Postgame: ND 31-GT 13

[takethepoints]

He was held out due to an injury. Taj Butler started in his place. Rodney Shelley (Nickel) was also out. Neither played a snap

Participation report and final stats here

https://ramblinwreck.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/notre-dame-10-19-final-book.pdf

I think Butler will be a great player, but several times yesterday he seemed to be at sea about where he was supposed to be. Having Efford out there would have been a plus. He's a missile.

The big problem was not having King available. This was Pyron's first big game against a nationally ranked O. He did ok, but on a couple of his scrambles all I could think of was that King would have had 20 - 30 yards more. Zac isn't anywhere near as fast as King. (So why, the little voice asks, didn't we run more QB power plays?) The PFF guys divided on the pre-game with both taking opposite sides of a 27 - 24 game. They had assumed that King could play and I'm betting they would have been right, one way or another.

Oh, and more gripes about MBS: the music is so loud you can hardly think, much less hear the down and yardage from the field announcer. I HATE that. And the lines for food/beer are much longer, although the crowd was the same size as the one at Grant (not Hyundai, GRANT) Field. The Georgia Dome never had this problem.

 

[Root4GT]

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.

We have average ACC talent without a lot of depth. Expecting more was not realistic. Gambling sites had us winning around 5 games this season. They won't be far off. King is our best player on offense by a lot and he seems to have been banged up for several games. Our defense is improved but there is a real limit on how good they can be based on talent. We are a below average ACC team on defense baste on just talent. Especially ad the DE position.

There is no excuse for how bad our Special Teams are playing this year!

 

[Root4GT]

This is what we all want. The loss does not bother me because I’ve accepted where we are as a program. But if this is the product our coaches are creating then something has to change because what we saw yesterday was garbage. Game 8 and we are false starting and sending in a 12th man? Compare that to the coaching staff 70 miles away who had their team playing disciplined and ready to go when the whole world was watching.

The GT vs UGA talent gap is as wide as the Pacific Ocean. You recall the days when O'Leary commented on how few GT players could start for FSU. Well there are zero GT players who could start for UGA and only a few who could make their 2 deep roster.

Yea 12 men sucks. and should not happen. STs are beyond bad! No excuse for that. False starts happen at every level, especially when the player across the line of scrimmage is a better player. ND's defense players were clearly better than our offensive players.

Last year we were 6-6 in the regular season with a gift from Miami. WE are better on defense this season but still not a "good" defense.

Turning the GT football program around from the dumpster fire it was is not a quick or easy process. We have gone from a laughing stock to an average ACC team. Progress. The next step is getting more better players. That is TBD!

 

[bobongo]

Key was asked about the no-call on the roughing the kicker in his post-game presser. Obviously, he couldn't say much about the refs without getting fined, and didn't.
Intentional grounding should have been called and could have made a difference. That said, intentional grounding is one of the NCAA rulebook's more subjective (and confusingly described) rules.

The intentional grounding was clear to me. Ball was way out of bounds, and he was certainly throwing the ball away. It went out of bounds at least three yards short of the LOS. I know calls go both ways, but both of these seemed glaringly obvious. On the roughing, we should have kept the ball with a first down. The intentional grounding would have put the ball back at the point where it was thrown and a loss of down. They would have punted, and we would have gotten the ball back. Both non calls would have given us the ball instead of them and were thus turnover calls.

 

[takethepoints]

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.

Yes and Leonard played his best game of the year. I suppose that since he gave us fits when he was at Puke, he decided to come out of hibernation and do it again yesterday. We get the usual game this year out of him and it's a lot closer out there.

Well … if we had gotten our FGs completed. I know one player who'll be out of a job next Saturday.

 

[SoMsJacket]

It though we played a little tentative yesterday given that we were missing our dot players (live communications) and leaders on O and D. Players know when they are up against. But, give me those 2 LBs and 2 DTs from ND and we would have a good D. They were outstanding!

 

[Root4GT]

I don't usually complain a lot about officiating, but it's surprising to me that two non-calls have gone unmentioned, unless I missed it. One is an obvious running into or roughing the kicker which was ignored on a punt, and the other is an intentional downing by ND that was very obvious because the throw which was way out of bounds didn't come anywhere near crossing the line of scrimmage. Both calls were potentially turnover calls, or rather non-calls.

Look up the rules on running into the kicker. There is a lot of room for judgment. If the punter has reestablished himself after the kick, running into him is not necessarily a penalty. Those were clearly 50/50 calls. There was a receiver in the "general" area when the pass was thrown OB short of the LOS. Again it was a 50/50 call. None were egregious calls.

 

[GaTech4ever]

The most disappointing aspect of this season to me is the players have gotten better since last season (i.e. we’re a more talented team), but the on-field coaching has regressed.

Honestly, has there been ONE in-game moment this season where we can clearly point to coaching as making a difference? Have we won a challenge? Have we successfully faked a kick? Have we utilized clock management correctly at the end of the half to score? Any trick play? Maybe (hopefully?) there’s an example or two, but the overarching theme is coaching has held us back. And I’m a massive CBK fan.

 

[danny daniel]

Not ashamed of Tech.

We needed to play a perfect game. Didn’t.


Notre Dame played flawlessly. The kind of game they need to play against a top ghee opponent.

We are at least two years away from being a playoff team.

ND exposed us or who we are. We can fix the penalties, sideline issues, and STs with coaching and play a cleaner/smarter game, but the roster difference is real. We cannot win very many one on ones against top 20 tier teams. ND just out everything us but mostly by being much more stronger, quicker, and more physical. Against top 20 teams we have no pass rush, have trouble covering and tackling in space, and cannot pass block or run block well enough. Against teams outside the top 20 our little skills guys can produce but against top 20 teams they get stopped. I agree that the recruiting is very important and we are two years away from a complete roster turnover and the ability to play with the top 20 teams. For those teams not in the top 20 look out for GT to be a strong opponent.

 

[takethepoints]

False starts happen at every level, especially when the player across the line of scrimmage is a better player.

Or when your starting QB is out and you don't get a familiar cadence for the snap. I would bet that was more the problem.

 

[GaTech4ever]

Shanahan has had a pretty good year all-in-all until yesterday, but the fumbled snaps are on him.

He almost cost us the UNC game with bad punts and a dropped snap. Even his good punts this year are line drive bounces. Zero consistency

 

[bobongo]

He almost cost us the UNC game with bad punts and a dropped snap. Even his good punts this year are line drive bounces. Zero consistency

No, he's had some very good punts. A 52 yarder and a 42-yarder downed at the three in the last game. The line drives are the result of rushed punts because of poor blocking.

 

[slugboy]

I brought up the "blue chip ratio" yesterday. Notre Dame has 67% of their roster at 4* or 5* players. We have 13 players rated at 4* (13/18 -> 15%). We're gonna have to develop our guys.

I don't think Saban cared what 247 said about his guys, and I don't think a good coach cares much about those ratings either, and I don't overrate what the "recruiting analysts" say--I do think that ND had a physical advantage yesterday, and I'm using this as an example.

A couple of years ago, we couldn't block Notre Dame. Yesterday, it was a struggle, but we've improved a lot, and they faked punts and field goals to keep moving on us. We have big steps to move up on offense.

We haven't really improved on overall defense yet. We're better against the rush, but we need to fix our pass defense, and we need penetration.

On offense, we've got to improve our passing game.

 

[danny daniel]

The fake FG was poor form and worthy of a dress down.

I disagree. We should not be blaming the other team for executing a play we should have been prepared to stop. Our fault not theirs!

 

[takethepoints]

I think by now we know what we have in a coach. The in game management he needs someone to help him with. Key’s lack of OC/DC experience is showing. He appears to be a great recruiter. We need to leverage that and build a structure around him like Clemson did for Dabo.

I agree, but with this caveat.

Bobby Dodd was a great coach. Why? Because he had years of sideline experience as a head coach and Key hasn't. Because he inherited a sound program from Alexander and Key did not. Because he normally had the best crew of assistants (Broyles, Graves, Andros (aka the Great Pumpkin), ect.) in the country something Key has not had the time to develop. And he was hands down the best recruiter in Tech history, something Key has a good start on, but not much else.

So is Key another Dodd? Maybe, but only TIME will tell at this point. Let's give Key the space he needs.

 

[stinger78]

The snaps were a bit higher than normal. Our holder, who’s only been doing this for a relatively brief period of his athletic career, couldn’t handle the higher than usual snap.

Both kicks were high snaps - one was never placed and the other he actually stood up to receive, then dropped down and placed it. Who knows how it was placed. I wouldn’t be so quick to nail Birr on those.

 

[tmhunter52]

The play of the special teams was absolutely inexcusable. Offense and defense were awful. People saying “oh ND is really good “ or “oh our QB was hurt” are an indicator of why our program is an embarrassment. We played awful and looked awful. We have to do better and this team can do better which is why this is inexcusable. It’s not that we lost, but how we lost.

It could have been worse. We could have been playing Northern Illinois.

 

[takethepoints]

This game also pointed out our need for DL and LB. As I've posted before, this should be priority one in our NIL spending. GT has always had trouble recruiting big, tough academicaly challenged DL. O'Leary spoke of it often. So let's buy some in this stupid age of semi pro college sports. Sigh..

We have one coming in. He's touted as an OL, but he plays both ways and is a monster on D. We'll see but I'm betting DE for him.

 

[MtnWasp]

I think the team did pretty well hanging with an obviously physically superior team, especially without our starting QB and star MLB.

I think the story of this season has been sloppiness.

The way we approach games, emphasizing a ball control attack necessitating long drives, requires excellent efficiency and execution in all three phases. This team has been too sloppy to execute that kind of game plan for us to have had a special season. I think we are making enough good plays to be in games. But too many key situational mistakes allow the opposition maintain the upper hand.

Good to see Zeke Biggers show after a pretty quiet season. Sweet one hand interception by Burrell.

Pyron is more of a gambler than King and that is not necessarily a bad thing. When he refines his decision making and throwing skills, he could be a fine player. But he is reckless with his body and won't last physically playing that way. Everyone seems to assume that he made it out of that game okay, but he looked pretty dinged at the end of the game to me. Hope he is okay.

Jamal Haynes had a bad game and was running hesitant. Way too much dancing and running East-West. One play in particular the OL gave him a crease and he was past the LOS and facing the linebackers. He has three more yards if he just stays vertical and delivers a pop. Instead he cuts horizontal for a gain of two yards. For the way we run our offense, those three extra yards he gave up are a big deal.

Another late play stood out: We had a passing down and on the snap the Notre Dame interior line ran two outside stunts leaving a huge, open 'A' gap. Our #67 was in the middle of the gap with no one on the line to block but was facing their MLB three yards off the LOS. Instead of just maintaining his assignment and standing off the MLB, our #67 wonders left to triple team a Notre Dame DL and leave open an 'A' gap 4 yards wide. the Notre Dame MLB shoots the gap and creams Pyron. That is not getting physically beat, that is getting mentally beat. Too much of that kind of thing.

I wouldn't give up on Birr, he has a heckuva leg and was very good last year. Excellent up-side there.

Without Efford, our tacklers looked they were composed of Marshmallow trying to tackle players made of brick. That got pretty ugly on a couple of drives.

Wasn't expecting much in this game so I am actually not too disgusted. Hope we get healthy and start to play cleaner football for a good kick at the end of the race.

 

[stinger78]

I wonder sometimes how the crowd on this forum performs day by day, and if there are any that are just bad days at the office. Yes, we learn from our mistakes, but do we get in one another’s face and tell them how crappy they did and that they ought to be fired, et al? Do you all work under that kind of pressure?