Other Than That, How Was The Play?

Okay I'm not going to lie to you, we're halfway through the season and things are pretty bleak.

The Virginia Tech football team can't score. It's defense is hanging on for dear life, faced with the knowledge that if they don't create their own scoring chances, Tech will unlikely score 25 points. The Hokies were outclassed and outmuscled by a Pitt program that's been the perfect definition of mediocre over Pat Narduzzi's tenure.

The Hokies are coached by a man who seems broken. Broken by the idea that his demise will ultimately happen because of his loyalty to his friends. Broken by the thought of an alternate universe where the Hokies sit at 5-1 and still have the rest of their goals ahead of them. Broken by bad breaks, poor coaching decisions and ultimately choosing the wrong quarterback in what is likely the backbreaking year of his tenure.

I'm not sure which games the Hokies can or should win the rest of the way. ESPN's football power index gives the Hokies the following winning percentages against the remainder of their schedule:

vs Syracuse: 70.3% chance of a Hokie win

@ Georgia Tech: 43.3% chance

@ Boston College: 44.3% chance

vs Duke: 85.0% chance

@ Miami: 28.1% chance

@ Virginia: 30% chance

I know it's just a computer, but Christ. A 28% chance against a Hurricane team that's 2-4? Less than a one in three chance against Virginia??? Dark, dark days are ahead, my friends.

Duke, Syracuse and Georgia Tech seem like a promising path to bowl eligibility, but would anyone be shocked if Tech lost to the Orange this weekend? Dino Babers' bunch sure did show some fight against Clemson last Friday. And it's not like trips to Atlanta or Chestnut Hill are easy by any stretch.

There's a world, however unlikely, where Tech ends up 4-8. Awful, I know, but I wanted to say it out loud so we can start wrapping our collective heads around the possibility.

But, in the midst of all this dread, we need something to hold onto. So here are three little rays of sunshine I'm holding onto while getting punched in the face every week.

1. Things might actually be okay for Justin Hamilton

We mentioned it at the beginning of the season, and nearly every beat writer has covered it in one way or another, but I still don't think we've talked enough about how difficult Hamilton's first year as a coordinator was. Yes, he coached a unit during the COVID-19 pandemic, could hardly practice week-to-week and couldn't even rely on a consistent starting lineup. But Hamilton's biggest challenge was replacing his mentor.

Bud Foster made a name for himself by coaching up some of the best defenses ever. No, for real, his 2006 group allowed the third lowest EPA/play of any college football team in the last 17 years. His run from 1995 to 2010 may arguably be the single most sustainably successful run of any coordinator in the history of the sport. He was purely sublime.

But by the end, we knew how things went. Bud had two defenses stocked with NFL talent in 2016 and '17, then watched things fall apart a bit in his final two years. It happens. No one can be that dominant for that long without eventually seeing some sort of regression. His groups couldn't always keep up with modern spread attacks (which, to be fair, neither can most defenses in 2021) and suffered a talent drop-off from a lack of recruiting. Bud and the boys got a bit older, and simply didn't hit the trail as hard as they used to.

So by the time Hamilton took over at the start of 2020, we all knew things would be a bit of a challenge. Tech had small, twitchy defensive tackles, middle linebackers who weren't exactly track stars and just one safety (Divine Deablo) with NFL-caliber size and speed. Though the combination worked well enough for Foster, it was going to be a disaster for anyone with a different scheme to inherit. And sure enough, Hamilton wanted to play differently.