Some optimistic tidbits for those losing hope

[leatherneckjacket]

I am more disappointed than losing hope that we lost two winnable games with an extremely tough schedule. I am very disappointed in our OL play and offensive play calling in both losses. For as much as our offense has improved under Buster, we win both those games if he has an average day in calling plays.

 

[Billygoat91]

I'm not sure I would fall to pieces over this one. Saban described Louisville as sneaky good, 10-4 last year, and not a team that gets mentioned a lot. On GameDay, the entire panel selected Louisville to win over GT. Brohm has been at Louisville for while and is regarded as a good solid coach.

Could we have won? Sure. But Louisville is a solid team and we didn't. Simple.

This. I think people underrate Louisville and Brohm in particular. Purdue has been terrible since he left and Louisville was in the ACC title game last year

 

[stinger78]

I think you are on to something.

We could drop the option hand off and use more vertical patterns.
Baylor had liberal substitutions of the boundary wrswho ran down field full blast on every play. If zone, the safeties had to come over and if man, it wore out the corner back.

We had wide gaps in our old (under center we seldom pass) spread offense. The base rpo we run now uses option concepts like our previous offense ( make them defend the whole line of scrimage using running with occasional bomb to keep safeties back). But now we have qb do a fake run and throw to flat with occasionally throw down field. Blockers have to be close in for the optional hand off to the small rb up the middle. As game

OUR ISSUE IS HOW WELL CAN OUR OL PASS PRO WITHOUT HELP FROM TIGHT END OR BACK?? It maybe our 5 can't block 4 if one of their 4 is talented. To mitigate this Baylor s air raid had ""wide gaps"" in passes protection mode. The wide gaps made defenses spread out and you can do line calls to get double team on the stud dl. We once had 3 blocking 1 in Scuse but seemed better in L

With wide gaps , and an empty backfield defenders get spread out. WHEN THE TOOK TO MANY OUT OF THE BOX. The qb changes play to qb run, one linemen does a down block , which cuts behind and other ol go down field creating havoc. I trust King to make these calls.



In Faulkner we trust - In L he added deep wr shots and TE down seam shots and King threw zero interceptions AND WR MADE PLAYS. I have a suspicion we were still very biased to run first. Maybe more air raid features!

Great idea! Wish I had thought of it.

I’m not sure our receivers run great routes, but you put Singleton on a go route and Rutherford on a 15-yard dig route, both from the left side, and a WR on the right running what the DB gives him with Avery running a drag route from the TE position. RB in pass pro. Tell HK to go vertical.

 

[UgaBlows]

This. I think people underrate Louisville and Brohm in particular. Purdue has been terrible since he left and Louisville was in the ACC title game last year

And we could have won both games we’ve played against him, we are kind of close to being a good team

 

[AugustaSwarm]

I am more disappointed than losing hope that we lost two winnable games with an extremely tough schedule. I am very disappointed in our OL play and offensive play calling in both losses. For as much as our offense has improved under Buster, we win both those games if he has an average day in calling plays.

This is exactly how I feel. It's the disappointment of wasted opportunity. We could have won both of those games, but a plethora of mistakes prevented that. Perhaps the most disappointing of those mistakes was the offensive play-calling/gameplan. I get the sense that Key wants the team identity to be a physically mauling run game, but unfortunately we aren't there. We need to able to pivot to what's working to secure the W. In the Syracuse game, we ALMOST did that. In the Louisville game, we never seemed to pivot...

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

I worry about UNC this year, think they have been aiming at us since pre season, they have enough players if they put it together for one game.
CBK says he wants us level for every game, that's good if we have 'bama players.

Don;t give them more credit than they deserve. UNC has lots of talent, they always have lots of talent, they just never seem to do anything with it but create a diversion until basketball practice starts.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

This. I think people underrate Louisville and Brohm in particular. Purdue has been terrible since he left and Louisville was in the ACC title game last year

Well now, I forgot that the measuring stick for football greatness has shifted to the mighty Governors of Austin Peay and Jax State. We will see what the Cardinals are made of soon enough as they play Notre Dame, Kentucky, Clemson, and Miami.

 

[roadkill]

There are four teams on our remaining schedule that are under serious consideration as probable wins. I looked at each team's record in detail and assigned each a letter grade for Strength of Record. I threw in Notre Dame for good measure since they have a G5 loss. It’s still early season for most teams but we are starting to get enough data to be meaningful. I ranked our opponents from easiest win to most difficult.

Net of all this is that I see 3 likely wins, a toss-up, and 1 likely loss. Obviously this assessment can change as teams play more games.

There are still a few question marks - VT lost to Vandy, but is Vandy actually pretty good this year? I gave VT the benefit of the doubt to be conservative in my assessment.

Team	Record	Starting QB Out?	ESPN FPI Rank	FEI Rank	GT's ESPN Win Chance	Strength of Record
GT	3-2	No	41	57		B-
NCST	2-2	Yes	80	79	78%	D-
Duke	4-0	No	65	58	72%	C
UNC	3-1	Yes	69	51	60%	C
VT	2-2	No	49	55	48%	B-
N. Dame	3-1	No	9	11	18%	B

 

[leatherneckjacket]

There are four teams on our remaining schedule that are under serious consideration as probable wins. I looked at each team's record in detail and assigned each a letter grade for Strength of Record. I threw in Notre Dame for good measure since they have a G5 loss. It’s still early season for most teams but we are starting to get enough data to be meaningful. I ranked our opponents from easiest win to most difficult.

Net of all this is that I see 3 likely wins, a toss-up, and 1 likely loss. Obviously this assessment can change as teams play more games.

There are still a few question marks - VT lost to Vandy, but is Vandy actually pretty good this year? I gave VT the benefit of the doubt to be conservative in my assessment.

Team	Record	Starting QB Out?	ESPN FPI Rank	FEI Rank	GT's ESPN Win Chance	Strength of Record
GT	3-2	No	41	57		B-
NCST	2-2	Yes	80	79	78%	D-
Duke	4-0	No	65	58	72%	C
UNC	3-1	Yes	69	51	60%	C
VT	2-2	No	49	55	48%	B-
N. Dame	3-1	No	9	11	18%	B

Vandy lost to Georgia State. They are not good. Having said that, we could lose to any if these teams.

 

[takethepoints]

This. I think people underrate Louisville and Brohm in particular. Purdue has been terrible since he left and Louisville was in the ACC title game last year

Oth, I don't think Louisville is a better team than Tech. They won the game on sheer bum luck. Two tds go their way given lucky bounces. Without that Tech wins. I hate it when that happens, but Tech played well enough to win and won every stats battle in the game. Special teams performance? Well, maybe though we blocked one of their FGs too and the ball didn't bounce quite right. But Louisville is not - repeat not - a better team then Tech. Luckier no doubt, at least last Saturday.

And I would never underate Brohm. He's a great coach.

 

[roadkill]

Vandy lost to Georgia State. They are not good. Having said that, we could lose to any if these teams.

I weighed Vandy's loss to GSU against their taking #11 Missouri to overtime on the road, losing on a missed field goal. Regardless, I can accept that VT's strength of record is a bit less than ours.

Your last comment has a Captain Obvious vibe, but thanks for sharing your thoughts.

 

[apatriot1776]

There are four teams on our remaining schedule that are under serious consideration as probable wins. I looked at each team's record in detail and assigned each a letter grade for Strength of Record. I threw in Notre Dame for good measure since they have a G5 loss. It’s still early season for most teams but we are starting to get enough data to be meaningful. I ranked our opponents from easiest win to most difficult.

Net of all this is that I see 3 likely wins, a toss-up, and 1 likely loss. Obviously this assessment can change as teams play more games.

There are still a few question marks - VT lost to Vandy, but is Vandy actually pretty good this year? I gave VT the benefit of the doubt to be conservative in my assessment.

Team	Record	Starting QB Out?	ESPN FPI Rank	FEI Rank	GT's ESPN Win Chance	Strength of Record
GT	3-2	No	41	57		B-
NCST	2-2	Yes	80	79	78%	D-
Duke	4-0	No	65	58	72%	C
UNC	3-1	Yes	69	51	60%	C
VT	2-2	No	49	55	48%	B-
N. Dame	3-1	No	9	11	18%	B

Surprisingly ESPN gives us a 22% chance against Miami and a 10% chance against UGA. If FPI is accurate here are our final record odds over 100,000 simulations:

3-9 = 0.7%
4-8 = 6.7%
5-7 = 22.6%
6-6 = 34.8%
7-5 = 25.2%
8-4 = 8.5%
9-3 = 1.2%
10-2 = .05%

Bowl game odds = 70%

 

[roadkill]

Surprisingly ESPN gives us a 22% chance against Miami and a 10% chance against UGA. If FPI is accurate here are our final record odds over 100,000 simulations:

3-9 = 0.7%
4-8 = 6.7%
5-7 = 22.6%
6-6 = 34.8%
7-5 = 25.2%
8-4 = 8.5%
9-3 = 1.2%
10-2 = .05%

Bowl game odds = 70%

I'm not sure why ESPN gives us a higher win probability against Miami than against ND. Both are home games, and ESPN's FPI ranks Miami slightly ahead of ND. I don't have access to their SP+ rankings, which could favor ND. ND has a better win than Miami (TAMU) but obviously a much worse loss. Miami has steamrolled all four of their opponents so far.

I'm in the "maybe there's a chance" camp for the Miami and ND games. Miami because we've beaten them a few times lately when they had significantly better talent, and ND because they had a major stumble against a G5 opponent. Also, Miami has yet to play a good team. But they do have a QB that is putting up Heisman-contender numbers.

 

[tomknight]

Oth, I don't think Louisville is a better team than Tech. They won the game on sheer bum luck. Two tds go their way given lucky bounces. Without that Tech wins. I hate it when that happens, but Tech played well enough to win and won every stats battle in the game. Special teams performance? Well, maybe though we blocked one of their FGs too and the ball didn't bounce quite right. But Louisville is not - repeat not - a better team then Tech. Luckier no doubt, at least last Saturday.

And I would never underate Brohm. He's a great coach.

I'm not sure how you post it to dumb luck. They hit long pass plays, their ST blocked a kick, their D stuffed the heck out of our run game.

It wasn't luck - they flat out beat us.

 

[apatriot1776]

I'm not sure why ESPN gives us a higher win probability against Miami than against ND. Both are home games, and ESPN's FPI ranks Miami slightly ahead of ND. I don't have access to their SP+ rankings, which could favor ND. ND has a better win than Miami (TAMU) but obviously a much worse loss. Miami has steamrolled all four of their opponents so far.

I'm in the "maybe there's a chance" camp for the Miami and ND games. Miami because we've beaten them a few times lately when they had significantly better talent, and ND because they had a major stumble against a G5 opponent. Also, Miami has yet to play a good team. But they do have a QB that is putting up Heisman-contender numbers.

Maybe it takes into account that ND is not a "true" home game or that we have one bye week before and one bye week after Miami.

 

[Billygoat91]

Oth, I don't think Louisville is a better team than Tech. They won the game on sheer bum luck. Two tds go their way given lucky bounces. Without that Tech wins. I hate it when that happens, but Tech played well enough to win and won every stats battle in the game. Special teams performance? Well, maybe though we blocked one of their FGs too and the ball didn't bounce quite right. But Louisville is not - repeat not - a better team then Tech. Luckier no doubt, at least last Saturday.

And I would never underate Brohm. He's a great coach.

I don't think I said that Louisville was better than us and I think we played well enough to win and it just didn't happen. That said, Louisville players were in position to make those plays. The bounce on the field goal was without a doubt lucky, but the fumble on the backwards pass was just a heck of a play by Louisville's guy to jump and swat the ball. I think that if we played them 10 times, that we would win 5 or so of the match ups. Most metrics for the game on Saturday show that it was a pretty toss-up affair. People were acting like we lost to Georgia State this weekend, though. It was just out of proportion. I think the early win against Florida State skewed a lot of people's perception on where our team is at this year given how FSU has turned out. I think we are a 7 win, maybe 8 win, team this year. Next year would be the year to circle as far as us making some kind of run at a double-digit win season. We play some of the ACC teams that we are not playing this year (Stanford, Wake, BC, PITT, Clemson) along with several teams that we play this year (VT, NC State, Syracuse) with a much more manageable non-con (Colorado, Temple, Gardner-Webb, uGA). This team with another year under their belt, King hopefully coming back, and more experience/depth on defense can feast on that schedule. We can easily win every game on the schedule with the exception of Clemson and uGA.

What concerns me going forward this year are a lot of the same things that we saw last year amongst other things.
- We don't want Haynes King to get in a position like he did at times last year or like JT in 2015 where the QB feels like they have to play hero ball to win the game
- I think we are much more banged-up than we are leading people to believe. Jamal Haynes and Rutherford have both been clearly playing though stuff the last few weeks. Other players are surely hurt as well.
- Aidan Birr is a good kicker but I hope his confidence is not taking a hit. We have been sending him out to kick a good number of 40+ yarders and he has missed some. Lets hope he doesn't follow the same trajectory as all of our kickers since Butker left (good first year, bad second year, gone third year)
-We cannot get any pressure on the QB at all. Our run D has actually been pretty solid, but our pass D is atrocious. We made some great adjustments in the second half of the Louisville game. Hopefully that bears fruit later in the season. The good news is that our next three games (Duke, UNC, ND) are against teams that run more than they pass. Fixing this D was never going to be a one-year project. What really blows my mind about our pass rush is that you can almost change the channel to any other game and see qb's under more pressure than what we can do. Even if the team is out-matched.
-If we have 3 yards to a first down, we just need to send Pyron out every single time.
-I would love to see speed option on our short yardage plays

 

[takethepoints]

I'm not sure how you post it to dumb luck. They hit long pass plays, their ST blocked a kick, their D stuffed the heck out of our run game.

It wasn't luck - they flat out beat us.

Oh, yes it was. They stopped our run game; Tech stopped theirs. They hit long passes; Tech hit long passes. Both teams blocked a field goal.

But … the ball bounced into the hands of a Card already headed down field on their blocked FG and it led to a td. And a fumbled ball down near the end zone bounced pass Tech players and into the hands of one of them for another td. Skill? Better talent? A superior game plan? Please. It was sheer bum luck and not much else. No junk tds and Tech wins the game.

So, yes, of course they beat us. But it was due to the Football Gods being on their side. Without them it was an even contest.

 

[takethepoints]

-I would love to see speed option on our short yardage plays

So would I. I would also like to see King commit more to running the ball. He can exploit holes when he is scrambling, but he doesn't handle option reads very well. Yet.

Btw, yes to all the other points you made.

 

[roadkill]

Maybe it takes into account that ND is not a "true" home game or that we have one bye week before and one bye week after Miami.

Perhaps, but I would be surprised if ESPN's algorithm is that nuanced.

 

[Root4GT]

Vandy lost to Georgia State. They are not good. Having said that, we could lose to any if these teams.

Vandy is better than you allege. They are not great but they have a unique and effective offense with very experienced players who came in with their OC, especially their QB. He gets hurt and they are toast. They won't win a lot of games but will be competitive for a while in several until their depth is forced into games then they will get rolled.