Postgame: UGA 31-GT 23

[JacketOff]

Yes, there is some improvement which is good. Coach 404 did so much damage to the program that any kind of improvement will be greatly celebrated. But Key has to find a way to improve the D-line and stop the run. He has proven that he is serious and a good coach, unlike the previous guy. But me personally, I don't like moral victories like many people on here do. Which is fine. It's been a rough few years being a Tech football fan.

Who is celebrating moral victories? Finding improvements and positives is not moral victories. Key used a Saban line earlier this year: “Never waste a failure.” Extrapolating positives in a losing effort is not celebrating a moral victory. Neither is celebrating 6 wins and a bowl game for the first time in 5 years. Losing a close game to UGA and winning 6 regular season games are not the highest goals that anybody within the program or as a fan aspires to achieve every year. But they are signs of improvement. If Key continues to only win 6 games and lose to UGA the “moral victories” will stop, fast.

Just because you (and others) come on here and pretend like losing the game is unacceptable no matter the fashion it was lost in, or 6 wins isn’t enough, or any other number of quips; doesn’t mean you have higher expectations than anyone else on here. It just means you’re not willing to see the forest for the trees. You’re lost in your expectations and fail to see the progress that has been made. Nobody here is happy to lose.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

We had a family health issue yesterday, so I DVR'd the game and watched it very late last night.

Thoughts:

The gap scheme we are using seems unique to me, but I am not a football expert.

If we had a couple of breaks on passes we might have actually won the game. Singleton stepping on the sideline was a heartbreaker. I thought the incomplete thrown to Haynes should have been PI. But, we had a couple of breaks go our way as well. So, maybe it evens out. The INT in the endzone comes to mind immediately. I wish we had gone for on 4th & 1 early.

Think back to the end of season before last and the 0-100 drubbing we endured. The whole atmosphere around the program has changed for the better.

If we can fill a couple of spots on the D line and keep improving at LB we might actually be a good team next year.

Key seems to have a great relationship with these guys.

Kept thinking through the game that we were about 3 defensive players away from dominating uga. Can you imagine if we had a dominant DT, DE and LB? Without these we still played uga almost evenly.

 

[sgreer]

Who is celebrating moral victories? Finding improvements and positives is not moral victories. Key used a Saban line earlier this year: “Never waste a failure.” Extrapolating positives in a losing effort is not celebrating a moral victory. Neither is celebrating 6 wins and a bowl game for the first time in 5 years. Losing a close game to UGA and winning 6 regular season games are not the highest goals that anybody within the program or as a fan aspires to achieve every year. But they are signs of improvement. If Key continues to only win 6 games and lose to UGA the “moral victories” will stop, fast.

Just because you (and others) come on here and pretend like losing the game is unacceptable no matter the fashion it was lost in, or 6 wins isn’t enough, or any other number of quips; doesn’t mean you have higher expectations than anyone else on here. It just means you’re not willing to see the forest for the trees. You’re lost in your expectations and fail to see the progress that has been made. Nobody here is happy to lose.

I see it as a positive that Tech looked like they belonged on the field with a team full of high rated future NFL players coached by a huge staff backed by a huge fan base/$. Being a Tech fan means to embrace being the underdog of the state. Does not mean anyone is satisfied but it is a positive sign of taking steps forward.

 

[g0lftime]

I see it as a positive that Tech looked like they belonged on the field with a team full of high rated future NFL players coached by a huge staff backed by a huge fan base/$. Being a Tech fan means to embrace being the underdog of the state. Does not mean anyone is satisfied but it is a positive sign of taking steps forward.

Players played with desire and coaches did a good job with game planning and play calling. Would have been a great win if we had pulled it off.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Players played with desire and coaches did a good job with game planning and play calling. Would have been a great win if we had pulled it off.

Speaking as a layperson, I was actually amazed at the game plan. I saw at least 5 plays that started off looking like something uga would have scouted in game films but which turned into something unique and surprising. That was very creative play construction and play calling. It rarely let uga get settled in and comfortable on defense.

 

[wvGT11]

After a day of driving and thinking back on last night, this was the first time since like 2016 that I felt we actually could have won that game. Had you asked me after the BG game, I would have laughed at this thought.
The more I read about UGA making excuses for last night, the more I'm upset we really didn't stick it to them .

I really do hope next year is the year, all the ingredients are there

 

[SandySpringsJacket]

Yeah. Haynes was wide open. Sure TD. Can't find any other faults. He had a great game.

Anyone that finds any fault with our QB Haynes needs to take a hike. He had a great game and is one of the best QBs in the ACC. A good passer, tough runner, and great leader. I was a fan of Pyron getting the job before the season started but not anymore. Next year looks very bright.

 

[iceeater1969]

The past 5 encounters with UGA have ended up:
2022: 37-14
2021: 45-0
2019: 52-7
2018: 45-21
2017: 38-7

That's a total of 217-49 in those games with our mouthy neighbors to the east.

It will take more than one 6-6 season to win back folks. Even in our relatively good seasons, UGA often approaches 50% of the stadium since we cannot seem to sell more than 40K tickets to our own even in the good years. That 15K unsold tickets alone is almost 30% of capacity. Add in the 5K or so that their AA gets, and you move that number to almost 40% in the best of years. It's been this way as long as I can remember.

Thanks for the data. Dont mindxRed in upper deck, but the lower east are season ticket holders. Sad that they have no good friends to take the tickets.

 

[SandySpringsJacket]

My thoughts on the game last night, in no particular order:

1. I told @awbuzz I'd love to see it close at half and go into the 4th competitive. We did that. NO moral victories but at least we looked like we belonged on that field.
2. We played extremely well on the OL last night and were able to run the ball against uga. Getting to the second level was tough but we had 4-5 yards available almost every time we ran it.
3. Defense stepped up just enough against a very talented O to keep it close.
4. Depth is going to be critical for us. We need to not only build quality 2 deeps but also get the third and fourth string built up as well.
5. You can't convince me the best QB on the field last night played for uga. King is a leader and IMO every bit as talented.
6. We are moving in the right direction. In the preseason I said I thought the offense would improve this year and the defense would regress due to losses there. I don not expect the Offense to take off and the defense to tank, but with another year of coaching I think our defense will only get better.
7. uga fans are just terrible. At one point late in the game after the last uga TD, one of our players was down for almost three minutes. The mutts in the upper east and upper north began loud uga! and bulldog! chants while our player was down. Classless.
8. Whatever Cabrera and Batt thought they were doing to protect our house didn't work. uga fans were at least 70% of attendance last night.

All good points.
But the last one on the 70/30 UGA /Tech crowd cannot be put on Batt and Cabrera. It on Tech fans. Tech fans need to get off of their couches and get to the stadium to support the team. Those players are fighting too hard out there to look up and see the opposing team outnumber our fans. If we want to have a good team, we need to support it.

 

[JacketOff]

All good points.
But the last one on the 70/30 UGA /Tech crowd cannot be put on Batt and Cabrera. It on Tech fans. Tech fans need to get off of their couches and get to the stadium to support the team. Those players are fighting too hard out there to look up and see the opposing team outnumber our fans. If we want to have a good team, we need to support it.

This is all true. It’s also true that the team has to start beating teams like Bowling Green and Boston College with very few exceptions if they want the fans to get involved again. We’re not always going to beat the more talented teams on our schedule like UNC and Miami, so if we want to be a consistent winning program we have to beat the teams we are more talented than regularly. As close as we were this year to winning 7, 8, or 9 games, we were equally as close to only winning 4 or 5.

The standard at Tech for a long time now has been to beat 1 team we shouldn’t, and lose to 1 team we shouldn’t. Getting those numbers to average closer to 1.5 and 0.5 respectively will go a long way towards getting Tech relevant again

 

[g0lftime]

After a day of driving and thinking back on last night, this was the first time since like 2016 that I felt we actually could have won that game. Had you asked me after the BG game, I would have laughed at this thought.
The more I read about UGA making excuses for last night, the more I'm upset we really didn't stick it to them .

I really do hope next year is the year, all the ingredients are there

If we could have stopped their running game we might have won. Great effort by our guys though.

 

[Randy Carson]

I don't know how many season tickets were sold this year, but it will be interesting to see if there is an uptick next year (despite UGA fans not buying) due to this season's performance.

I'd be willing to bet there will be an increase and that the AA will pull out all the stops promoting the package.

 

[gte447f]

Folks claiming that uga fans purchase GT season tickets just to get into cofh and that that an uptick in sales every other year proves it, where do you get the sales numbers that you are claiming as evidence. I have a hard time believing this storyline. It’s not like the tickets are hard to get at game time. How much were single game tickets going for? And I don’t mean club seats, just any old seat.

 

[awbuzz]

On the singleton catch that was called back for illegal touching, I thought there was an argument that he was forced out of bounds by the dwag defender, in which case illegal touching could not have been called. There was contact and a slight push that caused singleton to change his line, but he didn’t actually step out of bounds until a few strides later, so I guess that’s why the ref didn’t consider him forced out of bounds.

Just watched a portion of my recording. You are correct, that's why it was called. We didn't hear the call at the game, thought they'd said ineligible player down field.. saw that CBK got an explanation and seemed okay with the call.

 

[slugboy]

After a long time showing other teams, one of our plays made the Beautiful Plays list:
Post in thread 'Beautiful plays'
https://gtswarm.com/threads/beautiful-plays.23801/post-978421

 

[gte447f]

Just watched a portion of my recording. You are correct, that's why it was called. We didn't hear the call at the game, thought they'd said ineligible player down field.. saw that CBK got an explanation and seemed okay with the call.

Yes, but the question is whether or not he was forced out of bounds, in which case he is allowed to reestablish himself inbounds and catch the ball. The refs obviously didn’t think he was forced out, but I thought that he was.

 

[leatherneckjacket]

After a long time showing other teams, one of our plays made the Beautiful Plays list:
Post in thread 'Beautiful plays'
https://gtswarm.com/threads/beautiful-plays.23801/post-978421

The block by Leonard to seal the edge was impressive

 

[Root4GT]

Can you explain what the trip is for beating UGA? Are you expecting us to build talent equal to theirs? Are you expecting us to significantly out coach them? They are always going to have umpteen 5 stars to our zero 5 stars. We have to take advantage of games where they are banged up, turning the ball over and getting bad penalties. We don't get these chances often.

Has anyone figured out how to beat them the past 3 years? No! They have had injuries all season and teams with far more talent than GT have regularly lost to Georgia. There is currently no answer on how to beat them.

 

[yeti92]

After a long time showing other teams, one of our plays made the Beautiful Plays list:
Post in thread 'Beautiful plays'
https://gtswarm.com/threads/beautiful-plays.23801/post-978421

Love watching uga's D line just get pushed back

 

[bobongo]

Has anyone figured out how to beat them the past 3 years? No! They have had injuries all season and teams with far more talent than GT have regularly lost to Georgia. There is currently no answer on how to beat them.

Absolutely amazing how the Jackets came that close to ending the longest winning streak in college football, if you ask me.