “I think when you get those ankles, sometimes they just take longer than you expect. So we’ll see.”
As for linebacker Tariq Edwards, who is recovering from minor knee surgery in August, Beamer thinks “he’s working his way back.” It doesn’t sound like he’ll be available for the Pitt game.
Beamer said the Hokies will address everything on the Thursday injury report.
** Beamer didn’t have much explanation for Virginia Tech’s slow starts, calling it “just one of those things.”
The Hokies have gotten in gear with their two-minute offense the last couple of weeks, although Beamer didn’t indicate if they would use more of that this week.
“I think we hurry up like that and Logan {Thomas] is in charge and he seems to function very well in that kind of setting,” he said. “So we’re going to look at all that here in this coming week.”
** Beamer gave this assessment of the offensive line so far: “I think it’s been OK and getting better all the time. I think our athletic ability shows up at times. It’s just got to be a consistent performance.”
** The coaching staff doesn’t have a whole lot of game film to go off of on Pitt, which has only played two games for first-year head coach Paul Chryst, formerly the offensive coordinator of Wisconsin.
“It’s just a lot of unknowns going into this ballgame,” Beamer said. “We don’t have any goal line defense on them. There’s just a lot of unknowns. We have to get ready for a lot of things.”
** Virginia Tech and Pitt, who will be Coastal Division rivals next year, go back to their days in the Big East. Although the Hokies lead the series 7-4, the Panthers were a thorn in their side near the end of that run.
Pitt has won the last three meetings, which took place from 2001-03. The Hokies were ranked in each game, twice in the top five. On two occasions, Pitt was unranked heading into the game.
“We’ve always had respect for them,” Beamer said. “We certainly have respect for them now.”
September 10, 2012 - 12:17 PM
They don’t have any film on Pitts? Why can’t they just log on ESPN3 and run two replays of their games? If I recall, ESPN televised the Pitts/Cincy game last Thursday, and it should be on ESPN3 replay list.
As for the linebackers, I like Jack Tyler, and the more playing time he clocks, the better he is going to get. That kid really get after ya!
That’s two games. There’s not a lot of time to develop tendencies in two games. And like Beamer said, there’s not any goal line defense in either one apparently.
At least Walt Harris is not their coach. He was a thorn in Frank’s side for some reason.
As far as the Hokies’ o-line inconsistency, IIWII. Maybe Stiney needs to get back on the field.
“…we don’t have any goal line defense on them…” That’s funny on Coach Beamer’s part. That could almost become bulletin board material if Pitt could do something about it! On the other hand it might be inspirational to the defense to know that we have to guess at what they are going to do everytime we are at their goal line. As long as the Hokies maintain respect for this team as they have this year with the others, I look for another win.
Frank really said we don’t have a goal line defense for Pitt?
That should compliment the fact that we don’t have a goal line offense for them either. Or anybody else…..
Goal line defense, which one are we talking about, Pitts or the opponent. Pitt hasn’t shown any and their opponents haven’t needed any. No big analysis there. Sometimes they try to over analyze the game. Just play good ole smash mouth football on both sides of the ball and let the game fall in place. As to the teams slow start, Tech has always come out of the gate slow and the only constant is the coaching staff. They just can’t seem to get the team ready to go early. On the other hand, as much as they say about change, the more we stay the same. To prepare for Tech you can watch game film from 10 years ago and hit your game plan on the button.
PIT: Big and Slow. Really slow. Their best guy got caught from behind by CIN linemen.
VT: Big and Fast.
PIT: Cannot pass block quick guys on the outside.
PIT: Cannot run block.
PIT: When in doubt, have Chambers run. He is the guy who gets caught from behind.
PIT: Strong guys up front could overwhelm pass blocking. Thomas will break contain every time but don’t use it as a designed play because PIT is s o s l o w up front they might stop it by accident. Especially QB draws. Better to go to a rolling pocket.
My game plan: Blitz on D every down the first 3 series. Bring the house on 3rd and long. They could not pass block CIN at all. Throw 2 out of 3 plays the first half. They cannot cover fast guys on the weak side. Use the counter trey on short yardage. Don’t send Thomas on sneaks, they will stack for that. Try an option or two during the second series. They are not fast enough to cover. Spread the field all you can because they are slow.
CIN is little and fast. They blew PIT up with speed.
12 1/2 is not enough points. This is a 4 TD game. PIT stinks.
Zman,
Question 4 u:
How many VT defenders did the AP running back shed on their TD drive?
I agree that VT should blow Pitt out of the water, but sometimes things don’t go as they should on paper against certain opponents (remember, when VT lost 38-7 to Pitt in 2001, Pitt stunk that year). Like when VT lost to a terrible Syracuse team at the Carrier Dome in 2002. And barely escaped Syracuse’s Carrier Dome in 2000 *with Michael Vick at QB*.
I’m glad that Beamer takes Pitt seriously. And not just lip service, either.
Baxter,
The problem is that most of what FB is doing is coverage in case VT doesn’t play well. They will handle prep on this game like any other one.
Beamer has to make up something to make it sound like we should fear Pitt, so he went with the ‘goal line defense’ ploy. Pitt has scored on a 9 yd pass & a 4 yd run in their two games. Otherwise, everything has been from outside the red zone. I found that out in one minute on ESPN, so I’m sure Beamer could get one of his assistants to log onto the world wide internet and research that for him, if he weren’t intent on pretending Pitt is fearsome.
Pitt is horrible, and we aren’t that good. Hokies 35 Pitt 7.
I think he was referring to goal line defense that Pitt has played, which hasn’t been much.
Pitt gave up TDs of 27, 14, 23 and 13 yards to Youngstown State and TDs of 58, 15, 9 and 12 yards to Cincinnati. So no, that’s not a lot of — or any — goal line snaps to look at.
That said, yes, Pitt is horrible.
We should do some of those trick plays like what Auburn did a couple of years ago. (1)4 men side by side on KO return. One caught it, then all turned their backs to the oncoming rush, then all 4 split in 4 different directions. They had no idea who had the ball, and it went for about a 45 yd return as I remember. (2) Onside kick on the first KO of the game. Really took the opponent by surprise…Auburn caught their KO about 12 yds out and took it downfield….might have been a TD, I don’t remember. We need to fake better.
Yeah, maybe Beamer could do something like a fake rugby punt/run option, and pretend it’s up to the backup punter to decide what to do. That would work, for sure!