NIU HC Breaks Down Upset

[Techster]

Our base defensive personnel has 2 DBs that our coaches could have easily used to adjust to NIU's 22 personnel: Juanyeh and Tariq. Those guys are LBs playing safety. I'll have to go back and focus on the NIU bringing in different personnel and how Juanyeh and Tariq was utilized, but to say that we needed to adjust any kind of personnel to match the 22 package NIU brought in is ludicrous. That would be a sign of coaches not knowing their own personnel or how to utilize them.

I posted in the NIU prediction thread before the game about how undersized NIU was. There is no way NIU's players should have had a physical advantage over us against our base personnel even if they brought in 2 TEs and FB. If anything, it should have made it easier on our defense. They just punched us in the mouth and we didn't respond.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

After reading this our defensive coaches are bad real bad. you come out with 2 tight ends 2 running backs and your head coach defensive coordinator and all the other coaches can't make an adjustment all game. And all the Head coach can say is they use a unique formation. I would think this is a formation you would see on inside the 10. And then on the last drive to have miscommunication not once but multiple times . I guess if we had not wasted timeouts we would call one and talk to the defense ,

Wake up AD start calling the big money people and find some coaches before it's too late

I read somewhere that Swilling and one of the safeties were arguing about coverages while demanding the plays from the sidelines. Don't know if that is true but it looked like we were lost on defense that fourth quarter. We did outgain them by over 100 yards in total offense and nearly had two backs with 100 yard games but none of that matters when the opposing coach is questioning our team's toughness and decides to just line up old school with two tight ends in a two back set.

 

[Lotta Booze]

That is very disheartening to hear a simple personnel change would throw us off so much.

Having said that, up until that inexcusable final drive we surrendered to end the game I didn't think the D was the main problem. In this day and age of football if you hold a team to 22, especially a team like NIU, you should be able to outscore them. We were less than a minute away from being held completely scoreless in the first half. That is unacceptable.

 

[slugboy]

A very simple look at the game

• In the first half, we gave up 14 and scored 7
• We were lucky to score that 7
• NIU typically gives up a slew of points
• In the second half, we scored 14 and gave up 8.
• We didn't even play all that well in the second half, but that does show that a poor outing has us win 28-16. That's how badly we played in the first half.
• That tells you that we wasted the first half and "weren't ready" at the outset
• NIU looked ready to fold in the first quarter, but we didn't let them
• Even in the second half, we failed to line up on time multiple times, and had problems swapping players in. We even had a substitution foul.
• The game total was 43 points. The over/under was 57.5, so we hit the under by two touchdowns. That suggests that the main problem was offense.
• The defense didn't play well though. We should have had a physical advantage vs their receivers, if we could just get to the right place. If you can't blanket NIU in pass coverage, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
• Coverage over the middle was a problem, and we kept having players slip.
• Likewise, we did not live in their backfield. It was one of our worst games in years for TFL+Sacks+Havoc
• Our kickoffs went into the endzone. That was the major improvement in special teams. Our KO and Punt return groups were not good.
• They were a younger team than us, while we're one of the top teams in "returning production", so arguments about learning how to play together aren't appropriate here

One characteristic of GT football over the years is being overmatched, but playing smarter than the other team--even going back to the Dodd years (way before my time). That is not part of our nature now.

 

[Gray Fox]

I agree with Lotta. 21 points PPG is a Top 25 scoring defense in FBS. Doesn't excuse the last minute meltdown though. I didn't understand the tactic of substituting 2-3 defensive players each play when NIU was in hurry-up mode. Seems to only add to confusion in a frantic situation.

 

[TruckStick]

The lack of anger, fight, and offensive preparedness right out of the gate hurts us too much game to game.

Symptoms of a walk-through or we got this attitude overall.

 

[deeznats]

I agree with Lotta. 21 points PPG is a Top 25 scoring defense in FBS. Doesn't excuse the last minute meltdown though. I didn't understand the tactic of substituting 2-3 defensive players each play when NIU was in hurry-up mode. Seems to only add to confusion in a frantic situation.

The thing that makes the subbing even more odd, is all preseason Thacker talked about position flexibility so that we could implement multiple packages without subbing. A hurry up offense seems like the best time to use that but it all seems like lip service at this point.

The most frustrating thing about watching us play is that the players (because of coaching, not blaming them) seem incapable of making any decisions on the field. Everything has to come from the sideline. If we're on offense with a little momentum, it continually gets killed with using the entire play clock, every player just looking over at the sideline for a call instead of looking at the defense, etc. Same with the D, no chance to look at the offense because we're too busy subbing or calling plays with everyone looking at the sideline.

 

[PaulGT72]

Coach Hammock's explanation should be embarrassing to our D staff and CGC. Is it?

The O was OK and would have won the game regardless of the D except for poor execution on passes.

 

[jgtengineer]

And for all my complaints about Gailey, he may have been our best coach at 'coaching up' players (other than QB).

Gailey and Johnson were both rather good at it. Or more sepcifically their staffs were. The issue with gaily was patrick nix wasn't that great a QB coach, the issue johnson ran into was after bohannan and monken he had a hard time finding a new QB coach as well.

 

[rodandanga]

Gailey and Johnson were both rather good at it. Or more sepcifically their staffs were. The issue with gaily was patrick nix wasn't that great a QB coach, the issue johnson ran into was after bohannan and monken he had a hard time finding a new QB coach as well.

IIRC, he wanted to hire Ivin Jasper and the Tech AD wasn't willing to pony up.

 

[jgtengineer]

IIRC, he wanted to hire Ivin Jasper and the Tech AD wasn't willing to pony up

Jasper was actually second at that time he had his eyes set on someone else that would have helped him evolve the offense, they said no to that money so he went with jasper they said no agian so he went with cook who ran a similiar offense to the first guy but was much cheaper.

 

[bke1984]

I wasn’t that upset with the overall defensive performance. It’s definitely alarming we didn’t adjust as quickly and the meltdown at the end was horrible. But overall we only gave up 300 yards of offense and 22 points - 80 yards and 8 points on the final drive. So basically a stop there that looks like others we’d had most of the game and it’s a dominating performance.

If we clean a couple things up and get just a little pressure I think the D could be Ok.

On offense we are lacking creativity and need to go back to relying on our strength in the running game.

Our overall game management is a catastrophe, and I’m not sure how to even adjust aside from hiring someone else to do it.

 

[bke1984]

And for all my complaints about Gailey, he may have been our best coach at 'coaching up' players (other than QB).

Yep. And several of his defenses were flat out nasty. It’s why we were still winning most years. The offense was a little boring for the talent it had - even in 2006. That team never should have lost to Wake with that roster.

 

[senoiajacket]

Hey, this loss isn’t looking nearly as bad as it seems NIU will take the MAC championship (TIC)

 

[4shotB]

Hey, this loss isn’t looking nearly as bad as it seems NIU will take the MAC championship (TIC)

I detect a bit of sarcasm but another member of that conference beat Pitt, who could be ACC champions and who beat us down rather handily. In the ACC I don't think we have earned the right to dismiss other conferences as automatic wins. This may be sad but it's where we ( both GT and the league) are at momentarily.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

The article pointed out that they were more physical than us. I think that’s been a staff weakness for 3 years.

 

[jacketup]

The article pointed out that they were more physical than us. I think that’s been a staff weakness for 3 years.

I didn't that having a more physical staff was important.

 

[jacketup]

NIU was not our worst loss this year. Might have seemed like it in September, but not now.

 

[ibeattetris]

NIU was not our worst loss this year. Might have seemed like it in September, but not now.

Hard disagree. Winning the Mac just means we lost to the best Mac team. NIU 247 composite is rank 91. No other team we lost to is even close. The loss is certainly not as bad as it appeared the first week, but it is still a really bad loss that our program should be winning handily.

 

[slugboy]

I hadn’t forgotten this, but I’d pushed it way back in my mind.

Not having a ready counter for 22 personnel is well … it’s not like a halfback pass or a flea flicker … it’s not a gadget play. Fullbacks have become a little bit of a dinosaur, but in the chess match of X’s and O’s, this is like using your rooks.

I have to think that Ken Suguira picked the quotes he liked, and the smashmouth approach wasn’t as baffling to the coaches as the article made it sound. Still, just stay in a 4-3 and blitz them.

This wasn’t even a supervillian technique. Getting outcoached by NIU when their coach just says “we’ll line up in a heavy formation
and push them down the field” and you have no immediate counter is, in combination with everything else we’ve seen this year, cause to re-evaluate your approach to defense.

I would not say this is our worst loss of the year. It was just the **first** loss of the year. I would say it’s the same loss as VT and UVA and Pitt and Notre Dame and BC—we were simply unable to get the stops we should get. We should have held NIU to a score like 10.

Beating a team like NIU is table stakes. Maybe the UGA is a “worse” loss, but NIU was an omen for the rest of the year.