Nc State Postgame

RamblinRed

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That was the most stressful game of the year for me.
At halftime I felt like we were probably going to lose if the offense didn't find a way to run the ball.
This is just the 3rd time in 3 years that GT has won a game where the opponent out rushed us.

Offense - C- - running game was trash last night. 36 carries, 119 yds, 3.3 avg. Except for the 2 big Philo rushes the offense was unable to run the ball and those were scrambles. 135 yds on 38 plays in the first half. Offense had one of its weakest performances of the year (I know that doesn't make much sense when you see 30 points, but 14 points off TO's are a huge difference). Receivers have to catch balls that hit them in the hands. Great job by Philo on the last drive, though we almost scored too fast. Against a team that has been weak defensively all year, this was not a good performance.

Defense - C - Would have been an A after 3 quarters but the 4th quarter was a hot mess outside of the Height INT. NC St had 253 yds on 29 rushes (8.7 avg) for the game. In the 4th Quarter NCST had 155 rushing yards on 11 carries (14 yard avg). That is S**t. Tackling was awful in the 2nd half. The 3 INT's were huge. But if NCST had 5 more seconds they probably win this game. Tactical error by NCST not running one more play, quick 5 yard out to the sideline. NCST had 203 yds on 19 plays in just 6 minutes in the 4th Quarter. Worst Quarter the D has played all year.

Special Teams - A - best game by the special teams all year when we really needed it. 3 FG's of 40+ yards, good KO and punt coverage. No mistakes.

Happy for the win, now we need to figure out how to play UGA. Whatever happened to the D in the 4th Quarter I hope they got that out of their system. O has to figure out how to run the ball when the defense is selling out to stop it.

So happy to get the win and the program is clearly headed in the right direction, but that was a really stressful game. I expected it to be close, didn't expect it to be quite so exciting.
 

tmhunter52

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If the OL couldn’t create any holes last night for our RBs, I am going to hate to see what happens against UGA next week. With a stacked box when King was in, that could be expected, but when Philo was in, and State had a more normal alignment, State still shut down our RBs.
 

Techwood Relict

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90% of the chat needs to come apologize to their GT brothers and sisters for giving up when the chips were down.

:LOL:

#Still100%
For those that weren't there, kg put his prediction % full on the line and made it stand. I don't know if we'll ever see it again.....

Bigfoot Mind Blown GIF
 

MacJacket

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The Good:
  • Aaron Birr . In hindsight, we should have let him kick one more before the half instead of going for it on 4th down.
  • The defense for 3 quarters.
  • Aaron Philo. He has some things to work on, but the future is promising.
  • Haynes King's toughness. I really hope his shoulder can heal and we get another year out of him. The pessimist in me thinks he may be done.
The Bad:
  • WR and TE drops. I've watched a lot of football this year (GT, other college, NFL), and have seen more drops than I can remember. Guys are getting paid big bucks to catch... do your job.
  • Offensive play calling & run game. Buster thought last week's plan would be fine and our line got punched in the mouth over and over.
  • Officiating. Has it ever been this inconsistent at every level? We get called for a WR hold on a very questionable call, yet NCST's offensive line gets away with blatant holds all game. What is targeting?
  • 2nd quarter tackling
The Ugly
  • QB contain on defense. If Cam Ward had a few more brain cells, Miami would've smoked us with his legs.
  • 4th quarter defense. Did Clown Collins and Thacker come back and coach them or were they just gassed because we could not sustain drives on offense?
  • ESPN announcers. I had to watch on mute in the 2nd half.
 

stinger78

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Defense played pretty great for three quarters and atrocious for one quarter. Not sure how you evaluate that. Likewise, the offense played pretty atrocious for three quarters and made enough clutch plays in the last one.

Whatever. A win is a win. Beating a conference opponent without your starting QB healthy is never easy. 7 wins with two games left. 5-0 at home. We’re showing serious progress under Key in less than three full seasons as HC.
Definite progress. If King doesn’t go down we likely have another W at VPI and are sitting at 8-3.
 

yeti92

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If the OL couldn’t create any holes last night for our RBs, I am going to hate to see what happens against UGA next week. With a stacked box when King was in, that could be expected, but when Philo was in, and State had a more normal alignment, State still shut down our RBs.
Well, they shutdown Jamal. Chad only got 3 carries, and no other RB got any. I suppose its possible, but I find it hard to believe that Cooley, Maddox, and Carrie are all injured enough that they can't play. Jamal seems to still be dealing with the same injury from earlier this season.
 

RamblinRed

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Good job by the staff and players of maximizing the wins of this team.
I know alot of fans have talked about how they think there are other games we could have won, but I'm not sure I agree with that.

We have 3 games where we scored the winning points in the last 22 seconds of the game - FSU, UNC, NCST. Could have very easily lost any of those, but we won all three.
In the 4 games we lost
Syracuse - down 17 with 8:39 left in the game, never had the ball with a chance to score the winning points.
L'ville - after the blocked FG never was within 1 score.
ND - down multiple scores for the last 26 minutes of the game
VT - was down multiple scores for the last 20 minutes of the game.

None of our losses where that close to being wins, while multiple wins were close to being potential losses. Given the situations at QB and RB, not sure getting more than 7 wins at this point was ever a significant possibility. 4-7 was more likely than 9-3, so getting to 7-4 is really a good job.
 

g0lftime

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Open field tackling was indeed bad. Trying to tackle too high and not wrapping up.
They were breaking 2 or 3 tackles on the left side against our DB'S more than once for big gains. Our D has been bad all year containing qb scrambles for big plays. BC beat us last year with Castellanos. We are fortunate Ward didn't take off for big runs as well. Would think our DC would be working on these qb scrambles. It happens both ways but has been a systemic problem for us for a while.
 

stinger78

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4,947
The Good:
  • Aaron Birr . In hindsight, we should have let him kick one more before the half instead of going for it on 4th down.
  • The defense for 3 quarters.
  • Aaron Philo. He has some things to work on, but the future is promising.
  • Haynes King's toughness. I really hope his shoulder can heal and we get another year out of him. The pessimist in me thinks he may be done.
The Bad:
  • WR and TE drops. I've watched a lot of football this year (GT, other college, NFL), and have seen more drops than I can remember. Guys are getting paid big bucks to catch... do your job.
  • Offensive play calling & run game. Buster thought last week's plan would be fine and our line got punched in the mouth over and over.
  • Officiating. Has it ever been this inconsistent at every level? We get called for a WR hold on a very questionable call, yet NCST's offensive line gets away with blatant holds all game. What is targeting?
  • 2nd quarter tackling
The Ugly
  • QB contain on defense. If Cam Ward had a few more brain cells, Miami would've smoked us with his legs.
  • 4th quarter defense. Did Clown Collins and Thacker come back and coach them or were they just gassed because we could not sustain drives on offense?
  • ESPN announcers. I had to watch on mute in the 2nd half.
Just a comment on announcers: both those guys talked *way* too much. Never shut up. Often talking over each other.
 
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