CTR

jacket fan in dairyland

jacket fan in dairyland

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
112
Congratulations to him. I saw a lot of growth in the D this year. Adjustments at halftime were really good , IMO.
I think Roof and staff got a lot out of the personnel they had available. Kids played hard , all game. Played soooo
much smarter than I can remember , very few stupid plays.
I also love the fact he is a TECH guy, he gets it in so many more ways than someone who has not been an SA at
our school. He is an excellent recruiter, knows Georgia, especially Gwinnett County and the northern suburbs.
He has been able to retain staff ( Pelton ) , they must like working for the guy.
I am expecting another step up this year.
 

Legal Jacket

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
561
I'm all for TR. He's a GT guy, he's got great experience, and frankly I think he's about as good as we can get as a DC. So I'm glad he's sticking around.

That said, with the exception of turnovers, the D was downright bad last year. Hopefully that has more to do with personnel than coaching.

We were 114th in 3rd down conversion percentage, at 46.1%. Also we were 75th in 4th down conversion defense (though that 4th down conversion isn't that important).

40th in red zone defense (not good, not bad). Relatively high percentage of FGs for the percentage though.

38th in fumbles recovered, which isn't particularly amazing (interceptions were great, obviously).

Here's where it gets really bad. 87th in pass yards per game, at 243.7. 62nd in rush defense per game at 167.6. In sum, 79th in total defense at 411.3 yards per game. Factor in that we were third nationally in time of possession per game and (I don't have the precise state in front of me) one of the worst in yards given up per play, and our offense probably kept us in the top 100 when it comes to total defense.

105th in sacks at 20 total, in 14 games. Just for reference, Utah had 55 sacks in 13 games, and the ACC leaders (Virginia Tech and Clemson) had 48 and 45, respectively, in 13 games. More than double us. 115th in tackles for loss at 61. Again, for reference VT and Clemson respectively had 109 and 131. Almost double us.

Sacks and tackles for loss are, to me, the lynchpin. If we can force longer third downs, the third down conversion rate will go down, and ultimately the net yards given up will go down because other teams' offenses aren't on the field. The best way to force longer third downs is for a play to go for a loss of 5 yards, so they are working 2 plays to get 15 yards as opposed to 3 plays to get 10.

We started coming on a bit toward the end, but we need vast improvement from our line and linebackers. I don't think it's really the secondary's fault. I hate singling out GT players, because I know they are trying and busting their butts, but last year was really one of the worse defensive line performances I have ever seen - especially on a pass rush. That, to me, is what cost us the FSU and UNC games, and may have factored into the Duke loss as well.
 

eetech

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
198
Our defense was statistically bad. But this is a scenario where the stats can be misleading.
1) Our d-line has been decimated with injuries, suspensions, and basically a lack of depth. This looks to be changing. Without a strong line, with the caliber of QBs in the ACC (ESPN had a front page article discussing the quality of ACC QBs) our D was bound to give up yards.
2) Our team was fundamentally better. This was possibly the first year I felt I could trust our players to make individual open field tackles. Mistakes were also minimized.
3) Our D did not play for records, but rather to win the game. This meant that the bend dont break style with a lot of focus put on creating turnovers gave up a lot of yards which did not necessarily translate into points. Our team was clearly being coached up to create turnovers, as was evident from the awesome pick 6 against Clemson.

I do think we have to see statistical improvement going forward as well, but there were a lot of positives to be taken from the D's performance last year.
 
Northeast Stinger

Northeast Stinger

Helluva Engineer
Messages
10,805
This so much.

eetech said:
Our team was fundamentally better. This was possibly the first year I felt I could trust our players to make individual open field tackles. Mistakes were also minimized.
Click to expand...

And especially this.
eetech said:
Our D did not play for records, but rather to win the game. This meant that the bend dont break style with a lot of focus put on creating turnovers gave up a lot of yards which did not necessarily translate into points. Our team was clearly being coached up to create turnovers, as was evident from the awesome pick 6 against Clemson.[/QUOTE


Yes, Clemson's defense was far superior statistically last year but in the game against them which team "looked better" on defense? I have no need to nit-pick what the defense did last year. I fully expected them to be a total unmitigated disaster from the get go. Instead, CTR did a masterful job scheming to give the team the best chance for a win, all while holding the defensive line together with bailing wire and chewing gum. If he can do that with a defense that had that many holes in it, imagine what he can do once we start filling those holes in.
Click to expand...
 
bigsands

bigsands

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
169
I just want the defense to stay aggressive. They flipped a switch after the UNC game and made a few more plays. I trust we will not come out in 2015 and try to play everyone straight up for half the season.
 

Foxyg

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
172
Legal Jacket said:
I'm all for TR. He's a GT guy, he's got great experience, and frankly I think he's about as good as we can get as a DC. So I'm glad he's sticking around.

That said, with the exception of turnovers, the D was downright bad last year. Hopefully that has more to do with personnel than coaching.

We were 114th in 3rd down conversion percentage, at 46.1%. Also we were 75th in 4th down conversion defense (though that 4th down conversion isn't that important).

40th in red zone defense (not good, not bad). Relatively high percentage of FGs for the percentage though.

38th in fumbles recovered, which isn't particularly amazing (interceptions were great, obviously).

Here's where it gets really bad. 87th in pass yards per game, at 243.7. 62nd in rush defense per game at 167.6. In sum, 79th in total defense at 411.3 yards per game. Factor in that we were third nationally in time of possession per game and (I don't have the precise state in front of me) one of the worst in yards given up per play, and our offense probably kept us in the top 100 when it comes to total defense.

105th in sacks at 20 total, in 14 games. Just for reference, Utah had 55 sacks in 13 games, and the ACC leaders (Virginia Tech and Clemson) had 48 and 45, respectively, in 13 games. More than double us. 115th in tackles for loss at 61. Again, for reference VT and Clemson respectively had 109 and 131. Almost double us.

Sacks and tackles for loss are, to me, the lynchpin. If we can force longer third downs, the third down conversion rate will go down, and ultimately the net yards given up will go down because other teams' offenses aren't on the field. The best way to force longer third downs is for a play to go for a loss of 5 yards, so they are working 2 plays to get 15 yards as opposed to 3 plays to get 10.

We started coming on a bit toward the end, but we need vast improvement from our line and linebackers. I don't think it's really the secondary's fault. I hate singling out GT players, because I know they are trying and busting their butts, but last year was really one of the worse defensive line performances I have ever seen - especially on a pass rush. That, to me, is what cost us the FSU and UNC games, and may have factored into the Duke loss as well.
Click to expand...

This. What scares me to death is that we could improve on our 3rd down efficiency and all those other metrics mentioned above and still have our points allowed go up because of the ridiculous turnover margin we had last year. Depending on a high turnover margin is not a successful long term strategy. Hopefully we'll see more than incremental improvement in those areas mentioned above while keeping a decent turnover margin in order that we'll see real progress. It seemed after the UNC game, we played better on defense by being a little more aggressive. I'm not a genius with statistics, but it would seem you might be able to compare pre-unc stats to post-unc stats. Perhaps we were a top 50 defense in those metrics listed above over the last half of the season, but I don't know. We got lit up against FSU and MSU. UGA was an outlier because we had the ball the entire second half. We played well against Pitt (but again TOs) and Clemson (who was using their backup QB).

The truth, I think, lies somewhere in between. We were never going to be a top 25 defense last year with the talent we had and the dearth of quality depth on the DL. What we were able to accomplish given those limitations what nothing short of a miracle. That speaks to coaching and luck. How much is attributable to coaching is up for debate. I'm glad we have Ted and I think he's got us on the right path, however, we aren't going to be a top 25 D any time soon given our talent limitations. Hopefully Ted can scheme his way past some of our issues till we get a little bit more talented on the DL.
 

Skeptic

Helluva Engineer
Messages
6,372
Legal Jacket said:
I'm all for TR. He's a GT guy, he's got great experience, and frankly I think he's about as good as we can get as a DC. So I'm glad he's sticking around.

That said, with the exception of turnovers, the D was downright bad last year. Hopefully that has more to do with personnel than coaching.

We were 114th in 3rd down conversion percentage, at 46.1%. Also we were 75th in 4th down conversion defense (though that 4th down conversion isn't that important).

40th in red zone defense (not good, not bad). Relatively high percentage of FGs for the percentage though.

38th in fumbles recovered, which isn't particularly amazing (interceptions were great, obviously).

Here's where it gets really bad. 87th in pass yards per game, at 243.7. 62nd in rush defense per game at 167.6. In sum, 79th in total defense at 411.3 yards per game. Factor in that we were third nationally in time of possession per game and (I don't have the precise state in front of me) one of the worst in yards given up per play, and our offense probably kept us in the top 100 when it comes to total defense.

105th in sacks at 20 total, in 14 games. Just for reference, Utah had 55 sacks in 13 games, and the ACC leaders (Virginia Tech and Clemson) had 48 and 45, respectively, in 13 games. More than double us. 115th in tackles for loss at 61. Again, for reference VT and Clemson respectively had 109 and 131. Almost double us.

Sacks and tackles for loss are, to me, the lynchpin. If we can force longer third downs, the third down conversion rate will go down, and ultimately the net yards given up will go down because other teams' offenses aren't on the field. The best way to force longer third downs is for a play to go for a loss of 5 yards, so they are working 2 plays to get 15 yards as opposed to 3 plays to get 10.

We started coming on a bit toward the end, but we need vast improvement from our line and linebackers. I don't think it's really the secondary's fault. I hate singling out GT players, because I know they are trying and busting their butts, but last year was really one of the worse defensive line performances I have ever seen - especially on a pass rush. That, to me, is what cost us the FSU and UNC games, and may have factored into the Duke loss as well.
Click to expand...
Seems a fair critique to me.
 
GTRX7

GTRX7

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,524
Location
Atlanta
Skeptic said:
Didn't Johnson hire Groh at $350k, with much of that deferred until Gailey's payout was done, and that was considered high for GT? Regardless if so a remarkable salary for a DC.
Click to expand...

Remember that Groh was still being paid by UVA when we hired him, so he likely agreed to a lower salary than he otherwise would have. He came to us IIRC.
 

Legal Jacket

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
561
Skeptic said:
Didn't Johnson hire Groh at $350k, with much of that deferred until Gailey's payout was done, and that was considered high for GT? Regardless if so a remarkable salary for a DC.
Click to expand...

Couple things. Not quite what the internet is telling me on salaries. Looks like we paid Wommack $288,500 in base. Then we paid Groh $150k base, with a pretty sizeable bonus. I think Groh ended up getting somewhere between 3-400k from us. Groh would have cost more, but his salary was essentially irrelevant (UVA owed him something like $4 mil minus whatever we paid him).

Roof came in at 550k, and was up to low 600ks, so we just gave him a bit of a bump. BUT, let's take into account the most important thing - we don't have to pay an offensive coordinator. Combined CPJ and CTR are at 3.75 mil per year. No offense coordinator saves us a ton. Look at Clemson for example, last year they paid their coordinators combined over 2 mil. Virginia paid theirs something like 1.25 mil.

That may actually be the biggest thing of Paul Johnson - we save several hundreds of thousands of dollars a year because he doesn't need two coordinators (difference of say a 5-600k coordinator to a 200k coach). We can throw a lot of that at a guy like CTR who is better than what we could otherwise afford.
 
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