Spring Game Impressions

[forensicbuzz]

Long dropped an open throw for a sure TD but made a couple of other catches. Ward made a couple of catches. Benson must be injured. He was not in pads and neither was Efford. Boyd looked like he got a hip pointer on a catch but came back in later.
It's hard to tell much from the game other than the QB position looked pretty even to me. Felix is a good RB. The freshman RB had a couple of good runs.

Watched the video. QB position did not look even. Pyron was the better passer. Kid from A&M has bigger balls; tougher throws. Both will be good. Tight ends are a mixed bag. Going to make some spectacular catches and some horrible drops. There was a lot of talking up of Kenyatta Watson, but I didn't think his play was as good as they thought. He needs to turn his head earlier. He's there, but will allow completions if he doesn't get his head turned.

In these games, I'm always confused as to whether it's our Offense doing well or our Defense doing poorly, or our Defense is doing well or our Offense is doing poorly.

 

[Oakland]

We played a vanilia defense. I'm pretty sure there was no blizting either.

 

[stinger 1957]

After many years of watching spring games I finally started just watching individual players (like the coaches do) with the understanding I couldn't figure out what the team would be like in fall.

 

[GT_B]

I was impressed with how our offense flowed. It looks night and day different than the last few years. I know based on Key's comments that the defense ran very base stuff with no blitzing/etc, but I was impressed with our perimeter blocking. We ran a ton of the swing pass/quick screen out to the RBs out of the backfield and it was blocked well and executed well.

RBs - I was impressed with RB Dickens, he had good hands and seems like a good player. But we seem to have quite a few quality guys back there now: Smith, Felix, Dickens, Cooley, Martin, etc, not sure how the reps shake out this year.

WRs- Rutherford is going to be a problem all year for teams. He is dynamic with the ball in his hands, I think he is going to put up big stats this year. Leary was used a lot early and he looked very effective in the slot. Boyd and Dj Moore had some great plays. Still looking for the main outside target to step up this year.

All 3 QBs looked pretty good and ran the offense well. King and Pyron can both run really well, especially King, he has some speed for a QB. I could see him making a lot of plays when things break down by running, but Pyron looked the most confident throwing the ball to me, even though they all had good throws.

Defensively we made some plays here and there and had a few good pops on people, but overall the tackling stood out to me as it was pretty sloppy. A lot of guys throwing shoulders or trying to arm tackle people. I think our starting 11 though its going to be pretty solid this year.

 

[UgaBlows]

After many years of watching spring games I finally started just watching individual players (like the coaches do) with the understanding I couldn't figure out what the team would be like in fall.

This is SO true, with the defense playing tons of backups mixed in on both teams, 4 basic defensive sets, no blitzing, no tackling the QB, and no penalties it’s really impossible to say much at all about either side of the team. That being said the offense did produce better than at any other spring game that I can recall, and I am extremely optimistic that we are going to have our best Off production since the CPJ years- our OL seems solid and played pretty decent at the end of last season, we have speed at WR, we have good RB’s, and we have two very good looking QB’s competing for QB1 and a solid 3rd QB who has game winning experience. TE is still a big question mark, we need a serious threat there and we just don’t seem have it yet. Oh, and I’m really excited about our Off-coordinator too, I think we may finally be about to get things rolling here on The Flats!

 

[JacketFan137]

After many years of watching spring games I finally started just watching individual players (like the coaches do) with the understanding I couldn't figure out what the team would be like in fall.

i remember ahead of 2014 we looked awful in the spring game and then ahead of 2015 we looked like we were ready for a big season.

your approach is right. look for the guys who looked bigger, faster and stronger. look for the guys winning their 1v1 matchups on the line and in the qb vs WR matchups etc.

 

[JacketFan137]

This is SO true, with the defense playing tons of backups mixed in on both teams, 4 basic defensive sets, no blitzing, no tackling the QB, and no penalties it’s really impossible to say much at all about either side of the team. That being said the offense did produce better than at any other spring game that I can recall, and I am extremely optimistic that we are going to have our best Off production since the CPJ years- our OL seems solid and played pretty decent at the end of last season, we have speed at WR, we have good RB’s, and we have two very good looking QB’s competing for QB1 and a solid 3rd QB who has game winning experience. TE is still a big question mark, we need a serious threat there and we just don’t seem have it yet. Oh, and I’m really excited about our Off-coordinator too, I think we may finally be about to get things rolling here on The Flats!

leonard looks massive but i’m still not super confident with him catching the ball. he will bring a lot of value as a blocker but if he can catch our offense will look so much better.

he looks to be the TE1 on the depth chart from the snaps he got

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

If we get one TE to catch the ball, we can always send in the others to block.

 

[danny daniel]

I was impressed with how our offense flowed. It looks night and day different than the last few years. I know based on Key's comments that the defense ran very base stuff with no blitzing/etc, but I was impressed with our perimeter blocking. We ran a ton of the swing pass/quick screen out to the RBs out of the backfield and it was blocked well and executed well.

RBs - I was impressed with RB Dickens, he had good hands and seems like a good player. But we seem to have quite a few quality guys back there now: Smith, Felix, Dickens, Cooley, Martin, etc, not sure how the reps shake out this year.

WRs- Rutherford is going to be a problem all year for teams. He is dynamic with the ball in his hands, I think he is going to put up big stats this year. Leary was used a lot early and he looked very effective in the slot. Boyd and Dj Moore had some great plays. Still looking for the main outside target to step up this year.

All 3 QBs looked pretty good and ran the offense well. King and Pyron can both run really well, especially King, he has some speed for a QB. I could see him making a lot of plays when things break down by running, but Pyron looked the most confident throwing the ball to me, even though they all had good throws.

Defensively we made some plays here and there and had a few good pops on people, but overall the tackling stood out to me as it was pretty sloppy. A lot of guys throwing shoulders or trying to arm tackle people. I think our starting 11 though its going to be pretty solid this year.

I was at first disappointed with the open field tackling but later regonized that the D secondary was very often filled with walk-ons and 3rd/4th stringers, many of which were undersized, inexperienced, and slower of foot. These younger guys were no match for the speed of Rutherford, Haynes, Leary, and #39 RB and the other top RBs. We saw some good things with the O but I believe judgement on the D must come later. Except for LBs we have depth and a lot of playing time experience at the other D positions.

 

[takethepoints]

Thanks for posting the replay. Sad I couldn't make the game as I had a commitment at a cancer walk. A few my thoughts from watching the replay:

- You can really see Faulkner's Air Raid roots on the offense. I couldn't necessarily confirm any of the staple concepts (other than Four Verticals) but there looks to be a real commitment to getting the ball out fast to the playmakers in space. This is what I really wanted to watch for as I feel like GT might have a commitment to the passing game that we haven't seen in...um...20+ years?
- To an untrained eye, most of the runs were up the middle, which is likely the "Dive" play from the MTSU offense (). Not an X's and O's guy, so would appreciate a second take. But with Key yelling out "Hit the middle" we seem committed to being able to run up the middle.
- Nice to see the TE's getting involved in the offense. A couple of drops, but also a few really nice one-hand catches
- I think we have potential to be scary in the slot, with Leary and Rutherford and with Chase Lane still coming in the summer. I think Rutherford lined up outside as well. The real key is to find those big bodies outside. If Boyd and D.J. Moore can make some noise there, it could get exciting. But the slots are where it's at in the Air Raid.
- Nice to see the RB's get get action in the passing game

All in all, looks like Key put on an "exciting show" without a lot of the gimmicks from the former guy. Obviously, the reads for the QBs will be a lot harder against a defense allowed to call an actual gameplan.

Well, I looked at all the X and O's above and it looked sorta like the dive we used to run with Paul. Problem = I didn't see anything that looked like deception in the run game yesterday. Obviously we didn't want the QBs - especially Pyron and King - to run to avoid risk of injury. But I sure do hope that Faulkner has some tricks up his sleeve to get out runners free. I'm not sure our OL is up to a slug out against about half our opponents. As I have pointed out here before, a run game with deception built-in makes life a lot easier for an OL. We will probably need all the help we can get against at least 4 of our opponents.

Yes, we seem to have become the Smurfs (excepting Boyd). But if we can get those guys open - a function of OL performance - they'll do fine. Having big, fast guys at all WR positions is optimum, but we can live with what we have. I think.

 

[jgtengineer]

Well, I looked at all the X and O's above and it looked sorta like the dive we used to run with Paul. Problem = I didn't see anything that looked like deception in the run game yesterday. Obviously we didn't want the QBs - especially Pyron and King - to run to avoid risk of injury. But I sure do hope that Faulkner has some tricks up his sleeve to get out runners free. I'm not sure our OL is up to a slug out against about half our opponents. As I have pointed out here before, a run game with deception built-in makes life a lot easier for an OL. We will probably need all the help we can get against at least 4 of our opponents.

Yes, we seem to have become the Smurfs (excepting Boyd). But if we can get those guys open - a function of OL performance - they'll do fine. Having big, fast guys at all WR positions is optimum, but we can live with what we have. I think.

I did, i'd have to go through it but we actually ran the Clemson triple a few times (shot gun H offest, H arcs, QB reads end gives dive or throws the ball to slot receiver in the flat based on LB play. AKA the Trevor Lawrence Special) And we ran a decent amount of zone read including a few TDS scored off inside zone read.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

Yes, we seem to have become the Smurfs (excepting Boyd). But if we can get those guys open - a function of OL performance - they'll do fine. Having big, fast guys at all WR positions is optimum, but we can live with what we have. I think.

It is true we are very small at WR (I know we lost Blackburn). Normally, that would not be a hopeful realization. However, this is the first time since Johnson that we all kind of agree we have a staff or coach (Faulkner) who will utilize what he has to an advantage for GT. Unlike the previous guy who could turn 4 stars into 2 stars, this offensive staff appears to know how to use the players for what they can do. If we can get the OLine playing ball and get the running game back to a respectable level then the smurfs will absolutely run wild now that we have QB’s who know where to go with the ball. This is going to be fun watching GT finally turn the page.

 

[danny daniel]

I have watched the Spring Game live and on the tube twice. We are stuck with midget playmakers but they are performing extremely well. I have seen #39 Williams for three Spring Games and he is another midget playmaker. He is buried too deep on the RB list to be a factor but I would like to see him at slot to give us more depth and even more playmaking speed to join our other midgets. How exciting these guys are! This is great OC work to use this talent so effectively. Now we just need one or two sticky fingered TE to emerge.

 

[forensicbuzz]

I have watched the Spring Game live and on the tube twice. We are stuck with midget playmakers but they are performing extremely well. I have seen #39 Williams for three Spring Games and he is another midget playmaker. He is buried too deep on the RB list to be a factor but I would like to see him at slot to give us more depth and even more playmaking speed to join our other midgets. How exciting these guys are! This is great OC work to use this talent so effectively. Now we just need one or two sticky fingered TE to emerge.

I don't know where this is coming from...

Blackburn 6'5" (injured)
BlackStrain 6'2"
Boyd 6'2"
Dobson 6'2"
Haynes 5'9"
Janneh 6'3"
Lane 6'0"
Leary 5'10"
Lewis 6'2"
Moore 6'1"
Rutherford 5'9"
Singleton 5'11"

That's not midget to me. Yes, we have some smaller scat receivers, but they're either burners or they're slot receivers that will get lost in the crowd. I'm thrilled with Haynes, Leary, and Rutherford (all in the 5'9"/5'10" region). The rest are well sized compared to most DBs.

As far as running backs go, I don't care how tall they are; that's immaterial. It's about whether they can make the first guy miss and hit the hole hard. We've done alright with RBs in the 5'6" range before. Jerry was a giant. 5'9" is not short for a RB.

 

[takethepoints]

I don't know where this is coming from...

Blackburn 6'5" (injured)
BlackStrain 6'2"
Boyd 6'2"
Dobson 6'2"
Haynes 5'9"
Janneh 6'3"
Lane 6'0"
Leary 5'10"
Lewis 6'2"
Moore 6'1"
Rutherford 5'9"
Singleton 5'11"

That's not midget to me. Yes, we have some smaller scat receivers, but they're either burners or they're slot receivers that will get lost in the crowd. I'm thrilled with Haynes, Leary, and Rutherford (all in the 5'9"/5'10" region). The rest are well sized compared to most DBs.

As far as running backs go, I don't care how tall they are; that's immaterial. It's about whether they can make the first guy miss and hit the hole hard. We've done alright with RBs in the 5'6" range before. Jerry was a giant. 5'9" is not short for a RB.

Well, I'm afraid it came from me. But I didn't mean it in a demeaning way. I was referring to the early 80's Red … sorry, Commanders WRs who delivered so well despite being way undersized for pro ball. Being called a Smurf is not a diminutive for football.

 

[forensicbuzz]

Well, I'm afraid it came from me. But I didn't mean it in a demeaning way. I was referring to the early 80's Red … sorry, Commanders WRs who delivered so well despite being way undersized for pro ball. Being called a Smurf is not a diminutive for football.

I didn’t take the comment as demeaning, just that we were really short. While we don’t have the 6’4”/6’5” wideouts we’ve had recently (with Leo injured again), I think we have plenty of height.

Most DBs are in the 5’10” to 6’0” range, so the height difference isn’t an advantage or disadvantage.

 

[g0lftime]

I didn’t take the comment as demeaning, just that we were really short. While we don’t have the 6’4”/6’5” wideouts we’ve had recently (with Leo injured again), I think we have plenty of height.

Most DBs are in the 5’10” to 6’0” range, so the height difference isn’t an advantage or disadvantage.

I like the guys with lots of speed that can catch regardless of height. However the taller receivers are much more desirable in fade patterns in the end zone and back shoulder passes.

 

[jgtengineer]

I like the guys with lots of speed that can catch regardless of height. However the taller receivers are much more desirable in fade patterns in the end zone and back shoulder passes.

We do have height in our tight ends. That is typically where we will find success in mismatches. If Blackburn isn't injured we aren't even having this convo.

 

[GTBandit22]

i also commented on our height. With Blackstrain and Blackburn out, and losing Malachi, King and Jenkins, we were much smaller than in recent memory.
But I’m not being derogatory, as you said, guys like Moore and Boyd are plenty big enough, and getting separation more important than size most of the time, or teams would just split their TEs out.
Just a stark contrast in size in one year.

 

[g0lftime]

We do have height in our tight ends. That is typically where we will find success in mismatches. If Blackburn isn't injured we aren't even having this convo.

Agree.