Nobody on the defense played well yesterday, starting on the defensive line, moving through the linebackers, working around the cornerbacks, and ending with the safties.
And I'll add that our special teams were also totally outplayed yesterday by GA Southern. We never returned punts or kickoffs because their coverage teams blew our guys out of the water, almost like we were just trotting around while they were running at full speed.
I'm rarely critical of players or coaches, but will say that it seemed like our defense was playing like they'd never played against an option offense in their life before, which is ridiculous. I'll also say I understand our offense can't score every series they have they ball, however, yesterday, the second half of the game, the play calling was "questionable" at times to me because I thought we had shown we could be successful running the ball in the first half and we went against those plays, and got off the field quickly, which meant our defense went right back onto the field so they couldn't rest up or regroup.
The time we needed our renowned "death marches" were ignored for quick passes and runs that had never worked in the game. We needed those B-Back "4 yard gains up the middle," QB follows, and rocket sweeps, to eat up clock when we had an 11-point lead and our defense needed rest. Pound and ground; pound and ground; pound and ground. THEN hit the pass.
I will say that I noticed several times GSU offensive linemen were blatently holding Tech's defenders right in front of officials and no flags were thrown, and on their long pass plays, it seemed to me from my perspective, that their receivers were constanty pushing off of Tech's DB's, which should have been offensive interference.
So as badly as the team played, had the flags been thrown against their offensive linemen, perhaps we would have actually made the stops we were in place to make and those first downs and TD's GA Southern wouldn't have made that big comeback.
