Tech vs Clemson, it's actually very easy to explain

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

Or 6 out of 11, but who’s counting at a time like this....

Our excellent coaching wasn’t all that excellent on Saturday night though. Tough to beat those guys anyhow, but I think that was an all around loss. Missed assignments, bad reads, bad coaching, turnovers, etc. Try again next year...

FIFY
On two different threads you have referred to Thursday night. Where have you been? LOL

 

[PBR549]

I appreciate all you guys giving so much credit to the abilities of the coaches to out scheme other coaches. The truth is that at this level all the coaches know what every other coach knows. The amount that a coaching staff can influence the outcome of a game is maybe 10 percent. So if you look at both coaching staffs with a 10 percent sphere of influence your talking maybe 2 games a year where the teams with equal talent levels are decided by coaching.

We may even be a little better than the 10 percent due to our scheme that for the most part others only see once a year.

Now, what if your playing a team who has a 10 percent talent advantage? The coaches influence probably drops in half. So now each staff has a maybe a 5 percent sphere of influence on a game. So if your staff gets all 10 percent of the coaching advantage it's good for maybe 1 game a year.

If someone has a 20 percent talent advantage it doesn't matter if you have Vince Lombardi, Bear Bryant and Nick Saban on your staff you're going to get beat 99 out of 100 times.

I've developed this opinion over a football coaching career that spanned over 30 years. It's not what Hollywood wants but its what I've observed. Of course that's not what I started out believing but experience is the best teacher.

Coaches kill themselves weekly trying to make sure they gain every percentage point of what sphere of influence over the other staff almost 365 24/7 yet they can only get to that 10 percent!

 

[LongforDodd]

1st time posting and enjoy reading all of the posts. Got a question though..

Didn’t we hire PJ to offset this talent gap? Isn’t his innovative offense supposed to neutralize the superior talent? If not, why are we still running this offense? Kids w talent don’t want to play in this offense nor practice against it. I’m disappointed that we didn’t compete. It seems that we were running the same plays even though it wasn’t working (granted nothing was working..).

 

[DCSS]

I hate it that Tech never beats a team with superior physical talent. We have never beaten UNC, Miami, Mississippi State, Clemson, Virginia Tech, uga, USCw, or FSU. It is unlikely we ever will. The talent gap is just too big.

 

[Sideways]

Oh yes and stomped Miss St with all their studs!!

True dat! They let the dogs out that night for sure. You will recall that Miss State's defensive coordinator left the team to take another job just weeks before the Orange Bowl and Mullen put his defensive backs coach? as an interim. Needless to say, Coach Johnson was inside that guy's head all night long. I don't think they made a single adjustment to what we were doing.

 

[Sideways]

I hate it that Tech never beats a team with superior physical talent. We have never beaten UNC, Miami, Mississippi State, Clemson, Virginia Tech, uga, USCw, or FSU. It is unlikely we ever will. The talent gap is just too big.

Sure we do pretty consistently but those 4 and 5 stars have to be motivated, well coached, versed in what we do, restrain themselves from doing what comes naturally to them like freelancing and trying to cover for someone else etc. Often times they can't consistently do those things. USCw is a good example. For a quarter, they stuffed us but lost focus, got bored, started counting their draft $ whatever and before you can say triple option, the dive play was going past them like they were stuck in cement. It happens. Clemson on the other hand was motivated was well coached was talented in crucial positions and played very well. It happens. Let's forget about them and get the next one.

 

[GTJake]

OK, it's a talent issue, hard to argue with that especially in the trenches on the OL/DL.
But UGA has had Top 10 recruiting classes forever and CU recently, so we aren't the only program with a talent gap vs UGA/CU.
My point is ... talent disparity is a concern vs. the top recruiting schools, but it is for a lot of schools and IMO talent alone is not consistently the issue.
If it's only talent, how come we have won 2/3 vs. UGA and I believe Dabo Swinney's record vs GT is 6-5 ?
We lost a game on a Saturday night at their house in bad weather, our guys got rattled, forgot to show-up, whatever ... now let's go beat UVA !

 

[Sideways]

You know as well as I do that UGA consistently underachieves relative to their talent. They are very good this year and will be a handful but I would not put that game down as a loss just yet. Of the teams that we play consistently, the four that give us the most trouble are Virginia Tech, Miami, UGA, and Clemson. Talent is a major reason but not the only reason. With Virginia Tech it is Bud Foster, with Miami it is...well Miami, with UGA and Clemson it is primarily talent and usually good coaching in Clemson's case.

Everyone else on our schedule I think we can beat and I am really surprised when we don't which of course does happen from time to time. I am encouraged by our upward trajectory in recruiting but would really like for Todd to devote much more in the way of resources to recruiting by hiring staff, bag men etc. Well, maybe not the last one.

 

[gtpi]

UGA is typically a mismatch as well, but we seem to play them close most years.

it seems that i went through all the scores between the two team and the average point spread was in favor of uga by less than 6 points over almost a century..... but i could be mis remembering.

 

[DroppedOut]

At least we have a higher ranking in U.S. News and World Report's national rankings: #34 versus their #67.

 

[Animal02]

UGA is typically a mismatch as well, but we seem to play them close most years.

It can depend on individual player matchups that play to strength or weakness. Clemp just has had that the past few years against us.

 

[takethepoints]

I said before the game that I thought we would run for 250-300 yards and the the game would be a dogfight.

That was before I a) saw that, despite what others here had said, that Clemson had not put a tarp on the field to help field conditions. (In retrospect, why would they do that?) and b) it was raining and hard throughout the game. I think I would have been right on a dry field. A wet field negates several advantages the O gives us and gives a team using a spread option and zone blocking an advantage against our still undersized D; all that's a TL/DR type of discussion, however.

They're more talented then we are. No problem with admitting that. But we can usually get around that provided we aren't playing in a downpour on an already soaked field. On a dry field we would have probably still lost, but not without a better showing on O.

 

[BleedingGold]

At this point Clemson is the second or third best football in the program. Might not show in the current rankings but looking at the past five years, the only teams who have put up consistently dominant results are Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio State. Don't know why some people act all surprised when Clemson's D shuts down our offense. Would you be surprised if Bama did it? Might be a a while before we beat them again. Sucks we have to play them every year. Puts us at a major disadvantage when you can already pencil us down for an ACC loss to begin the season.

All this being said, it's past time that Paul Johnson comes up with a different game plan for Clemson's D. I know with the weather this year, not much would have worked, but this is three straight years where their defense has made our offense look silly.

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

I said before the game that I thought we would run for 250-300 yards and the the game would be a dogfight.

That was before I a) saw that, despite what others here had said, that Clemson had not put a tarp on the field to help field conditions. (In retrospect, why would they do that?) and b) it was raining and hard throughout the game. I think I would have been right on a dry field. A wet field negates several advantages the O gives us and gives a team using a spread option and zone blocking an advantage against our still undersized D; all that's a TL/DR type of discussion, however.

They're more talented then we are. No problem with admitting that. But we can usually get around that provided we aren't playing in a downpour on an already soaked field. On a dry field we would have probably still lost, but not without a better showing on O.

It didn't start raining until about an hour before kickoff

 

[bke1984]

FIFY
On two different threads you have referred to Thursday night. Where have you been? LOL

Lol. I woke up at 4:45 yesterday and spent he day traveling back and forth between Atlanta and Winston-Salem. Just tired I guess...

 

[Longestday]

Do I want to beat Clemson every year... yes. Do I expect the Clemson game to be a significant uphill battle... yes. Check out VT's game with Clemson and see that they scored zero points till the 4th Q. Our coach and every other coach needs to do more if they expect to beat Clemson if Clemson shows up to play.

Its the gnashing of teeth that gets to me. I can take the why did we not execute coaching questions. I can take the why did we not see the gap issues and change. Its the "we suck", CPJ needs to recruit better, we need to pass more, we need to change offenses to win, we need to be beating Clemson and Georgia every year, but CPJ is to stubborn to change. The Miami thing kills me though. GT should not be losing to them every year.

Issues against Clemson:

• Rain is not good for this offense
• The reality is that TQM is a first year starter and the equivalent of a red shirt freshman at QB
• The team is not used to playing at night and the lights dazzle them a little
• Clemson's DL is not only good and NFL bound, but they are going to be the best in the NFL
• On the road, in the rain, playing at night, against last years NC is not ideal

Clemson did not show up to play Syracuse and Syracuse executed very well. GT needed similar conditions to win as does every other team facing Clemson in the ACC. This is what it feels like to have to play Alabama every year.

 

[awbuzz]

For the "we need to pass more" folks, CPJ stated that we had 27 pass plays called... Didn't get the opportunity to make that many attempts though for various reasons.

 

[iceeater1969]

This ^^^ makes a BIG difference on the outcome of the play.

We hear "U can't practice against the speed that ga tech run the option."

Clemson pregame drills for lb and safeties looks like gladiatorial drills. No cup cake cuts. These are full speed cut block practice. They dont actually hit the defender, but would if he did not use a good technique. After they defeat the block the coach is creating and judging their speed of recovery. They have the athletes and they are prepared.
In this area wishing we blocked better is no effective coaching.

Perhaps we need to not cut block them in space and engage the block further down field (holding is legal till they are getting away).

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Perhaps we need to not cut block them in space and engage the block further down field (holding is legal till they are getting away).

I used to think this until I read an article on why it's done (not even by a triple option guy, either). Cut blocks are done in space against more athletic targets precisely because they are proven to be more effective than other types of blocks.

I really appreciate what you said at the beginning o your post, too:

"Clemson pregame drills for lb and safeties looks like gladiatorial drills."

Clemson has 4 huge nails in our coffin:
1) The athletes to beat our blocks
2) The experience to beat our blocks.
3) The coaching to beat our blocks.
4) The will to beat our blocks.

It's very rare when a team has all 4.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

I used to think this until I read an article on why it's done (not even by a triple option guy, either). Cut blocks are done in space against more athletic targets precisely because they are proven to be more effective than other types of blocks.

I really appreciate what you said at the beginning o your post, too:

"Clemson pregame drills for lb and safeties looks like gladiatorial drills."

Clemson has 4 huge nails in our coffin:
1) The athletes to beat our blocks
2) The experience to beat our blocks.
3) The coaching to beat our blocks.
4) The will to beat our blocks.

It's very rare when a team has all 4.

I'd change #4 to "The DISCIPLINE to beat our blocks."

Lot's of team have the will, but not the discipline. Other than that, I agree wholeheartedly.