Pat Swilling Interview 92.9

Josh H

Jolly Good Fellow
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Nice interview. Wish I heard more of these on sports radio as that was really great content.

- Talked about the schools they looked at
- Talked about how the game of NFL changed (in terms of toughness/hitting)
- On PJ - showed he can win with the offense. Tough offense to defend. Wore VT out. Defense needed to play better.
- In regards to putting a team together (i.e. offense clicks every 3-4 years) - Believes if Coach Johnson would throw the ball just a little bit more it would be unstoppable. Some downs they don't cover wide receivers. Thinks PJ is a bit predictable.
- Goes on to discuss Drew Brees and New Orleans. Thinks NO has a two year window.
- Toughest NFL player he played against - Mike Kin (spelling?)
 
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As with most college teams, they are usually better the more upperclassmen that start. He was part of the 1985 9-2-1 team, the same team that went 3-8 in 1983. Most teams go in this flow, except Alabama and maybe now Clemson.
 

Deleted member 2897

Guest
Believes if Coach Johnson would throw the ball just a little bit more it would be unstoppable. Some downs they don't cover wide receivers. Thinks PJ is a bit predictable.

Well, we did try to throw last year, but only completed 37% of them. :D Hence running the ball 85% of the time. (~120 pass attempts vs ~625 rushing attempts). If we're completing 37% of our passes, we SHOULDN'T try and throw more.

In 2016, by comparison, we threw 160 passes (30% more, and completed 30% more of what we did throw) vs about 600 rushing attempts. So we ran the ball 80% of the time. We won 9 games that year. So we're really only talking about a small percentage difference. About 4 more throws per game. But you have to be able to connect on some reasonable percentage of them or the defense doesn't need to cover it.
 

tmhunter52

Helluva Engineer
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In 2017, Tech averaged 5.3 yards per rush and 7.8 yards per pass attempt. Given that passing attempts yielded more yards, even with TM’s abysmal 37% completion rate, you would think we would pass more UNLESS incompletions stop the clock, give more possessions to the opponent and our defense and special teams can’t stop them. How many times have we scored with a minute or less left in the half or the game, knowing we left too much time on the clock? When our defense and special teams show they can stop our opponents, I think CPJ opens up the playbook and passes some more.
 

1BearJACKET

Jolly Good Fellow
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It was Jeff Van Note that was the color commentary guy on radio with Wes after Kim King and before Rick Strom.

Dave Archer is his analyst on the Falcons broadcasts and sometimes paired with him on ACC Network TV broadcasts. Of course now Wes is most often paired with former University of Florida LB, James Bates.
 

Whiskey_Clear

Banned
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In 2017, Tech averaged 5.3 yards per rush and 7.8 yards per pass attempt. Given that passing attempts yielded more yards, even with TM’s abysmal 37% completion rate, you would think we would pass more UNLESS incompletions stop the clock, give more possessions to the opponent and our defense and special teams can’t stop them. How many times have we scored with a minute or less left in the half or the game, knowing we left too much time on the clock? When our defense and special teams show they can stop our opponents, I think CPJ opens up the playbook and passes some more.

Devils advocate. If 90% of our run plays yield positive yards, and only 37% of our passes yield positive yards...I’d run more than pass even if passsd generated 2 more yds per pass than run plays.
 

Deleted member 2897

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In 2017, Tech averaged 5.3 yards per rush and 7.8 yards per pass attempt. Given that passing attempts yielded more yards, even with TM’s abysmal 37% completion rate, you would think we would pass more UNLESS incompletions stop the clock, give more possessions to the opponent and our defense and special teams can’t stop them. How many times have we scored with a minute or less left in the half or the game, knowing we left too much time on the clock? When our defense and special teams show they can stop our opponents, I think CPJ opens up the playbook and passes some more.

Yea, but math. In football, you get 3 downs most of the time. So if you're completing a pass about 1/3rd of the time, sure there are plenty of times where you pick up 20 yards. But there are even more times where you get 0 and have to punt. Our runs have a much lower standard deviation on yards gained than our throws. Much more predictable yardage gained. This is the same challenge Barry Sanders had. He is one of the best running backs of all time, but had a miserable career in terms of actually having a good team that did anything. Yes I know that is not all on him. But he would have something like 25 carries for 125 yards. Great! 5.0 yards per carry. But 100 of those yards would come on like 3 carries. 2/3rds of his runs (for illustration purposes, I haven't looked up the math in a long time) gained 1 yard or less, including several per game that lost yards). You can't maintain drives like that. The Detroit Lions won 1 single playoff game in Barry's entire career. 5 of his 11 seasons the team went 6-10 or worse.
 
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