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Or lack thereof.
I didn't want to do it, but I did. I sat there and forced myself to watch those plays over and over. GSU runs option, like you already know. It is a lot of similar stuff to what Wofford ran except they can throw.
So, what happened in the second half? I'm sure that is the question on every bodies mind. Well, let me preface my comments about the second half with the observation that I don't think we played great defense in the first half either. We played a little harder in the early stages, for sure, but there were still break downs. That long TD run was uncalled for. IJ was unblocked on the play. UNBLOCKED! He had the pitch man, but inexplicably took a false step towards the middle before running outside like "oh yeah, I am supposed to be over there". Even with that, he had time to make a tackle after probably a 10 yard gain but he way underestimated the kid's speed and took a real shallow angle and that was all she wrote. It looked HORRIBLE on film in so many ways. He is a senior and he has how many hours playing the option? The biggest difference between halves, in my mind, was that GSU missed a lot of plays that were there in half 1. They had open receivers stepping on the sideline. They dropped passes. They made poor throws etc etc. We played hard, if not smart, but they could have had a little more production if they had played well.
If you are wondering "did we come out flat in half 2, thinking the game was on ice?" ABSOLUTELY. I also couldn't believe my eyes the lack of effort up front during the first series. There was barely any contact, let alone getting pushed around up front. After about 6 or 7 plays, you could see the guys trying to rally themselves, but the damage was done from a concentration standpoint. After the first series we may have played harder but we were just as dumb and once GSU got some confidence and momentum, they started hitting every play that was there. I didn't count the plays, but we totally botched assignments several runs in the half with 2 guys on the QB and the pitch left alone or vice versa. It was like we had never seen it before.
It was shameful really. That is as far as I am going to go with it.
Up front, they were leaving a DE unblocked (as normal with the option) and since we had a 4 man front they could double Gotsis and Green most of the time, leaving one man on the DE from the non-read side. If it was a pass play, interestingly enough, they still doubled our DTs and picked up one of the DEs with a RB in the backfield. That is how little respect we are getting on the edge. Rook-Chungong was largely ineffective. I thought Freeman played pretty well and disrupted things even if the play was outside his normal domain. It is a shame he has to play this year. He is an athlete, but he doesn't look physically ready to me. When he has a couple years in the weight room he will be good.
Davis probably played his worst game. He looked indecisive most of the time and ended up diving at people instead of hitting them. He didn't pick up receivers well either. The DBs covered well from what I could see in the screen, but you have to make a play on the ball when it arrives. That is no time to be a spectator. They made good throws in the second half. I'll give them that, but they didn't ALL have to be completed.
I have no idea what to take from this game. We still have the unfixable issues that we all know of, but I sure hope this is rock bottom in terms of overall effort, assignment discipline, tackling, and ball skills. We made one stop on 3rd down in half two (Milton tackling a receiver short of the marker) and that was followed up by a 4th down conversion to the house. I didn't count them, but there were a lot of 3rd and longs. Shameful. Just shameful.
I didn't want to do it, but I did. I sat there and forced myself to watch those plays over and over. GSU runs option, like you already know. It is a lot of similar stuff to what Wofford ran except they can throw.
So, what happened in the second half? I'm sure that is the question on every bodies mind. Well, let me preface my comments about the second half with the observation that I don't think we played great defense in the first half either. We played a little harder in the early stages, for sure, but there were still break downs. That long TD run was uncalled for. IJ was unblocked on the play. UNBLOCKED! He had the pitch man, but inexplicably took a false step towards the middle before running outside like "oh yeah, I am supposed to be over there". Even with that, he had time to make a tackle after probably a 10 yard gain but he way underestimated the kid's speed and took a real shallow angle and that was all she wrote. It looked HORRIBLE on film in so many ways. He is a senior and he has how many hours playing the option? The biggest difference between halves, in my mind, was that GSU missed a lot of plays that were there in half 1. They had open receivers stepping on the sideline. They dropped passes. They made poor throws etc etc. We played hard, if not smart, but they could have had a little more production if they had played well.
If you are wondering "did we come out flat in half 2, thinking the game was on ice?" ABSOLUTELY. I also couldn't believe my eyes the lack of effort up front during the first series. There was barely any contact, let alone getting pushed around up front. After about 6 or 7 plays, you could see the guys trying to rally themselves, but the damage was done from a concentration standpoint. After the first series we may have played harder but we were just as dumb and once GSU got some confidence and momentum, they started hitting every play that was there. I didn't count the plays, but we totally botched assignments several runs in the half with 2 guys on the QB and the pitch left alone or vice versa. It was like we had never seen it before.
It was shameful really. That is as far as I am going to go with it.
Up front, they were leaving a DE unblocked (as normal with the option) and since we had a 4 man front they could double Gotsis and Green most of the time, leaving one man on the DE from the non-read side. If it was a pass play, interestingly enough, they still doubled our DTs and picked up one of the DEs with a RB in the backfield. That is how little respect we are getting on the edge. Rook-Chungong was largely ineffective. I thought Freeman played pretty well and disrupted things even if the play was outside his normal domain. It is a shame he has to play this year. He is an athlete, but he doesn't look physically ready to me. When he has a couple years in the weight room he will be good.
Davis probably played his worst game. He looked indecisive most of the time and ended up diving at people instead of hitting them. He didn't pick up receivers well either. The DBs covered well from what I could see in the screen, but you have to make a play on the ball when it arrives. That is no time to be a spectator. They made good throws in the second half. I'll give them that, but they didn't ALL have to be completed.
I have no idea what to take from this game. We still have the unfixable issues that we all know of, but I sure hope this is rock bottom in terms of overall effort, assignment discipline, tackling, and ball skills. We made one stop on 3rd down in half two (Milton tackling a receiver short of the marker) and that was followed up by a 4th down conversion to the house. I didn't count them, but there were a lot of 3rd and longs. Shameful. Just shameful.
