The morning after

[gt02]

Maybe starting Yates would have confused Pitt for two plays, but that's about it. For the most part, the blocking is the problem. Here's the first pick (video and comments hidden in a spoiler tag for the squeamish)

Spoiler

I watched this at 1/4 speed--as slow as I could go on YouTube. Pitt ran an interesting stunt. We were running an RPO. They had two unblocked rushers on the left side of our line. The DE at the bottom pulls around towards the center. The Mike LB also blitzes, and draws the center's block, and the end comes untouched up the middle. Either a nickel or LB is blitzing from the bottom of the screen, and is drawing a block from Gibbs after he takes the fake handoff.
I'm not sure if Pitt is in a 4-3 or a 4-2-5 with a stout nickel. Their alignment has a front 7, and they're all coming.
It looks like Pitt is rushing 7 and putting 4 into coverage. We have 5 linemen blocking 3 players. The LG blocks the DT straight in front of him, who slides out onto the tackle into a double team. A genius LG might be able to pick up the end, but it's a split-second decision to do so. The other option is for the center to pick up the end and leave the Mike LB unguarded.
Gibbs would block a 4th, which means that three are coming unblocked at Sims. The left DT who is double-teamed is actually coming off of his block when Sims throws. Sims never sees the end--he only sees the wide open receiver and the ball gets tipped. I'm not sure how that happens, because I sure see that end. If he pulls the ball, he's almost surely getting sacked. Maybe Yates gets sacked instead of throwing.
The view is horrible, and I can't see all the receivers. We have 4 receivers in routes, and Pitt has 4 DBs in coverage. One of our receivers is probably open, but you can't tell from this view if Sims could get them the ball.
The best reasonable hope on this is that Sims gets the ball out of bounds. This blitz vs our play call is a really good call--maybe it's lucky. If you knew this blitz was coming, a quick bubble screen gets good yardage because the DBs are mostly off the line.
The open slant is probably Sim's first read, and it looks like the worst place for the ball to go. I think he never saw the end, or never registered him.
The best option might be to get the ball out of bounds.
There was probably another receiver open in space, but there's no way to tell if Sims had an open passing lane to the receiver.


How much blame do I put on Sims? Some, and I'm not sure how much. Do I think Yates would have done better in this play? It seems like a play he does better on, but I think it's a brutal sack instead of an INT.

The following series, our defense just gets crushed. We really needed to hold them to no more than 3, and we couldn't stop them at all. Getting gashed on the run was the worst part of the follow-up Pitt drive.

Here's the second pick (spoiler protected):

Spoiler

We pull the LG. We show RPO again. We keep a TE in to block. Our line is getting driven back. (click the gear and watch on 0.25 speed). No funny stunts--Pitt rushes straight upfield with 7 and then pulls 2 back. Pitt's #5 has a double-team and is pushing the LT and TE back quickly. The end speed rushes around the pulling LG and gets to Sims with just a shoulder bump. Gibbs might have been able to block the end, but he goes out for an outlet pass. The DT #10 beats a double-team between the RG and RT.
View attachment 11324
Sims releases the ball quickly, but he's getting hit by two Pitt d-linemen and is about to get hit by a third. I don't put much blame on Sims for this one--the line blocking is falling apart almost instantly. The ball is out in 4 seconds, including a run fake.
Sims had a receiver open and it would have been 6 if he hadn't been hit.
The line just got wrecked on this play.

to be fair, if we had confused Pitt for even two plays, as you suggest, we would have been much better off. Both of those plays were INTs = 14 point hole.

 

[green&gold]

Key was at Alabama as OL coach and he’s bad? Laughable.

Look at his tenure at UCF. He got to bama only because he can recruit - and there's no doubt he can. But, if you look at our o-line coaching so far and you think he's doing a great job? Then your opinion is laughable. Our oline in year three is BAD. Every bama fan didn't realize he was even a coach there until us Tech fans pointed it out.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

Look at his tenure at UCF. He got to bama only because he can recruit - and there's no doubt he can. But, if you look at our o-line coaching so far and you think he's doing a great job? Then your opinion is laughable. Our oline in year three is BAD. Every bama fan didn't realize he was even a coach there until us Tech fans pointed it out.

But Bama had such a big drop off after he left.