GT - Duke Post game thread

[Peter Patsis]

Was not targeting for sure. It was real close. He did hit the helmet but seemed he first hit him with his shoulder and impact made him hit helmet from my view anyway

 

[Tech93]

Can anyone watching on TV tell me if Smelter caught the ball? I could have sworn he caught it live and also when I looked at replay on the jumbo tran.

 

[COJacket]

Bad cop is here.

If you have nothing better to do than to post personal attacks against our own players after a tough loss, shut down your computer and take a long walk and come back in 24 hours.

John - My intent was not to bash any of our players. after reading my post I see how you may see that. What I am trying to say is that we did not play as badly as many are saying. Puke did not outplay us all over the place in my view like some have suggested. we moved the ball. we created many chances. If we did not give them good field position we may have stopped them even if they took it up the middle like they did. We played good enough to beat them except for three or four plays where we killed ourselves and it was not them stopping us. And a young team will eventually have those 3 or 4 plays. I love the effort of the team even when we are down. They give 110%. I hope JeT leaves this game behind him quickly and learns deeply from it. I love that Byerly comes in and gives a great effort. Special teams did a unbelievable job. I personally feel like this team will take this lesson and put it to good use in our remaining ACC games. I always have been all in and will still be there for this team. They show unbelievable heart!

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

JT had a rough game passing. We lost as we have won...as a team. No one can really say otherwise IMO.

 

[gtg936g]

Can anyone watching on TV tell me if Smelter caught the ball? I could have sworn he caught it live and also when I looked at replay on the jumbo tran.

I watched the recording when I got home and I think the nose may have touched the ground. I think if it were called a catch originally it would have stood.

 

[Peter Patsis]

I watched the recording when I got home and I think the nose may have touched the ground. I think if it were called a catch it would have stood.

agree with u. The call on the field was incomplete and it was 2 close to call either way. If they ruled catch I do not think they would have enough evidence to call it the other way as well

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Despite some troubles today...And as good as our option offense has been, I think we need to throw more. JT has the arm. And can get hot at times. I haven't lost faith in our passing game and think we need more not less.

 

[96Jacket]

Duke plays Virginia next week and dedicated the past two weeks to preparing for us. Here's to hoping that throws them off their base game and they stumble against the Hoos (who, in turn, had a bye this weekend).

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Both Virginia teams could beat Duke IMO. We shall see.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Lost to em one time now during CPJ era.....once in ten years...once at home in 20....lulz.

 

[daBuzz]

Several thoughts:
1) One of the great things about this board for the longest time was the ability for people to post their thoughts, both positive and negative, without other people posting personal attacks like happens on the other boards. That appears to have gone by the wayside. John has valiantly jumped in and stopped negative posts about players (which I wholeheartedly agree with), but it might be time for some other posters to get a few "timeouts" as well to stop the personal attacks. If someone posts a negative opinion about the loss or about the program in general, that's their opinion. If you don't agree with and think they're trolling, that still doesn't give you a right to go negative on them. And FWIW, if this board is going to become the thought police where the only thing that can be posted is all rosy, shiny and seen through gold-colored glasses, then I, for one, am not interested. I'd prefer to hear when someone has something to say either positive or negative as long as they're not being disrespectful. I can always choose to permanently ignore that person, skip over their post, or just flat out not open the thread if it bothers me that much. *off soapbox*
On to the game:
2) I hate to say it but Duke has acquired some pretty good athletes. Boone is a talented QB and those 2 RB's are pretty solid. On defense, they have some pretty good players as well. They're not the Duke of old. I was worried even in preseason that we would struggle with them but I really wanted to be wrong.
3) Turnovers hurt bad today but I'm not sure we win that game even if we don't commit the turnovers. Duke was simply able to control us on the LOS when our defense was on the field. Our D line is so thin from attrition that we struggle to stop good running teams and we have almost no pass rush unless we commit at least 2 additional rushers on a blitz. I'm afraid we will struggle mightily with Clemson, UGA, and possibly Pitt. UVA has a huge line and, if they decide to just pound the run up the middle, we may struggle to stop them as well.
4) The offense has been able to hide the deficiencies of the defense in the first 5 games, but several people (like 33jacket and others) have been warning that we can't continue to give up the yards-per-play that we were doing and win every game. Today, they were proven correct.
5) We did have a few bright spots today:
- Waller looked good when Byerly was in
- Byerly proved that we have a capable QB if something happens to Justin
- I continue to be more & more impressed with Keshun Freeman. That kid is a baller.

The best news is that the team continues to fight. We are suffering from a lack of talent and depth in some positions on both sides of the ball and that will almost invariably cause us issues in at least 1 more game and probably many more. But the young men keep working and I'm sure they'll learn from this and move forward.

 

[Wrecking Ball]

We don't have enough fans to divide the fanbase with personal attacks. Some donkey spawn named Techneek already ran me off another site with personal attacks and threatening PMs.

 

[John]

Cleaned up this thread again. There may have been some collateral damage if you quoted a post that was removed.

Please make sure you report the problem posts instead of replying to them.

I understand everyone is angry/mad/sad at the result of the game. That is okay. Yes, I understand mistakes were made; if it makes you sleep better at night, point them out as others have. However, that is no reason to post personal attacks on our own players or belittle them. I have zero tolerance for such behavior against these guys that bust their butts every day while proudly wearing their GT uniforms.

If you still feel like you are entitled to call any of our guys names, you should consider doing it to their faces just not here with your keyboard.

 

[GaTech4ever]

That look on the sidelines near the end of the game of JT's face looked like he got a mental *** whoopin out there. That boy looked utterly lost.

Agreed with everything up until this. Looked to me like he was more pissed than "lost", and he had that look in his eye like he will do everything in his power to not let that happen again. He didn't look utterly lost or defeated to me, just my take.

 

[Animal02]

I watched the recording when I got home and I think the nose may have touched the ground. I think if it were called a catch originally it would have stood.

That same catch, with the nose touching the ground after the receiver grasped the ball was declared a catch in another ACC game a couple of weeks ago....I remember discussing it in chat. The problem is the inconsistencies of how ACC refs call games.

 

[GTech63]

Despite some troubles today...And as good as our option offense has been, I think we need to throw more. JT has the arm. And can get hot at times. I haven't lost faith in our passing game and think we need more not less.

I fully agree. Also agree Miami would have beat us had they run at us like Duke.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

We made plays on O vs Miami and VT that we didn't make vs Duke. D played well enough in 1st half IMO when we settled for fg. Team loss vs Duke and silly to say Miami woulda won if they played like Duke. About like saying we beat Duke if we play like GT

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Both Virginia teams could beat Duke IMO. We shall see.

Duke should lose to UVa, Pitt, VT and UNC. They have to play a flawless game to win and not get injured. We took a few more of the Duke players out and they can't absorb the injuries.

We are going to have trouble with all three also that we haven't played and will need to win / tie the turnover battle. Duke was one of our two "easy" games left - Duke & NC State.

UNC caught fire this time last year winning 6 of their last 7 (including bowl). UNC has the depth and is averaging 37 a game. But all this is for another prediction thread .... maybe on Thursday

 

[orientalnc]

Before the season started most of us would have been happy if you had told us that we were going to go 2-1 against VPI, Miami and Duke. Of course, we would have assumed in that scenario a loss to either VPI or Miami. So, to be truthful, we have exceeded expectations.

I was really afraid that we would lose to Duke after the emotional win over Miami. Dang it! But we all knew this day was coming sooner or later. Now is when we see if the team can learn and grow from adversity.

We all knew that our O-line was thin, but the Chamberlin haters need to think about how poorly the line played without him. We also knew the D-line was never going to overwhelm anyone. Duke has an experienced offensive line with a lot of ability and size. We are going to give up yards, but they played no worse yesterday than they have in other games. Three turnovers and two early red zone trips that yielded only six points were the critical plays. The two picks were especially bad and very avoidable. I bet CPJ had a private meeting with JT that was not a pleasant one.

 

[orientalnc]

Can anyone watching on TV tell me if Smelter caught the ball? I could have sworn he caught it live and also when I looked at replay on the jumbo tran.

He did not. The call on replay was correct.