ECU Week, Volume 1 (Skewering Stiney? edition) ...

Yes, I’ve seen the fliers. Honestly, I think they’re a little much. A tad distasteful. A pinch immature.

Hey, I get the frustration. I understand that fans need a guy to hate, to blame, to poke pitchforks at when things fall apart.

But if you honestly believe offensive coordinator Bryan Stinespring is fully at fault for these last two losses, you’re really, really, REALLY not paying attention.

To say nothing of the defense’s glaring goofs – and I’m not pointing fingers at Bud Foster in the least, but why does he get an apparent lifetime pass on criticism? – let’s just take a closer look at Stiney’s “failures.”

What everybody is so fighting mad about, best I can tell, are those infamous six possessions that got inside the Tar Heels’ 40-yard line and resulted in a total of three points. Ouch. Listen, I’d be angry about that, too.

But how much of that impotence was actually Stinespring’s fault?

His offense opened the game with a 25-yard run and a 20-yard pass. What more do you want? Tech was gashing the Tar Heels right out of the gate. The Hokies were deep in UNC territory. And ... receiver Jarrett Boykin fumbled at the end of the 20-yard catch. How do you hang that one on Stinespring?

Or how about when Jayron Hosley returned a punt to the Carolina 37 ... then QB Tyrod Taylor danced around too long, waited forever for a receiver to come open down the field, and took two sacks. TOOK two sacks. The line didn’t break down. The play wasn’t bad. The quarterback held the ball too long. And Tech punted.

Maybe you’re mad about that drive where Stiney drew up plays that resulted in completions of 13 and 16 yards, then a 20-yard Ryan Williams touchdown run? Where did the offensive coordinator go wrong there? By calling down to right tackle Blake DeChristopher and asking him to negate the TD run with a holding penalty? Come on. That was a nice drive, squashed by a flag – not poor playcalling.

Sometimes, it really is just about players making (or failing to make) the plays that are called. Now, is Stinespring ultimately responsible for getting his players ready to make the plays he’s calling? Of course. But the guy has been better this season. There’s no arguing that. The Hokies, while still lower than you’d like, are improved in every major statistical category.

And when Tech was winning, people were off Stinespring’s back. Now we’ve seen two straight losses and the students are organizing a rally at Frank Beamer’s radio show tonight to call for Stiney’s head. Consider me in the camp who thinks that: 1) the rally will be poorly attended and fall flat, and 2) is terribly timed and a total knee-jerk reaction.

Where was this rally last season? Or the year before? You’re coming at the guy now, after his offense – not of late, but in general – has improved???

I guess you’re also fully discounting the Hokies' 13-play, 82-yard touchdown drive that tied the game early in the third quarter against North Carolina? That’s the kind of thing that the Hokies needed more of, sure, but got almost NONE of last season.

Did you know the Hokies have more offensive plays of 20-plus yards (44) through eight games this year than in they had last year (40) in 14 games?

Meanwhile, I suppose Stiney haters are also fully discounting the previously mentioned defensive disasters in the past two games. You know, like the 270 rushing yards Georgia Tech had in the second half as the defense absolutely could not stop the Yellow Jackets while the offense put up 195 yards and 21 points over the final 23 minutes. Or, you know, like the offense scoring 17 points in the second half against the Tar Heels to take the lead ... only to see the defense give up a ridiculous, 16-play drive that tied it for Carolina (on which UNC converted third-and-7 and fourth-and-7)?

Look, I’m not hanging this on the defense, either. Nor am I saying it’s all about the players failing, leaving the coaches liable for nothing. I’m just always amazed by the total lack of perspective that often follows disappointing losses. The offense squandered some serious scoring chances. The defense wilted when Tech needed it most. There were stupid penalties on both sides of the ball and no doubt a few calls both coordinators would like back.

The Hokies, all of them, lost this one. Same story with the previous one. To hang it all on any one person is both unfair and uninformed.

Just trying to inject a little fact, a little reason, into what I understand is an emotional debate. Something went badly and now you need a villain. I get it.

Here then, Hokies, is your guy ...

O-COORDINATOR BRYAN STINESPRING

ON HIS THOUGHTS WHEN CENTER BEAU WARREN WENT DOWN: “For Beau to go down, you knew it had to be bad. Beau is the toughest guy we have on this football team, and he plays as hard as anybody we have on this football team. For him to go down and not get up, you realize pretty quickly it was an injury that wasn’t going to allow him to come back into the game.”

ON HOW BAD IT IS: “He’s just getting better every day. That’s kind of Beau. That night and the next morning, it was very sore, very doubtful. And each day he’d come out and put some type of miracle treatment on it, I guess. I don’t know, but he’s just making great progress as it goes on, so we haven’t ruled out anything right now.”

ON WHETHER, BESIDES QB, CENTER IS THE TOUGHEST SPOT ON OFFENSE FOR A FRESHMAN TO PLAY: “Oh, I don’t think there’s any question. I think it’s the most difficult position on the field, with the exception of quarterback. You’ve got to snap and step. Then you’ve got to go block. Then you’ve got set the scheme in the motion of your runs. You’ve got to help set the scheme in the motion of your protections. The center spot is not any different than baseball. You’ve got to be good right up the chute, to be able to handle a lot of things that go on inside. It’s a difficult spot. Not just the blocking that you have to do, but understanding your front side and backside on any given play. Who you’re working with changes on any given play. There’s a lot involved in the position.”

ON WHETHER THEY CHANGE ANYTHING THIS WEEK FOR THE ROOKIE, MICHAEL VIA, AT CENTER: “Yeah, he’s got some great help around him, some people that can make some pre-snap profile awareness deals. And they all work in conjunction with each other anyway. That element will probably increase if Michael were to play. But I thought when Michael went out there to play, he did a tremendous job out there. We tried to help as much as we could, but he had to go out and play the game. We were in a game that we had to move the ball ... and he went out there and played the game. The first time we put him in the shotgun, you all hold your breath a little bit, but he did a great job.”

ON LOOKING AT SOME OF THE SACKS IN THAT UNC GAME – AND ALL SEASON – WHETHER HE SEES A NUMBER THAT WERE MAYBE NOT ON THE O-LINE AND MORE ON THE QB: “I’m not sure if the line actually gave up a sack (against UNC). I know they get credited for it. I think in general, we all tried to make big plays, to make plays and not just do the little things and let the big things occur. When you get back there, if we’re holding the ball, the longer things happen, there’s a chance that somebody’s going to eventually get to the quarterback. That was part of it. And we had a mental error at tight end that caused one. That’s the best thing about being a tight end coach. People know when a guy gets sacked, ‘It had to be the line.’ But the tight end coach didn’t do a very good job with the tight end. We had a mental error that created a sack.”

ON WHETHER THE OFFENSIVE PLAYERS HAVE BEEN PRESSING AT ALL: “You’ve got to make sure you don’t confuse press with panic, because there was not a bit of panic within our football team. There’s been too many battles our football team has been in already this season. But I think sometimes during the course of this game, when you look back, we pressed to make big things happen. When you do that, if we’re not careful, we’re not doing some of the little things that allow the big things to occur.”

ON THE AVERAGE DISTANCE FOR THE HOKIES ON SECOND DOWN AGAINST UNC BEING SECOND-AND-9 AND WHY THEY RAN THE BALL 11 TIMES ON 15 SECOND-DOWN PLAYS: “Some of those runs were quarterback runs. Some of those were quarterback draws to try to get you back in a manageable situation. A couple of those were actually called passes that turned into runs. We tried to spread the field and take what they were giving us and we called some decide-option game with some alerted throws off of it and we ended up giving the ball (to the RB). It was an either/or principle there. It wasn’t like we were designing to say, ‘OK, on second-and-long let’s run the ball.’ We had some either/ors there and we ended up running them.”

ON STARTING THE GAME WITH A 25-YARD RUN THEN 20-YARD PASS, THEN A FUMBLE: “It was disappointing because that’s what we talked about. That was the first key to success: Set a tone early. You pop off a long run. You come right back off of it with an aggressive play-action pass that already puts you in the red zone ... and that didn’t happen. Frustrating is not the word. It was disappointing. But there’s disappointing aspects of the game and you’ve got to rebound from it. You’ve got to go to the next series, go to the next play. That touchdown that’s called back ... you can’t lament over the fact that a touchdown’s called back. You’ve got to figure out a way to come back and get points again, overcome the holding call.”

ON DRIVING INTO OPPOSING TERRITORY SEVERAL TIMES IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE LAST TWO GAMES AND HOW MADDENING IT IS TO NOT BEING SCORING IN THOSE SITUATIONS: “That is very frustrating. It is one that’ll cause you to bang your head on the table. It is one that’ll start making you talk to yourself. I haven’t started back, but it’s getting close. It’s disappointing, because we battle ourselves into that red zone. In the first games, we’ve capitalized and been very good about getting points, getting into the end zone or kicking field goals and getting points. That’s been the difference. We’ve gotten it down there and we haven’t capitalized. That’s as big a difference as anything for us.”

ON WHETHER THERE’S A RHYME OR REASON IN THOSE SITUATIONS: “If there was a rhyme or reason, I promise you we would work to figure it out. It’s a combination of a lot of little things. Sometimes it’s defensive play, but more often than not it’s something we’ve just got to do a better job of. Some of the things that are happening ... is a little maddening, because it’s things we’ve done well – things we have done throughout the season – then all the sudden you have a couple of those that you scratch your head. I don’t like to use the term execute, but sometimes it’s been a little bit of a breakdown here or there, combined with a good defensive play. And all the sudden, now you’re not capitalizing on those opportunities, whether it’s missing a third-and-short down at Georgia Tech; whether it’s a great punt return by Jayron Hosley setting us up; or driving it down the field and not capitalizing. It’s frustrating.”

ON RYAN WILLIAMS’ FUMBLE AT THE END, WHETHER THAT WAS THE SAME PLAY CALL AS THE ONE HE SCORED ON THAT WAS CALLED BACK FOR HOLDING: “Yes it was. You know, it’s a fine line between success and failure a lot of plays. The end result is we didn’t get the first down and North Carolina got the football. But what’s really disheartening is you go back and look at the film and we’re a half a arm tackle away from splitting it and the backside corner is going to have to make a play down the middle of the field. That’s the ones that haunt you.”

ON THAT PLAY FURTHER: “That play is something at halftime that we talked about we needed to get going a little bit. We started looking at ways we could run the ball, because everything was an eight-man front. Unless we got in four wides, unless we got in trips, everything was an eight-man front. The first snap of the game was a front that they had not shown all year. They had not shown that specific look, walking linebackers into the line of scrimmage and an eight-man front on top of it. We compensated for it. Some of those play-action passes were to get some plays down the field, because we basically had man-to-man coverage and we hit it ... That was our play for us to spread it out and still be able to run basically a power play, an outside zone play. We ran it and the one pop was 22 yards, but it was called back. We ran another one quickly there after and it went for seven yards. And we ran one to start that two-minute that went for five yards, I think. And that was the one that also created the final aspect of the game.”

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