The Duke’s Mayo Bowl is just a few days away, and rather than wait until after the game is played it’s probably more accurate to assess the 2024 season. Why might you ask? The game could produce a winning record and show something for 2025. The answer? The Pinstripe Bowl. Ugh!

While not tipping the hat for the predictions article for the bowl game, there isn’t too much rational hope of a big grand performance, and the likelihood of a losing season is the greater probability. Even the wise guys have balanced their books with a touchdown plus advantage given to the Golden Gophers. Tech’s transfer/graduation depleted roster, missing staff, and critical injury hits has pretty much guaranteed a struggle bus effort. The biggest hope will remain that Minnesota’s end-of-season situation finds them in similar shape. But we will go over those details in the next piece. This one is about the season as a whole, and the situation as the transfer portal moves are finalized.

Unrealized or Unrealistic Expectations

Face it, all but a few of us out there had a hope for a solid performance out of the 2024 Hokies at the dawn of the season. The team had a load of returning talent, and it seemed that the pathos had finally risen to the level of the ethos of “Enter Sandman”. Most of the more reticent and rational fanbase saw the hope of an 8 and 4, or 9 and 3 season as a distinct possibility. There were some who saw the ceiling as high as 10 regular season wins. There were some, very few I might add, negative or par feeling fans whose floor and ceiling ratings topped out at 6 wins and even saw worse. The sad truth is that they had the better grip on realistic expectations. Perhaps for some of the wrong reasons, but they ended up right, and those of us “seeing” good things were talking ourselves into something.

We have already gone through thorough breakdowns in game specific articles so trudging through each individual contest result is just repetitive detail, however there is, in review, a list of themes that just won’t go away. The 2024 Hokies had a few bright spots in the season, but by and large the weaknesses counterweighted any good things that could be generated. Let’s look at the categories and break them down instead of just focusing on specific gripes. We’ll attack this in general categories highlighting the issues; offense, defense, and coaching.

The Offense Didn’t Work

Okay, it did work, sometimes, but winning consistently means playing consistently, and coaching consistently. We will go over the coaching aspect later, but let’s go over the general performance level and effort. When the offense needed to step up and make do with what they were handed, it more often than not could not execute. Without going into pointing fingers, because the reasons for being overmatched or shut down are more often than not very complex, the Hokie 2024 offense underperformed on the field in critical situations.

Wow, that was a mouthful but it’s illustrative of the problem. There was so much inconsistency and lack of cohesion that some games you just wondered if the players wanted to be there, at all. That’s a tough statement, but the reality is that emotional mindsets can dictate the success or failure in a game, a block of games, or a season. Whatever the external reason, the truth is that core units within the offense didn’t seem to be playing together with other units. This situation is often governed by the biggest, and arguably the most important unit of the entire football team, and that is the offensive line.

Maybe as the season wore on, and the intents to hit the bricks after the portal door opened created the inevitable “self-preservation” emotional switch, or some other level of consistency that seemed missing, the offensive line just could never find a combined level of play that sustained the offense through the season and even from game to game. Again, we’ll talk about coaching later, but this one has to be on the players both individually and as a group.

Personal and Group Responsibility

This isn’t high school, and it’s also not the pros, but at some point, in any season, leaders need to develop out of the players in the depth chart within each squad. The ‘C’ on the jersey is an indicator of the coaches’ designations, but there are “official” leaders and “real” leaders in any locker room. Those are often the guys behind the scenes, they provide the emotional and skill glue that holds a squad together and there might be more than one of them.

Regardless of the “public” front and personal protestations that might arise from the observation, the 2024 offensive line just did not work together consistently or well. There were games where you could see as personnel shifted in and out that the line was performing better or worse. The fact remains that the starting offensive line did not work well together. The reality that you could see a quarter-to-quarter improvement in performance as the players on the field shifted away from the “starters” that maybe there needed to be some adjustments in both intrasquad relationships, and some serious combined work done with the other offensive squads to find the best combinations of skills and personalities.

What is completely obvious is that the selected starters just didn’t play together well. There might have been individual skill sets that gave them playing grades that provided them depth status, but their contribution to the unit grade was not evident. The loss of a critical left tackle (offensive line captain) and starting center to the transfer portal was testament enough. Offensive lineman are not big presences in the portal, and when a team loses starters to the desire to go somewhere else, the facts are self-revealing. For those actual and presumed leaders to head for the door is a bi-directional failure of both coaching and their individual desire and effectiveness regarding peer leadership. The obvious need for coaching changes has been partially met, but the results remain to be seen since there weren’t enough systemic changes to feel comfortable with further detailed evaluations.

Disappointments In the Skill Positions

The receiver room had some serious issues this season. With the line unable to generate a pocket that lasted more than 4 seconds, it was critical for name receivers to get separation and provide fast targets for the quarterbacks playing. The reality was that only two receivers and a tight end out of the mix in the receiver room managed to be consistently good, and two of them, Stephen Gosnell and Jaylin Lane are out of eligibility. Tucker Holloway presented a major level of disappointment because of his season ending injury, the possibilities of having the Gosnells, Holloway, and Lane on the field at the same time would have been a serious challenge for opposing teams to cover.

The general disappointment came from the fall off in performance from the outside receivers. There was a definite lack of natural coordination between them and the quarterbacks. That was depressing enough, but the tendency to drop balls, or muff contested balls in traffic ended promising drives. Now, admittedly the situations were set up by terrible play calling and that problematic offensive line play but that’s often the job of a wideout. Those clutch catches keep drives alive for the teams with much better records. The Tech receiving corps could have been better this season and that clutch consistency just never developed.

There might be a few people who aren’t disappointed, by the quarterback play for 2024. The expectations coming into the season were sky high, and the evidence on the field tended to support that confidence. Reality struck as a surprisingly good Vanderbilt team running New Mexico State’s offense… from OC to Quarterback and more… stomped on the accelerator and Tech barely caught up to tie the game in regulation. The hole in the offensive scheme appeared as the first overtime game of the 2024 season for the team. There was no speed, downfield passing offense. The big “huh?” hit like a midnight freight without horns or lights. Kyron Drones’ last appearances on the field for 2023 gave the fan base hope that a much-needed piece of the offensive puzzle had finally been found, and Tech was finally capable of a sustained intermediate yardage attack. That all evaporated in game one.

Who was responsible for the precipitous fall off in Drones’ performance (both anticipated and actual)? We’ll talk about the coaching angle shortly, but there was something wrong with his performance from the first game. He seemed behind the play development on the field, and a step slower than he needed to be. In addition, his passing accuracy, admittedly sort of “minute of man” had hit the ground like a turf rocket pass. We now have become aware that Drones was struggling with an accelerating level of injury over the course of the season. That first game performance begs the question of when that first injury tripped off the cascade of issues. By the middle of the season, Drones was struggling physically and that was having a seriously negative effect on his overall performance.

The next directly related problem bloomed and coughed up another quarterback room meltdown with the injury to veteran backup Collin Schlee. With Drones in a walking boot (and later seen in a leg brace) on the sideline, Tech entered the final critical games of the season with a very capable backup in Schlee, except that he was also operating the same quarterback crippling offense that Drones was operating. It took just a game and a half to knock him out of the starting depth chart with some sort of unannounced, but probable leg, injury.

William “Pop” Watson played well enough to rescue the season against a fairly hapless Wahoo defense, but he was still running too much, and there were serious issues with the type of offense being deployed with a very small in stature quarterback.

Since the end of the season, Drones has announced his return to the Hokie locker room, and Watson is still with the team, but in either player’s case, there have to be substantive changes to the offensive scheme, or they are likely to end up in the same situation as 2024 for 2025.

The Bright Offensive Exception, Tempered by Reality

The one very bright spot in the offensive skill positions is leaving the team because of exhausted eligibility. His backup, also a bright spot, hit the portal for his own reasons and brought with it a fair amount of disappointment because the running back room was probably the healthiest and best coached squad on offense. Bhayshul Tuten came to Tech with a solid reputation in the HBCU ranks from North Carolina A&T. Note, he’s the first player that I have mentioned by name in this piece, because he is also one of the sole bright spots on the offense. Tuten is an “old school” player. A leader on the field, and his addition to the Tech roster was special. His personal toughness, relentlessness, and skills often ended up making critical differences in many games.

Replacing a tremendous talent and teammate like Bhayshul Tuten is going to be difficult. The moves to recruit new running back talent from the portal demonstrates that grinding need. The ready players down on the depth chart for the running backs are promising, but only one looks like a starter. Tech has a very capable running back coach in Elijah Brooks, so we’ll see how the new additions to the team fit in and make an impact.

The Defense Worked, Partially

We all know about the firing of the 2022-2024 Hokie Defensive Coordinator Chris Marve. That departure was exceedingly sudden after the season and before the Bowl game, so either it was a rip off the band-aid move or something else was going on behind the scenes. It was a mentor/mentee relationship with Pry so the events going on behind the curtain couldn’t have been very good. Frankly, (and many people disagree with me, I understand but stand by my analysis) Marve was not the problem, here. He might have been a convenient scapegoat, but Tech’s defense was not the most troubled unit on the field for the season. Marve did make some mistakes calling some critical series in the season that allowed for teams to come back, or failed to get stops when they were important, but that’s also on the players on the field, and most specifically on an offense that bye and large could not produce consistent drives. The 2024 Tech offense was a “Three and Out” machine and I will stand by that observation. When Tech needed to drive to gain at least a few first downs, the offensive scheme of ran plays into the teeth of defenses, at the line of scrimmage, resulted in too many 3^rd and impossible situations. The lack of an intermediate passing capability nearly guaranteed a failed drive and a punt.

So, what does that have to do with Marve’s defense? Simply everything. If the offense scores, the defense doesn’t absolutely need a stop. If the offense drives the ball down the field consistently it burns clock and limits the opposition’s opportunities to score points themselves. If the offense controls the pace and tempo of the game, the defense can also step up their pressure schemes without getting wrapped around a post about getting burned by a deep throw. That means the DC is less likely to call up “prevent” defense schemes that don’t provide enough pressure to stop the play before it develops. The old aphorism paraphrased by – a good defense is an effective offense – is an absolute truism for this one.

Tech’s defense had one of the team’s other really good squads, and that was the defensive line. We won’t go into all of the specifics, but J.C. Price’s defensive line was a nearly 3-deep stand-out unit that shined from the #1s all the way back to the #3s. Price could sub in and sub out without losing on-field talent levels. He had arguably the best pass rusher in college football, and a solid internal group of tackles who could close down run alleys and put natural pressure on the quarterback. That allowed the linebackers (including the STAR position) to concentrate on covering passes under the zone and keeping the breakaways to a minimum.

The Linebackers Got Better, to a Degree

Where Tech’s defense had its struggles was in the mid-field. The starting linebackers for the first half of the season were still having run fit problems and add to that even with the better line pressure, they just could not manage to cover the 3 second intermediate passing game to save their lives. They did improve near the end of the season as new talent finally began to catch, get the idea of how and where to play, and execute on the field, but Tech never really managed to develop a Mike linebacker. Their portal attempt fizzled and most of the existing capable talent were too small (read- outside linebackers/strong safeties) to effectively dominate the A-gap coverage either in the pass rush or under the zone.

Tech’s secondary had some talent developing, and the cornerbacks were at various grades above B+ but even then, they were more often than not set on islands to cover man-to-man with no help and victimized by having no Safety over the top when the inevitable happened. The fact on the field remains that when the defensive line lost control of the A-gap (in combination with the Mike Linebacker who is supposed to be responsible for that area assignment), bad things happened.

Again, though this season the defense’s weaknesses were only highlighted by the offense’s inability to drive, thus keeping the defense on the field for too long. Tech just had serious difficulty getting stops on 3^rd and long and 3^rd and medium because it just couldn’t effectively and consistently cover intermediate passing routes and stop the 3-second downfield passing plays under the zone and on the out routes. Most of that rests on the offense not having that sort of scheme. If it’s not seen in practice, routinely, the muscle memory is not there and 3 second passing plays are brutally difficult to stop without the defenders operating in virtually automatic mode.

The knee-jerk reaction for most DC’s is to play cover and rush only three linemen with an occasional opportunistic blitz, but that’s a prevent defense situation, and a quarterback who can hit a play in 3 seconds is definitely capable of waiting, with no rush pressure, for something more effective to develop downfield as the rush pressure breaks down and the coverage gets stirred up, confused, and allows an open man with a big play on his mind.

Unfortunately for the Hokies that “cover out” methodology was employed too often and many times far too early in the game progression. A reasonably talented QB with a few good receivers can cut that defense apart, march down the field, and get into scoring position within a few plays. Chronic three-and-out offensive efforts merely accelerates the pressure to try to sit on a lead on the defensive side of the ball. It’s a self-reinforcing feedback loop of doom. Most offenses, college or even pro, are better and more enabled by the rules than defenses. Tech saw too many leads evaporate because neither side of the ball performed adequately long enough to be effective.

Which All Leads to a Major Coaching Issue

Brent Pry came back to Blacksburg with high hopes, but under a major cloud. Tech was nearly out of Granny’s inheritance money having had to shell out a huge chunk to the prior regime. It also had several times in the past, promised a whole lot of dough to a whole lot of purposes, and not enough of the long green made it into the purse.

Offensive Coaching Maladies

Not only did he come back to Blacksburg under a potential monetary squeeze, but he also had a serious deficit in every single coaching position except his first offensive line coach. Joe Rudolph bolted as soon as the Notre Dame job became available, and barely made a dent in his office chair. The chosen offensive coordinator was a Tight End Coach, not an OC or Quarterback coach. He had zero experience as an OC at any level. The defensive coordinator was a smart but only modestly experienced linebacker coach with no DC experience on his resume. Perhaps that choice was made because Pry was his mentor and could theoretically assist or guide, but Head Coaches who assist or guide are not doing the job as head coach. Which brings to the fore the reality that Brent Pry didn’t have any experience as a Division 1 head coach… or FCS head coach at any level.

The offensive line obviously needed a new coaching situation. Ron Crook was not working out, and by the early part of the season didn’t seem to be actively working at practices. Coach Brent Davis looked like he was running most of the line drills. In addition, there just seemed to be no real changes to the line configuration even when players were proven to be struggling. What’s worse is when combinations of players were tried, and looked to be successful they were often replaced again with the same starters who weren’t producing. As noted with the player personnel section, the offensive line just never seemed to be working together at the same level for an entire game, and when combinations of players produced better results, those players were often relegated back to the bench. The effect was that real, effective adjustments were just never made. That’s not just on the O-Line coach. That’s on the OC, and ultimately the HC if the offensive coordinator isn’t ordering the change.

The big issue with the offense is probably unlikely to be fixed this season, and that’s the offensive coordinator position. Tyler Bowen has proven over the last three seasons, that his game plans, offensive scheme, and in game adjustments are wholly inadequate. While it is true that most college offenses are pretty much a variation of the same “Power Spread” that Bowen has “implemented”, it is a relatively simple, single look, Read/Option offense with a highly athletic Tight End sized quarterback. Once you diagnose and solve the problem of the exchange between the quarterback and the running back, the 3 or 4 running plays deployed become fairly obvious. It does take two key reads, and a Linebacker/Tackle combination to hit a designated player on every play. Since the runs are always delays or essentially Sprint Draws from the Wing ‘T’ a competent defense with above average players can generally snuff most running plays regardless of who eventually gets the ball.

Once you add the brutal predictability of the running game options for the Power Spread, you have to turn to the passing sets, and in the case of Bowen’s strategy, there was little or no downfield capability. The deep balls repeatedly failed (not always but their percentages were so low they were more gadget than routine plays). Some of that failure was on the receivers and quarterback, but much more of it was on the OC’s choice to run what he should have known were exceedingly low percentage plays. The team needed yardage in the higher percentage intermediate ranges and the OC called a deep throw. That was done too often to the same failed result.

There is also one major problem with the Power Spread and that’s the physical practicality that you are using your quarterback as a fullback or halfback. If you are Army, running the Triple-Option (now modified slightly to accommodate new blocking rules) and have a quarterback who is essentially a Tight End in physique, you are likely to get your quarterback injured. Some of those dings might not be too bad in isolation, but the cumulative effects are almost always devastating.

Tyler Bowen had no effective 3-second passing offense that produced an 8-10 yard gain off of a pre-snap hot read. That also meant that he had no 2-minute drill, and certainly no 4-minute keep away offense. Which explains a tremendous amount regarding the brutal stack of one score losses for the Hokies in the past two seasons. The reality is that a huge number of football games are won and lost on one score, and those points come in the final minutes of the contest.

So, Pry needs to get Bowen help, by moving Stu Holt to Special Teams alone, and find a quarterback coach who is also the lead play caller, or the offense is likely to repeat 2023 and 2024 failures in 2025. Take the play calling away from Bowen. Make him the Tight Ends coach as a secondary role. Put him on the field with his players to see, touch, and feel the situation and provide better guidance to his unit.

Defensive Scheme Inconsistency

At some point, something had to give, and after the season some sort of change had to be made. The sad part is that of the three firings to date, Chris Marve was the better coach and given a few more years as a position assistant might have made a competent jump up to full Defensive Coordinator at “G5” level. One hopes that is where he lands and that he gets a chance to put himself on that path, again. The severing of a mentor/mentee relationship can be a bitter pill for both coaches. The speed at which Marve was ushered out probably had much to do with that departure.

But Marve’s problem was that he was not making effective critical adjustments to the defense in the latter parts of the game. He would call up a cover defense when max pressure was needed. The defensive line would vary gaps to make offensive line blocking patterns a problem, but in doing so, often left the “A-Gap” wide open which allowed either an open passing lane under the zone or an escape route for a mobile quarterback. In either case, recognizing that your middle linebackers were struggling to control that gap with a split defensive front four, either did not happen, or was purposely ignored. It would have been lovely to pull off an occasional Bear front (2 DEs, 2 DTs, and an extra Edge) to apply max pressure instead of dropping 8 into coverage. Ultimately that too drops into Pry’s lap. Marve was struggling with employing a consistently aggressive defense, and his calls gave up far too much yardage in order to lessen the possibility of a deep strike. If the other guy scores 6 in 6 plays, versus 2 plays, he’s still scored and you haven’t.

J.C. Price’s Defensive Line was the major success besides the running back room, and might actually see quite a few players drafted in April. Almost all of the defensive line’s starting and #2 players have been Price recruits and/or development projects. Besides being the defensive line coach J.C. has been serving as Brent Pry’s Associate Head Coach. He received the coaching assignment for the full defensive line roster within the past two practice seasons and that particular factor seems to have been the most beneficial. One coach handling both the Defensive Ends and Tackles has settled down the roles, had both sets of positions aware of the others’ roles and responsibilities. It provided a measure of unity and consistency that the Inside/Outside coaching split seemed to lack.

The problem remained completely related to tactical scheme and support between different levels of positions, in particular the Linebacker run support. But the consistency, again, breaks down as the roster heads into the secondary. Though we are looking at probable draft pick Dorian Strong continued to anchor the man coverage angle, we still saw some uneven play with Mansoor Delane (transferred), and Mose Phillips (transferred) at Safety. There are very likely to be some unseen and lower-level freshmen and sophomores in the bowl game. They might very well be the starters in 2025, but without having a new DC named yet, nobody will know for sure.

In general, the defense had really great moments followed by some form of disaster, breakdown, blown coverage, or missed critical tackles. The current situation of having no defensive coordinator has not been resolved, and there have been few rumors flying around to fill up enough grapes on the vine to make sense of any direction or quality moves that need to be made, and quickly. The offensive line hire, Matt Moore is a major step in the right direction, but Pry has yet to fill the DC’s position, and the Strength and Conditioning Program will need someone who is a cross between a skilled trainer and a drill sergeant.

Overall Systemic Discipline is Lacking

That brings up the final issue that encompasses all of the team, rooms, and various squads. The discipline level within the organization is low. You can see that highlighted with the disorganized piecemeal mess that constitutes pre-game warmups. The excuses fly back and forth, but young men need leadership and playing as team needs coaching that teaches them both external discipline, but also critical self-discipline within the group. The organization of pre-game activities is a critical indicator of the level of detail the coaching staff is willing to implement when it comes to teaching that critical esprit. That also is reflected on the field results where play calling is sloppy and haphazard. The critical coach is disconnected from the team on the field. The team’s pace and rhythm before the play execution, and in getting set for the next play still looks like a gaggle of geese being herded with a wet noodle.

This team’s strength and conditioning program needs to concentrate on unity activities, unit discipline, and purposeful quality skill and conditioning drills. And a touch of contact health injury prevention would be a useful thing. Modern football as almost abandoned lower body strength drills. You see guys wearing protective leg braces, but there are exercises and muscle group strengthening techniques designed to increase muscle mass and strength around the knees and ankles. All of that seemed to be missing from the program for the past few seasons, and probably the past decade or two. A good discipline program to with a more complete weight training regime would go a long way to keeping players healthy, and the team focused, crisp, and disciplined in its playing style.

Years 2022-2024 of the Pry era did not work well. There are just no other phrases to use, and to say otherwise is just to spout propaganda and try to minimize what can’t be, because the results on the field are what they are. Brent Pry, if he wants to coach a team that is measurably better than struggling to win 6-6 Booger Bowl invitation every season, has to implement some serious changes, and probably far more than the small gear grinding that ended the 2024 season.

The Bowl Game Awaits

Again, objectively, there is not much hope of the Hokies winning in Charlotte on the 3^rd. They might have a chance, but that chance is looking very slim. It’s really time for the coaching staff to spend quality time figuring out how to get back to full coaching capability. The Hokie faithful will just have to deal with the bowl game as is and pray for a better result than the analysts are projecting. It might be better, emotionally, to think of this as pure exhibition or a scrimmage. There are just too many missing pieces from the roster and staff to be more than that.

GO HOKIES!!!