GT - Duke and Points Per Drive

[alaguy]

We knew(most anyway) that this DL would struggle esp against the run.Little did we think ,dook would roll almost 250 on us but that is reality when you have a line that is small and not esp fast with LBs and DBs that miss tackles by the bunch..
Just as we thought from the beginning--if our OFF is not almost perfect,we lose.(see 2009,not much has changed
This week will see that again in SPADES.

 

[jeffgt14]

We knew(most anyway) that this DL would struggle esp against the run.Little did we think ,dook would roll almost 250 on us but that is reality when you have a line that is small and not esp fast with LBs and DBs that miss tackles by the bunch..
Just as we thought from the beginning--if our OFF is not almost perfect,we lose.(see 2009,not much has changed
This week will see that again in SPADES.

I don't think our offense needs to be perfect but they need to sure as hell need to be better than they were Saturday. These threads about our defense are ridiculous right now. Our defense gave up 1 score on a full field possession and it was due to the stupid pass interference call on Milton. And it still took a 3rd and 28 conversion to do so because our DB fell down.

Here's a list of Duke's scoring drives...
75 yd TD drive (Special Teams offsides extended drive)
82 yd TD drive (Milton PI penalty, the only FULL drive I really count)
46 yd TD drive (Laskey fumble)
50 yd FG drive (Missed a long FG)
23 yd TD drive (JT Interception)

Now I know there's no excuse to give up points just because something bad happens and the other team has a short field but when you're offense/special teams is setting up drives like this, you should pretty much expect to give up about 31 points. Our defense is far from elite but you take away the essentially 4 turnovers from that game and we hold Duke to under 20 and win. Our offense flat out lost that game and we should probably spend our time complaining about that instead of our defense who probably played one of their best games of the year Saturday outside of VT.

 

[AE 87]

I don't think our offense needs to be perfect but they need to sure as hell need to be better than they were Saturday. These threads about our defense are ridiculous right now. Our defense gave up 1 score on a full field possession and it was due to the stupid pass interference call on Milton. And it still took a 3rd and 28 conversion to do so because our DB fell down.

Here's a list of Duke's scoring drives...
75 yd TD drive (Special Teams offsides extended drive)
82 yd TD drive (Milton PI penalty, the only FULL drive I really count)
46 yd TD drive (Laskey fumble)
50 yd FG drive (Missed a long FG)
23 yd TD drive (JT Interception)

Now I know there's no excuse to give up points just because something bad happens and the other team has a short field but when you're offense/special teams is setting up drives like this, you should pretty much expect to give up about 31 points. Our defense is far from elite but you take away the essentially 4 turnovers from that game and we hold Duke to under 20 and win. Our offense flat out lost that game and we should probably spend our time complaining about that instead of our defense who probably played one of their best games of the year Saturday outside of VT.

I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by these two claims in the first sentence:
"Now I know there's no excuse to give up points just because something bad happens and the other team has a short field"
AND
"but when you're offense/special teams is setting up drives like this, you should pretty much expect to give up about 31 points"

It seems to me that these two claims contradict one another. If you are saying that we should expect to give up all the points we did given Duke's starting field position, how is that not using "a short field" as an excuse for giving up the points?
Why is it unrealistic to think that we could have held more than one of them to a FG rather than a TD?

Also, the first down resulting from lining-up offsides on the punt was at the Duke 36, so you're counting 64 yards as a long field too?

I appreciate wanting to be defensive about our defense. Good for you. Still, all kinds of football games go on with various starting field position, and giving up 3.7 points/drive is extraordinarily bad.

I agree that our offense had a bad game getting scores, but blaming the offense for only getting field goals while giving a pass to our D for giving up TDs seems odd to me.

 

[jeffgt14]

I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by these two claims in the first sentence:
"Now I know there's no excuse to give up points just because something bad happens and the other team has a short field"
AND
"but when you're offense/special teams is setting up drives like this, you should pretty much expect to give up about 31 points"

It seems to me that these two claims contradict one another. If you are saying that we should expect to give up all the points we did given Duke's starting field position, how is that not using "a short field" as an excuse for giving up the points?
Why is it unrealistic to think that we could have held more than one of them to a FG rather than a TD?

Also, the first down resulting from lining-up offsides on the punt was at the Duke 36, so you're counting 64 yards as a long field too?

I appreciate wanting to be defensive about our defense. Good for you. Still, all kinds of football games go on with various starting field position, and giving up 3.7 points/drive is extraordinarily bad.

I agree that our offense had a bad game getting scores, but blaming the offense for only getting field goals while giving a pass to our D for giving up TDs seems odd to me.

I guess I didn’t word that very well. I’m just saying that even though we theoretically shouldn’t make excuses for why the defense gave up 31 points, the offense was setting up the defense to fail. We all know our defense isn’t good enough to cover for our offense and we shouldn’t expect them to be.

If a team goes out there and only scores 25 points (half of which occur in the final 5 minutes of the game) and commits 4 turnovers do you really think we should blame the defense for the loss? Of course this excludes a situation like Miami where their offense didn’t have near enough drives to score anything and blowouts where it really didn't matter what the offense does.

 

[AE 87]

I guess I didn’t word that very well. I’m just saying that even though we theoretically shouldn’t make excuses for why the defense gave up 31 points, the offense was setting up the defense to fail. We all know our defense isn’t good enough to cover for our offense and we shouldn’t expect them to be.

If a team goes out there and only scores 25 points (half of which occur in the final 5 minutes of the game) and commits 4 turnovers do you really think we should blame the defense for the loss? Of course this excludes a situation like Miami where their offense didn’t have near enough drives to score anything and blowouts where it really didn't matter what the offense does.

Well, if your point is, "Don't blame the poor little defense because we all know that they're no good," I guess I get you, but I still disagree a bit.

I think that our D has sufficient talent to perform better than we have performed. I don't know if the problem has been execution, as Neally seemed to suggest after the game and CPJ seemed to suggest last night, or scheme, as @33jacket has been saying if I understood him correctly.

Yes, imo, we should expect our Offense to play and score more efficiently than they did on Saturday, but we should also have a D that can pick up at least some slack.

my two cents fwiw

 

[jeffgt14]

Well, if your point is, "Don't blame the poor little defense because we all know that they're no good," I guess I get you, but I still disagree a bit.

I think that our D has sufficient talent to perform better than we have performed. I don't know if the problem has been execution, as Neally seemed to suggest after the game and CPJ seemed to suggest last night, or scheme, as @33jacket has been saying if I understood him correctly.

Yes, imo, we should expect our Offense to play and score more efficiently than they did on Saturday, but we should also have a D that can pick up at least some slack.

my two cents fwiw

So you’re saying our offense should be able to score and not turn the ball over but just in case they suck and can’t do either, our defense should be able to pick up the slack and prevent the other team from scoring. Essentially we should be the #1 team in the country.

 

[33jacket]

Well, if your point is, "Don't blame the poor little defense because we all know that they're no good," I guess I get you, but I still disagree a bit.

I think that our D has sufficient talent to perform better than we have performed. I don't know if the problem has been execution, as Neally seemed to suggest after the game and CPJ seemed to suggest last night, or scheme, as @33jacket has been saying if I understood him correctly.

Yes, imo, we should expect our Offense to play and score more efficiently than they did on Saturday, but we should also have a D that can pick up at least some slack.

my two cents fwiw

Its both. The fact is you should know how to defend an inside zone we have seen 100 times this year. That is freaking fundamental. So thats in the players. But they havent yet defended it so thats also on the coaches.

The scheme in general is too read and react for our undersized talent. When u have small guys that are not violent enough with their hands to pop shed and tackle you need to force the issue more by more aggressive run fits. We dont do that.

Its a scheme that actually will work fine at some of the big boy schools. Not at tech.

For me its a stack up of bads and the on field results show it.

 

[hdgtfan]

We knew(most anyway) that this DL would struggle esp against the run.Little did we think ,dook would roll almost 250 on us but that is reality when you have a line that is small and not esp fast with LBs and DBs that miss tackles by the bunch..
Just as we thought from the beginning--if our OFF is not almost perfect,we lose.(see 2009,not much has changed
This week will see that again in SPADES.

Many have said this and it seems to be true though I have not looked at stats I will admit

If we can just get a combo of an avg D and ST in sync with a normally good O we could be pretty dangerous

Sure hope we are not too far away from seeing this happen

 

[AE 87]

So you’re saying our offense should be able to score and not turn the ball over but just in case they suck and can’t do either, our defense should be able to pick up the slack and prevent the other team from scoring. Essentially we should be the #1 team in the country.

Well, yeah?!

Seriously, though, I think we should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of both offense and defense (and special teams). My point was that we can legitimately talk about the problems of both our offense and our defense from last Saturday without giving either a free pass. Just because the offense did poorly, we should not say that the defense can be excused (and vice versa).

While I think that there have been several losses over the past 6 years where both offense and defense have been at fault, I think the majority of our losses have stemmed from bad defense. Off the top of my head, I think 2010 vs AF and probably 2008 and 2011 vs UVA were mostly the offenses fault. Just my opinion.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

2010 AF was a ST abortion of competence.

 

[jeffgt14]

Well, yeah?!

Seriously, though, I think we should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of both offense and defense (and special teams). My point was that we can legitimately talk about the problems of both our offense and our defense from last Saturday without giving either a free pass. Just because the offense did poorly, we should not say that the defense can be excused (and vice versa).

While I think that there have been several losses over the past 6 years where both offense and defense have been at fault, I think the majority of our losses have stemmed from bad defense. Off the top of my head, I think 2010 vs AF and probably 2008 and 2011 vs UVA were mostly the offenses fault. Just my opinion.

I agree with that. I’m just in the boat that this loss to Duke falls much more on the offense than the defense. I’ll add VT last year and to an extent Ole Miss last year to that list as well.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Ole Miss last year was a better team than I thought going into that game. We have caught a few good teams in bowls on verge of big seasons the following years. .....well maybe just LSU in peach and Ole Miss now that I think about it...but true for those two.

 

[iceeater1969]

Well, yeah?!

Seriously, though, I think we should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of both offense and defense (and special teams). My point was that we can legitimately talk about the problems of both our offense and our defense from last Saturday without giving either a free pass. Just because the offense did poorly, we should not say that the defense can be excused (and vice versa).

While I think that there have been several losses over the past 6 years where both offense and defense have been at fault, I think the majority of our losses have stemmed from bad defense. Off the top of my head, I think 2010 vs AF and probably 2008 and 2011 vs UVA were mostly the offenses fault. Just my opinion.

Bought 20 AF 2010 tickets. Took son and bunch of his east Texas coaching tickets. It was a sad gt performance on all portions of the team including coaches. When we are in awe of Air Force's offense, that is plain sad.
I am proud we are now playing much faster and harder . Results are due to weaknesses caused by offseason ( DL not strong on in lane pass rush) issues and a scheme that makes our defenders give too much cushion ( no long passes).

 

[Ggee87]

I agree with that. I’m just in the boat that this loss to Duke falls much more on the offense than the defense. I’ll add VT last year and to an extent Ole Miss last year to that list as well.

I was on the verge of pointing out VT last year, also the first part of the Clemson game. The D came out on fire, but our O couldnt do jack. Then the D wore down and the O heated up, which equaled an L on the scoreboard. Im sure I could come up with a few more offensive struggles in games... But most would be bowl games like mentioned before. We dont handle beefy Dlines in the least bit.