Clemson 41 - GT 10

[DavidStandingBear]

It's one thing to expect some mistakes with freshman against a stout Clemson D,.those can get cleaned up but to have a seasoned coach make those boneheaded mistakes really makes you wonder.
Collins in his 4th year here shouldn't be making those kind of mistakes.

All aspects of our game seemed improved other than game time head coaching

 

[GoldZ]

RT was Jordan Williams.

Jordan (a Jr.) got owned as well by the DE on his side.

 

[danny daniel]

Fusile was on the right side . I thought they moved Williams to left tackle. Maybe Fusile was at guard. He got a lot of snaps.

Fusile was at RG and Williams at RT most of the game. Fusile is a second year player on this team and evidence indicates that he earned his spot in camp. There are some real issues with this team like TE and WR performance, STs, penalties, and continued coaching issues.

 

[Em_Jae20]

Not sure if it's been mentioned but does anyone think Collins using his timeouts in the second half and essentially waving the white flag was in preparation for Western Carolina? By that time the game was out of hand and the team is already on a short week of prep. I think Collins knows that losing to yet another FCS school will be too damning to recover from. A loss to Clemson is expected, another loss to an FCS school won't raise questions. It will answer them.

 

[GTLorenzo]

Not sure if it's been mentioned but does anyone think Collins using his timeouts in the second half and essentially waving the white flag was in preparation for Western Carolina? By that time the game was out of hand and the team is already on a short week of prep. I think Collins knows that losing to yet another FCS school will be too damning to recover from. A loss to Clemson is expected, another loss to an FCS school won't raise questions. It will answer them.

Man, it looks bad when you run three times up the middle 5 minutes left and then their true freshman QB comes in and moves it right down the field for a TD in under two minutes or so. Don't understand Collin's lack of willingness to at least try to go down field. I get the OL issues, but at least throw a couple up. Similar to the end of the first half situation. I just don't get Collins' coaching at all.

 

[Techster]

The score is misleading. Doesn't mean Clemson didn't earn it, but I thought we played a better game than what the final score indicated.

1. REALLY proud of our DL. That's probably the best I've seen our DL played since CGC has been here. If you want to know the difference between UGA/Bama/Ohio State/etc and team like GT, it's depth. Clemson could rotate 5 and 4 star guys, and we're rotating guys we have to develop over time. Our DL looked like a modern day DL as well...we looked the part. Had Jared Ivey and Jordan Domenick stayed, this could have looked completely different. Apparently Keion White can play inside as well, with that flexibility and having the option of using Ivey and Domenick to keep guys fresh would have been HUGE. Kudos to the guys that played last night...absolute monster effort.

2. Speaking of Keion White, he's a player. Sylvain Yondjouen is also a player. LOTS of guys on the DL were players last night...just those two stood out to me. Credit to Collins on this: He saw a weakness on the right side of Clemson's OL and he exploited it all game.

3. I though Eley played a heck of game as well. He was in the backfield a LOT.

4. Chaos...we created a LOT of chaos in their backfield. I don't think DJU was comfortable at all most of the night...and that's because we were getting pressure and our secondary played well enough on the back end to give our DL time to create pressure. It all works together.

5. I keep seeing that if Klubnik had played, Clemson would have made it worse. Maybe, but when Klubnik went in, we were gassed. It's a lot easier for fresh legs to run around when it's against guys with heavy legs gasping for air.

6. Our offense was its own worst enemy last night. It's like we would take one step forward, then take one step back. Penalties and dropped passes hurt us...a lot.

7. If you can't tell the difference between Chip Long and Patenaude, then you don't know football. I thought Long, overall, called a good game. That first play call wasn't bad at all, McCollum had a step on the DB, Sims just couldn't step into his throw because a defender was in his face. You have to take shots against a team like Clemson, and sometime they don't work out. What I liked overall about Long's play calling was he understood Sims weaknesses, and he also understood the pressure Clemson put on our OL...we couldn't run complicated route trees where Sims had to stay in the pocket to run through progressions. Lots of screens, quick dump offs, quick passes. We had guys open a lot...but again, Clemson's front line caused Sims to have to adjust so he didn't exactly have time to set and find guys. One thing I would have liked to see more of was moving Sims around like Clemson did with DJU in the 2nd half (BTW, if the offense starts moving the QB around, that means your defense is doing something right) and with Klubnik. Buy Sims time or give him the option to take off.

8. Sims was definitely more accurate, and some of our receivers didn't help him, but he definitely had moments of the old Sims. We have to remember, first game in a new offense, with a new person in his ear, against the one of the best defenses in the country. I thought he played well given that.

9. Nate McCollum looked GOOD. He's going to be a problem in the slot.

10. I also thought Smith looked good at RB as well. Very shifty and explosive in short spaces. Not fair to judge our RBs against Clemson though.

11. Jenkins is a TE trying to play WR. If he ever decides to give TE full concentration, he will be a VERY good pro prospect.

12. Clemson's DL is very similar to UGA's DL last year. Everyone on the DL is playing in the NFL, and there are multiple high round draft picks there. It was always going to be a tough job for our mix and match OL. It's going to be tough job for a LOT of DLs on Clemson's schedule this year.

13. CGC...

 

[IronJacket7]

He wasn't.

https://ramblinwreck.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/ATL-G1_22-Clemson.pdf

That is so strange. I could have sworn I saw an ATL chart two weeks ago with him on it. My mistake.

 

[IronJacket7]

He wasn't.

https://ramblinwreck.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/ATL-G1_22-Clemson.pdf

Any timeline on when he may return?

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

That is so strange. I could have sworn I saw an ATL chart two weeks ago with him on it. My mistake.

The depth chart that Clemson (or one of their boards) released was pulled straight from ourlads.com and had him and several other injured players on it. That may be the point of confusion.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

Any timeline on when he may return?

I haven't seen anything official, and CGC is notoriously tight lipped on injuries, but I have heard that it's maybe just a few more weeks.

 

[WreckinGT]

5. I keep seeing that if Klubnik had played, Clemson would have made it worse. Maybe, but when Klubnik went in, we were gassed. It's a lot easier for fresh legs to run around when it's against guys with heavy legs gasping for air.

Some are saying that Klubnik was only good because he was playing against our backups and others are saying he was only good because our players were gassed. Which is it? I admittedly was too drunk at that point to figure out how many starters were still in there. Or is it possible he was good because he is actually good?

 

[UgaBlows]

Some are saying that Klubnik was only good because he was playing against our backups and others are saying he was only good because our players were gassed. Which is it? I admittedly was too drunk at that point to figure out how many starters were still in there. Or is it possible he was good because he is actually good?

Don’t you think he would have won the starting job if he was THAT much better than DJU?

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Are you expecting perfect play every time? Because Clemson had two runs of 10+ yards and one was the broken pitch where the QB should have been sacked. So maybe there were a handful of runs where the LBs could have gotten to a hole a little bit quicker, but they weren't gashed and in the end Clemson was held to 3.2 ypa and much of that was gained once the D was worn down and lost one of our top players. You could probably find a handful of our runs that were similar. It's just really hard to be that good every single play.

The defense may yet show cracks this year but I don't think we can really point to any after game one except maybe depth.

To clarify, D line played well and secondary gave good run support. It just seemed like the linebackers were not involved in many of the plays. So I definitely agree that our D line did a good job stuffing the run. Said that on my game summary.

I guess I need to look up stats on number of tackles made by different players too.

 

[GTLorenzo]

Some are saying that Klubnik was only good because he was playing against our backups and others are saying he was only good because our players were gassed. Which is it? I admittedly was too drunk at that point to figure out how many starters were still in there. Or is it possible he was good because he is actually good?

He looked really sharp to me. I'm sure we were tired, but he had good zip on his ball and seemed to hit his receivers quickly and with a good ball. Just my $0.02.

 

[okiemon]

Don’t you think he would have won the starting job if he was THAT much better than DJU?

Maybe, but not necessarily. If the Clemson coaching staff had doubts about the protection their OL could/would give, they may have chosen not to put him under that much pressure in his first game. Bring him on slowly, as it were.

 

[GTLorenzo]

Maybe, but not necessarily. If the Clemson coaching staff had doubts about the protection their OL could/would give, they may have chosen not to put him under that much pressure in his first game. Bring him on slowly, as it were.

Will likely bring him along somewhat slowly to make sure he is comfortable and truly is the better option. I think the play Wake in late September or around the time when Sunshine beat out Kelly Bryant a few years ago. Similar situation.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Since this has come up a few times, I want to go on record as being absolutely thrilled with our first play call. It didn’t work out but I don’t fault the call.

Also want to give credit to Collins for going for it on 4th down early in the game. Making that play gives your team confidence. But even if we didn’t make it I think it was the right call.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Will likely bring him along somewhat slowly to make sure he is comfortable and truly is the better option. I think the play Wake in late September or around the time when Sunshine beat out Kelly Bryant a few years ago. Similar situation.

“Liked” for Sunshine reference.

 

[slugboy]

To clarify, D line played well and secondary gave good run support. It just seemed like the linebackers were not involved in many of the plays. So I definitely agree that our D line did a good job stuffing the run. Said that on my game summary.

I guess I need to look up stats on number of tackles made by different players too.

Eley and Thomas were the #3 and #4 PFF-rated players on our defense: https://gtswarm.com/threads/pff-week-1-grades.25504/.

Eley and Demetrius Knight had some of our better stats.

DEFENSE	Tckl	TA	Sck	Int	FF
Ayinde Eley	4​	2​	0​	0​	1​
Zamari Walton	0​	1​	0​	0​	0​
Makius Scott	1​	0​	0​	0​	0​
Kyle Kennard	1​	0​	0​	0​	0​
Dontae Smith	0​	1​	0​	0​	0​
Zeek Biggers	1​	0​	0​	0​	0​
Keion White	2​	1​	1​	0​	0​
Charlie Thomas	7​	2​	0​	0​	0​
D'Quan Douse	1​	1​	0​	0​	0​
T.K. Chimedza	1​	1​	0​	0​	0​
LaMiles Brooks	0​	2​	0​	0​	0​
Trenilyas Tatum	0​	1​	0​	0​	0​
Jaylon King	2​	3​	0​	0​	0​
Kenan Johnson	1​	0​	0​	0​	0​
Derrik Allen	2​	1​	0​	0​	0​
K.J. Wallace	1​	2​	0​	0​	0​
Myles Sims	1​	1​	0​	0​	0​
Noah Collins	1​	1​	0​	0​	0​
Demetrius Knight	1​	1​	0​	0​	0​
Kevin Harris	0​	1​	0​	0​	0​
Sylvain Yondjouen	1​	0​	0​	0​	0​

 

[GTLorenzo]

“Liked” for Sunshine reference.

Thank you...thank you very much....