I know posts like this are heretical around here

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bke1984

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I think some of this is the way the media is spinning things as well. Coach would be the first one to tell you he's very upset with the offense this year.

...and yes, we should beat Georgia when we hold them to 13. That really pissed me off...
 

JorgeJonas

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Big difference between blaming the defense for the loss (he didn't) and saying it needs to improve (it does). Frankly, I'm shocked anyone objects to a word he said. Most of us have griped about the defense - I know I sure as hell have - and now he's saying we need to raise our expectations. What, exactly, is the problem here?
 
Essobee

Essobee

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I understand where CPJ is coming from on this, as most of you do. Nevertheless, WB makes a very good point. We should beat Ugag when we hold them to 13 points. Turnovers killed us and you usually ain't gonna beat anyone by turning the ball over time and again. As CPJ has repeated over and over, you have to value ball possession if you want to win. It is very difficult to score without the ball.

Blocking, tackling, and ball security are absolutely fundamental to a successful football season, so is it any wonder why we did not enjoy much success this year?
 

gtg936g

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The bottom line of the season is that we could not put opponents away on O when we got stops on D, and we could not get needed stops on D when the game was on the line. That is called losing as a team. In 2014 we won as a team, because both sides of the ball could step up when it mattered the most, whether it was a score against GA Southern, a kick against VT, or a pick against UGAg.

We had the winning mojo in 2014 with a focused team effort. We did not have it in 2015. The team wins and loses as a team. The offense, defense, and special teams are all to blame for the wins and the losses. It is just easier as fans to single one out in particular for a loss based on the score.
 

InsideLB

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Anyone know our turnover margin? Seems like we gaveth more than we receivethed...
 

collegeballfan

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Offense and defense are both a must.
This past season UGA won a 9 - 6 home game and won 20 - 13 & 13 - 7 games on the road. Defense!

GT defense has not been good in a long time. "Where have you gone Rock Perdoni?"
 

Legal Jacket

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Wrecking Ball said:
So do NOT post trolling comments or ad hominems or smarmy "holier-fan-than-thou" drivel in response.

http://www.macon.com/sports/college/acc/georgia-tech/article46959440.html

Yet again we see CPJ blaming the defense. We saw improvement this year, and much of that after we lost our best DT and the pre-season all-GTSwarm DT.

I'm not a Scientologist, but we should beat the mutts if we hold them to 13.
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I don't see how you could possibly misread the article to a greater degree. He didn't blame the defense for the loss. He said the defense needs to improve, and that when we needed a stop we weren't able to get one.

You point to ONE game against an inept offense as somehow establishing that we were ok at defense this year. First of all, holding uga to 13 just isn't that great post-Chubb. Mizzou held them to 9. Florida held them to 3. Ga southern kept them at 17 in regulation. Georgia was 76th in the country in yards per game - about 3 yards per game better than us (we were 80). They were 86th in the country in ppg. Factor out the first four games (when they still had Chubb and played teams like La Monroe, Vandy, USCe, and Southern University) and they averaged only 17 points a game. That's right. The last 8 games of the year, uga averaged only 4 points more than what we "held" them to.

Second, the "pre-season all-GTSwarm DT" played most of the year as a backup and wasn't nearly as good as hyped (not his fault, that's ours). Gotsis played for a good chunk of the year too, and little good it did us.

We were 61st in rush defense, giving up 165.1 ypg and 4.7 ypc. That's mediocre at best. Pass defense we were 38 at 202.9 ypg. That's not bad - but not great either considering the yards we gave up on the ground AND that we pretty much just had seniors at DB.

Third, let's be real - what improvement did you actually see? That we held uga to 4 points under their post-Chubb average? That we held Miami to 38 the second to last game of the season? That we shut down virginia to the tune of 27 points? Kept Pitt to 31 points on our own field? Allowed an inept VT team to score 23?

We "improved" only in the sense that we were god awful last year. The "Defense" gave up 30 or more during each game of the 5 game losing streak. If we instead manage to keep those teams to between 21-24 points, we may beat ND, Duke, UNC, and/or Pitt - at the very least we would have won a couple more of those. That could have been the difference to being 5-3 or 6-2 after FSU, rather than 3-5.

Sure, the offense wasn't great either, but we were 57th in scoring defense and 63rd in scoring offense. Those are pretty even numbers. Yet some people are going on and on about how bad the offense was (don't get me wrong, it was bad) and giving the defense a pass. That's all CPJ is saying - grade them by the same system. Neither did particularly well - maybe we should beat uga if we hold them to 13, but we should also win games where we score in the high 20s, low 30s.
 

up state jacket

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How can a defense be expected to be a top tier d when you have 3 DC's in 8 years. How can you expect a defense to be top tier when the HC doesn't care about defense. All everyone said was if we could just get a few stops a game we wound be almost unstoppable. Well that happened this year and Johnson didn't get it done. Roof got more from the d this year than last. I've never heard or read anything where Paul said I failed the team and fan base in any game. He's the OC and should look in the mirror to see what went wrong this year.
 

up state jacket

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Legal Jacket said:
I don't see how you could possibly misread the article to a greater degree. He didn't blame the defense for the loss. He said the defense needs to improve, and that when we needed a stop we weren't able to get one.

You point to ONE game against an inept offense as somehow establishing that we were ok at defense this year. First of all, holding uga to 13 just isn't that great post-Chubb. Mizzou held them to 9. Florida held them to 3. Ga southern kept them at 17 in regulation. Georgia was 76th in the country in yards per game - about 3 yards per game better than us (we were 80). They were 86th in the country in ppg. Factor out the first four games (when they still had Chubb and played teams like La Monroe, Vandy, USCe, and Southern University) and they averaged only 17 points a game. That's right. The last 8 games of the year, uga averaged only 4 points more than what we "held" them to.

Second, the "pre-season all-GTSwarm DT" played most of the year as a backup and wasn't nearly as good as hyped (not his fault, that's ours). Gotsis played for a good chunk of the year too, and little good it did us.

We were 61st in rush defense, giving up 165.1 ypg and 4.7 ypc. That's mediocre at best. Pass defense we were 38 at 202.9 ypg. That's not bad - but not great either considering the yards we gave up on the ground AND that we pretty much just had seniors at DB.

Third, let's be real - what improvement did you actually see? That we held uga to 4 points under their post-Chubb average? That we held Miami to 38 the second to last game of the season? That we shut down virginia to the tune of 27 points? Kept Pitt to 31 points on our own field? Allowed an inept VT team to score 23?

We "improved" only in the sense that we were god awful last year. The "Defense" gave up 30 or more during each game of the 5 game losing streak. If we instead manage to keep those teams to between 21-24 points, we may beat ND, Duke, UNC, and/or Pitt - at the very least we would have won a couple more of those. That could have been the difference to being 5-3 or 6-2 after FSU, rather than 3-5.

Sure, the offense wasn't great either, but we were 57th in scoring defense and 63rd in scoring offense. Those are pretty even numbers. Yet some people are going on and on about how bad the offense was (don't get me wrong, it was bad) and giving the defense a pass. That's all CPJ is saying - grade them by the same system. Neither did particularly well - maybe we should beat uga if we hold them to 13, but we should also win games where we score in the high 20s, low 30s.
Click to expand...
The article was referring to that one game. Yes he threw the defense under the bus. He points out two mutt possessions that hurt Tech's chances to win. Yet he doesn't discuss the total sh÷t storm that was the offense. He commented that the d made uga punt 4 times and everyone is happy, but if the offense doesn't score on every possession they stink. That is a crying winning little ***** to me. Reread the article.
 
Ash

Ash

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up state jacket said:
All everyone said was if we could just get a few stops a game we wound be almost unstoppable.
Click to expand...

I was one of those saying that in the off season. All we needed was to flip the field, force a punt and we had a chance last year.

By the UGA game I was singing a different tune. During the game, after we narrowly avoided a shutout, my buddy said "The D needs to get them off the field so we have a chance to win." I said " What for? The O is stuck in neutral." It was apparent that a defensive score was the only thing that was going to win that game for us, and that was too much to ask of the guys.
 
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