Boston College at Virginia Tech: VT Offense vs. BC Defense

No Tyrod Taylor, no Ryan Williams, and so far, no problem for the home team in Saturday’s game. The Virginia Tech offense has had its ups and downs in the 2011 season to date, but overall, the results have not been bad at all. Boston College would certainly take what they’ve done, let’s put it that way. Speaking of the Eagles, their defense, which has taken its share of licks this year, will be called upon to stop the Hokies and give their offense a chance. That’s easier said than done, however, and this isn’t the same BC defense.

In many ways, at least in terms of personnel and coaching, it is the same, and to the delight of BC fans, Luke Kuechly and Kevin Pierre-Louis didn’t flee the sinking ship over the bye week. The results, however, have been much different. Much has been made, at least by me, about the Eagle defense dropping from the top rush defense last season to a much more average one this year. Combined with a weak pass defense, BC’s defense has gone from 13th overall in 2010 to 95th overall in 2011 so far. That ranking, mind you, has been attained through the easier part of BC’s schedule.

Now, I don’t care if you’re starting one underclassman in your defense or 11 (we’re not): when you go from one of the best defenses in the nation one year to one of the worst in the next, keeping in mind that you have someone like Luke Kuechly vacuuming up tackles at an astounding rate, there are serious, serious problems. This is happening because of personnel (we’ve had some attrition, if you hadn’t noticed), player development, and scheme. I can’t even say execution is the main problem because when the pass coverage scheme calls for wide cushions, what are the guys back there supposed to do? It is certainly an issue, however, relating to things like tackling and blocking. It’s mind-boggling to consider that the defense has regressed this far this fast (and for that I blame the coaches, plain and simple).

To drive home the point on tackling, look at the ACC list of top tacklers. Kuechly is far and away at the top of the list with 99 (16.5 per game). After that, you have to drop down to seventh for the next Eagle on the list, Kevin Pierre-Louis (56, 9.3 per game), and beyond that, you have to take a big drop to find Steele Divitto in a 22nd-place tie with 36 (6 per game). You’ll be looking for a while for the next BC name, because there aren’t any others on the top 50. It gets worse: Boston College has no players in the ACC’s top 20 in sacks, only one player in the top 20 in tackles for a loss (guess who — Luke Kuechly again), and only one in the top 20 in passes defended (Divitto). The big take-away from all this is that if the Eagles didn’t have those three guys, mostly Kuechly, well, how bad they would be as a unit should be illegal in all 50 states. What really is sobering is that BC’s defense right now isn’t even that good WITH them.

That is annoying and aggravating for Eagles fans, because we know we have more than three decent players on this defense. All 11 guys out on the field, whomever they are on a given play, are going to have their hands full on Saturday with the Virginia Tech offense.

The Hokies are led on the field by sophomore quarterback Logan Thomas, and so far, it really hasn’t been all that bad for him. He’s thrown for 9 TD and gotten picked off five times, but he has also rushed for five touchdowns and has nearly 200 yards on the ground to supplement his 1476 yards through the air. Thomas, for purposes of comparison, is responsible for over 500 more yards of offense than Chase Rettig (and I’m not trying to pick on our fine QB). This gets worse, too: Boston College has accumulated, again for purposes of comparison, 1907 yards of offense so far this season. Virginia Tech, although in one more game, 2934 yards. That extra game doesn’t make much of a difference when you’re over a thousand yards up on the other team; the point is that the Hokies move the ball a LOT better than BC does.

The running back, not to be forgotten, is David Wilson, who will come pretty close to crossing the 1000-yard mark for the season during this game (needs 97 yards). Of course, Wilson’s 903 net rushing yards (out of a total of 1343 net rushing yards for the team) is more all Boston College rushers have combined, which is a net of 709 yards. Also not to be forgotten are receivers Danny Coale and Jarrett Boykin, the two highest-averaging receivers they have by far and two guys who will torment the Eagles all day.

Another interesting nugget: the Hokies have outscored their opponents in every quarter, while the Eagles have been outscored in every quarter. It is particularly ugly for BC in the fourth quarter: they have been outscored 51-24, which is easily the biggest gap of the four. The Eagles don’t finish games on defense, or offense for that matter. Virginia Tech has shown us recently (Miami game) that they can and do.

This looks like a substantial matchup advantage for Virginia Tech.