Va. Tech's new OC gets rave review

Most stories about new Virginia Tech offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler point out his connections to such notable quarterbacks as Tom Brady, Tim Tebow, Brian Griese and Chad Henne, but I'm more impressed by what I hear about another Loeffler pupil.

The student is Chris Coyer, who, as a sophomore at Temple in 2011, led the Football Bowl Subdivision in adjusted yards per attempt. That's not a statistic kept by the NCAA, but it is a mathematical formula that had Coyer first in the country, ahead of No. 2 Case Keenum, No. 3 Robert Griffin III and No. 4 Russell Wilson.

If you're in that company, however you want to analyze the numbers, that's pretty impressive.

"Lefty [Loeffler] is a great guy," said Coyer's father, Chris, a boyhood friend of mine from Bethesda, Md. "Actually, [son] Chris is very jealous. He was just there with Chris for one year."

Coyer played at Oakton High School in Vienna, where he was a teammate of Tech's leading tackler this past season, walk-on linebacker Jack Tyler.

"Lefty is a very smart guy and his system is quite complex on the quarterbacks," Coyer said. "He puts everything on the quarterbacks. We're going to find out now whether Logan [Thomas] is just a good athlete or whether he's a true NFL prospect."

Coyer averaged 9.3 yards per passing attempt and 8.1 yards per rushing attempt in 2011. Then, Loeffler moved on to Auburn after the 2011 season and Coyer dropped to 5.7 yards per pass attempt and 4.0 yards per rushing attempt.

Judging from Coyer's numbers, Loeffler isn't afraid to run his quarterback ("Oh, gosh no," Coyer Sr. said). Thomas this year had 65 more rushing attempts than any other Tech player.

"He'll go to the line with as many as three or four different plays," said Coyer Sr., a former college wideout at Minnesota. "[Loeffler] teaches the quarterbacks to read the fronts more than the secondaries.

"The fronts are going to tell you what the secondaries are going to do because the secondaries lie. It's imperative that quarterbacks become very, very good at reading fronts. Once they do, they'll lock into what should be the right play.

"Some OCs don't have a tremendous amount of plays but they have a lot of options off of them. 'Lefty' is a one of those guys who has a play for everything. It's graduate-level stuff, but, if you get it, you can be super successful.

"[Loeffler's] highly intense; he's a visor type and when he's on the field, he's highly animated. And, the stuff he says, he's very serious about, but it'll crack you up.He's a player's coach, no question, but he's highly demanding and highly technical.

"He can dumb it down a little bit, but it bastardizes his offense and it limits it tremendously."

My question to Coyer's father was whether Thomas would have enough time to assimilate Loeffler's system.

"Logan will have to spend copious amounts of time and energy to absorb what Scot Loeffler teaches," he said. "If he puts in the time and effort and energy, it not only will put him make him extremely successful as a [college] quarterback but also prepare him extremely well for the next level.

"His systems are built to create great quarterbacks."

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