Virginia Tech Hokies football preview: Belk Bowl 2016 - Arkansas
Virginia Tech has its opportunity to end with double-digit wins for the first time in a half-decade, to set up for a big run in 2017, and several other storylines that have been repeated ad nauseam since their ACC Championship Game loss to Clemson.
The time for talk is through, though, and toe will meet leather this afternoon to conclude the Hokies' 2016 season.
The essentials
Opponent: Arkansas (7-5, 3-5 SEC)
Time, Channel: 5:30 p.m. EDT, ESPN
Location: Charlotte, N.C. (Bank of America Stadium)
Weather: 54º, 0% chance of rain, winds 3 MPH
Line: Virginia Tech -6.5, O/U 61.5
Virginia Tech pass offense v. Arkansas pass defense
Virginia Tech has had a very prolific (in part because they've needed it with an anemic run game, to be fair) and efficient pass offense over the course of the year. Arkansas has had a middling pass defense.
The Razorbacks' unit only faced two teams, however, in Virginia Tech's stratosphere in terms of overall quality, though. They shut down Conference USA foe Louisiana Tech (thanks to one of the easiest schedules in the country, they were the No. 6 pass-efficiency offense this year), but were absolutely bombed - to the tune of 14.9 yards per passing attempt - against Alabama. Virginia Tech's talent level is somewhere in between, but the depth and top-end are closer to Alabama than LTU.
Arkansas has shuffled up the lineup a bit over the course of the season, but the primary starters have been corners Jared Collins and Ryan Pulley, with Josh Liddell at free safety and Santos Ramirez at the strong behind a standard 4-3 front. Given the Hokies' ability to spread the field with multiple threats, look for plenty of backup corner Henre' Tolliver (technically the team's leading interceptor, albeit with a 70-yard touchdown return coming in garbage time against FCS Alcorn State), who played about evenly with the senior Collins this year, even though he's lower on the depth chart.
This is just a mediocre pass defense - and not a particularly opportunistic one, with nine interceptions and more than half of those coming in the weak non-conference slate - and as long as VT comes to play, there will be chances to punish the Hogs down the field.The big play has been a bugaboo, with Arkansas allowing 7.8 yards per attempt, barely inside the nation's top-100 in that metric. Virginia Tech also has Isaiah Ford, Bucky Hodges, and Cam Phillips with Jerod Evans getting them the ball.
Mediocrity in defending the pass is augmented by straight-up inability to get after the passer. A senior-laden defensive front with end Jeremiah Ledbetter, Deatrich Wise Jr., and JaMichael Winston and defensive tackle Taiwan Johnson is augmented by freshman DT McTelvin Agim, who makes up for his youth with probably the most natural talent of anyone up front, the rare top-50 tlent nationall that ended up a Hog. However, this group could not get pressure (or at least not sacks), ranking in the bottom 30 nationally. Even an up-and-down VT line should be able to keep Evans clean.
Virginia Tech rushing offense v. Arkansas run defense
While the passing game was a matter of VT's strength against Arkansas mediocrity, this is a matter of two bad units going up against each other - albeit with the Razorbacks once again the worse unit, with literally the worst run defense in the country on a yards-per-carry basis. The personnel listed above isn't particularly inspiring (though Ledbetter and Agim alone should be enough talent to do better when half of your schedule couldn't run the ball on just about anyone this year). Ledbette, Wise, and Agim have been the leaders, with starting middle linebacker Brooks Ellis and his seven tackles for loss the only standout at the second level. Dre Greenlaw has missed the past six games (not on this week's depth chart either, for the record), and is still the third-leading tackle among linebackers. It's all bad.
You shudder to think what the Hogs' numbers - 6.16 per carry - would look like without shutting down Texas State and a Florida team that was poor in the run game this year (but still should have done much better than 0.86 per carry against this Arkansas D).
Spread-to-pass teams had up-and-down success, with Louisiana Tech notching 3.43 per carry, but Texas A&M getting 9.89 (almost 10 yards per carry!). Other comparables for different reasons included the spread-out, mobile-QB version of Alabama (7.76 per carry) and a Mississippi State team that was more run-heavy than VT this year, but probably the closest in terms of talent to the Hokies (5.86 against Arkansas).
So: this is an extraordinarily bad run defense, combined with the poor-ish pass defense broken down above. The problem is Virginia Tech trying to take advantage of it. Even bad run defenses have at least slowed down the Hokies' rushing attack this year, with only two games all season (Miami and Virginia) over 5.0 per carry. That is horrible itself, though not to the degree of the Hogs' incompetency.
Bowl games are always a little weird when you expect "hey, they'll step up and play a good game" because they other guys are thinking the same thing. However, you saw bits and pieces over the year of the Hokies figuring things out, and if center Eric Gallo and Evans are clean on snaps, the line's lurch toward competency should take another step forward.
Arkansas rushing offense v. Virginia Tech run defense
Bret Bielema teams have had a pretty familiar structure since he's been Top Hog (and before that in his Wisconsin days): run the ball down the opponent's throat, and hit them in the play-action game only when necessary, while mixing in jet sweeps and the like to add a layer of confusion.
Shockingly, phase one of that plan hasn't gone well this year, with Arkansas's rushing average of 4.35 per tote coming in No. 70 nationally - less than a third of a yard better than VT's "sky-is-falling"-level performance in 2016.
However, there's a silver lining in a major way: the Razorbacks's top two rushers, sophomore Rawleigh Williams III and freshman Devwah Whaley are performing much better. They're both right around 5.7 per carry, with the 5-10, 226-pound Williams the workhorse, earning nearly as many carries (233) as the rest of his teammates combined (250). He has 12 touchdowns, Whaley has three, and no other Razorback has more than 1.
The weak rushing numbers, then, come from a couple other sources: first, senior Kody Walker was heavily used in the first six games, despite being very bad at matriculating the ball up the field (3.55 per carry). He had foot surgery at that point, and is expecting to play in the bowl game, but even if a fully-healthy foot sees him regain a bit of his form from previous years, he won't be the biggest threat when he's in the game. Secondly, the Arkansas line is very bad in protection, something we'll get into a bit more in the next section, and finally the Hogs have also had a VT-like proclivity to fumbling and losing big yardage on those fumbles.
With an offensive line whose lightest member is 318 pounds (there are also two 319-pounders, a 335-pounder, and right guard Johnny Gibson runs 344), they should be able to move the ball when not shooting themselves in the foot. 6-10, 319-pound Dan Skipper was first-team All-SEC, and is the headliner of the bunch.
Arkansas passing offense v. Virginia Tech pass defense
So the pass protection aspect is not the strong suit for this line. Arkansas allowed 29 sacks this year, No. 85 nationally. That's despite being comfortably in the bottom half nationally in passing attempts, so their rate of getting sacked is even worse than the raw numbers.
That's partially a big, immobile offensive line best suited for mashing fools off the ball (something they did better than the raw numbers indicated, as noted above), and partially a moderately sized but also-immobile quarterback in Austin Allen. He actually could move the ball with his legs at times, but more often would get hit in the backfield.
Of course, mobility is not the reason Allen was in games: that would be to pass the ball, something he did at a very high level this season. He was No. 28 in efficiency, though he threw more interceptions than everyone ahead of him outside of two players who got contributions from the Hokies: DeShaun Watson (15 picks) and Josh Dobbs (12), who were both intercepted once in their respective games against VT. Allen can be a little loose with the ball, and although VT wasn't the ball-hawkin'-est D this year, Greg Stroman, Terrell Edmunds, and their compatriots will need to make plays when those opportunities inevitably present themselves.
Allen did spread the ball around pretty well this year, with Drew Morgan the most consistent option (61 catches, but only for 10.89 per catch and three TDs) and the play-action nature of the offense providing big-play opportunities for Keon Hatcher (seven TDs and 16.79 yards per catch) and Jared Cornelius (four scores and 16.09 per catch). Un surprisingly, a big tight end, 6-6, 356-pound Jeremy Sprinkle, is a factor in both the blocking and receiving aspects, with 33 catches. There's a precipitous dropff in receptions after that point, with Dominique Reed reeling in only 14 (albeit for better than 17 yards per catch), but that entire group outside of Cornelius is in its final year on-campus, so there's some experience behind them. Allen is a junior, but would surprise exactly nobody if he opted for the NFL after the bowl game.
Virginia Tech's gameplan all year has been to mix up coverages, but let defensive backs take wide receivers while one safety or the other (Terrell Edmunds or Chuck Clark) comes up to play the run. If that's not enough to slow down the run game, VT may have to bring more into the box and open up play-action in a big way (something that has bitten the Hokies in several game), but otherwise, they have the personnel to match up and if not lock down, at least make things a bit difficult for the Hogs.
Special teams
Field goal kicker Adam McFain is little-used, going 8/10 on the year, a decent percentage but a shockingly low number of attempts given the Razorbacks were terrible in the red zone this year and probably should have used him more. He also nailed a 54-yarder against Auburn, so there's something to be said for Arkansas ignoring a weapon that's been on its sideline all year while they floundered in ways that using that weapon would have reduced. (A poor turnover margin and mediocre fourth-down percentage on a healthy number of attempts makes up the rest of the difference).
Punter Toby Baker, on the other hand, got pretty decent run and proved that he's one of the nation's best. His 44.56 yards per boot was No. 11 nationally, though he allowed 17 returns on 50 punts, which is not quite as hot - and exacerbated by the fact that Arkansas was only OK at covering those punts that did get returned. If you take out a fumbled return for a 14-yard loss by Texas A&M, this was actually a quite bad punt coverage unit, and athletes like Greg Stroman and/or CJ Carroll should be able to carve out decent chunks of hidden yardage during the contest.
On the other side, Arkansas was mediocre on punt returns and horrible on kickoff returns. Virginia Tech's poor punt game may provide an opportunity or two there (though it's been more likely to kick the ball 10 yards than give up a return opportunity), and with Joey Slye's ability to put kickoffs out of the endzone, only an intentional kick in the field of play would see the KOR team for Arkansas - though trying to force them to make a play might not be a bad idea.
Overall
Arkansas beat TCU in the non-conference, but the remaining three teams (even the Frogs, given their down year) were varying degrees of "they shouldn't belong on the field with you," so there's not a whole lot impressive there. Then, the three conference wins were against Ole Miss and Mississippi State, both experiencing down years, and the shocking 31-0 blowout of Florida.
This is a team that beat who it should (plus Florida), and lost to the expected teams (plus Missouri) - with many of those losses and even the win against Louisiana Tech coming in somewhat embarrassing fashion. The SEC isn't what it has been in recent years, and getting your teeth kicked in by every decent team in the West Division is a sign that Arkansas finished about where it belongs: bottom-middle of the table in a conference that, outside of Alabama, impressed very few people this year.
Virginia Tech should be able to take a relatively comfortable win. The problem is the level of chaos that VT inserted into its 2016 resume, with should-wins against Georgia Tech and Syracuse going by the wayside, and toss-ups against Miami and North Carolina ending with resounding wins, and another against Tennessee ending up a blowout loss. The point here is that what should happen and what does happen are rarely the same in college football, and perhaps more so with the 2016 Hokies.
Virginia Tech wins 34-17.
