Virginia Tech Football coach Brent Pry just cut bait with his offensive line coach, Ron Crook, in what feels like change for the sake of change, done to appease the money people frustrated that the head coach is 16-20 in three seasons, more than Crook necessarily not doing his job.
Crook just finished his second year at Tech, as the guy directing the O line up the road in Charlottesville, Terry Heffernan at UVA, just finished his second year at that job.
I just did a deep dive into Pro Football Focus, trying to piece together a picture of how Crook’s unit fared vis-à-vis Heffernan.
What I found is, it looks to me like Crook’s O line held up well in comparison.
A look at the metrics
Overall unit rankings
Note: There are 134 teams in FBS
Pass blocking
- Virginia Tech 66.5 PFF grade (84th)
- UVA 57.8 PFF grade (114th)
O line pass blocking efficiency
(sacks/pressures directly attributable to the line)
- UVA: third in sacks allowed (26), sixth in pressures (100)
- VT: 44th in sacks allowed (15), 78th in pressures (82)
Run blocking
- UVA 66.7 PFF grade (43rd)
- Virginia Tech 64.3 PFF grade (63rd)
Even deeper dive
Virginia Tech was 39th nationally in yards per rushing attempt (4.86) and 36th in rushing yards per game (187.1).
UVA was 101st in yards per rushing attempt (3.7) and 92nd in rushing yards per game (131.9)
The Tech O line gave starting QB Kyron Drones more time to pass – his average time to throw was 2.98 seconds, ranking 45th among FBS starting QBs; Anthony Colandrea had 2.91 seconds, ranking 71st.
Colandrea tended to create his own pressure – PFF attributed 11 of his sacks and 20 of his pressures to his own actions, and he ranked fourth among starting QBs in pressure-to-sack ratio (27.3 percent); Drones was dinged for two self-created sacks and 11 pressures, and was 17th in P2S ratio (21.7 percent).
What the numbers tell us
My ulterior motive here is probably obvious, but just in case: I can see why Brent Pry would want to make a change.
Just having an O line that is better than the guys up the road shouldn’t be enough to keep your job.
The Tech offense got a lot out of tailback Bhayshul Tuten, who created a lot of his own yards – he was Top 20 nationally in yards after contact, YAC/attempt and forced missed tackles, and from Drones, backup QB Collin Schlee and third-stringer Pop Watson being mobile, and not creating their own pressure.
To me, just changing the O line coach isn’t going to solve the problems down there with the Tech offense, which ranked 75th nationally in yards per game (379.8), 71st in red zone offense (5.0 points per red zone possession) and 53rd in scoring offense (29.7 points per game).
The problem probably starts at the top, is what I’m getting at.
So, Ron Crook, to me, is a scapegoat.
Pry doesn’t want to cut ties with his offensive coordinator, Tyler Bowen, so he’s throwing Crook to the wolves, which needs to happen when you’re 16-20 after three years.
Meanwhile, Heffernan, whose contract at UVA expires on March 31, is likely to be back for a third year, with head coach Tony Elliott indicating last week that he doesn’t anticipate any staff changes in the offseason.
Elliott is 11-23 after three years, and he’s standing pat with his staff.
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Chris Graham
