BeamerBall.com Chat with Offensive Coordinator Bryan Stinespring
Wednesday, 3/5/08, 7 pm - 8 pm eastern
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6:55 pm est update: Good evening folks, we anticipate being delayed by about 15 minutes tonight. Coach Stinespring is in Pittsburgh tonight meeting with the Pittsburgh Steelers staff, and will not be available to us for the chat until about 7:15 pm, approximately. So, stick with us here for a bit, and we'll hook up with Coach Stinespring as soon as we can. We appreciate all of the questions that have been submitted already, and we'll give you the full hour with Coach as soon as we can hook up with him. Stay tuned, and we'll be right back shortly. Thanks.
7:05pm: Coach Stinespring has just returned to his office in Blacksburg following a visit with West Virginia and the Pittsburgh Steelers. He is now ready for your questions.
Coach Stinespring,
I'm curious as to the play-calling in the bowl game against Kansas.
We had that one drive where Ore dominated, and then we went away from the run the rest of the game. Why did we go away from the running game? I think everybody who was watching the game was wondering that, including the announcers.
Additionally, why did we keep throwing deep passes which amounted to jump-balls, after it became apparent they weren't working?
Thanks,
John Cole
Stinespring: Well, I thought we did a good job with the run at times. Then, they started to zone blitz against the run almost every snap to disrupt that. When that happened, we thought we needed to go play-action, keep it off balance, and take advantage of what the defense was giving us. We didn't "give up" on anything. We want to do what works. We thought we could attack the field in the off coverage or the man coverage. Just because an announcer says we've abandoned the run, doesn't mean we did. We always want to be a balanced offense. That's how you win football games. That's how you put pressure on a defense.
As far as the deep passes go, we felt we had great matchups. When we walked into that bowl game, we thought we'd be able to throw the football and take some deep shots. They gave us man-to-man matchups and we tried to take advantage. But, to say all we did was throw deep, isn't accurate.
Where can a guy from Western Pennsylvania find a good fishin' hole near Blacksburg while his son is bustin' his butt during summer workouts and August football camp?
John Drager
Pittsburgh, PA
P.S. I promise not to reveal any of your favorite fishin' spots. You know us fishermen are always truthful.
Stinespring: First, I want everyone to know that your son Chris, is doing well in his recovery from knee surgery. He's also doing a excellent in the class room....he must get that from his mom. Now, as far as fishing, the New River is as good as it gets. Unless you want to travel to my home in Clifton Forge and try the Cowpasture River. Throw whatever you want in there and you'll catch ‘em.
Are you staying with the two QB system?
Thanks,
Cole Starke
Manakin, VA
Stinespring: Well, rotating the QB's wasn't as successful in the bowl game as it had been earlier. When you look at the overall picture, playing two quarterbacks worked well for our football team. It helped us in many different areas. Now, this Spring, all we want is for our QB's to get better. Tyrod Taylor needs to run our entire offense and not just selected plays. He has to be able to do it all and we expect him to accomplish that this fall. Then, when we get into August, we'll determine who the starter will be. We're looking to see if one of these guys is going to separate himself from the other. Just like at every other position. After the spring, we'll determine our system. Right now, we just want to see improvement.
I see that you've just returned from the Steelers. What exactly did you hope
to accomplish with that visit?
Mike DeVito
Fairfax, VA
Stinespring: We take these visits every year. And, they're always beneficial. We talked with Pittsburgh about all-purpose throws. What throws do you like on 1st down, 2nd down, etc.... Then, what specific reads do you see. Does it fit your drop, does it fit your QB, does it fit your personel? What is the all purpose route, or routes? Where are the condensed throwing lanes? When you're at the 10 yd line going in, how do you attack? Where can you look to throw it? What are your last ditch plays? When you're at the 5 yd line and you have one play to get it in, what do you hang your hat on? Our goal this spring is to become more consistent in our running game. When you look back a couple years ago, we were averaging 4.5 yds per carry. We haven't met that lately. We want to go back, check our approach, see what's wrong and correct it. Now, you can blame it on the offensive line, but it's more than that. We're putting a huge emphasis on running the ball and our visits with West Virginia and Pittsburgh involved a lot of that.
Coach,
Is there a recruit this year that you think has a chance to contribute in the
2 deep (who is it) and which recruit did we sign that maybe flew a little under
the radar but will be big time during his time in Blacksburg?
Jack Horner
Stinespring: Very good questions. We put an emphasis on receiver. We wanted
guys who we thought could come in and help us immediately. We have some holes
to fill there. We think that with Dyrell Roberts, Randall Dunn, Jarrett Boykin....somebody
in that group will be able to help us. Leon Mackey, kept me sweating to the
final day, with his size and strength, and his advancement, I think he's a guy
who can help us immediately. Under the radar? Well, I don't know if he's under
the radar, but Allen Stephens is a guy we think is going to surprise some people.
And, Bruce Taylor can help us right away as well. I'm guarded when I answer
a question like that because we won't know exactly where everybody is until
we get our hands on them in August. But on offense, we need some young guys
to play at receiver.
Bryan,
Do you think that Eddie Royal was under-utilized throughout his 4 years playing? Looking at the number of offensive touches he had compared to someone like, Percy Harvin, and looking at Eddie's combine numbers, it appears that maybe, VT could have given him more touches to help spark the offense the past couple of years?
Chris Culter
Fairfax, VA
Stinespring: We're very well of how Eddie performed at the NFL Combine. The people in the NFL have good things to say about Royal and he deserves all those accolades. I don't think he was under-used. Could we have used him more? Sure. Could we have used Jeff King more? Sure. And on and on you can go with that. Again, our goal it to be a balanced offense. That's how you win football games. Eddie wasn't our only talented receiver. We had a lot of guys we thought could help our team and each had his big moments. Justin Harper, David Clowney and the others were weapons as well. So, we certainly didn't under-use him, but you can always use your playmakers more. Eddie Royal made big plays in big games for us. He did it in Miami for an ACC Championship. He did it in Charlottesville for an ACC Championship and he did it again and again. If you're asking me if we try to get our playmakers the ball? Sure I do. We did it with Lee Suggs, Kevin Jones, Ernest Wilford, Bryan Randall, Jeff King....all those guys are in the VT record book. I think we do a good job of identifying our playmakers and getting them the ball. We're proud that guys who have played in our offense are some of the all time best for the Hokies.
Coach,
Are there any plans to use Victor Harris on offense this year? If so, in what
role ?
Thanks,
Gary Frank
Fredericksburg, VA
Stinespring: Well, this time of the year you can discuss anything. Have we disussed using Victor as a tailback or a receiver? Sure we have. But, on the other side of that, we need a leader in our defensive secondary, a point-man so to speak. That will be very valuable. Macho is such a talented athlete that you talk about using him in various roles for your football team. However, to answer your question, at this time we don't have any firm plans to use him on offense.
Coach Stinespring,
We have heard Va Tech promised Ryan Williams playing time; how will you divide playng time with Ryan and your returning player like Brandon Ore, Kenny Lewis, Jahre Cheeseman, Josh Oglesby and Darren Evens?
Thanks Coach and keep up the good work!
Bob Nixon
Nashville, TN
Stinespring: That's a great senario to be in. We have some guys in that backfield that we're expecting a lot from. We have to come out of this spring with a clear idea of who's #1, and then who's battling for #2, #3 and so on. We have to have a pecking order. We have to set that top three this spring. That way, when we walk into August, Ryan Willliams will be battling the top three guys for playing time. All of these backs will have a clear understanding that they have to make the top three coming out of spring if they hope to battle for playing time this summer. Now, can we find that top three this spring? We'll see. We're very excited about Ryan Williams. We believe that he can help us immediately.
Which current receivers, including Cory Holt, are most likely to see the field
this fall?
Thanks again and good luck .
Bill Spencer
Abingdon, VA
Stinespring: Brandon Dillard's speed gives him a big advantage. Plus, he can play more than one position. Zach Luckett is a player we expect to step up and continue to progress. Plus, he's very physical and he's passionate. I'm very excited about the focus I'm seeing from Ike Whitaker this off season. He has a chance to be a first team guy, now he's really competing for playing time and that really makes a difference. I'm seeing a different approach. I like the way our young guys ran, Patrick Terry, Danny Coale and Ervin Garner. Terry and Garner need to make sure they're ready physically.
Do you have any plans to go more toward a spread offense? This seems to be
very successful in college football today. It also makes the offense very exciting
to watch.
Proud to be a HOKIE!!
Todd in Va Beach
Stinespring: To run the spread, you need to mostly be in the gun. We did more of that with Bryan Randall. He was an experience QB and could manage that part of the offense. We still like to get into the I, with the tight ends, get physical and attack the defense. That sets up our play action. With Tyrod Taylor, you like to see him at times in the gun. You visit West Virginia and you want to know what they've done with that attack and learn the positives and the negatives. Trust me, you need to know the problems, and how to counter, just as much as you need to know the positives. Any offense that's moving the chains and putting points on the board is exciting to watch. What gets me excited is at the end of the game when we have more points on the board than our opponent.
In man coverage, are we looking at running more 'pick' type crossing routes with our receivers to get them open and free up some separation?
Steve Hall
Salem, VA
Stinespring: We do have pick combos in our game plan. We've run the crossings over the course of this past season. You saw Justin Harper dragging with someone trying to rub behind him. That works very well for us. If that went into zone blitzes, that made us nervous. We've hit those routes and mostly against teams who run man coverage. But, against those blitzes, we have our zone outlet throws. Now, against Florida State, we ran that crossing pick, and if the ball is high, or deflected, bad things are going to happen. That's what happened with Florida State. And in the zone blitz, when they come, somebody is dropping and the QB's have a tough, tough time seeing it. It's risky. We've dropped Chris Ellis and we've had success with it. But, it's tough. Especially on a young quarterback.
Suggestion: Please bring back the double-screen that we used with Jim Drunkenmiller,
where we faked a screen to one side of the field only to have the quarterback
throw the screen to the other side of the field. I loved that play and it always
seemed to get 5-8 yards and sometimes the WR could break out for a big yardage
gain.
Thanks for your time and good luck this season!
Nate Jones
Wilmington, NC
Stinespring: I agree with you Nate. I like it as well. You seem to like it when we get it back to the slow side. We scored with it against UNC with Branden Ore. We've been looking at screens at both West Virginia and the Steelers. I agree with you that we haven't been running it enough.
Who will you start at tackle?
Thanks,
Ben Clarke
Virginia Beach
Stinespring: We plan to move Ed Wang to left tackle. We'll afford Blake DeChristopher every opportunity to be the starter at right tackle. We'll give Vinston Painter a chance to earn playing time. We might experiment with Sergio Render. But, we would like for Richard Graham, Aaron Brown and Clark Crum to fight for the starting job and help us develop some much needed depth.
Following on the question above, what kind of feedback is the VT staff getting
on our Seniors, plus Brandon Flowers from the NFL? Might this be a record number
of VT players drafted?
Thanks,
Dan
Sprinfield, VA
Stinespring: When you send 11 players to the combine, you have a great chance of having all of those players drafted. The NFL doesn't invite you unless they're serious about you. Now, the NFL doesn't give you a whole lot of feedback. They keep it hush, hush because it's big business. We are very proud of the way all of these prospect represented Virginia Tech and this program ant the combine.
Over the last 3 years, I have heard tons of criticism in regards to the offense
being too predictable. Some defenses seem to know exactly what we are doing.
In the past when this very question was asked, the reply was that we don't care
if they know what we're doing, they still have to stop us.
Do you think we are too predictable in our play calling tendencies or in our
overall game plan for each opponent? I know you are striving to do the best
job possible, what can I say to critics who don't know that our offense is dynamic
and a force to be reckoned with?
I am always surprised at the offense's progress over the years. This past year
was another great example of tremendous improvement over the course of the season.
Thank you,
Kevin Hill
Lovettsville, Va
Stinespring: To your question about our offense being too predictable I would
say I don't think we are. I think when something is working, like running the
ball with Kevin Jones or Lee Suggs, you lean on that. But, I don't agree that
we're predictable. We go back and study our own tendencies. Do you have a tendency?
That's the question. You don't want tedencies because you can fall into that.
Now, we have to make sure that we're in certain sets, we don't limit ourselves.
You have to be careful that we aren't formation and personnel predictable. But
we work hard to prevent that.
We did make progress over the course of last season. I'm proud of the staff and players, because where we started and where we ended was night and day. We got better as the season went on. We didn't play as well as we had hoped in the bowl game, but don't let that game take away the progress we made leading up to that bowl game. And, we'll take the the areas that we progressed, roll it into the spring, and try to build upon it even further.
8:22pm: That will wrap up this "Live Chat" with Coach Stinespring. Thank you for your interest and your questions. Please be advised that we have "Live Chats" coming up that will be for Coach's Club members only! If you're not a member, please sign up now. Thank you for your continued support of Virginia Tech football and BeamerBall.com!