Observation and Overreaction

[Techfan02]

Now Like many people I'm sure that we all felt hopeless after the clemson game some less than others, but the more I took to look at the season at a whole. We're 2-3 Right now with one loss that we expected (Not as Bad) the other against a quick fire offense and one that All be it questionable and head scratching It happens. But the thing is that considering how we have done a night and day job offensively from last season defense has took some struggling with a lack of speed and injuries. I still think that 2021 or 2022 will be something we can say that we are glad that we stuck with CGC.

 

[TromboneJacket]

You are a brave man. To quote a certain coach, “It’s never as good or as bad as it seems.”

 

[Sheboygan]

Now Like many people I'm sure that we all felt hopeless after the clemson game some less than others, but the more I took to look at the season at a whole. We're 2-3 Right now with one loss that we expected (Not as Bad) the other against a quick fire offense and one that All be it questionable and head scratching It happens. But the thing is that considering how we have done a night and day job offensively from last season defense has took some struggling with a lack of speed and injuries. I still think that 2021 or 2022 will be something we can say that we are glad that we stuck with CGC.

Completely agree, but he might need to tweak his staff a bit, IMO

 

[Vespidae]

Now Like many people I'm sure that we all felt hopeless after the clemson game some less than others, but the more I took to look at the season at a whole. We're 2-3 Right now with one loss that we expected (Not as Bad) the other against a quick fire offense and one that All be it questionable and head scratching It happens. But the thing is that considering how we have done a night and day job offensively from last season defense has took some struggling with a lack of speed and injuries. I still think that 2021 or 2022 will be something we can say that we are glad that we stuck with CGC.

It’s funny. I went back and looked at possessions over the past 10 games with Clemson. We win if it’s 10 or so. This game had 17 possessions! Moral: Control the tempo!

CPJ said this too. Ok, don’t run the TO. But the philospony is the same. So much so that Bobby Dodd quipped, “Against superior opponents, keep the game as close as possible and try to win in the fourth.” He also said for Tech to win, they had to recruit Atlant.

Everything old is new again.

 

[Lotta Booze]

Yeah. It sucks to lose that badly and feel embarrassed by the final score.

BUT, as you said we are 2-3 at this point and I would've taken that ahead of the season. Overall we look better than last year and have already matched our conference wins from last year.

Sometimes games, especially in college football, can just get out of hand. The game Saturday made me think of the 2012 orange bowl where Clempson got smoked 70-33 by WVU. Clemson was the favorite going into that game and playing a team that was supposed to be somewhat evenly matched.

GT played possibly the best team in the country and it showed. A few mistakes on our end made it worse than it had to be but hopefully we only let this game beat us once. On to BC.

 

[Sheboygan]

It’s funny. I went back and looked at possessions over the past 10 games with Clemson. We win if it’s 10 or so. This game had 17 possessions! Moral: Control the tempo!

CPJ said this too. Ok, don’t run the TO. But the philospony is the same. So much so that Bobby Dodd quipped, “Against superior opponents, keep the game as close as possible and try to win in the fourth.” He also said for Tech to win, they had to recruit Atlant.

Everything old is new again.

Disapponted with OC that he didn't consider this.......

 

[lv20gt]

It’s funny. I went back and looked at possessions over the past 10 games with Clemson. We win if it’s 10 or so. This game had 17 possessions! Moral: Control the tempo!

CPJ said this too. Ok, don’t run the TO. But the philospony is the same. So much so that Bobby Dodd quipped, “Against superior opponents, keep the game as close as possible and try to win in the fourth.” He also said for Tech to win, they had to recruit Atlant.

Everything old is new again.

So we scored 7 points in 17 possessions but if we had kept it to under 10 we would have won?

lol.

 

[Techfan02]

So we scored 7 points in 17 possessions but if we had kept it to under 10 we would have won?

lol.

Would have not got 73
winning is a BIG understatement

 

[ibeattetris]

Would have not got 73
winning is a BIG understatement

73 points in 17 drives is the same thing as 43 points in 10 drives.

4.3 points per drive sucks, and there is no defending it, but the total points doesn’t matter. People are going to need to get used to modern football where the number of drives has begun to inflate overall scoring. Even the SEC known for its defense is starting to have a lot more games in the high 30/40’s per team as they too have begun adopting more uptempo/pass heavy offenses.

 

[Pointer]

73 points in 17 drives is the same thing as 43 points in 10 drives.

4.3 points per drive sucks, and there is no defending it, but the total points doesn’t matter. People are going to need to get used to modern football where the number of drives has begun to inflate overall scoring. Even the SEC known for its defense is starting to have a lot more games in the high 30/40’s per team as they too have begun adopting more uptempo/pass heavy offenses.

Especially when both teams run up tempo.

 

[jojatk]

I could be wrong but I don’t think the reason for so many possessions was as much running up-tempo as it was our inability to keep possession of the ball for more than 1 series of downs each time we touched it.

 

[ibeattetris]

I could be wrong but I don’t think the reason for so many possessions was as much running up-tempo as it was our inability to keep possession of the ball for more than 1 series of downs each time we touched it.

Yes, averaging less then 1:30 per drive didn’t help limit possessions either. Can’t average too much more than that without first downs.

 

[lv20gt]

Would have not got 73
winning is a BIG understatement

So what? Is a 50 point blowout in any way meaningfully better? Two years ago they scored 49 on 11 drives did we get a partial win for holding them under 50 simply because we just held onto the ball and didn't snap it for thirty seconds? We had no chance in either game and our defense wasn't any better then than it was now just because the total number of possessions was lower.

 

[idbgt]

If he winds up replacing coordinators he should take a 500,000 pay cut and give half of it to hire a better OC and half to hire a better DC. In this covid era of cuts that would build alot more goodwill. I am not an expert however he would do well to go get Godsey from the Dolphins to run the O and Giff Smith from the Chargers to run the D. We would be back in the multiple formation offense business and start bring in the big uglies again (like Morgan, Johnson, Richard, et al)

 

[ibeattetris]

So what? Is a 50 point blowout in any way meaningfully better? Two years ago they scored 49 on 11 drives did we get a partial win for holding them under 50 simply because we just held onto the ball and didn't snap it for thirty seconds? We had no chance in either game and our defense wasn't any better then than it was now just because the total number of possessions was lower.

I agree. I decided to consolidate the top and bottom 10 offense ppd and defense ppd since 2005 for comparison sake. Clemson might have been a bad defensive performance, but it was barely the 5th worst defensive performance we've had in 15 years. People really don't seem to grasp how bad our defense was at in the CPJ years. I would say the 2017 Duke game was way worse than this year's Clemson game for example.

I want to shout out that Louisville game though. If you remove the qb kneels at the end...6.56 ppd, scoring a td on all drives but one we kicked a fg. I doubt we ever see anything like that again.

Disclaimers:I choose 2005 because espn does not have prior seasons reliably. This data does not include bowls, and I made assumption that all td are 7 points. It would be incredibly more time consuming computationally to scrape the play data to figure out if we missed an extra point or not, and the end result will not affect the data much. I also had to remove a few old games like Troy in 2006 (only had one drive) or some game against UNC because it only had the first half. It also turns out that ESPN data kinda sucks for drive information and my time would have been better spent scraping the individual plays, live and learn.

Best Off

Worst Off

Best Def

Worst Def

Edit to include net ppd data
Best

Worst

 

[whitegoldsphinx]

So we scored 7 points in 17 possessions but if we had kept it to under 10 we would have won?

lol.

You know what he meant. Limiting possessions against a clearly superior opponent is often the only chance a big underdog has. The effect of turnovers and lucky plays in your favor gets amplified. Doesn't mean you're going to win, but it is your best chance. The more possessions in a game, the more likely results return to the mean.

 

[Ash]

Our current offensive philosophy of "Lets go fast and try and catch the D off guard no matter what the state of the game is at that moment" is getting incresingly worrisome. We are better than we were last year, but not better enough to impose our will on most other teams. It it not working. And when we keep going fast as possible to a 3 and out so we can give the ball back to a team who we have not seen their punter...I just don't get it.

 

[Jerry the Jacket]

Our team does not play complimentary football. To me it appears the offense is out for itself and the same appears to be the case for the Defense. Special teams just seems to be an afterthought with no sense of direction. It's a combination of coaching and the players. The chemistry just is not working right now. Probably will have to limp through the remainder of this season and hope for some evolution toward building a good team over time. Just my present thinking.

Go Jackets!

 

[Sheboygan]

Our team does not play complimentary football. To me it appears the offense is out for itself and the same appears to be the case for the Defense. Special teams just seems to be an afterthought with no sense of direction. It's a combination of coaching and the players. The chemistry just is not working right now. Probably will have to limp through the remainder of this season and hope for some evolution toward building a good team over time. Just my present thinking.

Go Jackets!

I agree. IMO, the players ( with encouragement from coaches ) might have been expecting to be winning more this season and they are somewhat discouraged. I think some players, and fans , are confusing " elite "level in effort with " elite" level in skill. Effort will take you part of the way, but when that runs into elite skill ( which combines raw talent with effort), it usually comes up short. The players have been working VERY hard for 2 years under this coach, who is a good recruiter and "cheerleader" IMO. But if/until he can get more elite talent his, and our , expectations for this team should be tempered. Many on this board had us beating Clemson this past week......what ??? I was almost 100% sure we would lose, but I didn't expect it to be embarrasing. Reality check- the rest of our games this year will be tossups, AT BEST. I am hoping we play our best , get a few breaks, and win 2-3 more.

 

[AlabamaBuzz]

It’s funny. I went back and looked at possessions over the past 10 games with Clemson. We win if it’s 10 or so. This game had 17 possessions! Moral: Control the tempo!

CPJ said this too. Ok, don’t run the TO. But the philospony is the same. So much so that Bobby Dodd quipped, “Against superior opponents, keep the game as close as possible and try to win in the fourth.” He also said for Tech to win, they had to recruit Atlant.

Everything old is new again.

Exactly. There are so, so many ways to "skin a cat", but we have to think out of the box. Yeah, maybe we never run the TO the way PJ ran it, but still, we should use many of those same principles in the current offense when we are going up against a superior opponent. Limit the possessions, and keep them off stride, with misdirection, option plays, and different blocking schemes. Takes superior coaching to develop these types of game plans. Hope we have that kind of coaching.