Brian Kelly on Justin Thomas & Getting to the QB
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Skeptic
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thanks, because doggone if I could hear or understand Kelly. It was so different from the first press conference it surprised me. That is, the clarity of the first was evident. Anyway, ND may not have anybody as fast as Thomas, though on that roster they probably do. But what they have not seen and nobody in South Bend realizes, is that it's not his speed that kills. They have seen speed. They have not seen that incredible quickness unless they watched the OB. But never up close and personal so to speak. It amazes anybody who has seen him, and I remember Johnson talking about him in spring practice of his freshman year. Did find his comments about the blocking schemes "protecting" Thomas. It seems at cross purposes with the option, which has the intent of drawing tacklers to him. But I think we see more now him suddenly stopping and flipping the ball, thus avoiding, mostly, the hits.
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The more players on JT, the fewer on the backs. I don't care how we win. Just win baby.
Skeptic
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He gets the spread option part and a lot of coaches haven't. Now they're talking wishbone offenses, etc., and this particular offense seems to me about as different in speed and quickness as it can be from the wishbone. We'll see, but I suspect ND is going to be very surprised at how fast they have to make assignment decisions, avoid the reflex response to what they think they are about to see and get turned a bit, or take a step in the wrong direction, and how quickly GT's OL is on them. Watched some ACC championship stuff, the OB, Georgia, Clemson, and I really sharpened my appreciation for what was happening. If ND's defense is better than Clemson, and that is a high bar, ND can win. But after all this talk about assigning a coach to it a year ago, yadda yadda, I won't be surprised to see VT 2.1 rolled out. Foster reliably plays us tougher than anybody, year after year.
AE 87
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Fwiw, that's not what he said.
yellojello
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Psychological warfare?
GTonTop88
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CPJ will look at what they do and counter, teams that play us aggressively usually get burned badly. Hope it's the same this week.
Techster
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For all intents and purposes, yes it is:
http://247sports.com/Bolt/Tall-task-for-ND-scout-team-to-simulate-Justin-Thomas-39504457
"What we were able to duplicate is making sure that we have somebody overlapping the quarterback if in fact we don’t get through to the quarterback on our initial assignments," Kelly said. "But he’s a very difficult guy to get hits on, so if somebody said hey, why aren’t you hitting the quarterback, it’s difficult to get hits on him because of how their offense is designed."
So if the initial "assignment" misses JeT, the defense is set up such that "somebody" is overlapping the QB? So not only is JeT being defensed (or assigned) by a first defender, but a second defender has to be manipulated to defend JeT. Sounds like there's pretty much two bodies responsible for JeT depending on how the play develops.