Clemson Postgame

GTJake

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Heh. Why? What's he gonna do about admissions, the state of college football overall, state of GA academics and all the other reasons we are what we are.

Because all of those reasons don't add up to why we are this bad on offense. You can throw out all the same old excuses but IMO the Offense is not working against good defenses and needs to be fixed.
 

1979jacket

Ramblin' Wreck
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568
I went to the game and watched a replay of the first half this morning. You have to be a real Tech fan to do that. My observations:

1) The defense played reasonably well with some exceptions. #17 did not play well. #6 did and #91 made some plays.
2) The offensive line blocking was atrocious. I won't point fingers but if I did it would not be at #71.
3) At the game, I thought JT just did not have a chance. On replay that is still somewhat true but his play was not stellar either. Bad decisions, head down, throwing at the feet.
4) There were some plays to be had that we didn't make. Early in game on a sack, #26 is wide open on a play at the game that I though was a QB draw but not on replay. Blocker let's DT go right by him and JT ducks his head. Both at fault. A lame duck pass could have got there.
5) Very lucky on Searcy pass near our own goal line. Thought at game and replay confirmed it was backwards and should have been ruled a fumble. So we did get some breaks.
6) I do not expect Tech to be a top 10 program but have been a long time fan and do expect them to be able to compete and make games interesting. Last need did not compete on offense. I am CPJ fan but last night offense was pitiful. We will see what happens with UM but if things don't get better some changes will have to happen on offense. i.e some offensive line new players and possibly seeing more of Jordan. Even with lack of blocking, QB needs to keep head up and run downhill. Coach is also to blame. When they are playing that tight upfront on defense, we have to be able to some things to loosen them up. Granted you have to have some time for QB to be able to pass but still ...... or you have to be able to create some running lanes with guard pull and bback off tackle.
7) CPJ needs to turn it around or apathy from fanbase and me will set in.
 

jandrews

Jolly Good Fellow
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275
Just watching the game. If our offense played a little better I think the game would have looked close to the auburn Clemson game. I still am not sure we pull it out especially since we started playing from behind. Sometimes you have bad games. This just happened to be one. Time to regroup and get ready for Miami. There really isn't anyone with as much talent remaining on our schedule. Clemson is a top 5 team as of right now. Right now I'm worried that an aggressive defense will be trouble for us again.
 

jimholman7

Georgia Tech Fan
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10
I've watched Clemson at Auburn and again vs us last night. AU's DL is close to being as good as Clemson's which kept that game close along with AU having zero offense. We also know that DW has a poor touch on deep balls. Showed this vs GT and AU. How many fades and post corners did he miss? A ton. We're so vulnerable to the short passing game because we have no DL push and as such our DBs have to give 10 yards cushion. This makes these smokes and outs so very easy. Even Mercer did this well against us. Pitch and catch all the way down the field. When our DBs press a bit, we get killed on slants and screens. We did well against Clemson's run, but in the end it didn't matter. If Watson could have hit the deep ball, the score would have been worse.

Clemson ran 3 down D line man and blew us up all day with their linebackers. They were also jumping our counts (like VT & LSU do against us) and we did much better in the 2nd half with our counts to get the offside calls. Notice how many offsides they had? At least 4. I think this helped slow down their penetration and helped our running game, but why did it take into the 2nd half to adjust to this? Knowing how poorly our O-Line plays against physical, athletic, and aggressive D-Lines, I can see Miami doing this same thing. I don't think this is "figuring out the triple option" (hogwash), but it completely figures out the 2015/2016 GT offense. If Miami's smart, they'll likely do the same as CU and VT does. One good vertical receiving threat for our O would take some pressure off as would one beast O-Lineman, but as CPJ is fond of saying, these guys don't grown on trees.

What does CPJ do to plan for this? Not sure if he has has an answer. I'm sure Sewak doesn't.
 

kg01

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Because all of those reasons don't add up to why we are this bad on offense. You can throw out all the same old excuses but IMO the Offense is not working against good defenses and needs to be fixed.

It's not that simple. Say we fired errybody, hired a pro-style coach. If "all those reasons" still exist, how's he gonna recruit against the Clemsons, Bamas, UGAs of the world?
 

GTpdm

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I agree with you, but I think there was a let down in intensity by the Clemson players and it affected their performance. I liken it to our 2014 game against Ga Southern. We got up big in that one and lost our intensity and suddenly we couldn't move the ball. It happens.
Agreed. I don't think Dabo "let up off the gas"--but I would't be surprised if, at some point during the 3rd quarter, the Clemson coaches told their players, " Just do your job; don't get yourself injured trying to go all-out and make Big Plays".
 

Jerry the Jacket

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Message boards have become such a big part of being a fan. I really enjoy reading the collective thoughts of our fan base after a game. I think on the whole. I agree with most of the thoughts being expressed. We got beat straight up. There guys beat our guys and that happens some times. It is like Johnson said earlier in one of his press conferences, we are a team that can beat anybody on our schedule but we are also a team that can be beaten by anybody on our schedule.

The first half was pretty ugly. It looked like we came out overly cautious. You win the toss and decide to defer, subliminally that sets the tone that hey we are concerned that we will screw up and give away the first possession. I know CPJ always opts for this, feeling if we are behind, we can adjust at halftime and take that first possession to establish second half momentum. Sometimes you have to send the team a message of hey we are going to go out here and be aggressive tonight. The defense opened up playing our usual bend but don't break, giving those big cushions to the receivers, playing to keep everything in front of us. Clemson just exploited that the entire first half. Later, we did adjust and started blitzing more and we looked like a much better defense. I think we have a chance to be really good on defense if we adopt an agressive mentality and play with an edge. We just need a few more of our guys to turn the heat up and for our coaching staff to turn them loose early and not wait to half time.

On offense it seems CPJ always uses the first quarter to feel out an opponent and try to figure out what is working that particular game. Well it was pretty obvious that the wide stuff was not going to work and our best bet was to try to establish the inside game. Our passing game takes too long to develop with the skill set we have available to execute it this season. Maybe against some lesser opponents but not against teams with the talent level of a Clemson. Our offensive line did settle down in the second half somewhat and I think Parker Braun especially earned some more playing time. I think we have to seriously rethink our player development on the offensive line. Some guys are just not performing and the other guys need to get a shot. No use sugar coating it, we have some guys not getting the job done on offense and we need to try some other folks.

I do think our guys fought hard and did not quit. I liked that and it gives us all hope that we can still be a good football team in 2016. Like most teams, we have some weak points, some that we can improve upon and some that we will have to try and work around but on the whole we have the potential to still be solid before the year is out. If we played Clemson 10 times they would most likely beat us 9 times and that is just the facts of our talent vs. theirs this season. That is disappointing as a fan but you have to understand that sometimes, the man across the line of scrimmage is just better than you are. Hats off to Clemson they deserved the win.

Go Jackets!
 

LongforDodd

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GT got whooped.
Talent wins out.
I will say I thought CPJ would have learned that against talented DlIne (Iowa, LSU, UGA, ect) this pitches work less and less and less. GT has to pass better I quick plays and line up and run straight at them. Those long drop backs not gonna work this pitches not gonna work at least not consistently. That's a big fast physical defense, I figured he'd have adjusted by now.
I think it is nearly impossible to have a decent passing game with a 5-10 QB who lines up under center and behind a somewhat porous line overall.
 

GTJake

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It's not that simple. Say we fired errybody, hired a pro-style coach. If "all those reasons" still exist, how's he gonna recruit against the Clemsons, Bamas, UGAs of the world?

If you take that game last night for example and add a competent offense, no matter if it's TO or Pro-Style or whatever, the game is competitive.

Yes recruiting of late has not been great and will probably rarely match the teams you mentioned, but success on the field will help and its not like we haven't had success before.
 

GTJake

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It's not that simple. Say we fired errybody, hired a pro-style coach. If "all those reasons" still exist, how's he gonna recruit against the Clemsons, Bamas, UGAs of the world?

If you take that game last night for example and add a competent offense, no matter if it's TO or Pro-Style or whatever, the game is competitive.

Yes recruiting of late has not been great and will probably rarely match the teams you mentioned, but success on the field will help and its not like we haven't had success before.
 

LongforDodd

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When teams are getting beaten badly that's what tends to happen - it doesn't matter how fired up you are.
I understand that when you're getting your brains beat out it's hard to mount and lead any sort of emotional charge but I've rarely seen him have a demeanor that says "I'm the man".
 

Jerry the Jacket

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Message boards have become such a big part of being a fan. I really enjoy reading the collective thoughts of our fan base after a game. I think on the whole. I agree with most of the thoughts being expressed. We got beat straight up. There guys beat our guys and that happens some times. It is like Johnson said earlier in one of his press conferences, we are a team that can beat anybody on our schedule but we are also a team that can be beaten by anybody on our schedule.

The first half was pretty ugly. It looked like we came out overly cautious. You win the toss and decide to defer, subliminally that sets the tone that hey we are concerned that we will screw up and give away the first possession. I know CPJ always opts for this, feeling if we are behind, we can adjust at halftime and take that first possession to establish second half momentum. Sometimes you have to send the team a message of hey we are going to go out here and be aggressive tonight. The defense opened up playing our usual bend but don't break, giving those big cushions to the receivers, playing to keep everything in front of us. Clemson just exploited that the entire first half. Later, we did adjust and started blitzing more and we looked like a much better defense. I think we have a chance to be really good on defense if we adopt an agressive mentality and play with an edge. We just need a few more of our guys to turn the heat up and for our coaching staff to turn them loose early and not wait to half time.

On offense it seems CPJ always uses the first quarter to feel out an opponent and try to figure out what is working that particular game. Well it was pretty obvious that the wide stuff was not going to work and our best bet was to try to establish the inside game. Our passing game takes too long to develop with the skill set we have available to execute it this season. Maybe against some lesser opponents but not against teams with the talent level of a Clemson. Our offensive line did settle down in the second half somewhat and I think Parker Braun especially earned some more playing time. I think we have to seriously rethink our player development on the offensive line. Some guys are just not performing and the other guys need to get a shot. No use sugar coating it, we have some guys not getting the job done on offense and we need to try some other folks.

I do think our guys fought hard and did not quit. I liked that and it gives us all hope that we can still be a good football team in 2016. Like most teams, we have some weak points, some that we can improve upon and some that we will have to try and work around but on the whole we have the potential to still be solid before the year is out. If we played Clemson 10 times they would most likely beat us 9 times and that is just the facts of our talent vs. theirs this season. That is disappointing as a fan but you have to understand that sometimes, the man across the line of scrimmage is just better than you are. Hats off to Clemson they deserved the win.

Go Jackets!
 

Vespidae

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Heh. Why? What's he gonna do about admissions, the state of college football overall, state of GA academics and all the other reasons we are what we are.

College football is increasingly skewed towards the factory schools and it's clear that's where the money, media and attention are all moving. To be competitive, you need a program that can generate $100mm on the revenue side. I'd love to see the The Hill either a) join hands with the GTAA see the beneficial effects of working closer together or b) cut 'em loose and let them operate more or less independently.

I think Tech can remain competitive. Maybe not win a National Championship again (let's hope). But a solid Top 25 team ... we can do that.
 

awbuzz

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Was too tired and had to get up early for work to post anything last night.

I'd like to thank the city of Atlanta for scheduling road work/construction that closed the North bound entrance to 75/85 at Linden Ave/Spring St. last night. (I'm sure I'm not the only one that would like to personally meet and discuss that fine decision.)


- Clemson's first possession looked like surgeon slicing us up with a scalpel.
- The "D" gave us opportunities, Clemson forced to punt 6 times
- have to get to other stuff later...
 

JacketFromUGA

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I understand that when you're getting your brains beat out it's hard to mount and lead any sort of emotional charge but I've rarely seen him have a demeanor that says "I'm the man".
Pretty sure you or others had the same complaint during the '14 UGA game when JeT was on the bench with a towel over his head. Then he came out and almost single handedly drove us all the way down for Butker.

I'm always way more scared of the silent resolved guy going into a fight than the blustery one.
 

Vespidae

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It's not that simple. Say we fired errybody, hired a pro-style coach. If "all those reasons" still exist, how's he gonna recruit against the Clemsons, Bamas, UGAs of the world?

I don't like this idea. It takes 4-5 years to fully implement a system of play - the playbook, the recruiting, the teaching, etc. We've invested that in CPJ and if you change systems, you have to start all over. This is why we don't make progress ... we change coaches (and systems) too often.

I happen to like the spread option. It sets up well for our team and guys.

If I was judging this from a corporate view, I would say CPJ doesn't know how to be a head coach at this level. Someone said on this board that Dabo was more of a CEO and I think that's right ... at this level. Does CPJ have the depth within O, D and Special Teams to fully implement his philosophy? I don't think so.

That's why I think the new AD will help tremendously. What changes do we have to make to fully implement the Georgia Tech Way of football? Should be interesting.
 

Whiskey_Clear

Banned
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They did make comment about Dabo punting on 4th and short because friendship with Johnson...

Commentators were dumb asses then. Punting on 4n1 there was the smart thing to do. Our D was showing they could make those stops. More importantly, Clemson's D had showed they could absolutely control us. That punt was good coaching.
 

takethepoints

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I thought the D played well enough for us to win. We did what we had to: we made them one dimensional and held Watson in check running. That they turned to their short passing game was what anyone would have expected, as was their success at it. They scored 26 points and it would have been less if we could have generated some offense.

That was the problem and, from what I saw, that part of the game was just like our game with BC. In both, the DLs were talented enough to stop our OLs from making reliable second level blocks. They did that largely by standing our OLs up and forcing their way toward the backfield. We couldn't stop them effectively and I didn't see much in the way of a chip-and-move all night. The result was what we all saw: the veer and the toss sweep met one too many defenders when we ran them because a) the Tiggers were bringing their corners and b) we weren't getting to the LBs. Like I said, just like BC. Or, at least, so it appeared to me.

I put this down to superior DL talent, to Clemson playing their best game of the season, and, most of all, to a lack of top WRs on the field who can make them pay for bringing their corners. I don't think we could have done much about the first two - and nobody much will do much with the first - but it might be time to see if Jalen Camp can make a difference out there.

Overall, I'm not discouraged about the season; I still think we can win 8 games. As someone above said, flush this game and get ready for the rest.
 

lastoption

Georgia Tech Fan
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62
One thing I know, it's going to be a long day for longest day studying that offense

I think mills is a bright spot. He looked like he belonged out there athletically to me.
 
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