GT VT Post Game

Heisman's Ghost

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billga99 said:
In today's College Football World, holding a team to 21 points is average or above average. Obviously you can make the point that VT was very conservative based on our lack of offense. But today's outcome was primarily due to lack of scoring by our offense.
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Just about every team, except Tech, can move the ball and on a good day score points. What only a few teams can do is absolutely shut down an opposing offense. I watched Alabama playing and their defensive backs stopped receivers and running backs in their tracks. Elite teams not only have excellent starters with sound fundamentals but they can run backups in that are almost as good. You want to be "elite" get a defense.
 

billga99

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Heisman's Ghost said:
Just about every team, except Tech, can move the ball and on a good day score points. What only a few teams can do is absolutely shut down an opposing offense. I watched Alabama playing and their defensive backs stopped receivers and running backs in their tracks. Elite teams not only have excellent starters with sound fundamentals but they can run backups in that are almost as good. You want to be "elite" get a defense.
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Even Alabama has given up points in some games: 40 Vanderbilt, 34 UGA, 25 SC, 24 UT. Much better in other 4 games. Your right talent makes a difference. But in today's wide open offensive world, teams in most cases are going to score points.
 

Heisman's Ghost

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Richland County said:
Again if Paul is here Tech would not have any of these players. He isn't the coach anymore. He is partly responsible for the lack of talent when the new staff arrived. Give it a rest Mrs Johnson.
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Paul Johnson was probably the best coach Georgia Tech has had since Bobby Ross. Point is he did not need these players most of whom are not nearly as good as a lot of people think.
 
stinger78

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forensicbuzz said:
That's kind of a circular argument. We run the ball mostly inside the 20 and have been hugely successful. Why throw the ball when you don't need to? I think the ratio of TD to FG inside the 20 is 4:1, which is probably as good as almost anyone in the country. The idea that we can't throw the ball in the redzone isn't supported by the facts. That we don't throw the ball in the redzone is supported by the facts. Correlation is not causation.
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But why don’t we throw? Is it simply that we won’t? Or is it because our coaches know our personnel and we don’t?

FTR, I would love to see us throw more, but I am not impressed by the routes our WR run, except Malik.
 

57jacket

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gtchem05 said:
As is the case every year, with each game, we learn a little more about the team. Here's what one, mostly ignorant, fan has gleaned:

- We aren't as good as I thought we might be after game 1 (and FSU is way worse than I thought they were at the time).

- Haynes King almost certainly isn't leaving early for the NFL and Zach Pyron isn't the QB of the future (though will always appreciate his dedication and grit). I hope King can get in another game or two this year, but am mainly looking forward to a fully-healthy HK next season. Philo is the future beyond that assuming we pay him enough not to get poached. He sees the field well and throws accurately and on time. May not be quite the runner as King, but I believe Buster Faulkner is more than capable of adjusting the scheme for this (just not suddenly in the 4th quarter of the VT game after game-planning and practice repping with Pyron in mind).

- We're a good rushing football team, but many of our opponents have game-planned to stop our run daring us to throw the ball wide or downfield. We did this well enough against FSU and Duke, but not against Syracuse, Louisville, Notre Dame, and Virginia Tech. A healthy HK opens up the run game because of the added threat for him to run and because he is an adequate low-to-mid-range passer. Philo will force opposing defences to respect the downfield passing attack more and open up the run that way. Injuries to the RBs haven't helped, but we haven't lost our run game. It will be back.

- The pass blocking this season is better than it has been since before CPJ was here. Still room for improvement, but trending in a good direction. The ability of HK to pass quickly and move well certainly help the sack numbers.

- The defense as a whole, particularly the DL, keeps improving. Granted, they didn't really have anywhere to go but up. However, they forced 10 punts against VT! Our offensive ineptitude gave VT tons of possessions and good field position, yet the defense still gave up only 21. This gives me some optimism for the remainder of the year and more so for 2025.

- I'm not confident enough to call my shot against Miami like one clairvoyant poster did last year after the Bowling Green loss, but winning that game is not out of the question. Miami is probably not as good as their W-L record would indicate, and they are due for a slip-up. Hopefully that happens against us.
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Excellent post gtchem05.! Agree totally. Good summary of our program.
 
forensicbuzz

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stinger78 said:
But why don’t we throw? Is it simply that we won’t? Or is it because our coaches know our personnel and we don’t?

FTR, I would love to see us throw more, but I am not impressed by the routes our WR run, except Malik.
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I think it's because we haven't needed to. The success running the ball has been so good that it isn't worth the risk of putting the ball in the air. It hasn't ALWAYS been successful, but very much has been. Now, I don't know if we were in the redzone in either of the past 2 games, so that may not be the same.
 
slugboy

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forensicbuzz said:
I think it's because we haven't needed to. The success running the ball has been so good that it isn't worth the risk of putting the ball in the air. It hasn't ALWAYS been successful, but very much has been. Now, I don't know if we were in the redzone in either of the past 2 games, so that may not be the same.
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We kicked field goals from the 17 and the 33.

Outside of that, we got to our 32, our 34, our 22, our 26, our 38, our 13, the a pick from our 39, our 42, made it to their 17 (downs), our 39 (downs), their 24 (downs), and their 41 (downs).

So, twice we were in the red zone, and four times we were inside their 40.

The logic on this can get circular, but I don't think our passing game scares our opponents, and they're containing our run game.

Part of it might be familiarity with our playbook (the other DCs know how to play us). Part of it is execution. Part of it is we lean harder than most teams on the run game.
 

cpf2001

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forensicbuzz said:
I think it's because we haven't needed to. The success running the ball has been so good that it isn't worth the risk of putting the ball in the air. It hasn't ALWAYS been successful, but very much has been. Now, I don't know if we were in the redzone in either of the past 2 games, so that may not be the same.
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I think our schedule ended up much softer up front and we CAN do well running (in or out of the red zone) against weaker teams but get exposed against decent (or in VT’s case, even some statistically bad against the run D’s).

We didn’t even get to the red zone much running the ball in the last two games.

I think “we didn’t need to get more creative against bad D’s” got interpreted as “we don’t need to overall” and combined with the reported emphasis on INTs, and possibly lingering injuries, largely neutered our passing offense compared to last year.
 
Thwg777

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Slightly off topic, but in honor of the upcoming Miami game, can we add this image to the list of usable emojis?

IMG_5618.jpeg
 

g0lftime

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slugboy said:
We kicked field goals from the 17 and the 33.

Outside of that, we got to our 32, our 34, our 22, our 26, our 38, our 13, the a pick from our 39, our 42, made it to their 17 (downs), our 39 (downs), their 24 (downs), and their 41 (downs).

So, twice we were in the red zone, and four times we were inside their 40.

The logic on this can get circular, but I don't think our passing game scares our opponents, and they're containing our run game.

Part of it might be familiarity with our playbook (the other DCs know how to play us). Part of it is execution. Part of it is we lean harder than most teams on the run game.
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Are we doing something in formation, cadence, motion, or some tendency that defenses have found to tip certain running plays. We sure have had trouble running between the tackles.
 
stinger78

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cpf2001 said:
I think our schedule ended up much softer up front and we CAN do well running (in or out of the red zone) against weaker teams but get exposed against decent (or in VT’s case, even some statistically bad against the run D’s).

We didn’t even get to the red zone much running the ball in the last two games.

I think “we didn’t need to get more creative against bad D’s” got interpreted as “we don’t need to overall” and combined with the reported emphasis on INTs, and possibly lingering injuries, largely neutered our passing offense compared to last year.
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From my vantage point, injuries have eaten us up this year. King has played injured most of the season, and so has Pyron. We were playing tFR Carrie yesterday… he’s our fifth string RB (Haynes, Cooley, Alexander, and Maddox). We’re down two of our top TE’s (Seither and Goede). Our top WR is hurt (Malik). That’s just too much to overcome, IMPO.

Hopefully, this 2-week respite will allow these guys to heal up so we can finish strong.
 

yeti92

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I know we were likely to lose anyway since we couldn't score, but we got absolutely robbed on Tuten's fumble.

The VT player who just sat down on the field should have been flagged for delay of game. He was very obviously not hurt, looked like he just couldn't get his chinstrap buckled.

I understand the excitement over Philo, but I don't know that I'd assume he is #2 now. His accuracy is about the same as ZP, though delivery may be a little quicker, but Zach has more game experience and is going to know the playbook better. He made some riskier throws and he did hit some really good ones, but also missed his receivers on several short and long throws. He didn't have any major errors though, whereas I think Zach made a couple poor decisions that I'm sure he knew immediately were bad.

Also, Zach Pyron should switch to number 0 so we can nickname him ZP0 (pronounced like "Zippo") because he's got that fire up top.
 
Techster

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Really not much to say beyond what's already been said.

At the beginning of the season, we all knew that this team needed King on the field. King is a special player. Last season only one other QB did what King did in the passing and run game...Jayden Daniels. Daniels won the Heisman and was the #2 QB picked in last year's NFL draft.



Asking Pyron to step into those shoes was never going to be fair. The hope was Pyron would play well enough, get enough help on offense and defense to give GT a chance to win. He did that against ND, but didn't get enough help around him. Against VT, let's be honest, Pyron did not play well at all even though the defense did step up.

What we're finding out is King makes everyone on offense look better. He's also extending possessions giving our defense time off the field...and that's King's affect on the defense. That's what special players do.

Philo came in and gave GT a nice spark, but our WRs let him down multiple times. Or offense definitely looked better, but we still faltered the closer we got to the endzone. Philo will be VERY good for us in the future, but right now, GT needs King to get healthy ASAP.
 

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bobongo said:
VT came in #99 in the country against the run. I'm having a hard time squaring that with the idea of them having a stout DL.
Going into the game, everyone was talking about how Tech was going to be able to run the ball on them. ND was a stout defense. VT, not so much.
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When the other team doesn’t fear your passing game, it becomes MUCH easier to stuff the run. I believe that’s our problem. If we had a passing threat, we’d have run the ball much better. Most P4 D lines will look like the Pittsburg Steelers when they don’t have to fear the pass.
 
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