Biggest need for 2016 (offense edition)

[Boomergump]

Football is truly a game of inches. BBacks need to take the right track every time. A backs need to go the right way every time. OL need to block the right person every time. Given the new people and the injuries, the team did not have the inches to win. I think we have the right players to win. The team needs execution that will come with practice.

The one place I can say there is something missing is pass blocking. There is something wrong here and I am beginning to think it is not player specific. Big gaps? I think it is more... I never see us legally hold.

Well said. How many times were we a foot away from a huge play only to be tackled for a 5 yard gain this year? It happened over and over. Sometimes it was angles and execution. Sometimes it was just a lack of speed, plain and simple.

 

[Milwaukee]

You guys need to understand that a BB can not run through holes that aren't there. These Marcus Marshall threads are becoming a joke and just making those posters look ignorant.

Do you even watch and understand the entire game of football?

OP is now claiming that Marshall was the reason JT was running for his life on pass plays LMAO.

This is better than Saturday Night Live.

 

[iceeater1969]

Football is truly a game of inches. BBacks need to take the right track every time. A backs need to go the right way every time. OL need to block the right person every time. Given the new people and the injuries, the team did not have the inches to win. I think we have the right players to win. The team needs execution that will come with practice.

The one place I can say there is something missing is pass blocking. There is something wrong here and I am beginning to think it is not player specific. Big gaps? I think it is more... I never see us legally hold.

Do u mean hold = olineman drives into d tackle and grabs some nersey inside the shoulders and then pulls the dt into him. This pins them together till the dt can muscle away. This delays him enough for rest of option to open up?

 

[dressedcheeseside]

You guys need to understand that a BB can not run through holes that aren't there. These Marcus Marshall threads are becoming a joke and just making those posters look ignorant.

Do you even watch and understand the entire game of football?

OP is now claiming that Marshall was the reason JT was running for his life on pass plays LMAO.

This is better than Saturday Night Live.

Hey preschooler, learn to read before you make an *** of yourself by misquoting others.

This is what I wrote:

He can't block worth a toot. He's a big part of the reason JT was running for his life every time he dropped back.

"Part" is the operative word, it means not completely. If you don't think his lack of blocking skill contributed to JT's lack of time to throw, then I don't know what games you were watching.

You probably also missed these little nuggets I said in regards to MM:

I expect him to succeed....

I agree he's darn good with the ball in his hands...

The kid has talent...

It's way to early to anoint him a boom or a bust or anything. That was my point that flew over your and several other's heads.

 

[Lee]

Changes to scheme and technique in pass protection. Especially in obvious passing situations and 2 minute drill.

Specific recommendations:
1. Two point stance
2. Tighter splits
3. No WRs lined up at tackle with responsibility of blocking the DE (think Waller trying to block Beasley inside our own 5 yard line)
4. No reverse drop or play action on 3rd and forever with less than a minute to go, down a TD...

Honestly, the fact that we expect decent pass protection with what we ask our guys to do is somewhat laughable to me.

 

[takethepoints]

Do u mean hold = olineman drives into d tackle and grabs some nersey inside the shoulders and then pulls the dt into him. This pins them together till the dt can muscle away. This delays him enough for rest of option to open up?

It's called "push and dance". We did it a lot when Chan was here. They never call holding unless you get by and the OL grabs your jersey as you do. They can and do grab your jersey to push you away, of course.

It's an old technique and a perversion of football. They put it in largely to allow more passing and to jazz the college game up by allowing college OLs to do what they do in the pros. Too bad, that. When I played OL, if your hands came off your jersey, you were automatically called for holding. Made for a much quicker breed of OLs and DLs. But there it is. We're at a disadvantage in that our OLs actually, you know, make contact and block. Makes it look suspicious when we do the usual stuff.

This is one reason why I like our O. No *****-footing, no Italian-soccer-style-football. Our OL goes out there and at least tries (especially this season) to actually hit someone. It's usually a great surprise to unexperienced opposing DLs. You can always tell who the new kids are.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

I said before the season that inexperience would hurt us. I just didn't realize how much.

 

[Skeptic]

Changes to scheme and technique in pass protection. Especially in obvious passing situations and 2 minute drill.

Specific recommendations:
1. Two point stance
2. Tighter splits
3. No WRs lined up at tackle with responsibility of blocking the DE (think Waller trying to block Beasley inside our own 5 yard line)
4. No reverse drop or play action on 3rd and forever with less than a minute to go, down a TD...

Honestly, the fact that we expect decent pass protection with what we ask our guys to do is somewhat laughable to me.

Well, what might be laughable in 2015 was not laughable in 2014 or previous. Once again scheme gets the blame due execution. Frankly there were times Tech could have stacked the O box shoulder to shoulder and Thomas still would have been buried.

 

[ilovetheoption]

So, this is a tangent, but hopefully this season helped us appreciate a guy like laskey a little bit. He was forever the guy everybody wanted to be replaced, but he did what he did (hit the hole as hard and quick as possible, and have nifty feet) really well, and forced defenses to be honest.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

So, this is a tangent, but hopefully this season helped us appreciate a guy like laskey a little bit. He was forever the guy everybody wanted to be replaced, but he did what he did (hit the hole as hard and quick as possible, and have nifty feet) really well, and forced defenses to be honest.

Couldn't agree more. Even David Sims did better than the crew this year.

I think it also makes us appreciate a dominant RG. We were blessed with Uzzi and Mason for the majority of CPJ's tenure.

 

[Skeptic]

Couldn't agree more. Even David Sims did better than the crew this year.

I think it also makes us appreciate a dominant RG. We were blessed with Uzzi and Mason for the majority of CPJ's tenure.

In the thread about Reddit breaking down the spread option, the writer says that in this offense the guards are the big hitters, so to speak, vs. the tackles in other offenses. It has certainly been true here.

 

[Dottie1145]

I still believe that games are won and lost between the trenches. We need some big and strong guards on both sides, left and right to improve on the dive play. Personally I'd like see us get a tightend but that's not going to happen.

Changing the snap count throughout the game works in our offensive lines favor. Defensively, we need to be stronger up front. We're undersized at end, and unproven at DT with the exception of Gamble.

 

[Lee]

Well, what might be laughable in 2015 was not laughable in 2014 or previous. Once again scheme gets the blame due execution. Frankly there were times Tech could have stacked the O box shoulder to shoulder and Thomas still would have been buried.

Please tell me when we have had good pass protection in PJ's tenure here. Especially when we need to protect and not when we have the D on their heels because we are gashing them in the run game.

Even last year when we had the best offense ever, and I'm not saying that sarcastically, a lot of our success in the passing game predicated on JT buying time with his feet and Smelter coming back to the ball. Was the protection better last year? Yes. Was it good? I would say no.

If you think our protection scemes put our offensive lineman in the best position to succeed than you and PJ must know something every NFL and 95% of college coaches don't.

Look, I'm not calling for an overhaul of PJ's system. It's a thing of beauty when run properly. To act like it couldn't use some tweaks to improve it is a bit ridiculous to me. Changing how we protect on 3rd and 15 or in the 2 minute drill is not going change what we do the other 90% of the time.

 

[takethepoints]

Changing how we protect on 3rd and 15 or in the 2 minute drill is not going change what we do the other 90% of the time.

Well … except for making our 2 minute drill pretty predictable. But maybe we'll do that next year.

The secret we've had most year's in Coach's tenure is that we didn't need a two minute drill; we needed a 7 - 9 minute drill where we got up a bit, then sat on the ball like a slug until time ran out for the other side. Me for that drill and more of it.

 

[MtownJacket]

They shouldn't screw with the blocking except maybe on obvious passing downs. If its 3rd and 10 then maybe call a formation with tighter splits and grab some jerseys between the shoulders. But we can't do that every time we pass because it will telegraph our intent. When we do pass successfully it is typically because the defense is expecting the run. The secondary expects a block and the receiver runs right past him. Play action is our bread and butter, but it won't fool anyone if we line up with tight splits. What we need to do is block the right guy and pick up the blitz, and that can and has been done from our base formation.

 

[Ibeeballin]

Leadership and accountability is the biggest need

 

[Milwaukee]

Hey preschooler, learn to read before you make an *** of yourself by misquoting others.

This is what I wrote:

He can't block worth a toot. He's a big part of the reason JT was running for his life every time he dropped back.

"Part" is the operative word, it means not completely. If you don't think his lack of blocking skill contributed to JT's lack of time to throw, then I don't know what games you were watching.

You probably also missed these little nuggets I said in regards to MM:

I expect him to succeed....

I agree he's darn good with the ball in his hands...

The kid has talent...

It's way to early to anoint him a boom or a bust or anything. That was my point that flew over your and several other's heads.

My apologies DCS. You are one of the few on the site that do know X's and O's. I just get a little frustrated seeing the nonsense about MM being the reason JT struggled passing and MM being the reason the running game between the tackles suffered.

Didn't mean to call you out, even though I did. Cheers mate.

Calling MM out for needing to improve is definitely ok, but to say he's the reason JT didn't have time to throw and to say he doesn't know how to explode through a hole is just ignorant.

I'd love to be an offensive lineman this year, given our fan base. Hell, they're like a weatherman, never get blamed for anything...when it was pretty obvious that they were the reason the O was a train wreck this year. Just my opinion.

 

[65Jacket]

The number one thing we lacked last year was Leadership, especially on the OL.

 

[Sideways]

I think you are really underestimating the role of injuries this year. There was a post in another thread that showed that the main difference between this year and last was the performance of the O; the D was about the same, but on the field a lot longer this year. Why?

You've hit on it yourself. The main difference between this year's team and last year's was the decimation of our skill players on O. I posted on this before, but of the two-deep of skill players we expected to have on the field at the start of fall practice, we had a grand total of two on the field this year - JT and Ike Willis. Even the new kids we were expecting to help - Cotrell and Benson - got hurt in the fall. Then Snoddy and Searcy went down. Iow, we not only lost our experienced skill players before the season, but we had to change the cast of characters during the season as well, moving MLD and Jordan to AB, then moving Jordan back to QB, then shifting the OL because of Shamire's concussion, then … you get the point. The result was there for everyone to see, especially in the games we played in the slop with new kids all over the place.

And, btw, we lost both Leggett and Quaid in the spring. That's why we jumped at Skov and moved Allen. That really hurt, for reasons already pointed out here.

I have not seen a Georgia Tech team decimated by injuries the way this one was for more than a quarter of a century. It was absolutely devastating. But that is just me. Some may argue that we should not have let it affect us to the degree that it did except that the notorious 2012 and 2013 recruiting years bit us but good. As to next year, I agree that smoother mesh play will result in getting to the hole a tad bit faster and make that MIKE linebacker hesitate for just a moment. More speed at Aback and better perimeter blocking will get the edge game going. Linemen are going to have to be more physical and execute their assignments much better. All of this will take a load off JT and then we will see the kind of player he can be. Eat up the clock, limit the other team's possessions and our defense will improve as well. It's a long time to spring ball. Almost time to start lifting and running men.

 

[B Lifsey]

NM