Thundering Turd

It speaks to the atrocious state of the Virginia Tech football program when a Sun Belt team looks better coached, bigger, stronger, and faster than them. The Marshall Thundering Herd, featuring terrific running back, defensive end, and secondary play, imposed their will against the Hokies in a 24-17 win that wasn't as close as the score indicated. There were few positives for the Hokies outside of Pheldarius Payne and Keonta Jenkins, both seniors who aren't likely to be in Blacksburg if/when the program turns around. Worse yet, the same problems keep killing the Hokies, and neither the coaching staff or the players seem to have the ability to address the issues.

Marshall Misdirection Makes Tech's Linebackers Look Silly

Against the Herd, Tech's linebacker and safety play again was inconsistent, particularly with gap fits. However, unlike in previous games, Marshall used a thoughtful approach to expose another weakness of the back-seven, poor eye discipline. Marshall had very little success running straight zone stretches or inside zones. However, their coaching staff used misdirection and influencing blocking to influence defenders to run out of their intended running lanes, creating monstrous holes for star tailback Rasheen Ali.

I will start with the most glaring breakdown of the day, Ali's backbreaking 61-yard third quarter run.