Virginia Tech-ODU Review: Struggles In The Running Game

I hyped most of the transfers pretty hard in my scouting reports, and against ODU all my top guys showed why I thought they’d be such big improvements over what we saw last year. Ali Jennings was all over the place. I mean, he turned a “now” screen—a covered now screen—into a touchdown. I don’t think Tech was capable of that last year. Jaylin Lane was nifty, Felton looked like a matchup problem outside, Antwaun Powell-Ryland was harassing the quarterback all night, and Tuten showed the blend of power and agility that gave a good Duke defense fits last year.

And boy, was Tuten’s work not appreciated by the message boards. Even with the broadcast crew pumping him up, Tuten got slagged. Nevermind ODU was lining up determined to stop the run, that Tech’s blocking was lousy, and ODU was keying the alignment for zone runs. Fifty-five yards on the ground for a 2.9 yards/carry average isn’t great on its own, but forty of those yards came after contact. Imagine if things held up just enough to where he was juking those guys in the second level, or, I don’t know, anywhere but his own backfield.

The fans have come around, but I’m still going to put an exclamation point on how hard Tuten had to work for his yards. On this first-down play, ODU knows exactly what’s coming here as they crash the Zone Read:

The Monarchs were hellbent on stopping the run. Here, they are basically man across the board, leaving the three receivers in one-on-one coverage. There’s an ostensible safety to the boundary, but assignment-wise, he’s basically a deep linebacker since there’s no receiving threat to his side. Tech’s almost running into an eight-man front where every blocker and potential runner has a corresponding defender. And not only that, but ODU’s running a scrape exchange designed specifically to stop the Zone Read. Last, Tuten is aligned tight and behind Wells. This makes the run more threatening and quicker, but to keep up with the read, Wells has to buy himself more time by stepping with the mesh, which makes a passing play tougher. That’s pretty common—you saw the same thing if you watched the LSU/FSU game—but Tech did almost all of their running from this alignment/mesh, and ODU looked like they were keying hard on it….