Film Study Film Study - Offense vs ND

[gtg936g]

In HS our coach got so mad at the WRs not blocking he put 2 backup defensive ends out there. They loved going up against corners!

 

[stingyoa$$]

Bback - Nothing really new to add. Johnson is making the same mistake as early in the year last year. Actually, he's making a worse one but it's effectively the same one.

lv 20...so your saying Marshall should be starting over Skov?

 

[Sideways]

Thank you for your honest assessment, especially on the O-line. I was amazed at the amount of formations and athleticism they threw out at us and very disappointed we weren't able to line up and get checks in. The thing that's most worrying to me was the lack of separation on our receivers. I think the miscues and blocking will tighten up as the season goes on but man we will still need the receivers to keep VT and Clemson honest or else they will do similar things to us.[/QUOTE

Or maybe I should title it "ND defense vs our offense". Say what you want about BVG, but he put together the best scheme against us I have seen yet that took advantage of his kid's abilities. He had us confused a lot of the time. Basically, their defense dictated the flow of the game and not our offense. Those kids ran a sophisticated group of plays from multiple formations against us, AND they covered a lot of ground with good speed and defeated blocks at the second level. In my estimation, #23, #9, #38, #90, and #91 are all SPECIAL type players with bright futures. We could not get #23 on the ground. #9 was faster than our ABs. #38 gave us fits in pursuit.

I can't emphasize enough how ready these guys were compared to most teams we go against. For example, when we would run counter option the "supposed" play side LBs and safeties would flow with the fake motion, but the "supposed" back side guy would fire to the "real playside" LOS immediately without hesitation as if he knew the counter was coming. I haven't really seen this yet. If you wonder why we didn't run a lot of counter, this is why.

ND ran four different and distinct formations that I could distinguish against our base formation. Each of them was easily adapted when we motioned guys or put someone in the slot. The first we have seen a ton recently, the basic 4-3 with the MLB deep and 2 safeties about 9 yds back. The second was a 4-4 with the outside guys basically over in the slot. The third was what I would call a 3-5 with the MLB deep and the other 4 spread out as far as the slots. The fourth was a straight 6 man front. They mixed these formations on the fly and not merely every series, or after making a half time adjustment. This is why we had trouble getting plays off. Counting the heads and trying to figure out where to run plays had to be difficult. I saw them mix up plays and responsibilities from each formation, like A gap blitz, who takes QB, who takes dive, delayed blitz on the pass plays very well.

Contrary to what some people may be thinking, I do not feel like we got whipped up front physically. Our OL looked strong and got a lot of movement. The biggest thing their DL did EXTREMELY well was disrupt our OL flow to the second level. It was the best I have seen. Their LBs are good athletes anyway and we didn't get to them like we would have wanted. I give BVG and staff a solid "A" for team preparation. He deserves it. I didn't know a lot about him coming in, but I have respect for what he did for this game.

With all that said, folks, we played poorly. We really did. Some of it was just fundamental stuff. Some of it was just ugly. If we didn't trip over the turf monster, we ran to wrong side of the QB. If we didn't force our pitch key to commit, we blocked the wrong guy for the play on the end of the line. If we didn't make a poor throw, we made a half hearted attempt at a block in space. It was one of those games where it seemed we all took turns screwing something up, just enough so that it would kill our down and distance flow. If we didn't put our foot in the ground to get what we could out of a play instead of dancing around, we put the ball on the ground. The speed of the game was different than we have experienced yet this season and we reacted poorly.

On to the positions.

At QB JT got flustered and lost his composure some. He played his worst game to date. He was dealt a tough hand, but his team needed him to handle it better. At times he looked like VL with his indecision. He didn't get going up field enough to force commits and he didn't dive forward for 2 yards when it was there, preferring to do the HS play where you run around and keep things alive hoping to break free. ND is a fast defense and they weren't going to be outflanked like that, but they could have been out executed if we played right. We need to keep moving forward every play as an offense and do anything possible to avoid the loss. Diving forward for 2 is always better than taking the loss hoping for something big. He missed some throws too.

At the OL, we could have played better. You may be surprised, but I like what I saw a lot of the time. We can block people, even good players. Shamire gets good movement out of EVERY guy he goes against. It really doesn't matter how good they are. He is as physically dominant as I have seen at his position. Consistency is an issue, especially when he is on the move in space, but I would say he has improved pulling. I am encouraged about him. Both of our OTs had kind of lack luster games if you ask me. They made some plays, but got beat some too. We just have to raise the bar on the BAD plays and make them not as bad, if that makes any sense. Nobody got through to the second level the way you would like. Personally, I think that was ND's top goal, to let their speed guys at the second level make plays. I think ND had the best idea of what our blockers try to do and subsequently disrupted it pretty well.

At AB, it hard to describe how ineffectual we were trying to get #23 and #9 to the ground. What I feared I was seeing against Alcorn St. and Tulane reared its ugly head Saturday. Ike Willis just didn't get it done blocking. Neither did anybody else. Snoddy made some good blocks, but not always. I understand they are tough guys to block, but we simply have to do better. I really really like our ABs in space as receivers, Marshall got held on the overthrow in the EZ btw. We have good hands and we are slippery running routes, but we have to block. I just chuckled watching them block to the inside a few times. You have to give ND some credit, their #9 and their safeties ran right with our ABs on plays where we realeased instead of blocked. We didn't get as free as we usually do up the seam.

I am going to try to be delicate when talking about our WRs. I am a little worried about the level of effort..... ( I am sorry. I am self - editing some pretty harsh comments about this group that involved specific names. I had a entire paragraph that was pretty much written as if I was yelling at my own team. That doesn't belong in here)....... OK, I wasn't delicate, but if I was their coach, that is what I would tell them.

At BB Skov continues to play hard. He had some brain cramps at times too. I have to remind myself that he is a rookie here. When he ran on the wrong side of JT on that midline in the RZ I felt like throwing my fist through the wall. For me, that was the straw that broke my back after a ton of miscues to that point. That play was set nicely for a "give" and I had been hoping to see midline against that formation all game. I don't think we ran another one.

In the end, here is my analysis:
Do I think ND is good? Heck yes. Do I think we can beat them? Heck yes. We just weren't ready to do it on this day with what they threw at us. I don't think this game is the end of all hope that identifies us. Not at all. I see this as the game that SHOULD change us and galvanize us to some degree. If nothing else it shows us that winning isn't automatic. We need to address some things, especially blocking in space. We can play better and we will need to play better. I am sure CPJ feels bad about this loss, maybe more than some other losses because we weren't really ready in a lot of ways, whether schematically or frame of mind. I could see we were tight when the game started. I could see we were a little confused. We just never really got it together or got the momentum reversed. We lost 3 games last year and most of us think it was a special season. There is a lot of water to go under the bridge in 2015. Our goals are all still on the table.

Thank you Boomer for a detailed and thoughtful analysis. I will not mention names either but the receivers have got to decide if they want to play real football or play flag football with the fraternities. Our tackles are not getting it done and don't get me started on perimeter blocking. That said, it is time to burn the tape and move on. Let's show what we are made of in Durham. It won't be easy. It seldom is there but we can beat that team but you can bet we will see a lot more of the 3-5 with safeties jumping into the gap unless we get separation and make them pay. Let's play ball and see what happens.

 

[ATL1]

CPJ was out coached. It's OK to say. Not to mention JT had a awful game.
He had no answer for the schemes an again we were dared to throw and had no answer. It will be forever the Achilles hill until proven otherwise. ND had a guy studying defenses all summer for GT. It worked.

Congrats to them. I hate losing.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

CPJ was out coached. It's OK to say. Not to mention JT had a awful game.
He had no answer for the schemes an again we were dared to throw and had no answer. It will be forever the Achilles hill until proven otherwise. ND had a guy studying defenses all summer for GT. It worked.

Congrats to them. I hate losing.

How so? Be specific. How do you coach around being physically dominated? We got our arses whipped in the trenches and on the perimeter. ND was well coached, but our guys are too. You can't out scheme/play call bigger - faster - stronger and just as smart.

 

[yellojello]

How so? Be specific. How do you coach around being physically dominated? We got our arses whipped in the trenches and on the perimeter. ND was well coached, but our guys are too. You can't out scheme/play call bigger - faster - stronger and just as smart.

I don't think coach got out schemed as much as he didn't have our guys well prepared enough.

 

[Boomergump]

How so? Be specific. How do you coach around being physically dominated? We got our arses whipped in the trenches and on the perimeter. ND was well coached, but our guys are too. You can't out scheme/play call bigger - faster - stronger and just as smart.

I don't really agree that we got our butts whipped in the trenches. We certainly didn't dominate either, but to say we got whipped in there, I believe is incorrect. In space is another story. They made the field look small. They shrunk it down and beat us to critical spots. A few well timed push offs (not blatant mind you , but border-line) created some space for them too.

 

[gtg936g]

This is probably the first time I have seen Jt really rattled. I think he tried really hard to get us in the right plays, but the late shifts by the D made him check and have to rush to get the play off. I also think a lot of those checks caused miscommunication by our players. If the ball is snapped and we have guys that are not on the same page you look inept on offense. This is one of the few times I have seen a defense look more comfortable executing their plan than we are on offense executing our plan.

ND has a really talented group on D, and they are well coached. Their defensive alignment was not new. This is the same alignment they ran against Navy. Navy used the trips formation to counter it, so there must be something about that formation that gives us some advantage. The thing about Navy is that they were more physical on the edge than we were.

Our team needs to find a way to take the load off JT some. It was clear he was trying to do too much. You could tell from his post game that he felt like ND was all over him the whole game. I kinda wish that we had tried to just get in the tight formation and run some power/trap/iso plays for a series. I think it would have helped slow the game down for JT. As Boomer stated we did not get dominated on the line.

 

[Longestday]

@gtg936g I too would have like to seen more plays like we ran against uga in the second half (Overloaded on one side with some trapping). Speed options, rocket toss, and power options would have taken some of the thinking load off of JT.

Really with 8 in the box and the safety running up hard, we needed to be able to complete some passes to have success.

 

[Ash]

I was wondering the whole game how they were getting an LB out to the edge every time we tried to pitch. My theory was they just sat one guy to spy JT and move where ever he went, because he was there every time. 2 can't block 3 and we would only get a yard or two when we usually get 5 or more.

 

[Skeptic]

Good review, Boomer. I wish I could say I enjoyed it. But okay. The two positions that hurt us most were the two positions we knew had potential problems, but kind of downplayed because of a misplaced "reload" mantra. Cut blocking in space is one of the hardest tasks in football, and to expect freshmen to compete with very athletic seniors is always a stretch. Saturday it snapped. The lack of effort was not all that evident to me but on the other hand I never expected it either. Part of the team's lethargy and certainly of the fan base was to me Johnson's demeanor: whether good or bad he always thinks performance is lacking, so when he says we're not as good as we think, it probably had no effect on the players. It's not a criticism as much as an observation and had almost nothing to do with a terrific beatdown on national TV. The team and its fans need to put that behind us and look to Duke.

 

[IronJacket7]

@gtg936g I too would have like to seen more plays like we ran against uga in the second half (Overloaded on one side with some trapping). Speed options, rocket toss, and power options would have taken some of the thinking load off of JT.

Really with 8 in the box and the safety running up hard, we needed to be able to complete some passes to have success.

This^. We completed a few. But we needed a couple more or even at better times during the game. ND set the tone early with their defense and we played correction/catch-up ball the rest of the game.

 

[B Lifsey]

Once we missed on the early passes, they seemed to totally lose respect for our passing game. That 3-5 formation is @Longestday thread is very telling of that.

 

[PBR549]

I haven't watched the film yet which always changes my perspective but at the game it was obvious that their corners were much better than our wide outs. We could not gain any separation. Our A backs could not gain any separation on their outside linebackers. Bottom line is BVG could stack the box in any configuration he wanted. When that happens it puts a prememium on making every block and we're not good enough to make every block against a team that good. CPJ I assure you did not get out schemed. We knew we we were young and inexperienced at A back and wide out coming in to the season and BVG took advantage of it.

 

[Jean-Baptiste Rochambeau]

Or maybe I should title it "ND defense vs our offense". Say what you want about BVG, but he put together the best scheme against us I have seen yet that took advantage of his kid's abilities. He had us confused a lot of the time. Basically, their defense dictated the flow of the game and not our offense. Those kids ran a sophisticated group of plays from multiple formations against us, AND they covered a lot of ground with good speed and defeated blocks at the second level. In my estimation, #23, #9, #38, #90, and #91 are all SPECIAL type players with bright futures. We could not get #23 on the ground. #9 was faster than our ABs. #38 gave us fits in pursuit.

I can't emphasize enough how ready these guys were compared to most teams we go against. For example, when we would run counter option the "supposed" play side LBs and safeties would flow with the fake motion, but the "supposed" back side guy would fire to the "real playside" LOS immediately without hesitation as if he knew the counter was coming. I haven't really seen this yet. If you wonder why we didn't run a lot of counter, this is why.

ND ran four different and distinct formations that I could distinguish against our base formation. Each of them was easily adapted when we motioned guys or put someone in the slot. The first we have seen a ton recently, the basic 4-3 with the MLB deep and 2 safeties about 9 yds back. The second was a 4-4 with the outside guys basically over in the slot. The third was what I would call a 3-5 with the MLB deep and the other 4 spread out as far as the slots. The fourth was a straight 6 man front. They mixed these formations on the fly and not merely every series, or after making a half time adjustment. This is why we had trouble getting plays off. Counting the heads and trying to figure out where to run plays had to be difficult. I saw them mix up plays and responsibilities from each formation, like A gap blitz, who takes QB, who takes dive, delayed blitz on the pass plays very well.

Contrary to what some people may be thinking, I do not feel like we got whipped up front physically. Our OL looked strong and got a lot of movement. The biggest thing their DL did EXTREMELY well was disrupt our OL flow to the second level. It was the best I have seen. Their LBs are good athletes anyway and we didn't get to them like we would have wanted. I give BVG and staff a solid "A" for team preparation. He deserves it. I didn't know a lot about him coming in, but I have respect for what he did for this game.

With all that said, folks, we played poorly. We really did. Some of it was just fundamental stuff. Some of it was just ugly. If we didn't trip over the turf monster, we ran to wrong side of the QB. If we didn't force our pitch key to commit, we blocked the wrong guy for the play on the end of the line. If we didn't make a poor throw, we made a half hearted attempt at a block in space. It was one of those games where it seemed we all took turns screwing something up, just enough so that it would kill our down and distance flow. If we didn't put our foot in the ground to get what we could out of a play instead of dancing around, we put the ball on the ground. The speed of the game was different than we have experienced yet this season and we reacted poorly.

On to the positions.

At QB JT got flustered and lost his composure some. He played his worst game to date. He was dealt a tough hand, but his team needed him to handle it better. At times he looked like VL with his indecision. He didn't get going up field enough to force commits and he didn't dive forward for 2 yards when it was there, preferring to do the HS play where you run around and keep things alive hoping to break free. ND is a fast defense and they weren't going to be outflanked like that, but they could have been out executed if we played right. We need to keep moving forward every play as an offense and do anything possible to avoid the loss. Diving forward for 2 is always better than taking the loss hoping for something big. He missed some throws too.

At the OL, we could have played better. You may be surprised, but I like what I saw a lot of the time. We can block people, even good players. Shamire gets good movement out of EVERY guy he goes against. It really doesn't matter how good they are. He is as physically dominant as I have seen at his position. Consistency is an issue, especially when he is on the move in space, but I would say he has improved pulling. I am encouraged about him. Both of our OTs had kind of lack luster games if you ask me. They made some plays, but got beat some too. We just have to raise the bar on the BAD plays and make them not as bad, if that makes any sense. Nobody got through to the second level the way you would like. Personally, I think that was ND's top goal, to let their speed guys at the second level make plays. I think ND had the best idea of what our blockers try to do and subsequently disrupted it pretty well.

At AB, it hard to describe how ineffectual we were trying to get #23 and #9 to the ground. What I feared I was seeing against Alcorn St. and Tulane reared its ugly head Saturday. Ike Willis just didn't get it done blocking. Neither did anybody else. Snoddy made some good blocks, but not always. I understand they are tough guys to block, but we simply have to do better. I really really like our ABs in space as receivers, Marshall got held on the overthrow in the EZ btw. We have good hands and we are slippery running routes, but we have to block. I just chuckled watching them block to the inside a few times. You have to give ND some credit, their #9 and their safeties ran right with our ABs on plays where we realeased instead of blocked. We didn't get as free as we usually do up the seam.

I am going to try to be delicate when talking about our WRs. I am a little worried about the level of effort..... ( I am sorry. I am self - editing some pretty harsh comments about this group that involved specific names. I had a entire paragraph that was pretty much written as if I was yelling at my own team. That doesn't belong in here)....... OK, I wasn't delicate, but if I was their coach, that is what I would tell them.

At BB Skov continues to play hard. He had some brain cramps at times too. I have to remind myself that he is a rookie here. When he ran on the wrong side of JT on that midline in the RZ I felt like throwing my fist through the wall. For me, that was the straw that broke my back after a ton of miscues to that point. That play was set nicely for a "give" and I had been hoping to see midline against that formation all game. I don't think we ran another one.

In the end, here is my analysis:
Do I think ND is good? Heck yes. Do I think we can beat them? Heck yes. We just weren't ready to do it on this day with what they threw at us. I don't think this game is the end of all hope that identifies us. Not at all. I see this as the game that SHOULD change us and galvanize us to some degree. If nothing else it shows us that winning isn't automatic. We need to address some things, especially blocking in space. We can play better and we will need to play better. I am sure CPJ feels bad about this loss, maybe more than some other losses because we weren't really ready in a lot of ways, whether schematically or frame of mind. I could see we were tight when the game started. I could see we were a little confused. We just never really got it together or got the momentum reversed. We lost 3 games last year and most of us think it was a special season. There is a lot of water to go under the bridge in 2015. Our goals are all still on the table.

Shirley, you're not saying Uncle Rico has bestowed the blueprint to the rest of the NCAA?

 

[Yaller Jacket]

Is there a way to double like a post? What GTpdm says below is me exactly. After a loss such as Saturday's, watching it live it appears that we have returned to the days where we were badly out-athleted and never really had a chance. After Boomer's analysis and after listening to Paul on the call-in show, I am shown that while we didn't play well that day, we were not so outclassed that we could not have won had we played better.

Agreed; the rational assessments provided by @Boomergump (and others here on gtswarm) makes it a lot easier to look at a loss like this and not freak out or anything. It was an emotionally rough train ride back from South bend to Chicago, not made any better and the lack of any decent cell reception in the boonies of north-western Indiana. Being able to come here and get some level-headed insight about the game, prior to actually being able to watch the replay at home, headed off any potential grumpitude I might have had on the flight home. (Well, there was the Delta flight attendant who just had to bring up the fact that uGA had a 'big' win yesterday, as a way to 'lighten' the boarding Tech fans' spirits...)

Being able to come here and read the various perspectives, mostly well-reasoned despite not always being harmonious, is one of the reasons that I find gtswarm to be such a great virtual hang-out.

I also find that going to Coach's radio show on Mondays to be a big pick-me-up after a loss. I'm not sure why being there in person makes an differenece over just listening to it on the radio—maybe its a mix of the camaraderie of the regulars at the show who are not deterred by loss, along with being able to personally read Coach's demeanor during the beaks as well as during the show itself...

 

[RyanS12]

As bad as we played we still could've won this game. We left 10 points on the field. The "holding" penalty before half and then missing the FG plus JT losing his mind to start the 3rd qtr with that fumble killed this teams confidence. It was a weird game. The score was close but felt like a beat down but when you really think about it we easily could have won.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

@gtg936g I too would have like to seen more plays like we ran against uga in the second half (Overloaded on one side with some trapping). Speed options, rocket toss, and power options would have taken some of the thinking load off of JT.

Really with 8 in the box and the safety running up hard, we needed to be able to complete some passes to have success.

Passing would have been nice if we can do it. But how do you pass when your OL can't give you even 3 seconds and your receivers can't get separation in man coverage?

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Is there a way to double like a post? What GTpdm says below is me exactly. After a loss such as Saturday's, watching it live it appears that we have returned to the days where we were badly out-athleted and never really had a chance. After Boomer's analysis and after listening to Paul on the call-in show, I am shown that while we didn't play well that day, we were not so outclassed that we could not have won had we played better.

Imo, not playing well can be just as much a product of the opposition as is being out athleted. Sometimes you play down to the opposition when you're playing a cupcake and sometimes you have deer eyes in the headlights like what happened Sat. Either way, the opponent had something to do with it.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

I don't really agree that we got our butts whipped in the trenches. We certainly didn't dominate either, but to say we got whipped in there, I believe is incorrect. In space is another story. They made the field look small. They shrunk it down and beat us to critical spots. A few well timed push offs (not blatant mind you , but border-line) created some space for them too.

JT was running for his life most of the game, it reminded me of Reggie Ball. That hasn't happened in a real long time. I doubt that happens when you physically match your opponent.