Article GT vs UCF Postgame Thread

Shorthanded Jackets Fall Short In Home Opener

Jahmyr Gibbs (21) runs for a touchdown (Hyosub Shin / ajc.com)

Atlanta, GA – Down six starters and depth at key positions, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (1-1, 1-0) faded late Saturday night in their first home tilt of the 2020 season.  The Central Florida Knights (1-0, 0-0), a respected top 25 program over the last few years, emerged victorious by a final score of 49-21.

The Jackets entered the game with gaps and question marks across its Above The Line (ATL) depth chart when compared to preseason expectations.  Absent from the offense today were starters RB Jordan Mason and TE Dylan Deveney.  Another TE, Dylan Leonard, was a scratch.

The damage done to the defense made matters worse.  Tech’s defensive line was missing starters DE Antonneous Clayton, DT TK Chimedza and DL Antwan Owens along with key rotational player DE Curtis Ryans, a key cog in the Jackets’ week 1 win against Florida State.  Tech’s top CB Tre Swilling also missed his second consecutive game.

“We had to get creative in practice this week… minimal 12 personnel on offense and three down linemen on defense,” said Head Coach Geoff Collins in his postgame interview with radioman Wiley Ballard.

Let’s be clear.  Neither Collins nor the players claimed moral victories.  Save those for today’s victor who is wont for fabricated titles and hardware.

For Tech the mantra is next man up.  The team fought valiantly, showing signs of life into the 4^th quarter against an opponent that most outside of the Georgia Tech program expected to roll easily today.  A 33-yard touchdown run by true freshman RB Jahmyr Gibbs narrowed the Knights’ lead to 28-21 with 13:12 remaining in the game.  The home crowd was energized as was the home team.

But football games are won on the line of scrimmage, and Tech began with one hand tied behind its back on the defensive front.  Evidence of wear and tear to that unit showed itself late as the Knights’ vaunted offense reasserted itself in the 4^th quarter, scoring three consecutive touchdowns immediately after Gibbs’ jaunt without much resistance.  Tech’s offense sputtered in response, and the final chapter of the story was written.

Despite the absence of key players, the Jackets had plenty of opportunities within their control to affect the outcome of the game.  Turnovers and special teams often determine college football games and today was no different.

Following an impressive first game despite a few mistakes, QB Jeff Sims led a Tech offense today that coughed up the ball five times.  Of the Jackets five turnovers, two came thru the air and three came via the ground game.

Special teams was a mixed bag.  Rarely is “mixed bag” a positive, however after the debacle in Tallahassee that descriptor is an improvement.  The Jackets must resolve its field goal issues to become a threat in the ACC this year and in the future.  See 2014.  Otherwise, “mixed bag” will lead to a new definition for “scoring range”.

There were certainly signs of light.  Jahmyr Gibbs lived up to his billing, ripping off a 75 yard kickoff return on his first collegiate touch.  Gibbs finished with 219 all purpose yards and two touchdowns. 

Tech’s offense has now shown a pattern of improvement as compared to last year.  Sims led the offense to 471 yards of total offense.  Nine different receivers caught balls for 244 yards thru the air, demonstrating a balance and proficiency without needing to rely on one or two playmakers.  To that end, noticeably absent despite the team success were WR Ahmarean Brown and WR Jalen Camp, each of which tallied a single reception for 11 yards.

The Jackets managed 12 chunk plays, defined as passing plays of 15+ yards and running plays of 10+ yards.  The distribution was an even 6 and 6, respectively.  Overall the offense produced 5.8 yards per play and converted 7 of 15 third downs.

Last but certainly not least, punter Pressley Harvin remained an “absolute unit”, averaging 51.2 yards per punt.  Of his four punts, three ended up inside the 20, with one boom ball traveling 70 yards.

Ultimately it was feast or famine on offense.  Combined with a shorthanded defense forced to play 92 plays, the flood gates opened late for Tech’s foe.  Next week brings Tech back into ACC play with a road trip to Syracuse and an opportunity to go 2-0 in ACC play.

 

[alagold]

The Cuse game coming up is going to show what type of season we are going to have. If we win I think it’s still going to be a pretty good year

good thought, they are not good just like fsu but if we keep giving these mistakes ,look out

 

[GT_EE78]

We needed to run the ball way more. At one point on the second half or felt like we were getting 8 yards per carry. I think we got a bit impatient on the play calling.

/

Agree.Especially on first down

 

[alagold]

Wow over 15 pages already. I thought tech played well. Obviously the score looks much worse than it was. Ultimately we made too many mistakes and missed a few opportunities. The early fumble near the goal line and the blocked fg are back breakers against good teams. Gabriel threw some dimes against us but we should never have been down 28-7 to begin with. Sure, there were a few poor calls (I definitely recall a crucial hold and a PI), but that isn’t what lost the game for us.

I was proud of the D completely shutting down UCF in the 3rd to give us a chance. I was disappointed in how easily UCFs receivers got behind our DBs. On the crucial 4th quarter drives it appeared that carpenter couldn’t keep up UCFs receiver. Not sure if the D was gassed or not late in the 4th.

Sims was ok today. He had a few airmailed throws, missed an opportunity on a deep throw where we had significant separation, and obviously made the wrong decision on 4th and 9 where he had multiple open receivers. However, I expect those mistakes along with turnovers as a true freshman in his second game. We need to do a better job turning our good drives into pts.

I was waiting for someone to notice that having a" 240 lb" (so he bragged) safety is not a great advantage many times

 

[takethepoints]

I’m not sure I have ever agreed this comprehensively with one of your posts. I usually agree with some of what you say and disagree with other things you say. Which is about right. I like reading posts from people with whom I sometimes and agree and sometimes disagree but I think are thoughtful because it makes me think and so I pay attention. In this case I think you nailed it completely with this post. I was lucky enough to go to the game and as I sat and watched, then walked to my car, and then drove home I thought about almost every one of those items and had the same conclusion you did. I didn’t think we played that badly and I think there’s still reason to be optimistic that we are moving in the right direction.

Some general observations:

1) Our offense is going to be inconsistent this year. We have a true freshman QB who is immensely talented. We have an OL that appears to be much better than last year. We have 4 very talented runners. I take nothing away from Smith, Mason, and Griffin when I say that Gibbs is absolutely ELECTRIC. I think those other three guys are fantastic backs but there’s something extra about Gibbs.

2) We have a lot of talented people playing defense. I think they played really pretty well for the first 3 quarters of the game and then the mistakes the offense made combined with the pace of UCF finally got to them. I think this group, if we can get healthy, can be pretty decent. Not great. Not yet.

3) I thought the officials were bad but not enough for the outcome of the game to be anything other than UCF being better than us right now.

4) I’m still super excited about Jeff Sims. Yeah, he made a bunch of mistakes today and looked a lot more like a true freshman than last week. But UCF is better than FSU and Sims will learn from these experiences. He may have made some mistakes but he also did a lot to get us into position where we were competitive in this game.

Glad you liked it.

On Sims: I think he needs to do two things. First, he needs to complete a long pass or two. As a post above pointed out, UCF was lining up in the box like they would have against one of Paul's teams. I.e. they were going to stop the short/intermediate passing game and ignore long throws. They're on good grounds there; Brown has disappeared as a long threat. This is probably a matter of scheming for an O Sims can run rather then some kind of deficit in his arm strength, but until he shows otherwise teams are going to copy UCF. Second - and here I saw some progress - he needs to run more. He's still gaining most of his run yards by avoiding the rush. For which three cheers, of course, but he can make the entire run O work better if he runs with purpose. I saw that the coaches agree; he ran ye olde QB sweep, the play Tobias lived on, during the game. More of that and more double options and more misdirection (RB and blocking go one way, QB goes the other) please.

On Gibbs: He's fast alright and knows how to pick a hole. He should definitely return KOs for us. As to his running, I wished Mason was out there. Like Griffin last year, he can't create a hole. We needed that in the 3rd. Also, I noticed that his blocking could, shall we say, use a little work. Obviously the coaches agree; he was out in routes on most pass plays, not staying in to block. In short, once he learns to block he'll be something.

Btw, the guy who really impressed me was Dontae Smith. He needs to play more. He can block and, imho, he runs harder then either Gibbs or Griffin. But that's up to the coaches.

There. Now you have something to disagree with.

 

[CuseJacket]

Is it just possible that we got whipped by a much better outfit today?

Yes, UCF was better than us and has been for a while. That was the intended takeaway of the intro where I said "respected top 25 program over the last few years". We were expected to lose and lost. That by itself isn't very interesting to me, so it's best to take my write-up as added context.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Yes, UCF was better than us and has been for a while. That was the intended takeaway of the intro where I said "respected top 25 program over the last few years". We were expected to lose and lost. That by itself isn't very interesting to me, so it's best to take my write-up as added context.

I’m so happy Dontae is getting playing time. This year is crazy and will get crazier. We need him. It feels like our #4 RB is only a slight drop off in capabilities from #1. Same with our receivers. I feel like the difference between #1 and #5 is not that much. That should serve us well in the long run.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

I think it's more a perception deal. Football players get dinged up, all teams are going to have a handful of guys out at a given time. Tech is just so thin/young at so many positions that we have a lot of 'key' players, so every injury feels big.

In other words we have **** for depth.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

I don’t buy the whole “the score is not indicative of the talent between teams” mantra. Good teams hold onto the damn ball. I don’t care how athletic a player is, if he can’t hold onto the ball he’s no good to us.

Same thing goes for coaches who can recruit lights out but can’t coach a lick.

 

[85Escape]

I'm making my prediction against the pumpkins early...we win if we have less than 2 turnovers, lose if we have more than 3. Toss up if we have 2 or 3 turnovers. I think that's where we are right now.

 

[Ibeeballin]

I don’t buy the whole “the score is not indicative of the talent between teams” mantra. Good teams hold onto the damn ball. I don’t care how athletic a player is, if he can’t hold onto the ball he’s no good to us.

Same thing goes for coaches who can recruit lights out but can’t coach a lick.

of course you don’t

 

[Coloradojacket]

So a few more thoughts. I am not going to dwell on officiating but I bet if the game was reviewed UCF would have 7-8 additional procedure penalties. There is no way they were set on many of their plays.

that being said, I think against that tempo you have to do the following, and yes I know we were down d-lineman.
I go with a 4-1-5. Tell the guys to play base with man coverage. stay to a side and cover whoever is in front of you. The 5th back is a strong safety with responsibility of the running back. Have a blitz package between the Linebacker and the Strong Safety. Adjust when they substitute.

In addition, your offense does not go tempo. You slow down to allow your defense to rest. And to cause a slowing of the game to cut back on possessions.

Our guys played great D in the third but the offense did nothing and when the stress hit in the 4th we were gassed.

 

[THWG]

So a few more thoughts. I am not going to dwell on officiating but I bet if the game was reviewed UCF would have 7-8 additional procedure penalties. There is no way they were set on many of their plays.

that being said, I think against that tempo you have to do the following, and yes I know we were down d-lineman.
I go with a 4-1-5. Tell the guys to play base with man coverage. stay to a side and cover whoever is in front of you. The 5th back is a strong safety with responsibility of the running back. Have a blitz package between the Linebacker and the Strong Safety. Adjust when they substitute.

In addition, your offense does not go tempo. You slow down to allow your defense to rest. And to cause a slowing of the game to cut back on possessions.

Our guys played great D in the third but the offense did nothing and when the stress hit in the 4th we were gassed.

Playing with only 10 guys on defense is not a strategy that I would suggest.

 

[Coloradojacket]

Playing with only 10 guys on defense is not a strategy that I would suggest.

LOL....yea missed that 4-1-6. point being is forget getting any calls from the sidelines....you have no time.

 

[LibertyTurns]

He's not Dwyer? Well, he's only played one game in college, whereas we saw Dwyer for 3 full seasons. Did you expect Gibbs to be 2020 Christian McCaffrey? He was pretty dang good, and it was his first college game. I don't think it's wise to make full judgements of a player based off of his first college game. Dwyer had 5 carries for 27 yards and a TD in his first game, and Gibbs well surpassed that. Not saying he will end up better, but give him a chance.

Ok so we’re expecting 9 carries for 138 and 3 TDs next game?

I’m not the hype monster coronating him one of GT’s all time elite RBs. I’m saying he’s a Freshman and we should give him some time to see what he’s got.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

I think that it is a must win for us. I include this game in the 4 games we have a good shot of winning.

Unfortunately, for Syracuse sitting at 0-2, it is probably seen as a "MUST WIN" as well. A lot will be determined by the injuries on defense. We just cannot fall behind or get in shoot outs. We had over 400 yards total offense and only scored 21 points. I hate to say it, but Syracuse looks at this game almost in the same manner as we do....there is a team we can beat.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

Our three lowest graded players on offense (according to PFF). From lowest to third-lowest: Sanders, Brown, Carter. Peje Harris easily the top ranked player on offense, albeit in 17 snaps.

Showell was by far the lowest graded player in coverage and second-lowest on D overall. Juanyeh easily the top graded defender in coverage.

I am a little surprised it wasn't Walker in the lowest graded player in coverage but no matter, the UCF quarterback simply had more "clean pockets" to throw from than Sims did. In this day and age, you simply cannot cover these receivers for very long. They are too fast, too accomplished in their reading of defenses and route running to be shut down play after play. Pressure on the quarterback is all too often the determining factor in these games and we simply do not do a good job of that. Perhaps if we get Clayton and Ryans back we will be better.

 

[jojatk]

Glad you liked it.

On Sims: I think he needs to do two things. First, he needs to complete a long pass or two. As a post above pointed out, UCF was lining up in the box like they would have against one of Paul's teams. I.e. they were going to stop the short/intermediate passing game and ignore long throws. They're on good grounds there; Brown has disappeared as a long threat. This is probably a matter of scheming for an O Sims can run rather then some kind of deficit in his arm strength, but until he shows otherwise teams are going to copy UCF. Second - and here I saw some progress - he needs to run more. He's still gaining most of his run yards by avoiding the rush. For which three cheers, of course, but he can make the entire run O work better if he runs with purpose. I saw that the coaches agree; he ran ye olde QB sweep, the play Tobias lived on, during the game. More of that and more double options and more misdirection (RB and blocking go one way, QB goes the other) please.

On Gibbs: He's fast alright and knows how to pick a hole. He should definitely return KOs for us. As to his running, I wished Mason was out there. Like Griffin last year, he can't create a hole. We needed that in the 3rd. Also, I noticed that his blocking could, shall we say, use a little work. Obviously the coaches agree; he was out in routes on most pass plays, not staying in to block. In short, once he learns to block he'll be something.

Btw, the guy who really impressed me was Dontae Smith. He needs to play more. He can block and, imho, he runs harder then either Gibbs or Griffin. But that's up to the coaches.

There. Now you have something to disagree with.

Dang you almost had me there. But I've been a big Dontae Smith fan since he stepped on the field last year

Let's try another one. My favorite flavor of ice cream is peanut butter and chocolate. If you say that's your favorite flavor, too, then we know the apocalypse is upon us.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Unfortunately, for Syracuse sitting at 0-2, it is probably seen as a "MUST WIN" as well. A lot will be determined by the injuries on defense. We just cannot fall behind or get in shoot outs. We had over 400 yards total offense and only scored 21 points. I hate to say it, but Syracuse looks at this game almost in the same manner as we do....there is a team we can beat.

We had 490 yards of offense.

Syracuse looks at us as a game where we might mess up and let them win.

Syracuse is a bad team. We are not. They have UNDER 400 yards of offense. TOTAL in 2 games. We have 920 yards. They’ve only scored 1 touchdown.

They absolutely can win. But we should be favored by probably 8+ points.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

good thought, they are not good just like fsu but if we keep giving these mistakes ,look out

If we turn the ball over 5 times, Syracuse is more than capable of beating us. It should be a good matchup as both teams are struggling to score. I see the potential for Sims to grow from this and play an exceptional game next week. The injury list is already pretty long and might get longer.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

We had 490 yards of offense.

Syracuse looks at us as a game where we might mess up and let them win.

Syracuse is a bad team. We are not. They have UNDER 400 yards of offense. TOTAL in 2 games. We have 920 yards. They’ve only scored 1 touchdown.

They absolutely can win. But we should be favored by probably 8+ points.

I knew it was over 400 but damn we had 490 yards total offense? Somehow, we only managed to score 21 points. I guess that is what 6 turnovers will do to you. I must take exception to your assertion that Syracuse is a bad team and we are not. We may not be a "bad" team but we are not a good team either. Good teams don't give up 49 points and over 600 yards total offense, good teams do not turn field goals and extra points into an adventure, good teams do not have breakdowns in the secondary to the point that the UCF quarterback was undecided at times about which open receiver to throw the ball to and had a clean pocket most of the game. We are a team that has improved markedly from last year when we really were a "bad" team, to the point where we should be able to beat the bad teams on our schedule. That is progress of a sorts. I was going to respond to your post complaining that we should beat Syracuse by more than 6 to 8 points but I will take a win no matter how ugly it is. "Just win, baby"