Orange Bowl 2017 season

tech_wreck47

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We need to see the team a lot more to get a good feel for how good we really are, but after Monday night I won't be surprised to see us playing in the orange bowl. If we make this I hope it's against UT. I would love to play them again. Any thoughts? Bowl games y'all would like and teams to play? Yes I know this is way to early to be talking about bowl games, but it was something I thought about.
 

melloace

Jolly Good Fellow
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471
I'd rather not play UT. As much as I think we deserved to win that game we don't gain much from beating them. I would rather play Florida or Auburn if we play someone from the SEC.
 

kyle.smith828

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152
Obviously we have a small sample size, but, damn, our defense looked atrocious once again. I'm beginning to feel like this is a PJ issue. We've consistently underperformed in the CPJ era on D, regardless of a specific coordinator. CPJ is my all-time favorite GT coach, but something has got to give with our defense. I'm sick of seeing us bleed out in the field every time the opposing offense touches the ball.

Combine that D I Saw on Monday night with a horrible kicker and kick return team, and I'm not optimistic we'll win the Coastal. I think we're going to score of points and put up a ton of yards, we'll just have to outscore everybody. That's all fine and dandy when you don't the ball over, but our margin for error appears razor thin.
 

tech_wreck47

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8,670
Obviously we have a small sample size, but, damn, our defense looked atrocious once again. I'm beginning to feel like this is a PJ issue. We've consistently underperformed in the CPJ era on D, regardless of a specific coordinator. CPJ is my all-time favorite GT coach, but something has got to give with our defense. I'm sick of seeing us bleed out in the field every time the opposing offense touches the ball.

Combine that D I Saw on Monday night with a horrible kicker and kick return team, and I'm not optimistic we'll win the Coastal. I think we're going to score of points and put up a ton of yards, we'll just have to outscore everybody. That's all fine and dandy when you don't the ball over, but our margin for error appears razor thin.
Not sure if you knew but CPJ did try to hire a top D coach but didn't have the money to do so.
I also get what you are saying but here are my takeaways from Monday's game to give me hope.

1) best we've looked to start off a season
2) best OL performance i think I've ever seen
3) QB does not look like a question anymore and I would even say the playbook is more open than when JT was here because of the running ability by TM up the middle.
4) D looked better in the first half than I saw all of last year.

Of course the D needs to improve and I doubt they will be worse than last year. Kicking game definitely needs to improve and only time will tell but hopefully Monday was out of the norm for what it will be the rest of the year.
 

tech_wreck47

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8,670
I'd rather not play UT. As much as I think we deserved to win that game we don't gain much from beating them. I would rather play Florida or Auburn if we play someone from the SEC.
I think playing UT would benefit us because it would mean they won the east over UF. I wouldn't mind playing UF or Auburn though.
 

MikeJackets1967

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I think GT will finish 9-3 and wind up playing 8-5 Florida in the Citrus Bowl if all things go the way I think they will this season. However it wouldn't shock me if GT played TCU or Kansas State in the Champ Sports Bowl or a rematch with Tennessee in the Taxslayer Bowl.
 
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Obviously we have a small sample size, but, damn, our defense looked atrocious once again. I'm beginning to feel like this is a PJ issue. We've consistently underperformed in the CPJ era on D, regardless of a specific coordinator. CPJ is my all-time favorite GT coach, but something has got to give with our defense. I'm sick of seeing us bleed out in the field every time the opposing offense touches the ball.

Combine that D I Saw on Monday night with a horrible kicker and kick return team, and I'm not optimistic we'll win the Coastal. I think we're going to score of points and put up a ton of yards, we'll just have to outscore everybody. That's all fine and dandy when you don't the ball over, but our margin for error appears razor thin.
The kicking problem will hopefully be resolved with King returning from injury. We shall see. What I don't understand about the D is that they played lights out in the first quarter, not too bad in the second quarter, and atrocious in the second half. I really don't see how you can blame CPJ. As Tech_Wreck said, CPJ tried to hire a big time DC, but it wasn't it MBob's budget, so he settled for Roof, a fan favorite because of his playing days. Unfortunately, I am afraid that Roof is never going to get any better, so we are stuck until he either leaves (which he won't) or is fired (which is also not a certainty).
 

tech_wreck47

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I think GT will finish 9-3 and wind up playing 8-5 Florida in the Citrus Bowl if all things go the way I think they will this season. However it wouldn't shock me if GT played TCU or Kansas State in the Champ Sports Bowl or a rematch with Tennessee in the Taxslayer Bowl.
I don't think they like rematches on bowl games unless it's something like the orange bowl where it's a set team from the ACC and either SEC or Big Ten. That imo is the only way we see UT again this year.
 

dressedcheeseside

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14,044
The kicking problem will hopefully be resolved with King returning from injury. We shall see. What I don't understand about the D is that they played lights out in the first quarter, not too bad in the second quarter, and atrocious in the second half. I really don't see how you can blame CPJ. As Tech_Wreck said, CPJ tried to hire a big time DC, but it wasn't it MBob's budget, so he settled for Roof, a fan favorite because of his playing days. Unfortunately, I am afraid that Roof is never going to get any better, so we are stuck until he either leaves (which he won't) or is fired (which is also not a certainty).
Did they really, or did UT drop balls or throw it away on third downs?
 
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Did they really, or did UT drop balls or throw it away on third downs?
UT DID drop a lot of balls, but we were still getting in the backfield on almost every play, and, regardless of how it happened, we stopped them on every drive. Luck, maybe, but at least it looked good....and a helluva lot better than it looked in the second half.
 

Skeptic

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6,372
Not sure if you knew but CPJ did try to hire a top D coach but didn't have the money to do so.
I also get what you are saying but here are my takeaways from Monday's game to give me hope.

1) best we've looked to start off a season
2) best OL performance i think I've ever seen
3) QB does not look like a question anymore and I would even say the playbook is more open than when JT was here because of the running ability by TM up the middle.
4) D looked better in the first half than I saw all of last year.

Of course the D needs to improve and I doubt they will be worse than last year. Kicking game definitely needs to improve and only time will tell but hopefully Monday was out of the norm for what it will be the rest of the year.
I don't think we saw even a minute part of the play book Saturday night. First game, first QB start, first BB start. Those guys were so new they probably met for the first time in the huddle. Johnson stirs it in as the season moves along and if you recall there was even a time when he "simplified" the offense for Thomas, and by that time Thomas was experienced. We saw a lot of midline and speed options and the usual fling-it-deep passing when we threw, but I think we might even see something Saturday we haven't seen if he gets an advantage and wants to find something out. But we did learn that Marshall and Benson are tough kids.
 
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