Glenw; I wish:

[jayparr]

You would tack on to the swarm board that you replied to a post on The Hive board about Hunt Days! that is a classic! Please as a new thread! Everyone should read such great articulated piece.

 

[GlennW]

Respectfully, what I've seen is a team that has been inundated with a massive amount of injuries at key positions (we've lost 70 games to starters and others expected to see significant action SO FAR) yet a team that has only been out of ONE game this season (to #1 Ranked Clemson I might add, AT Clemson, in bad weather). Paul Johnson's players may not have gotten the results on the scoreboard anyone has wanted this season, but one thing I think can be said is that they have never quit IN SPITE of their obstacles, and that's a testament to our Coaches and players. They could have easily dialed it in with all of the injuries, yet they beat FSU, and came damned-close to several other teams had there been just a few breaks go OUR way.

It's been said before but I think it should be restated that our roster isn't filled with 4 and 5 star prospects, and it's not because we don't want to recruit them but because our Coaches are pretty much hamstringed from getting them because the Georgia Board of Regents refuses to allow GA Tech to expand its Majors so there might be more "appealing" options for many of these "elite" athletes, as well as we have much tougher admission requirements (the "Hill") than most programs in the Country that play at our level. Couple these two hurdles together and our "pool" of "elite" players we can START to recruit is very small.

This means that when OUR Team suffers injuries, we don't have the same supposed "quality" of depth to step in a play as replacements, so or results on the field SHOULD suffer. In particular, on our Offense, we really need RB's who understand how to block on the outside, work with our QB on a "mesh" handoff so it will look like he has the football even when he doesn't so the option can work, and we need our linemen to be physically "transformed" into players who can hold their own at the LoS against top Defensive Linemen using cut blocks, and now, drive blocking, techniques.

When we suffered so many injuries, we ended up having to play true freshmen, red-shirt freshmen, and even walk-ons who were never expected to see any (significant) action. Is it any wonder assignments have been missed and players weren't physically ready to play at times? The mere fact that the team was able to be competitive in spite of their youth is exciting to me, because it showed me that not only were these kids fast learners and pretty good athletes, but I believe it bodes well for next season as they'll have another year in the strength and conditioning program under their belts to go with the experience they're getting this season.

 

[DC Bee]

It is through trial by fire that character is tested. Think about most players at most college programs. They redshirt. Then practice squad. Then they make the 3 deep, and end up with anywhere between 1 -3 years of significant playing time at this level. These GT freshmen and sophomores are getting significant playing time and experience out of necessity. It can only bode well that these guys will be real leaders on the field in the immediate future.

 

[bke1984]

Injuries have definitely been a huge problem, but I think that anyone that attributes everything that's happened this year to injuries isn't watching the same games I've been watching.

Injuries didn't stop us from putting the ball in the end zone from the 1 against Carolina, or make Erin Joe commit a nonsense personal foul at the end of a game we are probably about to win, or give up two return TD's against Duke and snap the ball over the punter's head.

Maybe you could say we wouldn't have been in those positions in those games, but I'm just not so sure. We play close games every year. Most years we split them, last year we won most of them, and this year we've lost most of them. This team just doesn't have what it takes to win close games for whatever reason

 

[JorgeJonas]

Injuries have definitely been a huge problem, but I think that anyone that attributes everything that's happened this year to injuries isn't watching the same games I've been watching.

Injuries didn't stop us from putting the ball in the end zone from the 1 against Carolina, or make Erin Joe commit a nonsense personal foul at the end of a game we are probably about to win, or give up two return TD's against Duke and snap the ball over the punter's head.

Maybe you could say we wouldn't have been in those positions in those games, but I'm just not so sure. We play close games every year. Most years we split them, last year we won most of them, and this year we've lost most of them. This team just doesn't have what it takes to win close games for whatever reason

Last year we didn't win most of them. This is the myth. Last year we went .500 in one score games. Further, we played only six in 14 games. This year we have played six in 10. Most importantly, there isn't some extra gear teams have in close games. Mostly, it's just luck. That may be difficult to live with, but it's true. You brought up Carolina. If D.J. White catches that pick, we probably win. You brought up Duke. If the refs call their guy offsides on fourth down, maybe we win. Against Pitt, we lost on a 56 yard FG. The same kicker missed an XP the next week. We missed two reasonable FGs and had a touchdown called back against Notre Dame. Think that matters?

The point here is not to bang on anyone but rather to acknowledge that the line is fine and randomness matters.

 

[bke1984]

Last year we didn't win most of them. This is the myth. Last year we went .500 in one score games. Further, we played only six in 14 games. This year we have played six in 10. Most importantly, there isn't some extra gear teams have in close games. Mostly, it's just luck. That may be difficult to live with, but it's true. You brought up Carolina. If D.J. White catches that pick, we probably win. You brought up Duke. If the refs call their guy offsides on fourth down, maybe we win. Against Pitt, we lost on a 56 yard FG. The same kicker missed an XP the next week. We missed two reasonable FGs and had a touchdown called back against Notre Dame. Think that matters?

The point here is not to bang on anyone but rather to acknowledge that the line is fine and randomness matters.

Come on now, luck? DJ White dropping the pick isn't luck. It's lucky that Williams threw the ball, but dropping the pick is just not making the play when it's presented. The loss at Duke...nothing whatsoever unlucky about that. We played a piss poor game in two phases and got beat. The 56 yard field goal against Pitt I'll give you. It's not often a guy is going to make that kick. That game actually hurt less than a lot of the other ones, because I thought both team played OK. We actually played OK at Notre Dame for the most part on defense and ST, but our offense was awful...just like it has been in every other game this year.

Our offense being bad this year isn't luck...our offense line is awful. Those guys haven't been injured. They are not making plays. Yes, the skill player guys are mostly injured, but our B backs that we've played with the whole year aren't, and they can't get more than 1-2 yards a run because of the line issues.

This year, it's pretty simple. Our offense is bad, special teams have been really bad at times, and our defense is average. Luck doesn't turn a 10-win team into a 3-win team or vice versa...

 

[bke1984]

BTW, sometimes I agree...randomness matters. When the ball hits the ground and bounces to the other team, yeah, that sucks. But I don't think there are a lot of examples this year more than others where opportunities have presented themselves and we haven't taken advantage of them

 

[JorgeJonas]

Come on now, luck? DJ White dropping the pick isn't luck. It's lucky that Williams threw the ball, but dropping the pick is just not making the play when it's presented. The loss at Duke...nothing whatsoever unlucky about that. We played a piss poor game in two phases and got beat. The 56 yard field goal against Pitt I'll give you. It's not often a guy is going to make that kick. That game actually hurt less than a lot of the other ones, because I thought both team played OK. We actually played OK at Notre Dame for the most part on defense and ST, but our offense was awful...just like it has been in every other game this year.

Our offense being bad this year isn't luck...our offense line is awful. Those guys haven't been injured. They are not making plays. Yes, the skill player guys are mostly injured, but our B backs that we've played with the whole year aren't, and they can't get more than 1-2 yards a run because of the line issues.

This year, it's pretty simple. Our offense is bad, special teams have been really bad at times, and our defense is average. Luck doesn't turn a 10-win team into a 3-win team or vice versa...

Most of the efficiency metrics rate our offense as average, defense roughly the same, and special teams okay. We will likely end up playing nine bowl teams, possibly four teams who win at least ten games, and maybe two playoff participants. Combine that with a ton of injuries and you get this season.

As for the other stuff, you can call it luck or chance or randomness or whatever. D.J. White didn't morph from a guy who saved the UGA game to a guy who bungled the UNC game. He probably makes that play seven out of ten times. That he didn't that one time is just bad luck to me.

 

[GlennW]

Last year we didn't win most of them. This is the myth. Last year we went .500 in one score games. Further, we played only six in 14 games. This year we have played six in 10. Most importantly, there isn't some extra gear teams have in close games. Mostly, it's just luck. That may be difficult to live with, but it's true. You brought up Carolina. If D.J. White catches that pick, we probably win. You brought up Duke. If the refs call their guy offsides on fourth down, maybe we win. Against Pitt, we lost on a 56 yard FG. The same kicker missed an XP the next week. We missed two reasonable FGs and had a touchdown called back against Notre Dame. Think that matters?

The point here is not to bang on anyone but rather to acknowledge that the line is fine and randomness matters.

The Pitt kicker also missed a shorter FG the week after he beat us with his 56 yard winner. Against Notre Dame, besides us having a TD called back on a phantom penalty and not getting 2 gimme FG's.

The Irish got a long TD pass that SHOULD have been called back on offensive Pass Interference. We lost by 8 points and if you tally all the points I just threw out; WE win by 12 against the team currently ranked #4.

The UNC game turned when Adam Gotsis was thrown out on a Targeting penalty when he made a text-book tackle on their dual-threat QB (he rushed for over 100 yards against us that game). If Adam didn't keep his head up to make the tackle, he could have missed the running QB or been called for a spear if the CROWN of their helmets hit. However, in this case, when Adam wrapped up, because they were fairly close in height, their facemasks inadvertantly hit, and he was called for targeting and thrown out. As an aside, when Pittsburgh was playing against Syracuse, there was almost an identicle play where the QB was sacked and targeting was called, but when IT was reviewed, they decided it WASN'T targeting, and the player was allowed to continue playing.

Against UVA, at the end of the game, we scored, recovered ana onside kick, and were driving for a winning score. We had a pass in the endzone where our player was very obviously interferred with and no flag was thrown (it would have given us a 1st Down and set us up in great shape for the TD drive to be completed) and we ended up losing the ball on downs. The ACC reviewed the play and ADMITTED the Refs BLEW the call (as well as other critical calls that affected US).

VA Tech was a game we could have easily won, with us driving for the score until we had that last penalty. I agree it was a dumb penalty, however, I would also argue the Refs in the game were letting VA Tech's defenders get away with a lot of cheap shots, and at the end of the game, successfully hurting our QB very easily could have ended the game anyway. The refs, in my opinion, were going to give Beamer every chance possible to win the game, and that's what happened; they got good calls and ignored calls when it mattered.

Duke had us driving for a go-ahead score when we made a dumb mistake and Duke got the ball and then they got two easy scores to make the final score worse than it really was (the 100 KO return for a TD and the 30 yard TD run on 4th and 1).

 

[jayparr]

Don't forget that class of 2013! 14 in the class. 6 on the field. Huge attrition! All the DL gone! Had to rethink type of Dlman after the horrible failure of Groh! Then try to sign them. The change on the academic ncaa progress reports. The Tech board's non help. The limited # of schollys we take in the yrs 06 and 07 which led up to a lot of problems that especially hit and combined with that 2013 class. Amazing with all these problems Tech still went to bowls every year! I am disappointed with what happened this year, but injuries HAVE played a HUGE part of this seasons woes. All of this factored in is why the whys!

 

[bke1984]

Most of the efficiency metrics rate our offense as average, defense roughly the same, and special teams okay. We will likely end up playing nine bowl teams, possibly four teams who win at least ten games, and maybe two playoff participants. Combine that with a ton of injuries and you get this season.

As for the other stuff, you can call it luck or chance or randomness or whatever. D.J. White didn't morph from a guy who saved the UGA game to a guy who bungled the UNC game. He probably makes that play seven out of ten times. That he didn't that one time is just bad luck to me.

I'm not ripping into D.J. White or saying he morphed into something else...same guy made one play and didn't make the other. Is it luck when I make a mistake at work, or did I make a mistake? He didn't make the play. It sucks, and he's a good player, but he still didn't make the play. Nothing lucky or unlucky about it

 

[stingyoa$$]

I still get a kick out of people thinking that we were close to beating ND. They had totally dominated us in every aspect of the game. We scored 2 late TD's against their walk-ons. The D has kept us in games late, but this offense is just a little bit better than terrible this year. Good teams make plays to win whether it's getting a first down or catching an interception that hits you in the hands. Against every power 5 team we played we looked out manned. I don't think it's a coincidence with the injuries either. When your putting 18 and 19-year-old players up against 22-23-year-old players who are more mature and physically superior to you.....someone usually gets hurt. JMHO.

 

[OldJacketFan]

I still get a kick out of people thinking that we were close to beating ND. They had totally dominated us in every aspect of the game. We scored 2 late TD's against their walk-ons. The D has kept us in games late, but this offense is just a little bit better than terrible this year. Good teams make plays to win whether it's getting a first down or catching an interception that hits you in the hands. Against every power 5 team we played we looked out manned. I don't think it's a coincidence with the injuries either. When your putting 18 and 19-year-old players up against 22-23-year-old players who are more mature and physically superior to you.....someone usually gets hurt. JMHO.

Go back and watch the video, ND did not pull their starters at any point in the game. I'm not saying Tech should have won the game but this specific issue has been addressed in more than on thread.

 

[elwoodgt]

We're engineers, right? We like math? We get numbers? We all took statistics?

To the extent that some of the outcome in football is random, sometimes the bad bounces pile up. It happens.

 

[GlennW]

I still get a kick out of people thinking that we were close to beating ND. They had totally dominated us in every aspect of the game. We scored 2 late TD's against their walk-ons. The D has kept us in games late, but this offense is just a little bit better than terrible this year. Good teams make plays to win whether it's getting a first down or catching an interception that hits you in the hands. Against every power 5 team we played we looked out manned. I don't think it's a coincidence with the injuries either. When your putting 18 and 19-year-old players up against 22-23-year-old players who are more mature and physically superior to you.....someone usually gets hurt. JMHO.

Notre Dame had one long TD pass (46 yards) that should have been called back for pass interference and a long TD run late in the game (91 yards) where we had a missed assignment by some Freshmen/players who weren't expected to play due to injuries. In the game, GA Tech dominated the Time of Possession (32:52 to ND's 27:08) and if you take away those two long plays I just mentioned (137 yards on 2 plays), GA Tech actually would have had MORE Yards of Total Offense than Notre Dame (we had 337 and ND had 457, so take away 137 and they would have only had 320).

You can spin it any way you want, but Tech is the one who had a TD called back on a phantom penalty and had the issue with the 2 chip-shot FG's, which is 13 points we SHOULD have banked, and we only lost by 8. We DIDN'T get DOMINATED.

 

[takethepoints]

What I fail to see is why people are so unwilling to simply face the facts in front of their face. We've had a bad year mainly because we lost so many skill players to injury. Throw in a little bad luck - the only special teams mistakes that we've had that could be attributed to coaching are the bad snaps on punts - and there you have it. Oh, and btw, we are missing our usual starting right OT as well (Griffin).

As I said last year, to win 11 games takes a bit of luck. Sometimes you can manufacture that; the Great Satan does. But at Tech you have to hope that you don't get virtually your entire pre-season 2 deep in O skill positions wiped out with season-ending injuries (though Snoddy may get back for the Dwags). Nothing but Apollo showing up at BB would help much this year.

 

[bke1984]

Notre Dame had one long TD pass (46 yards) that should have been called back for pass interference and a long TD run late in the game (91 yards) where we had a missed assignment by some Freshmen/players who weren't expected to play due to injuries. In the game, GA Tech dominated the Time of Possession (32:52 to ND's 27:08) and if you take away those two long plays I just mentioned (137 yards on 2 plays), GA Tech actually would have had MORE Yards of Total Offense than Notre Dame (we had 337 and ND had 457, so take away 137 and they would have only had 320).

You can spin it any way you want, but Tech is the one who had a TD called back on a phantom penalty and had the issue with the 2 chip-shot FG's, which is 13 points we SHOULD have banked, and we only lost by 8. We DIDN'T get DOMINATED.

We played well on defense in that game. The long pass was definitely OPI...But again, our offense played terrible. That's the story of the season.

337 yards on offense is pretty bad considering that about 60 of it came in the last two minutes in garbage time. We couldn't move the ball all day against them.

 

[GlennW]

We played well on defense in that game. The long pass was definitely OPI...But again, our offense played terrible. That's the story of the season.

337 yards on offense is pretty bad considering that about 60 of it came in the last two minutes in garbage time. We couldn't move the ball all day against them.

You say "garbage time" but I beg to differ. Notre Dame kept their defensive starters in the entire game and I can assure you they were doing their best to STOP us from scoring because 8 points is a ONE score game (we make an onside kick recovery then make a TD with a 2-point conversion). In fact, Notre Dame beat UVA with a "Hail Mary" so I can promise you they weren't taking anything for granted.

 

[jeffgt14]

Personally I think our defense has kept us in most games. Our offense has been downright putrid based on eye test alone.

 

[bke1984]

You say "garbage time" but I beg to differ. Notre Dame kept their defensive starters in the entire game and I can assure you they were doing their best to STOP us from scoring because 8 points is a ONE score game (we make an onside kick recovery then make a TD with a 2-point conversion). In fact, Notre Dame beat UVA with a "Hail Mary" so I can promise you they weren't taking anything for granted.

Go back and rewatch it. They were playing very differently at the end of the game