Athlon ACC Prediction

gtrower

gtrower

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Finishing worse than 4-4 would be a travesty with this conference schedule. Likelihood of wins IMHO:

Clemson...35% Clemson lost a lot on offense, but they have ripped our defense apart the last few years.
Miami......40% We've had our chances to take them down. We were in great position each of the last 2 years.
@VT........40% Same thing, just haven't been getting over the hump. Plus Thomas's first real road test of his career.
@UNC.....50% They are improving, but their defense hasn't shown anything to suggest they can stop CPJ since '08. On the road drops it from 60%.
@Pitt.......60% I wasn't impressed with them last year and the only reason it was close was because of their DT that left for the NFL.
@NCSU...65% They don't look to be putting up much of a fight this year.
Duke........75% They simply won't stop us after losing the backbone of their defense (which couldn't stop us anyway). They better hope to put up 40+ to win.
UVA.........80% Bad team in Atlanta for homecoming.

That put us in the neighborhood of 4.5 expected wins. I would guess that we win one of Clemson/Miami. Split the road games. And beat Duke/UVA to finish 5-3. Good old 5-3 which I believe CPJ has finished 4 out of the 6 years (with a 6-2 and 4-4 mixed in, but I could be wrong on that). Couple that with an unfortunately likely 3-1 OOC record for an 8-4 overall and headed to another boring bowl game. But good enough to keep CPJ for another year headed into a make-or-break season in 2015 with an absolutely brutal schedule including FSU, @ND, UGA, @Clemson, @Miami, VT, and the usual ACC suspects along with Tulane and hopefully a 2nd cupcake. If we aren't careful and/or Thomas doesn't work out at QB, that could be the end of our bowl streak.
 
AE 87

AE 87

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gtrower said:
Finishing worse than 4-4 would be a travesty with this conference schedule. Likelihood of wins IMHO:

Clemson...35% Clemson lost a lot on offense, but they have ripped our defense apart the last few years.
Miami......40% We've had our chances to take them down. We were in great position each of the last 2 years.
@VT........40% Same thing, just haven't been getting over the hump. Plus Thomas's first real road test of his career.
@UNC.....50% They are improving, but their defense hasn't shown anything to suggest they can stop CPJ since '08. On the road drops it from 60%.
@Pitt.......60% I wasn't impressed with them last year and the only reason it was close was because of their DT that left for the NFL.
@NCSU...65% They don't look to be putting up much of a fight this year.
Duke........75% They simply won't stop us after losing the backbone of their defense (which couldn't stop us anyway). They better hope to put up 40+ to win.
UVA.........80% Bad team in Atlanta for homecoming.

That put us in the neighborhood of 4.5 expected wins. I would guess that we win one of Clemson/Miami. Split the road games. And beat Duke/UVA to finish 5-3. Good old 5-3 which I believe CPJ has finished 4 out of the 6 years (with a 6-2 and 4-4 mixed in, but I could be wrong on that). Couple that with an unfortunately likely 3-1 OOC record for an 8-4 overall and headed to another boring bowl game. But good enough to keep CPJ for another year headed into a make-or-break season in 2015 with an absolutely brutal schedule including FSU, @ND, UGA, @Clemson, @Miami, VT, and the usual ACC suspects along with Tulane and hopefully a 2nd cupcake. If we aren't careful and/or Thomas doesn't work out at QB, that could be the end of our bowl streak.
Click to expand...

While I'm not going to parse %s, I think this post reflects sound evaluation of where we're at. I really think you nailed it with the comparison of this season to next. We really need to win 8 or 9 games this year, meaning improvement on D and likely steady state on O, for me to feel good going into 2015.

If our D doesn't improve fairly dramatically, meaning we're still ranked in the 50's in defensive efficiency, then I think even 8 or 9 wins does not bode well for the future.
 
00Burdell

00Burdell

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They picked UNC over Tech?!?!?

Well, gee, I guess the only surprise left for this season is to see how many open dates UNC has before their games against the big 4.
 
thwgjacket

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Clemson, Miami, Pitt and VT lose their starting QB's- "Let's not worry about that, they're all contenders."

GT loses their starting QB- "Oh Lawdie the sky is falling they'll be lucky to win 6."
Every pre-season prediction I've seen thus far.
 
jchens_GT

jchens_GT

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thwgjacket said:
Clemson, Miami, Pitt and VT lose their starting QB's- "Let's not worry about that, they're all contenders."

GT loses their starting QB- "Oh Lawdie the sky is falling they'll be lucky to win 6."
Every pre-season prediction I've seen thus far.
Click to expand...

UNC loses Renner. How did their backup do last year after Renner went down with the injury?
 
gtrower

gtrower

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jchens_GT said:
UNC loses Renner. How did their backup do last year after Renner went down with the injury?
Click to expand...

W UVA 45-14.......15-28, 185 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT
W @Pitt 34-27.....15-27, 173 yards
W ODU 80-20......20-27, 409 yards, 5 TDs, 0 INTs
L Duke 25-27........17-36, 223 yards, 1 TD, 2 INTs

Also had 289 yards rushing and 5 TDs over those 4 games. I don't remember watching any of those games, but he appears to be more of a running threat than a passing threat. His 3 conference games (none of them against stellar defenses) as starter he went 47-91 (51.6%), 193.7 pypg, 1 TD/g, 1 INT/g. Those look closer to stats from a QB in our offense with his rushing totals. I don't think <60% completion is going to go very far in their offense.

Our new starter at QB is a better fit than any of these guys have returning. If he can figure out how to limit turnovers we'll be fine. And if he gets the option down by next year we could be a good squad. I doubt many people even know who JT is right now. Casual ACC fans will write him off as the next TW until he burns a defense for a long score and they take the time to look up at that is was a speedster and former Bama commit. He'll give us some headaches with bad decisions/fumbles and some scares with big hits, but he's gonna have some highlight runs like we haven't seen from QBs before too.
 
jchens_GT

jchens_GT

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Thanks for the summary @gtrower . I think you hit the nail on the head with JT. If he has quarterback intelligence to go with his speed and quickness, we'll have some entertainment at the very least.

Man, it looks like the Coastal division could be all over the place yet again. Duke and UVA return QBs with experience, but everyone else is starting young guys. Miami brings back a lot on defense. VT and GT feel like toss ups to me on offense and defense, but more so GT. Foster usually reloads reasonably well on D. I am ready for the season to start so that we have more than just speculation to discuss.
 
bcaff

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It seems like almost every team in the ACC is replacing their starting QB from last year:

-Boston College
-Clemson
-Georgia Tech
-Louisville
-Miami
-North Carolina
-Pittsburgh
-Virginia Tech
-Wake Forest

So why does losing a QB hurt GT anymore than the other schools? I don't see any way that Pitt is ending up ahead of GT. They're losing the best defensive player last year in the NCAA, a solid QB, and a solid WR.
 
daBuzz

daBuzz

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bcaff said:
It seems like almost every team in the ACC is replacing their starting QB from last year:

-Boston College
-Clemson
-Georgia Tech
-Louisville
-Miami
-North Carolina
-Pittsburgh
-Virginia Tech
-Wake Forest

So why does losing a QB hurt GT anymore than the other schools? I don't see any way that Pitt is ending up ahead of GT. They're losing the best defensive player last year in the NCAA, a solid QB, and a solid WR.
Click to expand...

Not to be argumentative, but we lost our starting QB, our best defensive player (Attouchu) and our 2nd best defensive player (Jemea).
 

hdgtfan

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Trouble for us is that many consider losing our last two starting QB's was a plus, at least prior to the season with the new guy starting
 
dressedcheeseside

dressedcheeseside

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hdgtfan said:
Trouble for us is that many consider losing our last two starting QB's was a plus, at least prior to the season with the new guy starting
Click to expand...
The biggest problem with Vad wasn't talent, it was buy in. One thing you hear repeatedly from CPJ is how TB and JT have bought in. He said it again yesterday:

"It's refreshing, they both engage in and want to do what we're doing."

It doesn't get any clearer than that.
 

Animal02

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dressedcheeseside said:
The biggest problem with Vad wasn't talent, it was buy in. One thing you hear repeatedly from CPJ is how TB and JT have bought in. He said it again yesterday:

"It's refreshing, they both engage in and want to do what we're doing."

It doesn't get any clearer than that.
Click to expand...

I was ready to throw in the towel with CPJ midway through last season. Only when the situation was exposed post season did the entire season make sense. If the QB is not buying into the system.....regardless of what it is.....it will not work. I am really looking forward to this season. Would love to see the death marches once again. Am looking forward to seeing them in Pittsburgh this year.
 

hdgtfan

Georgia Tech Fan
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With what we later learned about issues with Vad's buy-in last year it makes you wonder why TB or JT did not play more, I assume that CPJ still felt that Vad gave us the best chance to win which is scary given what CPJ knew.
 
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