Initial Impressions

[Boomergump]

From the upper north. I really like the vantage point from my seat location. You can see a lot that you don't from the sideline view. Man it is good to be back in ATL. Pretty hot today though. I had to leave early. My wife was feeling it. She is so hot to begin with that when you put her in the sun on a 90 degree day she is about ready to combust.

I thought Wofford played really well. I have a lot of respect for their QB.

Justin had some good and bad, but most importantly, he showed us that he is the most capable QB in the CPJ era. I thought he missed a couple reads in half 1 with gives that should have keeps and a couple keeps that should have been pitched out. He also had a string of 3 missed throws in a row in Q2, any of which would have been a huge play. Other than that, he personally was pretty much lights out. He showed how well he sees the field, going to the right guys. He showed arm strength. He settled down to show accuracy and touch. He was elusive. Right now I have a high level of confidence that he will burn teams over playing the run. It was his first time being out there so long and he settled into the game nicely. He has the IT factor.

Our defense, as I feared, seems soft in the belly. Playing against our style of offense is tough though. Maybe I should see us against a more conventional offense before I make sweeping conclusions. We got burned by our own tricks a few times.

Film review tomorrow. Go Climpsum!

 

[00Burdell]

I'm glad we started the year against Wofford and not VT .

I think we have a lot of good football players on the roster but its not coming together quite yet.

I think we'll be a lot better by game four but I am a lot more worried about Tulane and Georgia Southern than I was this morning.

 

[GTJackets]

From the upper north. I really like the vantage point from my seat location. You can see a lot that you don't from the sideline view. Man it is good to be back in ATL. Pretty hot today though. I had to leave early. My wife was feeling it. She is so hot to begin with that when you put her in the sun on a 90 degree day she is about ready to combust.

I thought Wofford played really well. I have a lot of respect for their QB.

Justin had some good and bad, but most importantly, he showed us that he is the most capable QB in the CPJ era. I thought he missed a couple reads in half 1 with gives that should have keeps and a couple keeps that should have been pitched out. He also had a string of 3 missed throws in a row in Q2, any of which would have been a huge play. Other than that, he personally was pretty much lights out. He showed how well he sees the field, going to the right guys. He showed arm strength. He settled down to show accuracy and touch. He was elusive. Right now I have a high level of confidence that he will burn teams over playing the run. It was his first time being out there so long and he settled into the game nicely. He has the IT factor.

Our defense, as I feared, seems soft in the belly. Playing against our style of offense is tough though. Maybe I should see us against a more conventional offense before I make sweeping conclusions. We got burned by our own tricks a few times.

Film review tomorrow. Go Climpsum!

Welcome to the club brother. Good problem to have though. Amirite?

Agree with your thoughts on the game too by the way.

 

[Essobee]

I thought Wofford played really well. I have a lot of respect for their QB.

Justin had some good and bad, but most importantly, he showed us that he is the most capable QB in the CPJ era. I thought he missed a couple reads in half 1 with gives that should have keeps and a couple keeps that should have been pitched out. He also had a string of 3 missed throws in a row in Q2, any of which would have been a huge play. Other than that, he personally was pretty much lights out. He showed how well he sees the field, going to the right guys. He showed arm strength. He settled down to show accuracy and touch. He was elusive. Right now I have a high level of confidence that he will burn teams over playing the run. It was his first time being out there so long and he settled into the game nicely. He has the IT factor.

Our defense, as I feared, seems soft in the belly. Playing against our style of offense is tough though. Maybe I should see us against a more conventional offense before I make sweeping conclusions. We got burned by our own tricks a few times.

Agree all the way. Very happy we were able to double the score on them. My obnoxious roommate one year was a grad student from Wofford, so I'm happy we were at least able to double the score on them.

 

[Yaller Jacket]

Like the poster on another thread, not smart to read too much into an opening game. My biggest positive by far is that we finally have an offense which can both run and pass. We finally have a big play threat at quarterback, something we haven't had since PJ came here.

Some not so good things: Nealy (at least to me) looked to have a very poor game. He was stationary, I think trying to gauge where the ball would go, and it made it super easy for their big linemen to just come up and take him out of the play. Laskey did not look as quick as I remembered. In his few carries Days looked to have more quick acceleration... The other thing is that I though the G-C-G would be able to open more space in the middle.

Wofford looked extremely well coached. If this game was typical, I wonder why a bigger program hasn't come calling for that guy.

 

[00Burdell]

I thought the Austin twins looked very athletic. More coaching is needed but the talent is most definitely there.

 

[GTL]

Agree with your assessment, Boomer. We got a QB that can run the o and pass.

The D needs work, but isn't as bad as W made em look early on.
W was a well coached team.

 

[awbuzz]

Initial impression was "disappointed"...

Thankfully the Offense "picked it up" it up and scored TDs on each of our 4 possessions in the 2nd half.
We scored on 6 of 9 possessions (Excluded the last 50 seconds or so of game.)

The 92 yard burst up the middle by Wofford is the new "longest run" from scrimmage against GT.
The Terriers scored on 4 of there 9 possessions.
Was hoping for a better showing by our defense.

 

[Matt E]

I'd have to go back and watch the tape but I would be very surprised if we didn't run basic vanilla defensive schemes most of the day. We should see more blitzing and line games/stunts next week. I think we will have a much clear picture based on that game than vs Wofford.

 

[jwsavhGT]

YJ,
My husband would agree with you on Nealy. He said that it looked like he was playing on his heels & not his toes. He was flat-footed the 1st half but got some spring to his step the 2nd half.

 

[AE 87]

Great insights from all yall. I agree with substance of most and emotion of awbuzz.

My two cents: Roof used depth early and often. I was going to post in my thread on D depth, but fits better here.

We did not stunt etc much but we were not playing Green much either. Our D controlled scoring a bit but did not shut them down.

Optimism for D took a hit. Hopefully it's freshmen etc jitters and will clear up.

We never played depth on OL and QB. We scored every drive in 2nd half and over 4 pts/dr, but we had to convert 2 4th dns. OL needs to internalize FCS when thinking of this game.

Optimism for O took a hit.

I'm not predicting disaster but was hoping for more from D and O.

Bright Spot: JT's quick release applies to both pitches and passes. JfN was slow on passes but quick on pitches. I haven't seen much discussion of this latter point but consider it huge in our O 2008-9. Quick pitches/passes will keep a drive alive.

I'm not as optimistic but not disheartened.

 

[alaguy]

I'm sorry but we were 29 pt FAVORITES vs a lower level team at OUR HOME. We won by 19 -that is way off the expected
The DEF did nothing to show that they can play at a high level.The LBs played poorly esp Nealy ,our Sr leader, for some reason.Remember---- this a wofford not UCLA.
The passing game looked MUCH better.Nice to see. Smelter will play pro.
Maybe the biggest concern is that we couldn't run the middle vs WOFFORD.What was the longest bback run in middle -10 yds? If we can't control the middle -we are not going to be able to run wide or pass vs the VTs of the world or maybe even the tulanes or gaSoutherns.

otoh-if we can win the same next week on the road vs a D1 team maybe this was an aberration

 

[GTNavyNuke]

O looked good to me. ST were pretty good but uneven. D was awful.

I would have thought we'd be better against the option since that's what the D should have been practicing against for a lot of camp, certainly the scrimmages we saw. The D gave up 271 yards - the most against a FCS team since CPJ came here - previous highways SC State at 178 when we killed them (41-10) in 2010.

 

[awbuzz]

If I heard CPJ correctly, we had 59 plays on offense and averaged almost 9YPP/ Not bad.

KO returns need work. We took at least 3 kickoffs out of the end zone when we'd have been better of taking a knee. Granted that is the power of hind sight saying that.

 

[Atomic Jacket]

I thought we would win by at least 24 points. This team may be worse than I thought. Our d line was completely owned by the Wofford o line, and that bodes ill for the future.

There was some improvement in the passing game, but how is it that a team like Wofford runs the option better than we do? We have better athletes and a coach who is considered a master of the option game. This may be a sign of something wrong on a more fundamental level in terms of attitude or motivation. Certainly it can't be in terms of talent or know how.

 

[Ben Jones]

I agree Atomic. I am very disappointed in today's performance. I didn't have high expectations for this year. We need more Will Bryans in this class to make us nasty! Will reminds me of Nate Stimson, one mean son of a gun who has an attitude and can back it up.

 

[ilovetheoption]

Optimism for O took a hit.

I'm actually more bullish on the O than I was coming into the game. I did not have high hopes for JT as a passer, and he actually looked quite good. Missed a couple in the first half, but was generally throwing bullets out there in the 2nd.

He'll be fine operating the option stuff, and if he can consistently hit guys in the passing game, you guys will look good a lot.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

I thought we would win by at least 24 points. This team may be worse than I thought. Our d line was completely owned by the Wofford o line, and that bodes ill for the future.

There was some improvement in the passing game, but how is it that a team like Wofford runs the option better than we do? We have better athletes and a coach who is considered a master of the option game. This may be a sign of something wrong on a more fundamental level in terms of attitude or motivation. Certainly it can't be in terms of talent or know how.

Maybe they're D is better at defending it than ours? Maybe our first time starter qb was missing reads early? Maybe Wofford was selling out on the run but we couldn't hurt them with the pass till our qb settled down? Don't read too much into this. Coach said JT missed reads in the run and pass game that would have made a huge difference in the first half. He went on to say he got way better at both in the second AND that is more indicative of how he performs in practice.

I'd be more worried about our D if I were you. It didn't help we had to go 75+ yards nearly every possession, either. I guess the D had nothing to do with that.

 

[ilovetheoption]

There was some improvement in the passing game, but how is it that a team like Wofford runs the option better than we do?

Simply put, they don't. When you include Snoddy's run as the option play it was, GT had more yards and a higher average in the running game.

 

[vamosjackets]

Watching other normally good teams struggle in their openers makes me feel a little better about our early struggles yet decisive win.