How to Pick Through a Walloping

Let's say the quiet part out loud before we get to the rest of this thing:

Tech's almost certainly going to lose this weekend, and it will just as certainly be pretty gnarly. We're talking "ho-hum top five team just cruised over one of the lesser teams in the conference" gnarly.

We're talking 45-17 gnarly.

But if we're going to say the loud part now, I think everyone here understands that it doesn't really matter all that much. For the first time nearly two calendar years, the Virginia Tech football team sustained real, live offensive success and output. Not fluky scoring drives. Not hitting long passes because a corner fell down. No, honest to god offensive success both on the ground and in the air.

I'm not sure we'll ever know the exact driver behind Tech's output against PItt, but one thing's for certain: the Hokies have stumbled into a place of coherent offensive system, structure and identity. And the name of the game this week is to see if that identity pulls through in consecutive weeks.

After three games, the coaching staff has finally come to realize that the way this attack looks with Kyron Drones in the gun behind center is simply different than it did under the injured Grant Wells. And this is no shade to Wells who–after watching the last few games with Drones–I think was hindered by some of the simpler things Bowen and company chose not to do for whatever reason. But with a true dual threat guy, a lot has opened up.