Tech vs. Louisville

[slugboy]

Kelley Ford projections for the season. A fair shot at 6 wins, but not great: https://kfordratings.com/realistic-expectations. He doesn’t like our odds against Louisville—based on last year’s stats, we’d only win one game out of four.

Again, it’s stats based on last season—you make a coaching change to change those odds. And you play these games on grass and not on paper

The conference projections are for conference games only, so they don’t include the out of conference games—the win numbers will be different.

 

[iceeater1969]

Slug, good stuff. Lots of talk. Now its hard to think we have talent and coaching to make a jump against anyone. Duke and wake need to regress.

The NCSt folks have neen raing money and filling stands in support of a good coach. We are in yesr 1 of KEY.


After 4 games, i woild like for a review as we will know if talk is still talk.

Hope we suprise

 

[Lotta Booze]

Duke and wake need to regress.

I believe they both will to an extent. Wake lost their 2 star players from last year. I think Clawson is a great coach but hard to imagine there isn't some regression there.

And Duke led the country in fumble recoveries last year. That's a fairly flukey stat and doubt they can achieve that again. They certainly improved a lot but I think they were also the beneficiaries of the ball bouncing their way quite a bit last year and think they'll regress as well.

 

[roadkill]

I am very grateful that arguably our 2 best wins came with a huge dose of luck.
Downs dropping that pass, which should have been a relatively easy catch, was the difference between a win and a loss.
How many passes did Pitt defenders drop against GT in that game. A couple would have been TD's the other way.
I'll still take it, and CBK's team was a significant improvement over CGC, but that 5-7 was really close to being 3-9.
Not going to deny that I greatly enjoyed the outcomes of both of those games and GT definitely looked better coached after the change than before it.

The 4 wins came by a total of 13 points (all one score wins). The 4 losses came by 76 points. A 4-4 record with a -63 point differential is an incredible pull, but it suggests be careful about setting your expectations too high. Going 4-1 in one score games is something that is hard to replicate.

Of course, all that said I am thinking a 6-6/7-5 season, so my pre-season optimism is still there.

I can play the “what if” game too. What if the Pitt receiver had not made a great catch in the end zone with 14 seconds left in the game to make it a one-score game? It would have been a 12-point win. Were we “lucky” to have to play our 3rd and 4th string QBs in the UNC game?

I’m not going to analyze our whole 2022 season to parse which games we were unlucky or lucky, but these things have a way of evening out over the course of a year, and to imply that perhaps we were not good enough to win 5 games but instead just got lucky – well, I’d rather be lucky than good sometimes.

 

[UgaBlows]

2014 and 1990 GT teams had plenty of luck as well

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

Check out 1979-1981...

To me, 70-81 was worse. Dodd said that he knew Tech was in bad shape when we played Memphis State and they had better athletes.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

Check out 1979-1981...

Upon further review, I am not so sure. During the 1979-1981 era, the facilities were absolutely the worst in Division 1 football. Recruiting was generally very poor in transitioning from Pepper's last year in 79 to Bill Curry and consequently there was very little depth.

In 1979 which was Pepper's last year, Tech managed to win four games in spite of playing four ranked teams. They lost 6 and tied Florida at 7-7. In Curry's first year in 1980 Tech finished 1-9-1 with again four ranked teams including #1 Notre Dame which we managed to tie and a number 1 UGA. Our only win was against Memphis State. In 1981 Tech somehow managed to beat #2 ranked Alabama in the first game and proceeded to lose 10 straight. Some may remember this as Robert Lavette's freshman year. The three year period had 6 wins, 25 loses, and 2 ties. The biggest difference to me was those teams did not get blown out by ranked teams and though they lost 8 games to ranked teams at that time they managed to win 1 and tie another. For example in 1979, Tech lost to #2 Alabama 30-6, #10 Notre Dame 13-21, and #14 Auburn 14-38. The players played hard and were generally competitive which could not always be said for the last three year disaster. I guess its a matter of perspective. Coach Curry in his first year had a banner displayed along the east sideline with a quote from Winston Churchill: "NEVER, NEVER, NEVER QUIT!" A sign of the times one might say.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

Upon further review, I am not so sure. During the 1979-1981 era, the facilities were absolutely the worst in Division 1 football. Recruiting was generally very poor in transitioning from Pepper's last year in 79 to Bill Curry and consequently there was very little depth.

In 1979 which was Pepper's last year, Tech managed to win four games in spite of playing four ranked teams. They lost 6 and tied Florida at 7-7. In Curry's first year in 1980 Tech finished 1-9-1 with again four ranked teams including #1 Notre Dame which we managed to tie and a number 1 UGA. Our only win was against Memphis State. In 1981 Tech somehow managed to beat #2 ranked Alabama in the first game and proceeded to lose 10 straight. Some may remember this as Robert Lavette's freshman year. The three year period had 6 wins, 25 loses, and 2 ties. The biggest difference to me was those teams did not get blown out by ranked teams and though they lost 8 games to ranked teams at that time they managed to win 1 and tie another. For example in 1979, Tech lost to #2 Alabama 30-6, #10 Notre Dame 13-21, and #14 Auburn 14-38. The players played hard and were generally competitive which could not always be said for the last three year disaster. I guess its a matter of perspective.

So do I. That’s why I went to a college called Belhaven instead of an institute called Georgia Tech.

So did my wife whose major was English and has only a passing familiarity with math, limited to adding and subtracting from my bank account. She graduated in 1977 from Belhaven and is a very proud Blazer.

 

[LongforDodd]

I
I am still delighted that Downs dropped a sure touchdown in the end zone in our game against UNC.Sometimes you just need a little luck.

Hmmm. All I remember is that our schedule from last year shows we won.

 

[g0lftime]

Hmmm. All I remember is that our schedule from last year shows we won.

Like we often say in golf "it's the numbers, not the pictures". We do get some lucky breaks in golf sometimes too.

 

[UgaBlows]

I believe they both will to an extent. Wake lost their 2 star players from last year. I think Clawson is a great coach but hard to imagine there isn't some regression there.

And Duke led the country in fumble recoveries last year. That's a fairly flukey stat and doubt they can achieve that again. They certainly improved a lot but I think they were also the beneficiaries of the ball bouncing their way quite a bit last year and think they'll regress as well.

Duke plays a garbage OOC schedule year after year, they have “good” years and beat zero good teams

 

[g0lftime]

Duke plays a garbage OOC schedule year after year, they have “good” years and beat zero good teams

A little tougher this year with Clemson, Notre Dame, FSU , UNC, NCSU and Louisville on their schedule. Plus WF, UVA, and Pitt. I don't see them winning 9 games this year. They play Lafayette and Northwestern OOC. They do have a good QB returning but need to keep him healthy to be anywhere near as good as last year. Elko has shown to be a good coach-- can he maintain sustained winning there?

 

[UgaBlows]

A little tougher this year with Clemson, Notre Dame, FSU , UNC, NCSU and Louisville on their schedule. Plus WF, UVA, and Pitt. I don't see them winning 9 games this year. They play Lafayette and Northwestern OOC. They do have a good QB returning but need to keep him healthy to be anywhere near as good as last year. Elko has shown to be a good coach-- can he maintain sustained winning there?

I hope not

 

[rfjeff9]

Kelley Ford projections for the season. A fair shot at 6 wins, but not great: https://kfordratings.com/realistic-expectations. He doesn’t like our odds against Louisville—based on last year’s stats, we’d only win one game out of four.

Again, it’s stats based on last season—you make a coaching change to change those odds. And you play these games on grass and not on paper

The conference projections are for conference games only, so they don’t include the out of conference games—the win numbers will be different.

 

[forensicbuzz]

Going 4-1 in one score games is something that is hard to replicate.

I would posit that 4-1 in 1-score games is a sign of mental toughness.

 

[slugboy]

I would posit that 4-1 in 1-score games is a sign of mental toughness.

There was one Charlie Thomas interception that had “will to win” written all over it.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Not sure where this fits in with all the differential equation higher math analytical data point football fortune analysis but here it goes.

Under Collins this team seemed to look lost from the opening play in most games. And we kept waiting for them to get better.

Under Key this team has looked solid from the first play and you kind of waited for them to wear down or have the talent difference with the other team take over.

I like that second way of starting better. A team can build confidence and start to believe. Good habits build off of good habits. Then almost anything can happen.

I will be paying attention closely to how Tech opens the game against Louisville. This might just be the Key style that creates a whole new culture of winning.

 

[g0lftime]

The Louisville game will be interesting to see how the DC on each team can adjust since neither team will be able to use prior game film to plan. Scheme on D may have some history but new personnel. Who knows what kind of tendencies our O will have.

 

[slugboy]

Not sure where this fits in with all the differential equation higher math analytical data point football fortune analysis but here it goes.

Under Collins this team seemed to look lost from the opening play in most games. And we kept waiting for them to get better.

Under Key this team has looked solid from the first play and you kind of waited for them to wear down or have the talent difference with the other team take over.

I like that second way of starting better. A team can build confidence and start to believe. Good habits build off of good habits. Then almost anything can happen.

I will be paying attention closely to how Tech opens the game against Louisville. This might just be the Key style that creates a whole new culture of winning.

We did not look good against UVA or Miami. Some of that might be depth and injuries, but a UVA win would have sent us bowling.

The offense against UGA looked like everyone was finally on the same page. The problem was our best QB was out.

There was another date when we replaced our OC with Weinke. It’s difficult to pick one date when there was a change when Key took over—there were a couple of dates.

 

[roadkill]

We did not look good against UVA or Miami. Some of that might be depth and injuries, but a UVA win would have sent us bowling.

The offense against UGA looked like everyone was finally on the same page. The problem was our best QB was out.

There was another date when we replaced our OC with Weinke. It’s difficult to pick one date when there was a change when Key took over—there were a couple of dates.

Our defense and (I think) special teams were solid against Virginia. Our offense was putrid. As I recall, after Sims went out, UVA blitzed our 3rd string QB and the result was panic. He improved as the season progressed. I am hopeful that our now-experienced QB room will be decent against Louisville.

Another positive - it's hard to overstate how much our special teams improvements made to our game outcomes after Key took over. When you don’t have blocked punts and you make your field goals, you’re much more likely to win games where the opponents are near-peers in overall talent.

Also worth mentioning for “mental toughness” is that 3 of our 4 wins after Key took over were second-half come-from-behind wins. How many of these types of wins did we have in the prior 3 years?