Postgame: ND 31-GT 13

[bke1984]

I don't think we will ever make the playoffs under these rules. There is a huge gap between the football factories and ordinary teams like Tech. I don't even think we will make a bowl game based on what I saw today. This was a very poor performance especially by special teams and both lines.

So you’re saying there’s zero chance we can win the ACC? Ever? Not even with a senior laden team? That’s a pretty bleak take. Hell, you could lose three games and get to the ACCCG and pull out a victory and make the playoff.

 

[bke1984]

Against easily the best team. Yes, that other team does impact the way you play. Watch any of the UGAg-UTA game last night?

Well, yeah…but them being the best team we’ve played doesn’t change the fact they they also played very poorly and had tons of self inflicted mistakes.

Pursuit angles were bad, open field tackling was silly bad, special teams was a complete disaster. Offense moved the ball ok at times, but still seems much too limited in taking advantage of the entire field.

 

[bke1984]

Honestly, I just want us to bring the best we’ve got every week. As long as we do that I can live with losses. We haven’t been doing that for most of the year.

And to make matters worse, we just aren’t getting better as a team. We plug a hole in the boat and a leak springs somewhere else. Last year offense looked good, but D was horrible. We focus on the D and make great strides - special teams falls apart, offense regresses. It’s very frustrating with a team that brought back so many starters. Coaches have a lot of work to do.

 

[Richland County]

Georgia Tech inks associate head coach Ricky Brumfield to contract extension

Brumfield's been one of the top special teams coordinators in college football for Georgia Tech the last two seasons. He signed an extension last week that will keep him in Atlanta through 2026.

247sports.com

Both of his units looked bad Sat. Bad investment. FG unit should be cause for termination alone.

 

[bke1984]

I don't think you're taking into proper account the team on the other side of the ball. It's the best team we've played all year. That was a probable playoff team.

Yeah, and we played our worst game in facing them to exacerbate the problem. Northern Illinois beat them and Louisville took them to the end of the game. If we had played well we could have kept it much closer - and yeah, still probably lost. We just didn’t.

 

[stinger78]

Well, yeah…but them being the best team we’ve played doesn’t change the fact they they also played very poorly and had tons of self inflicted mistakes.

Pursuit angles were bad, open field tackling was silly bad, special teams was a complete disaster. Offense moved the ball ok at times, but still seems much too limited in taking advantage of the entire field.

ND was still clearly the better team. Look, GT struggled to beat UNC last week. We are a mid-tier ACC team. When all is said and done, ND will very likely be a CFP team. There’s a big gap between them, though it has closed significantly since the end of 2021. To me, that’s just the reality and we have to deal in reality.

As for the game itself, here’s what I saw, FWIW:
ND is good but not great offensively (Pyron actually ended with the higher QBR of him and Leonard). Love is a decent RB, but I like Price more. I wasn’t overly impressed with their WR/TE but they all could play. Their OL was very good. We had to blitz to get pressure (but then, we have to do that with the worst OL we play). They didn’t blow away our DL, but they were effective at opening holes. They put up 168 yards rushing (4.3 ypc).

Their D was everything advertised. Their DL was very stout, held gap control, and our OL could not consistently block them. Their DB were fast and good tacklers. Their story is their LB’s IMO. Those guys were stout on the run, very strong at the POA, played fast sideline to sideline, and when they hit, the tackle was secured. We couldn’t get the edge on them. As good as their DL was, their LB’s were better, IMPO.

We play that game 10 times and we lose 9 of them. Just a clear difference between the two programs right now.

Our O played about as well as it could against that D. Some mistakes were made, but we took pretty much what they gave us. That’s 333 yards on 67 plays - 4.97 ypp. Our O simply could not run and thus struggled to sustain drives, though we mount a few. We drove into scoring position 4x and 2x we scored, having botched both FG attempts. We easily could have put 20 points on the board.

On D, we gave up gap control on the edge too often, and were not sure-handed tackling. We had to blitz to get pressure which left us vulnerable too often. DB continues to chase receivers too often rather than defend them.

Overall, our O is ahead of our D (but we know this, right?) and our ST is a heap of cow poop.

I think we can win 1, maybe 2 more games and go to a bowl.

Just my $.02 worth.

 

[Richland County]

You guys who believe ND is some kind of juggernaut are crazy. They are an above average team and that’s it. Our team from the Gasparilla Bowl would beat the team we are today by 2 touchdowns. No improvement at all this season so far. But, at least we beat UNC.

You are either too pissed or blind? This team is much better than lasts year team. Improvement is easy to see. Is the Improvement complete no, but it Improvement is there. I get losses suck, but don't act like there hasn't been an upgrade in play this year.

 

[gtee91]

You are either too pissed or blind? This team is much better than lasts year team. Improvement is easy to see. Is the Improvement complete no, but it Improvement is there. I get losses suck, but don't act like there hasn't been an upgrade in play this year.

Keep repeating that and it makes no difference...they are middle school level on special teams. D can barely tackle. O has been bailed out by herculean plays by King, Haynes and Rutherford because the O line has regressed.

 

[Richland County]

Keep repeating that and it makes no difference...they are middle school level on special teams. D can barely tackle. O has been bailed out by herculean plays by King, Haynes and Rutherford because the O line has regressed.

My statement apples to anyone that can't see the team is better. You aren't looking for it. Yes sp, and tacking are bad. They were bad the last 5 years, but only sp teams have seemed to be an issue that can't get resolved. The D is better than last year and OL is definitely better so to say no improvement is not accurate. Yes there are issues Rome wasn't built in a day or a year.

 

[RamblinCharger]

2 atrocious attempts at FG and a pick 6.... Once again defense isn't the problem same as Louisville game... Buster need to figure it the blank out we've got weapons

Eh felt more like an Iowa game when people talk about their defense being really good. Is it good or does the game flow go that way because their offense stinks? ND controlled the game completely. Not sure our defense was any good. More like they were comfortable controlling the game and not taking many risks on offense because they trusted their defense.

We would have needed a perfect game to win this one. My main issue with the team this year is it doesn’t look like we are improving from last year. lots of really bad mistakes and horrible special teams. You really want to see progression from year to year and I’m not seeing much of any with the eye test. The losses to Syracuse, Louisville, and the way we looked last week make me a lot more concerned than losing to a good ND team that is top 10-15 in composite talent.

 

[NorthAvenueNation]

Without reading half of the comments, and staying well away from the chat room from now on, my hot take is this…

+ We are a much improved team, each year so far under CBK. It’s just a fact.

+ We need to be even more aggressive in the portal and play the game… CBK is doing that and it will only get better as we continue to rebuild the brand.

+ We arguably had our best offensive and defensive players out yesterday and if we eliminated dumb mistakes, we still could’ve found a way to win.

+ Next years schedule is primed for us to run… everyone needs to hang on and continue to believe and support.

You can screenshot this if you’d like, but starting next year, we will be a 8, 9, 10, 11+ win football team each year for years and years to come.

 

[g0lftime]

Weinke had opportunities for that this offseason very good ones he chose to stay.

I definitely don't want him to leave. FSU will be making staff changes because Norvell will be forced to. He is a logical target for them with the qb play this year at FSU plus he is a "name" recruiter.

 

[Randy Carson]

*EDIT* While I was typing, I see that NorthAvenueNation (love that, btw) posted before me. I second everything he says. To wit:

First, did we REALLY expect to beat Notre Dame? Anyone who says, "I expect to win every game," is either lying or a fool.

Second, is the team better today than it was in the not-too-distant past? Anyone who says, "No," simply has an axe to grind.

Third, will we have a better season NEXT year than we will finish with this year? Anyone who says, "No," hasn't looked at the schedule.

Tech is on the rise. We have an excellent coaching staff, and our investment in recruiting the state of Georgia is paying dividends. Everyone (except some of the people on this board) seems to understand this.

I'm just glad I don't live next door to some of you Johnny Rainclouds.

 

[UgaBlows]

our guys played hard and never quit

Ricky Brumfield is hot garbage- DB’s and special teams (his units) are both bad. Our DB’s are the worst deep pass covering unit i’ve ever seen at Tech.

how about the two ignored running into our punter penalties the refs should have called?

tackling was really bad

Chad Alexander averaged 3.8 ypc, why didn’t he get more carries?

both bad kicks were caused by high snaps and the holders inability to get them down under control fast enough

 

[Northeast Stinger]

In my opinion there were two things that tilted the game, and almost everything else was the resulting cascade of badness that can happen when one team gets behind and is at a disadvantage.

First. This offense was built for a running quarterback. Without King our options are limited, literally. Yesterday I saw some plays where King might have scored running, and some other plays where he easily could have gotten a first down. I believe that would have opened the offense up more for Haynes and Rutherford.

Second. Notre Dame came in well prepared and ready to play their best game of the year. And it showed. They believe they are a playoff team and capable of beating anyone. I would be surprised if this wasn’t their best effort of the season.

 

[RamblinCharger]

Without reading half of the comments, and staying well away from the chat room from now on, my hot take is this…

+ We are a much improved team, each year so far under CBK. It’s just a fact.

+ We need to be even more aggressive in the portal and play the game… CBK is doing that and it will only get better as we continue to rebuild the brand.

+ We arguably had our best offensive and defensive players out yesterday and if we eliminated dumb mistakes, we still could’ve found a way to win.

+ Next years schedule is primed for us to run… everyone needs to hang on and continue to believe and support.

You can screenshot this if you’d like, but starting next year, we will be a 8, 9, 10, 11+ win football team each year for years and years to come.

Agree with most of this and appreciate the optimistic view, but I’m not sure we have improved this year when you look back at the 2nd half of last year. After the UNC game last year I think that team was better than this one has been so far, which is my concern. We played cleaner games with less penalties and had better special teams play. Again this is comparing the last 6 games of 2023 with the first 7 of 2024. Hopefully we can hit the portal hard for defense in the off season. We need talent there badly. Also need some help on the OL it seems. We have 5 games left. Going 2-3 in them would still be a nice step forward.

 

[Randy Carson]

I definitely don't want him to leave. FSU will be making staff changes because Norvell will be forced to. He is a logical target for them with the qb play this year at FSU plus he is a "name" recruiter.

Unless FSU is CCW's "dream job", I'm not sure why he would want to jump into the middle of that dumpster fire.

 

[alagold]

We should have had 2 sacks tackling was the issue today.

Its always an issue.

 

[alagold]

Honestly, I just want us to bring the best we’ve got every week. As long as we do that I can live with losses. We haven’t been doing that for most of the year.

And to make matters worse, we just aren’t getting better as a team. We plug a hole in the boat and a leak springs somewhere else. Last year offense looked good, but D was horrible. We focus on the D and make great strides - special teams falls apart, offense regresses. It’s very frustrating with a team that brought back so many starters. Coaches have a lot of work to do.

yep, whack-a- mole football

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Unless FSU is CCW's "dream job", I'm not sure why he would want to jump into the middle of that dumpster fire.

I’ve wondered the same thing. FSU might be his dream job but any sane person would want assurances that the deadly toxins in that program have been cleaned up before jumping in. Right now FSU doesn’t look even close to settled. Maybe in 3 or 4 years when there’s been a lot of turnover.