Rationalizing our Mediocrity

Over different points of the season, we've suggested reasons on this site for Tech's struggles. A few in no particular order are: injuries to an already inexperienced secondary, offensive coaches struggling to grasp a foreign scheme seemingly over their heads, said scheme putting players in a position to fail, a randomly generated tailback rotation, and loafing among others. But what do any of us here really know.

The coaches are trying to figure out this mystery too, and some of them sound as baffled as we are.

Coaches have mentioned failed execution as being the biggest reason for the offense's -- and really the team's -- struggles this season. But they're having a tough time putting their finger on why that's the case. "You can't," O'Cain said. "If you did, you'd get it corrected right now and it'd be over. Sometimes the ball bounces right and sometimes it doesn't. And if you start saying, well it's this or this or this or this, then it sounds like you're making excuses."

Stinespring pointed out some possible reasons, though. "There's time when you've had to revamp your line a little bit," he said. "We haven't communicated some things as well as we did earlier in the year. Some of it has to do with perhaps a little bit of youth at times. ... There's a lot of little things that add up that have prevented us from having consistency and the success that we believe we should be having. We've been productive. It just hasn't been consistent."

To go from the most consistently good program in American, to fighting for a bowl in only a year, well, it's a stunning transition. What gives? I thought about it some more, and came up with a few things that are new or different from last year. Maybe they're the problem(s).

HokieSports.com Redesign

One day someone must have looked at HokieSports.com and said, "This works too fucking well. Let's change it all." There's no other explanation. Not to brag, but I have a computer science degree from Tech with a concentration in design. I know what I'm talking about. If the goal of the new HokieSports was to introduce 3 times as many clicks, bury content, and have slower loading times, then job well done. P.S., the new site doesn't validate against the W3C. "Well... We're just 245 errors and 52 warnings away..."

How can expect anyone to take us seriously on the field when this is the virtual face of the program?

Position Changes

Do you guys realize we have the former national top tight end prospect playing quarterback? Maybe I'm crazy, but don't tight ends catch the ball or play offensive line.

The coaches are always meddling with the depth chart, swapping guys across the ball, now more than ever. Enough is enough. What the heck are they thinking...

Last Saturday Zack McCray switched from defensive end to tight end. Don't the coaches know we have a game on Thursday night? He'll never be ready by then to contribute there.

Enter Sandman Tee

Booth Infultration

Credit where it's due, Mike O'Cain did a good job calling plays last season. It's obvious where it all went wrong.

Stinespring said he wanted to see the entire field better, and though he's not the team's primary play caller — quarterbacks coach Mike O'Cain is — he can help make adjustments better from that vantage point.

"I just feel like I see more things developing up there," Stinespring said.

When I was a little kid and wanted to play Nintendo with my older cousins, they would just hand me a controller that wasn't plugged in. I really thought I was slashing the hell out of Ganon's minions in Hyrule. I was dumb. Sending Stiney back to the sideline with a headset tuned into 105.3 The Bear has to be a viable option.

Credentialing TechSideline and other online entities

Beamer Co. went soft.

Thin Frank Beamer

Is it possible the Frankinator had so much football knowledge that it leaked out of his brain, got gobbled up by his fat cells where it remained happily tucked away? Until someone convinces me otherwise, yes. I'm not sure which is worse, replacing a steady diet of turkey legs with celery sticks or playing fewer starters on special teams.

Whatever the cause, facts are facts and thin Frank Beamer is a horrible head coach. He has just four wins in the BCS era, four. Fat Frank Beamer, well, he was national coach of the year, a conference champion many times over, a special teams guru. Fat Frank Beamer led this program to a national championship appearance.

I can't operate with low blood sugar either.