2008.12.09
Groh will be only OC to go
Offensive coordinators have been a hot topic in the commonwealth this fall, not to mention the newsroom. Brian Kelley, one of our sharp-witted news editors, offered this observation today: Now that Mike Groh is gone, if Bryan Stinespring goes too, maybe they could start a consulting business for offensive coaches and call it “Three And Out.” Brian is a UVa man who I’ve never seen in the office without a necktie, including the traditional blue and orange one he wore the Friday before the UVa-Tech game. Well, Stinespring isn’t going anywhere. You don’t fire coaches when you win a conference title. Still, it was a good line. Better than the ones who lined up to block most of the season for Groh and Stinespring.
— Jeff Gilbert
RSS feed 
Dumping Stinespring after this season would not make sense for another reason: VT lost almost every experienced player on offense. Be it graduation or injuries, the VT offense was saddled with major problems, play calling aside. The fact that they still went 9-4 and won the ACC, despite not really having any WR threats, a weak offensive line, and a running attack that was sometimes spotty...I think they did very well. Now, if the offensive numbers don't improve next year with everyone having more experience and a better chance to work as a unit, then I think some changes may be needed to breathe life into the offense.
Comment by Other John — December 9, 2008 @ 1:57 pm
While you can blame this years poor offensive numbers on inexperience, you cannot use that excuse for his previous years. This is his 7th year and his offense has ranked better then 57th once. The best ranking the unit has had in the last three years has been 99 and there was plenty of talent on the team those years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Stinespring). I respect Coach Beamer’s loyalty to his coaches but it may be time for a change. At some point someone will give Bud Foster a chance at head coach and at that point there will be no guarantees that the defense will be able to make up for a lack of offense.
Comment by Ready for a change — December 9, 2008 @ 2:18 pm
I'd like to offer a different take on the Stinespring situation. RT had an excellent commentary recently on how a team lives/dies with the O-line. Now, we were clearly a better offense under Ricky Bustle, and let's not forget that part of Bustle's great offenses was a great O line, and that was coached by none other than Stiney. I think all would agree the O line of at least last three years has been poor (just ask Glennon). So maybe the problem is not so much that he's a bad coordinator as it is that he left a position he was really good at. Just a thought.
Comment by Okie Hokie — December 9, 2008 @ 5:40 pm
Don't give me the Stinespring had inexperienced players argument. Well last year, he had four offensive players drafted to the NFL (Brown, Royal, Morgan, Harper) and his offense still finished in the bottom 10% of his profession.
Stingspring is worthless with talent or with inexperienced players (it does not matter).
Webster's definition of cronyism: "partiality to cronies esp. as evidenced in the appointment of political hangers-on to office without regards to their qualification."
This sound to me like what happened back in 2001 when Beamer hired Stiney (with zero qualifications) for the OC job at Tech. With 3 consecutuve years with the VT offense at 100+ ranking, enough is enough. Time for the Beamer cronyism to stop.
PS. The reason the Hokies have won back-to-back ACC championships is Foster's defense (which has been a top 10 defense for the past 5 years straight). I quote ESPN: "Coach Foster is the man behind the machine in VT winning the ACC this year." I think this Wizard of Oz analogy speaks for itself.
Fire Stinespring! Weaver show some backbone this year.
Comment by hokie nation — December 9, 2008 @ 7:43 pm
I have come to the realization that Stinespring will not be fired this year, thank you Georgia Tech. I have dropped that cause and started pushing to remove the National Championship Trophy Case. Beamer and some fans have become content with 10 wins or backing our way into an ACC Championship. Since we are completely happy with winning the ACC the way we did, there is no chance we will ever win a National Championship. To win a National Championship you must have good special teams, a quality defense and a great offense. Beamers philosophy is Special Teams and Defense. Weaver and Beamer just aren’t interested in winning a National Championship. So we need to quit lying to the recruits and let them know our goal is 10 wins and an ACC Championship. Maybe we have a trophy case just for that. Florida offense rank 18, Oklahoma offense rank 3. VT rank 107.
Comment by Realistic — December 10, 2008 @ 7:52 am
I understand that it isn't all about yards, Lets look at scoring offense, Because somestimes the team that scores the most wins.
Oklahoma = 1
Florida = 3
VT = 89
Thats "whack" The VT offense is just fine.
Here is what is "whack"
Replace 7 Starters on Defense.
Total Defense Rank
VT = 7
Florida = 9
Oklahoma = 65
Comment by Realistic — December 10, 2008 @ 8:24 am
While many, many Virginia Tech fans want a change in the offensive coordinator of the football team, do not look for it to happen. It seems now as it always has seemed, that as long as the team wins that no changes will be made it the coaching staff. Many fans are correct that when Bryan Stinespring was hired into the position that he had no experience at the position and that he may not have been qualified for the job, he had not been a coordinator before this job. Fans are correct to point out the low ranking of the Tech offense. The low national ranking is a fact that can not be denied. As always a fact is a fact, and the fact is that the offense is ranked very low year after year. There probably will not be a change in the position now, we have just won the conference championship and are in a BCS bowl game. There are many players returning next year on offense and there is a highly rated back in school that is a redshirt freshman who will be playing next year. There is a highly rated running back recruited for next year and a highly rated tight end that might play wide receiver for us. There are two quarterback prospects that we are recruiting that are highly rated and if we get one or both of them we will have a lot of talented players on offense. The real issue is that will that result in our offense being improved and more productive. If it is not improved after this something will have to be done. The reason for that is that if we are to be a powerful nationally ranked team and a possible national championship contender the offense must improve. If it does not improve and help take the team to bigger and better places, there may not be many more chances for such success of this nature. Good players will look at the situation and think that if the talented players that were at Tech ahead of them were not successful then why should they sign on with Tech and have their talents wasted. Then we as Tech fans and the Tech team would be in a tough situation, a situation that might not ever get better for a long time, if ever. Other teams would pass us by and we would be left behind. That is the real reason for concern about the offensive coordinator position at Virginia Tech. GO HOKIES!!!
Comment by Frank — December 10, 2008 @ 8:52 am
It's not enough just to win, this was not a winning year for us. Four losses is not a winning season for the college football elite. We had our chance to win the division outright and did not. If Beamer and Weaver say that because we win the ACC and even win the orange bowl that the offence does not need change then there's your problem. Go back through the season and count the scores we had on defence and the scores we had set up by a big defensive play. To get to the level of the Florida's, Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio State, USC. We have to have an OC with big game and big time experience.
Comment by Golfman2 — December 10, 2008 @ 10:03 am
It certainly is admirable that we got where we are today and where we will be on 1/1/09. That is not, however, to say that it all was due to the adequacy of the O-line and/or the play calling. Some was and some was due to luck and the bad fortunes of others.
I understand the desire to want to be able to "run" when everyone can guess that is what will happen. A team would love to know they could have their way with the defense. I don't think we're that team right now. A smarter thing to do would have been to adjust, even to a large degree, the play book to the talent level that could be fielded. Maybe those types of adjustments are incompatible with the capabilitiy of the players to make such adjustments week to week. But maybe there is some intransigence by the OC to go very far astray from what the boss wants.
Comment by Al — December 10, 2008 @ 11:46 am
Disagreed with you there Frank.
Whenever you see incompetance in an organization, you have to remove it. You do not want that incompetance to spread to the other parts of the organization. Incompetance is a cancer.
We've been fortunate at Tech because we have a firewall called Coach Foster that will not let that incompetance seep into the his defense. If we ever lose Coach Foster this very well could happen.
If Coach Foster ever did leave, Stinespring would lose his insurance plan of only having to field an offense with a pulse.
The Hokies deserve better that an offense in the bottom 10% of the nation three years in a row. Especially when our defense has been in the 10% for five years running.
Coach Hite at the end of the ACC Championship bragged about how the VT staff has about 89 years experience between them. That each member knows what the other members are thinking. I say that in some aspects a very bad thing. In my mind that shows a very stagnant environment where new ideas and new thinking have a hard time seeing the light of day. I can honestly say that after seeing the Stinespring offense for 7 years that they are zoid of new ideas. If he didn't have folks like Taylor out there just making plays out of his running, our offense would be even more pedestrian.
Yes, incompetance must be removed from an organization. Stinespring's incompetance is clearly obvious to all after 7 years.
Will Beamer allow the cronyism to continue?
Will Weaver allow the cronyism to continue?
Comment by hokie nation — December 10, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
As we know, this is the third year that Tech has had a pathetic offense. Not to defend Stinespring, but is it just a coincidence that this is the third year for the O line coach (Kurt Newsome), the WR coach (Kevin Sherman), and the QB coach (Mike O'Cain)? This suggests to me that the problem with Tech's offense is not solely due to Stinespring.
Comment by Karrl — December 10, 2008 @ 1:40 pm
Hokie nation and others are right, and I know it just as they do. If we are ever to reach the places nationally that we want to reach, this offense is not going to get us there. My statement is that I do not think that a change will be made in the offense. I really don't think so, that doesn't mean that a change should not be made. It seems very clear to everyone that as long as we win games that a change will not be made. It is also clear to everyone that for us to go to higher places that changes will have to be made. We are capable of much more with our program at Virginia Tech and we know it. We also know that it would not take a very lot for us to go to higher places. I always enjoy reading everyone's comments. Please sent more of them for me to read. GO HOKIES!!!
Comment by Frank — December 11, 2008 @ 7:54 pm
My favorite comment above is: "It's not enough just to win, this was not a winning year for us."
Yeah, Tech didn't contend for a national championship, but they were ACC champions for the second straight year. They could fire their offensive co-ordinator. They could fire the head coach. They could replace them both.
But other teams are trying to win too, at the same time that Virginia Tech is. Tech doesn't have a monopoly on good players.
But what if they wound up like Notre Dame, a program that just keeps going down, down, down, down down? Other than Lou Holtz' championship year it's gone down now for 34 years if you look at their won-loss records.
Comment by Nelson — December 14, 2008 @ 10:57 am
Frank I have to point out that you cannot always expect great things out of recruits. Take Elan Lewis for example if you remember him. He went to the Army All American game as a senior in high school, a very highly touted running back, but once he got here to Blacksburg he was hampered by injuries his entire career and eventually left for a division 2 or 3 school.
Basically every viewpoint on the subject matter has been covered though. As pointed out O'Cain is one of the worst quarterbacks coaches in the nation. Hite is not very good either, but the talent he has to work with is making him look better. Newsome is not great either, but he is a good recruiter so thats probably the main reason he is even being used.
I feel it is time for a change, but only Beamer knows when that time will be.
Comment by hokiefan — December 14, 2008 @ 11:57 pm