Reasons to be optimistic!

[tech_wreck47]

With all the downers around I figured I’d give reasons to be optimistic.

Defensive stats (minus Clemson since that’s not the competition we will see the rest of the year)

PPG allowed: 20.33 (including 10 points off of turnovers in our own red zone)
YPG allowed: 305.33 (including overtime against Citadel)

Our defense can keep us in games if the offense can clean some things up.

On offense we finally may have a QB who can do what CDP wants to do. We seemed to have an identity this past game on offense and actually moved the ball. If it wasn’t for some simple mistakes that can/should be cleaned up we could have score 21+ points. I think we showed the ability to score on offense, we just can’t really afford mistakes at this stage in the transition.


As far as the schedule goes, most every team we play has not looked that good. This actually seems like a good year for a transition.

Anyone else got reason for optimism?

 

[jgtengineer]

Graham has a strong arm. IF we have a legit threat in the medium passing game it will open up the run for JM and J Griffen.

 

[Jacket4Life9]

Graham has a strong arm. IF we have a legit threat in the medium passing game it will open up the run for JM and J Griffen.

Boy that would be nice. Would love to see Mason and Griffin get lose this Saturday. Graham can at least stretch the field with Ahmarean Brown and Malachi, among others.

 

[33jacket]

Despite the results the offense is coming along. They are really close to start to play a bit more respectable

Graham if he really plays most of the whole game worries me cuz he can easily throw 3 ints. But for the sake of optimism if he only throws 1 we will be really close on O I think

It would not surprise me if they score a td lol. Or 2

 

[Jacket4Life9]

Despite the results the offense is coming along. They are really close to start to play a bit more respectable

Graham if he really plays most of the whole game worries me cuz he can easily throw 3 ints. But for the sake of optimism if he only throws 1 we will be really close on O I think

It would not surprise me if they score a td lol. Or 2

I agree. He'll struggle at times. Even with the OL fighting their tail off, they will have their hands full. It is difficult to play a clean game at QB without (a) experience and (b) an experienced OL. I just hope some explosive plays (in our favor) come early and somewhat often.

 

[smokey_wasp]

Defense
Coastal Chaos
Offense showed signs of life with Graham.
'Crootin

 

[jandrews]

With all the downers around I figured I’d give reasons to be optimistic.

Defensive stats (minus Clemson since that’s not the competition we will see the rest of the year)

PPG allowed: 20.33 (including 10 points off of turnovers in our own red zone)
YPG allowed: 305.33 (including overtime against Citadel)

Our defense can keep us in games if the offense can clean some things up.

On offense we finally may have a QB who can do what CDP wants to do. We seemed to have an identity this past game on offense and actually moved the ball. If it wasn’t for some simple mistakes that can/should be cleaned up we could have score 21+ points. I think we showed the ability to score on offense, we just can’t really afford mistakes at this stage in the transition.


As far as the schedule goes, most every team we play has not looked that good. This actually seems like a good year for a transition.

Anyone else got reason for optimism?

Clemson hasn't been playing really well all year. Honestly I think they were sloppy in our game as well. They just have a huge HR factor with their playmakers. I'd keep them in and remove Citadel. Our schedule will always have UGA and Clemson in it. Right now, it doesn't look like either of those teams are going away any time soon. Removing the higher ranked teams removes 17% of our schedule.

Eyeball tests tells me we are playing singificantly better on D. I would expect that with a former DC as our HC.

 

[takethepoints]

I agree about the D. I expected improvement and Thacker and Collins have delivered. Not as much as we would have if Brandon hadn't been taken from us, but you can't blame them for fate. If this continues then we should be in a better position to win games.

Problem = college football is an offensive game now and we aren't showing signs of life there. We will get better; I don't doubt that. It takes awhile for both coaches and players to adjust existing talent (and there is enough) to new offensive priorities. Better enough to win? Well … that remains to be seen.

 

[tech_wreck47]

Clemson hasn't been playing really well all year. Honestly I think they were sloppy in our game as well. They just have a huge HR factor with their playmakers. I'd keep them in and remove Citadel. Our schedule will always have UGA and Clemson in it. Right now, it doesn't look like either of those teams are going away any time soon. Removing the higher ranked teams removes 17% of our schedule.

Eyeball tests tells me we are playing singificantly better on D. I would expect that with a former DC as our HC.

I guess when I said being optimistic it was more or so for finishing this year out. I get what you are saying though!

 

[jandrews]

I guess when I said being optimistic it was more or so for finishing this year out. I get what you are saying though!

Definitely a reason to be optimistic for the remainder of the year. The team keeps fighting good things will happen. I just want to see improvement on the O. I don't think we had a good game plan going into the season and we are seeing that come home to roost right now. I'd rather play JG and just throw everything at them. Honestly what do we have to lose this year?

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

It’s hard to say. I think we have had a cream puff schedule and should be 3-1. We’ll know more in the coming weeks. We are 1/3 done.

 

[AE 87]

If people want to put their head in the sand, there is no reason to take a picture.

We are #118 in ypp offense and #72 in ypp defense after playing 2 Gp5 and 1FCS in addition to CU.

Don't get me wrong. I'm optimistic about the future, but I'm not foolish enough to say we've seen enough on the field to give us reason for optimism. On the contrary, I think we should be optimistic because it's just so hard to believe that we'll stay this bad all season. Getting better every day; clear vision of where we're going to be; good teammates loving each other; relentless effort ...

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Despite the results the offense is coming along. They are really close to start to play a bit more respectable

Graham if he really plays most of the whole game worries me cuz he can easily throw 3 ints. But for the sake of optimism if he only throws 1 we will be really close on O I think

It would not surprise me if they score a td lol. Or 2

Peyton Manning threw almost 30 interceptions his rookie year in the league. They went 3-13. The next year they went 13-3. The difference to me is that most of the Coastal is absolute hot garbage, whereas its hard to find many bad teams in the NFL. Lets hope we call simplified plays to JGs strengths.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

If people want to put their head in the sand, there is no reason to take a picture.

We are #118 in ypp offense and #72 in ypp defense after playing 2 Gp5 and 1FCS in addition to CU.

Don't get me wrong. I'm optimistic about the future, but I'm not foolish enough to say we've seen enough on the field to give us reason for optimism. On the contrary, I think we should be optimistic because it's just so hard to believe that we'll stay this bad all season. Getting better every day; clear vision of where we're going to be; good teammates loving each other; relentless effort ...

We've had something like 5 turnovers inside our own 25 yard line. Its hard to hold people to small points per drives with that kind of garbage. Our defense has also had to spend a long amount of time on the field because our offense has had so much trouble sustaining drives. I think our defense has played very well so far.

We've given up 13 touchdowns totally if my data is correct, and 5 of those were from those stupid turnovers.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

We've had something like 5 turnovers inside our own 25 yard line. Its hard to hold people to small points per drives with that kind of garbage. Our defense has also had to spend a long amount of time on the field because our offense has had so much trouble sustaining drives. I think our defense has played very well so far.

We've given up 13 touchdowns totally if my data is correct, and 5 of those were from those stupid turnovers.

I suddenly just realized you were pointing out yards per play instead of points per drive...rendering my point nearly irrelevant.

My argument to that would be you could also look at rankings of takeaways, tackles for loss, etc. I think the biggest thing is scoring defense - points given up or points per drive. Those are the statistics in my opinion that ultimately have the biggest impact on wins and losses...although all those other numbers probably correlate and are important.

 

[BCJacket]

With all the downers around I figured I’d give reasons to be optimistic.

Defensive stats (minus Clemson since that’s not the competition we will see the rest of the year)

PPG allowed: 20.33 (including 10 points off of turnovers in our own red zone)
YPG allowed: 305.33 (including overtime against Citadel)

Our defense can keep us in games if the offense can clean some things up.

On offense we finally may have a QB who can do what CDP wants to do. We seemed to have an identity this past game on offense and actually moved the ball. If it wasn’t for some simple mistakes that can/should be cleaned up we could have score 21+ points. I think we showed the ability to score on offense, we just can’t really afford mistakes at this stage in the transition.


As far as the schedule goes, most every team we play has not looked that good. This actually seems like a good year for a transition.

Anyone else got reason for optimism?

I'll agree to that and add- our D has been working all-too-often on short fields, quick changes, little rest, etc. because the O hasn't held the ball. I think that may account for the difference between the eye test and the stats for the D.

If the O can come around even a little bit, it'll put the D in better situations for even more success.

 

[AE 87]

We've had something like 5 turnovers inside our own 25 yard line. Its hard to hold people to small points per drives with that kind of garbage. Our defense has also had to spend a long amount of time on the field because our offense has had so much trouble sustaining drives. I think our defense has played very well so far.

We've given up 13 touchdowns totally if my data is correct, and 5 of those were from those stupid turnovers.

I cited yards/play rankings not points/drive.

I really think people are failing to appreciate that USF, Temple, and the Citadel are not power-house offenses.

Let's just look at Clemson's yard/play on offense:
vs. GT - 8.00
vs A&M - 5.72
vs Cuse - 8.62
vs Char - 7.28
vs unc - 5.43

The difference between us and Cuse is that they threw the ball more and better against them - 9.3 ypa for 42 att comp to 7.4 ypa for 30 att against us. Perhaps the reason for that is that they ran the ball 8.39 ypc against us (49 carries) versus 7.62 ypc (29 carries) against them.

By comparison, they averaged 6.89 ypc against us last year, 7.7 ypa, resulting in 7.27 ypp against us.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I cited yards/play rankings not points/drive.

I really think people are failing to appreciate that USF, Temple, and the Citadel are not power-house offenses.

Let's just look at Clemson's yard/play on offense:
vs. GT - 8.00
vs A&M - 5.72
vs Cuse - 8.62
vs Char - 7.28
vs unc - 5.43

The difference between us and Cuse is that they threw the ball more and better against them - 9.3 ypa for 42 att comp to 7.4 ypa for 30 att against us. Perhaps the reason for that is that they ran the ball 8.39 ypc against us (49 carries) versus 7.62 ypc (29 carries) against them.

By comparison, they averaged 6.89 ypc against us last year, 7.7 ypa, resulting in 7.27 ypp against us.

Yea, Clemson had like half their yardage against us in 3 plays...including a 90 yard run by Etienne and a 70 yard catch by Higgins.

 

[AE 87]

Yea, Clemson had like half their yardage against us in 3 plays...including a 90 yard run by Etienne and a 70 yard catch by Higgins.

You're right. We're clearly a shut down D, except for when we're not. We're #96 in 3rd down D.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

You're right. We're clearly a shut down D, except for when we're not. We're #96 in 3rd down D.

Good job putting words in my mouth.

Here are some actual words you can quote. We gave up 31 points to Clemson when you remove the 3 turnovers in our own red zone. Here is Trevor Lawrence's stats against us: 168 yards passing, 1 TD, 2 INTs. (Almost have his yards from that 1 long TD.)

We're giving up 27 points a game. Yawn.

We're giving up < 20 points a game removing turnovers inside our own red zone. Better.

Our offense is averaging 9 points per game against FBS opponents. Let that sink in a bit. Now take our defensive stats, and overlay them on top of how much time they have to spend on the field. Hell, our offense only held the ball for 18 minutes against the Citadel.