ACC Standings

Heisman's Ghost

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If we had WF schedule we would be 4-0 and TV guru's would be touting our next big game. We have a tough schedule this year and next but this team is very competitive. The Ole Miss score does not really show how close that game was until almost over. We had a good shot at Louisville but did not execute in the second half. May have gone conservative and players thought it was over at the half.
That is true about the Ole Miss score not indicative of the competitiveness of the game. Alas, Wake Forest fans are at this moment consoling themselves that in the fourth quarter they were driving for a go ahead score only for Griffis to throw an interception. That boy's problem is he following the footsteps of a quarterback that is probably the best in living memory at Wake Forest while King has a much lower bar to hurdle.
 

Heisman's Ghost

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Clemson obviously lost to FSU. They outplayed FSU most of the game. Their lack of a FG kicker was a big reason for their loss. They likely win the rest of their conference games. The Duke loss was bad for sure.
Watching the end of that game must have been excruciating for Dabo. He had his team right in the middle of the field for a makeable field goal not exactly as I recall chip shot but 9 times out of 10 the Tiger kicker probably nails that in practice. Oops! Must have been the tenth time.
 

Heisman's Ghost

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If Wake is so bad, then we have zero quality wins?
Griffis admittedly suffers from comparisons with the previous Wake quarterback Sam Hartman but he was no slouch coming out of high school. Griffis was all state in Virginia and his region's player of the year. His father was his high school coach so he should know what he is doing, I would think. Wake has a good team, just not a great one and one that is not on par with the ones in recent years.
 

g0lftime

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The WF game was actually one game I have to give some love to the defensive scheme. The DL got a really good push and not only disrupted the slow mesh RPO but also the QB is not tall and had trouble setting up. in the pocket. We almost got burned in the 4th quarter trying to burn clock and put a lot of pressure on our QB to make first downs. Had a few Louisville moments in the 4th.
 

MWBATL

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I'm not so sure about that. Outside of maybe @ VT and vs. Pitt, they may be an underdog in the rest.

Tough ACC + ND draw (which offsets their weak OOC). Turns out last Saturday was probably as important to them as it was to us.

View attachment 14791
Tough draw, I agree. But I think they'll have a shot at N C State, Syracuse and even Duke. All they need is one win from that group to be bowl eligible, right?
 

MWBATL

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We almost got burned in the 4th quarter trying to burn clock and put a lot of pressure on our QB to make first downs. Had a few Louisville moments in the 4th.
I do think we have tried to "hold on to leads" in both Louisville and WF games, rather than trying to continue attacking. This concerns me greatly. I would love to have a dominating offensive line that could allow us ot run out the clock and hold leads, but I don't think we're there (yet).

I'd love to know if this is Key's decision or Faulkner's? I gotta believe it is Key's.
 

billga99

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I do think we have tried to "hold on to leads" in both Louisville and WF games, rather than trying to continue attacking. This concerns me greatly. I would love to have a dominating offensive line that could allow us ot run out the clock and hold leads, but I don't think we're there (yet).

I'd love to know if this is Key's decision or Faulkner's? I gotta believe it is Key's.
Regardless of who made the decision, we have got to finish games. Our 4th quarters excluding SC State have produced much weaker offense and left the defense on the field. Though we outscored Wake due to turnovers, we would have been outscored again. Hopefully will not matter against Bowling Green but it will against most of our remaining opponentd.
 

Techwood Relict

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Fair point. We dodged a bullet and got hit by a howitzer.


True that.

final judgment GIF


But blooms are growing again

flowers flowering GIF by David Koblesky
 

g0lftime

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Regardless of who made the decision, we have got to finish games. Our 4th quarters excluding SC State have produced much weaker offense and left the defense on the field. Though we outscored Wake due to turnovers, we would have been outscored again. Hopefully will not matter against Bowling Green but it will against most of our remaining opponentd.
We aren't powerful enough in the running game -yet- to sit on a lead. Our defense has continued to give up yardage. Finally got turnovers at Wake to preserve the win
 

Heisman's Ghost

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I do think we have tried to "hold on to leads" in both Louisville and WF games, rather than trying to continue attacking. This concerns me greatly. I would love to have a dominating offensive line that could allow us ot run out the clock and hold leads, but I don't think we're there (yet).

I'd love to know if this is Key's decision or Faulkner's? I gotta believe it is Key's.
We don't know and probably never will but Coach Key is heavily influenced by Saban who had the players to run in the fourth quarter with a lead and then run some more. We don't have that but get more linemen and one day we just might be able to line up and say "Here we come, just try to stop this off tackle play...bet you can't do it."
 

FightWinDrink

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And many Yellow Jackets wanted him as our leader. He is no longer a hot commodity.
it was always so weird to me. it seemed like the main reason a lot of the people who wanted him actually wanted him was just because he was an industrial engineer and nothing to do with his actual coaching.
 

slugboy

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I do think we have tried to "hold on to leads" in both Louisville and WF games, rather than trying to continue attacking. This concerns me greatly. I would love to have a dominating offensive line that could allow us ot run out the clock and hold leads, but I don't think we're there (yet).

I'd love to know if this is Key's decision or Faulkner's? I gotta believe it is Key's.

There were some abused stats that said “teams that run the ball more are more likely to win”. The basis of those stats were that the teams that had a lead, and could successfully run, switched to running and ran out the clock (and kept scoring, but more slowly).

First, a generation of coaches learned “run the ball to win”. The next generation of coaches learned a slightly smarter lesson of “run to preserve a lead”. The real lesson is “If you’re ahead, and you can run successfully, it’s a good way to hold your lead”.

We’re not running well, and a more important coaching strategy is “don’t do what isn’t working”.

We need a run game, though. We need wins more.
 

g0lftime

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Coaches don't want to stop the clock on an incomplete pass even when teams stack the box. If you can't run it with the lead and reluctant to pass with good match ups, then it makes for nervous fans.
 

slugboy

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Coaches don't want to stop the clock on an incomplete pass even when teams stack the box. If you can't run it with the lead and reluctant to pass with good match ups, then it makes for nervous fans.
Which burns more clock—a 3 and out running the ball, or getting first downs completing passes 3/5ths of the time?

If you can’t run it and can’t pass it, you’re in trouble. We normally pass pretty well.

We need to improve our running game. We need it. But, if it’s the third quarter, from what I’ve seen this year, you go for points
 

Oldgoldandwhite

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If you get a first down on every play you burn 7-15 seconds off the clock. Not there’s anything wrong with that. But you give the ball over every 2-3 minutes per drive. You run the ball and you can burn up 6-8 minutes per drive. Keeps the defense off the field. Important in the fourth quarter.
 

AUFC

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If you get a first down on every play you burn 7-15 seconds off the clock. Not there’s anything wrong with that. But you give the ball over every 2-3 minutes per drive. You run the ball and you can burn up 6-8 minutes per drive. Keeps the defense off the field. Important in the fourth quarter.
What is your math here? It'd be great to run opponents to death in the 3rd and 4th quarter but slugboy is right -- we haven't showed any ability to do that, so I'd rather pass and keep attacking (generally -- more context needed of course to really decide run vs throw). Run, run, run, punt or run, run, incomplete pass, punt with a lead is predictable and very stoppable against us -- a good formula for continuing to blow leads.
 

roadkill

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Which burns more clock—a 3 and out running the ball, or getting first downs completing passes 3/5ths of the time?

If you can’t run it and can’t pass it, you’re in trouble. We normally pass pretty well.

We need to improve our running game. We need it. But, if it’s the third quarter, from what I’ve seen this year, you go for points
In the 3rd quarter, it doesn’t make much sense to me to adjust your play calling to burn clock at the expense of explosive plays, unless you have a ridiculous lead. A 15-point lead is not enough. In the fourth with a 15-point lead, it might help, but would still be circumstantial.

Also, with the new rules not stopping the clock for first downs until the last 2 minutes, it would seem you could burn a bit more clock passing than before. And with the 40-sec play clock, you could burn 5 minutes if you completed a bunch of short passes in a row and took the play clock down to a second or two. The problem is incompletions. And there are just too many variables to say that a particular play-calling strategy would be best for any game. For example, has your opponent been good at stopping the run? Or vice-versa? How many timeouts do they have? And so forth.
 
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