Athlon: ACC Coaches Talk Anonymously About Conference Foes for 2020

takethepoints

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What I miss is the complaints about how we were the most physical team they faced each year; i.e the only one that actually blocked. And the moaning about cut blocking, of course.

I get all the stuff about "culture" (I sorta know what that means kinda), but the only culture that actually works is winning. When we start doing that all the blessings mentioned above will begin to flow, probably. Having wins follow "eventually" won't help. We'll see about that directly, but we will probably get another year to develop before it happens. Three cheers for that.
 

swampsting

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What I miss is the complaints about how we were the most physical team they faced each year; i.e the only one that actually blocked. And the moaning about cut blocking, of course.

ACCN reaired the Miami game from last year the other night. Watched a little bit before it got too late.
Early in the game, Graham goes to throw a quick route. The line - every one of them - cut the defender in front of them.
 

swampsting

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"They picked their QB (James Graham) and rode him good or bad, which is a smart move. They turned the ball over constantly, and they couldn't run. Fix those two things and they'll up their win total."

Wut.

We didn’t pick our QB til Week 6. That was one of the dumb moves by the staff.

We turned the ball over 20 times in 12 games. Not great, not terrible.

Running is literally the one thing we did well. 4.0 ypc (7th in the ACC).

Wonder who the hell had that expert analysis. Reads like an FSU fan who saw a highlight of the Pitt game.

we weren't great at running the ball. but we weren't that bad (thank you Jordan Mason), either.
 

swampsting

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I loved Johnson, but he never found the next Dwyer or Bebe.

Mills could have been the next Dwyer. He didn't have that top gear Dwyer had, but he was an absolute load to bring down. Mason is probably the next closest to him. He played really well in his one year under PJ and played well last year.
Stephen Hill could have been another Bebe. Made great plays. Had unconscionable drops. Jeune had the size and strength. His biggest problem was he had Taquon throwing to him his senior year. And Taquon could run if he got a crack. But he was too inconsistent throwing the ball. He'd throw one great pass - and five where the hell is that one goings.
 

swampsting

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But at the same time this was to save face with recruits.

Collins is a recruiter before a coach. He was setting himself up to make sure he could land top 30 classes while knowingly going to lose 15+ games his first 2 years.

that'd be nice to know for those of us who spend a great deal of time and effort and resources to come see the team play week in and week out.

fwiw, Citadel's coaching staff is half the size of Tech's. And I don't mean that crap 6-1, 260 offensive line average too.

there was a mistake Collins made early in the year and he kept making them. One particular he made three times. and each time, the other team scored on the ensuing possession.

"It's not the team with the most talent. It's the team that plays the best." - Bill Belichick

in other words, CGC still has a long way to go to win me over. Winning would help.
 

jgtengineer

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Mills could have been the next Dwyer. He didn't have that top gear Dwyer had, but he was an absolute load to bring down. Mason is probably the next closest to him. He played really well in his one year under PJ and played well last year.
Stephen Hill could have been another Bebe. Made great plays. Had unconscionable drops. Jeune had the size and strength. His biggest problem was he had Taquon throwing to him his senior year. And Taquon could run if he got a crack. But he was too inconsistent throwing the ball. He'd throw one great pass - and five where the hell is that one goings.

TQ should have never had to be QB. He was an electric AB in the making. OUr QB room got pretty depleted because of the year where we only took Ratliffe and he was injured.

Bebe had some drop issues too (one very big one comes to mind) But he did some amazing things. Hill would have been there had he stayed one more year but you can't blame the kid for getting paid.
 

jgtengineer

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Do tell. I would love to know.

Well the citadel game was scheming mistake in practice. They literally ran our offense that the entire team should have had experience defending collins specifically just did best on best practice and called a bunch option plays from the gun. The problem was blocking was different, the alley player was never getting there because of how fast the option was hitting and we got pitched to death because Collins didn't want to have the kids running the flexbone.

As for the specific thing he's talking about collins made a lot of minor errors that compounded pretty bad early on so I'm not sure which one. The errors were almost entirely around indecision, bad clock management and trying to force things.
 

Jacket05

Ramblin' Wreck
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Mills could have been the next Dwyer. He didn't have that top gear Dwyer had, but he was an absolute load to bring down. Mason is probably the next closest to him. He played really well in his one year under PJ and played well last year.
Stephen Hill could have been another Bebe. Made great plays. Had unconscionable drops. Jeune had the size and strength. His biggest problem was he had Taquon throwing to him his senior year. And Taquon could run if he got a crack. But he was too inconsistent throwing the ball. He'd throw one great pass - and five where the hell is that one goings.
Don't forget about Waller at WR. Based on everything coming out this past year, he could have been the next BeBe if he had gotten his act together and wasn't dealing with alcohol and drug addiction. Just imagine having a focused Waller opposite Smelter with Thomas at QB!!!
 

Lee

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Looks like a couple guys still can’t let go of the option era. It’s gone, not coming back.

The closest guy to replicating Dwyer was Marshall and PJ ran him off because he kept playing a guy (who put smoking weed over his teammates) over him.

As for Waller, I actually think he would’ve thrived under Collins coaching style.
 

1BearJACKET

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Looks like a couple guys still can’t let go of the option era. It’s gone, not coming back.

The closest guy to replicating Dwyer was Marshall and PJ ran him off because he kept playing a guy (who put smoking weed over his teammates) over him.

As for Waller, I actually think he would’ve thrived under Collins coaching style.
To be honest, I would have loved to have kept Marshall but he did have a tendency to lose his grip on the football at the most inopportune times.....not that there is an opportune time to fumble.
 

smokey_wasp

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Looks like a couple guys still can’t let go of the option era. It’s gone, not coming back.

The closest guy to replicating Dwyer was Marshall and PJ ran him off because he kept playing a guy (who put smoking weed over his teammates) over him.

As for Waller, I actually think he would’ve thrived under Collins coaching style.

Ehh. Not sure it's fair to say Marshall was run off. The word was he just wasn't happy with the whole GT experience all around.

And I think Mills was the better back. Just look at their paths since then. Mills had a great year at Nebraska and may go to the NFL. Marshall split carries at JMU.
 

SOWEGA Jacket

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My original point was that GT has suffered a long time from lack of top tier QB play. And our RB’s have been spotty as well. In my time as a teenager (mid 1980’s) to now the three best RB’s I’ve seen were Dwyer, Bell, and Mays. All three were consistent, strong, and fast. Mills coulda, woulda, shoulda. I walked out of Jacksonville after watching him run all the SEC and thought we were set. Boy was I wrong. WR’s it’s Calvin and Bebe. Smelter could have been a stud but never dedicated full time until the end. Hill had all the talent in the world but didn’t figure it out in college. Dez White was fun to watch like those guys from the title team. QB it’s been Shawn, Joe, Goose, Nesbitt, and Thomas with only Joe being at the elite level. Collins is bringing in talent where we’ll start hitting on elite guys again. Gibbs could be that guy at RB. But we need our RG3/Cam/Vince/Vick/Joe Ham who can carry a team on his back. I believe Collins recruiting skills will pay off. Could Sims be that guy?
 

Jacketman99

Ramblin' Wreck
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My original point was that GT has suffered a long time from lack of top tier QB play. And our RB’s have been spotty as well. In my time as a teenager (mid 1980’s) to now the three best RB’s I’ve seen were Dwyer, Bell, and Mays. All three were consistent, strong, and fast. Mills coulda, woulda, shoulda. I walked out of Jacksonville after watching him run all the SEC and thought we were set. Boy was I wrong. WR’s it’s Calvin and Bebe. Smelter could have been a stud but never dedicated full time until the end. Hill had all the talent in the world but didn’t figure it out in college. Dez White was fun to watch like those guys from the title team. QB it’s been Shawn, Joe, Goose, Nesbitt, and Thomas with only Joe being at the elite level. Collins is bringing in talent where we’ll start hitting on elite guys again. Gibbs could be that guy at RB. But we need our RG3/Cam/Vince/Vick/Joe Ham who can carry a team on his back. I believe Collins recruiting skills will pay off. Could Sims be that guy?
Kelly Campbell was a stud as well. Just recently watched some of those games from 99 and 00. He is very underrated when we talk about past players.
 

MidtownJacket

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Tashard is a stud man, no two ways about it. I have told this story on here before but when I was at GT we had a class together and were pretty friendly.

I missed a class and so the next session asked if I could borrow his notes. They were on point, and better than the ones I took. Stand up dude who approached everything on and off the field with intentional preparation.
 
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