Myths busted

[Squints]

Number One Myth: J Thomas is to small and light to make it through a full season without a major in jury.

God I'm so happy about this one. You couldn't have a conversation about the offense in the offseason without someone bringing this up.

 

[DC Bee]

No offense (*pun intended*), but you must have not been watching GT football over the last 7 years. While the wins haven't always been there, the offense has pretty consistently produced, even against the better defenses.

I allowed myself an exemption from this kind of criticism by referencing the choke factor. Consistency to me also means we execute when the game is on the line, not just the 1st 50 minutes of the game.

 

[AE 87]

This x 1000. I don't understand how not lighting up the scoreboard against elite teams is indicative of anything other than those teams are good. Do people not remember losing 27-3 to Miami? 51-7 to VT? 31-3 to Clemson? 14-13 to FSU? Too many to count vs. UGA? We were regularly shut down completely against great teams in the CG era (who was actually a decent coach, IMO). Our average against our best competition is better than many teams average over an entire season.

This post reflects my complaint against some of my fellow GT fans. They reduce assessment of the head coach and program--and strangely of the offense in particular--to simply win-loss record. Yes, W-L contextualized to strength of schedule is the ultimate measure of a team. However, assessing the performance of a coach and the state of the program has to look at more than just wins and losses, in my opinion.

In order to assess a coach and the state of the program, imo, you need to look at issues of competitiveness, performance in each phase of the game individually, and how the coach has responded to improve problem areas. In 2012, we lost to VPI and Miami in OT. Last year, we lost to georgie in double overtime. This year, we beat GS and vpi by the skin of our teeth. Even if you look at W-L, we've only finished 4-4 in conference once under CPJ and never worse. From 2002-2007, we also never finished worse than 4-4 in conference, but we only finished better than that twice.

Now, let go bust another Myth, the Myth-assippiStateAss.

 

[alaguy]

Darn! I meant to put that one in my original post. That our QB's take a "beating." In 7 years, we've never had a player miss a game from taking a hit. NEVER. Nesbitt is the only one that ever got hurt and it was a hamstring pull against MSU when he was in the open field. He also had an ankle injury that had nothing to do with getting hit. More pro style QB's get hurt than option QB's.

er, didn't Nesbitt go out for good vs VT tackling the guy who int him?

 

[Minawreck]

just last night ABC News was reporting the Cam Newton crash and injury and said the following:

Cam Newton fracture 2 vertebrae. The same injury suffered by Tony Romo during a game against Washington, and he was able to come back after a week off, but because a running QB gets hit so much more often they will likely take their time with Cam.

soooo Tony Romo suffered the injury...in the pocket...as a pocket passer...but they need to be more careful with the running QB...ok.

 

[iceeater1969]

fact- with coach held constant and adding to more physical ol a fast agile Qb who can run and pass and see the future enough to quickly and decisively run the TO , GT 2015 offense has done very good to great. Remove the qb and we are fair to good.

Opinion -with a qb that can run ok - tough short runs, is an "excellent" passer , and can see the future enough to quickly and decisively run the TO, GT 2015 offense would have been good to very good.

 

[alaguy]

The offense can produce in bowl games. Go back and look at Navy. We had over 450 yards against Utah in 2011, their D was ranked 11th that year. We've just played good teams in bowls. And yes we need to win more bowls.

thwg,
yep,I am hoping we break the pattern on OFFense breakdown in bowls but the truth is we have under-performed sometimes well under
for the fun of it ,I went back and looked- in EVERY bowl we have not reached our average OFf yardage for that yr in the game and sometimes by A LOT-- ex: Last yr- 430 vs 298 and the OBowl- 422 vs 158
for a team that lives on its OFF this is DEADLY ,time does help teams understand our offense better
just think-the other team has a month to work vs our base formation and tendencies with very limited new wrinkles while the opponent could install a whole new formation for us to then react to

 

[GTRX7]

I allowed myself an exemption from this kind of criticism by referencing the choke factor. Consistency to me also means we execute when the game is on the line, not just the 1st 50 minutes of the game.

Two things. First, the "myth" is that GTs offense gets stopped when it runs up agains better defenses or defenses that have seen it before, not that it performs really well for 50 minutes but is not clutch. So, I don't think your criticism supports your original point or the point of the OP. Second, your definition of "consistent" that a team must always be clutch no matter how well it does when you look at a full game is nobody's definition of what a consistent offense is.

I would also argue the "clutch" you speak of has much much more to do with the particular athletes we had running the system over the last few years than the system itself. The offense has been consistently clutch with JFN and JT.

 

[CobbTech]

er, didn't Nesbitt go out for good vs VT tackling the guy who int him?

Yes, forgot about that for a second. My main point is the myth that our QB's take a beating and every year we hear "Not sure if <insert name> can get through an entire season with the beating our QB's take with our scheme." Nesbitt's arm injury was not because he was taking hits in our offensive scheme.

 

[CobbTech]

Two things. First, the "myth" is that GTs offense gets stopped when it runs up agains better defenses or defenses that have seen it before, not that it performs really well for 50 minutes but is not clutch.

This is great. I remember UNC fans in year one when they shut us down, they were saying that they had the blueprint on stopping our offense. Same thing with Miami after the 09 debacle against them. 7 years in and were still shredding through their defenses.

 

[Bogey]

I was guilty of believing this one. Glad to see I was proven wrong.

Me too. Tougher than I thought by far.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

A lot of these "myths busted" are really trends reversed.

 

[GTRX7]

A lot of these "myths busted" are really trends reversed.

Like what? Our offense has been consistently good throughout. I can't think of one that has been reversed. We took a dip in the middle on some, but that's about it.

 

[DawgCatcher]

Myth Busted: "We don't need a passing game with the TO offense."

Thx for keeping it honest about the bowl myth. I believe the passing game can change that if we can develop some chemistry between DW and JT.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

And, it wasn't just CCG either, it was also GOL/Friedgen ... Miami shut that thing down in a bowl in Joe's best (senior) year. LSU shut it down in a bowl with Godsey.

Ughhh! I was at that game. On a brighter note, I was in a bar in Atlanta when Lil' Joe lit up Notre Dame in a bowl game. Got on tv, too, when a reporter asked me a question on air!

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Like what? Our offense has been consistently good throughout. I can't think of one that has been reversed. We took a dip in the middle on some, but that's about it.

The losing to the big 4 was/is a trend not a myth, it really happened. The losing of the bowl games is a real thing. Hopefully we reverse that trend this year. The whole "get 'em off schedule and you got 'em stopped" thing, that was real, too. JT and Smelter have skills that allow us to overcome unfavorable down and distances. Those are trends, not myths.

 

[91Wreck]

Ughhh! I was at that game. On a brighter note, I was in a bar in Atlanta when Lil' Joe lit up Notre Dame in a bowl game. Got on tv, too, when a reporter asked me a question on air!

I was at that game as well. I couldn't believe we played so poorly. I thought we were going to kill duh u.

 

[GTRX7]

Myth Busted: "We don't need a passing game with the TO offense."

Disagree. Look at the UGA game. The only thing that allowed us to win that game is that we got away from passing. Yes, we would like a passing game and having a passing game would make us better, but it is not necessary. I think the myth that has been busted is that we "need a passing game with the TO offense to have success." Again, I say this over and over and some folks just don't seem to listen. Go and look at some of our biggest wins in the CPJ era, and I think you will find that we tend to pass less in some of our biggest wins.

 

[Ash]

I believe the passing game can change that if we can develop some chemistry between DW and JT.

I hope that develops in the practices leading up to the OB since we are going up against a strong DL and a weak secondary.

 

[GTRX7]

The losing to the big 4 was/is a trend not a myth, it really happened. The losing of the bowl games is a real thing. Hopefully we reverse that trend this year. The whole "get 'em off schedule and you got 'em stopped" thing, that was real, too. JT and Smelter have skills that allow us to overcome unfavorable down and distances. Those are trends, not myths.

Yes, it was a "trend," but not one that indicated some truth that this offense cannot succeed against our "biggest rivals" unless you ignore 33% of CPJ's seasons prior to this year. If you don't ignore 2008 and 2009, you would conclude, as I said, that we experienced a dip in the middle against our "biggest rivals" (UGA, Clem, Miami, VT, FSU) not that we just now reversed some trend that otherwise indicated a truth:

2008-2009: 8-3 vs
2010-2013: 1-16
2014: 4-1

I am probably not the first person to say this, but having a good QB is kind of a big deal in college football, regardless of the offensive scheme. : )