This WIN is a sneak peek of what CGC has in mind

Lee

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
841
There are just way too many negative plays happening. That’s my primary beef and one game with some marginal improvements doesn’t change it yet. More marginal improvements come in the next couple of games and my opinion will be subject to change.

You obviously have a right to feel that way. I was out of the country for the Temple game, but I think if you looked at that game and then watched this game, it would look almost night and day on offense.

We aren’t going to be the Patriots overnight. I think some have unrealistic expectations for this offense this year. I do feel if Graham hadn’t had to bust his hump in the spring and was able to focus more on football and our coaches didn’t have to worry about whether or not he would be eligible, he would’ve been the starter and we would be further along. That JMO though.
 

Lee

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
841
Do we have to asterisk the game because 7 of our points needed to get to OT were on a fluke play by a LB disguised as a punter who was actually playing QB?

Guess we will have to put an asterisk on the 2008 GT/Clemson game too. Our kicker threw a TD that game and we only won by 3.

Oh, we also had a punt return for a TD as well. Some people just want to look for something to complain about. I’m going to enjoy the win!
 
Messages
13,443
Location
Augusta, GA
I don’t think he or others understand what the word improvement mean. Improvement doesn’t mean that everything is fixed. It means that things are better than they were the week before and earlier in the year.

How anyone watching our offense today could say the offense isn’t improved or hint that it hasn’t because of points scored baffles me.

To your point that our staff isn’t putting guys in position to succeed consistently, how do you know this? There are things I can see and there are things I just don’t know. Some listed below.

I don’t know:

1. Enough about Oline play and the intricacies of our scheme to comment on that.
2. How ready Graham was after a shortened spring and Fall camp to start the season as QB1
3. What this team would look like if Graham had of not been hurt against the Citadel
4. What Graham’s grasp was of the playbook in his early work this season or even his first start.
5. Same above for our Oline

I do know:

1. Graham taking over has changed the whole feel of the offense.
2. The offense has looked better every game since Graham took over
3. The offense is developing legitimate balance since Graham took over
4. The offensive line has gotten better since Graham took over.
5. The running game has improved the last 3 weeks.

What do you see/know that leads you to believe we aren’t putting players in a position to succeed? I’ll add to stay within our new scheme and not running the old offense (not that you were going there, but someone might).

I’m not trying to be combative, I genuinely want to know if I’m missing something. I’m a baseball guy that stopped playing football my sophomore year in HS. I by no means have all the answers.

Lastly, I agree with your hope that we continue to take 2 steps forward. I would just add that our steps backward get smaller (or go away!)
Not disputing your evaluation of Graham in the least, but some of what you credit him for having done, could probably have been done by ANY QB that the coaches decided on as the starting QB. It was the constant random rotation of QBs, even within a given series of plays, that affected the whole feel of the offense. I thought it would end up being Graham before the season ended anyway, but they should have settled on one long before last week, and just let him take his lumps until he fell flat on his face or really grew into the job. I am pleased as hell with Graham's performance, but just think where he would be now if they had settled on him 3 weeks ago. And if he wasn't ready 3 weeks ago, then Tobias should have gotten the nod until Graham WAS ready. So how does he get ready, you might ask? Well, I think he would have had more of a chance than he actually got with all the rotation, if he had just come in when Tobias wasn't getting it done.
 

jacket_fan

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
756
Location
Milton, Georgia
If there is a complaint about improvement, is that the offense (Pnude) scored 7 points in 4 quarters. And yes, 7 points is better than 0 against Temple. And yes there has been improvement in individual performances, the offense has yet to hit it's stride. And Miami has a highly ranked P5 defense. And the offense did score more on Miami than Temple. So yes, there is improvement. But to gush too much seems too much.

I give the staff tons of credit for the scheming on special teams. And for instilling the guts to play hard all game long.

A great victory for the entire team.

It did seem like Tech wanted it more than Miami.
 

Vespidie

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
158
Location
Albuquerque
We had 345 yards of offense. I’m thrilled we won, but the idea that the offense was somehow much improved is not close to accurate. We had nine possessions, six of which ended with a punt, another ended with a turnover, and another ended with a fake punt. In 60:00 of regulation, the offense reached its destination one time.

If there was improvement, it was shown in the 16 play drive and the 14 play drive. Ironically, neither of those drives ended with points.

However we did relatively well running the balll against a run defense that was perceived to be pretty good, so I’d consider that a marked improvement.


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Vespidie

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
158
Location
Albuquerque
Really great to win, but our OLs and DLs are still a complete mismatch with Miami’s. We are going to have to recruit, recruit, recruit if we expect to ever win consistently.

Our O-line and D-line will be at a disadvantage against the rest of our opponents. It’s a fact that ain’t changing this year and maybe next, and I’m quite sure if we as fans know it, then the coaching staff definitely knows it. Time and patience are our friends.


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RonJohn

Helluva Engineer
Messages
4,528
You obviously have a right to feel that way. I was out of the country for the Temple game, but I think if you looked at that game and then watched this game, it would look almost night and day on offense.

The Temple game wasn't horrible on offense except for constant turnovers. The strategy in the Clemson game seemed to be run with Oliver. Not a bad strategy because I don't think anything the team in the first game in a new system against a team as good and deep as Clemson would have done better than what happened in that game. The next few games had constantly changing QBs and running plays that didn't work, and didn't appear to have any chance of working. In the Citadel game, Oliver was moving the ball well. If he got in a third and long during a long drive, instead of seeing if Oliver could get a first or gain enough to be close enough to go for it on fourth, they sent in Johnson who was sacked a couple of times I think. It has appeared that when something starts working, they quickly went away from it and tried plays that didn't play off of the successful plays. In the second half of the Duke game, it was like playground ball, just take long shots on every play. It worked on three drives, but two or three other drives were three and out so it left the defense on the field for a very long time.

In the Miami game, there were issues and mistakes. However,(this is just my opinion from watching the game live) the play calling consistently used what was working. They put in an extremely quick slant pass. They put in that jet sweep--forward pitch pass play. Mason ran really well, and they used his running to set up pass plays. They used option concepts more. They put in motion that could have been used for a rocket toss. They put Graham under center on some short yardage plays.

In short it appeared to my untrained eyes as though the game plan was better thought out than in previous games. I don't think all of the progress on offense in this game was due to players playing better. I think at least part of it was due to the offensive coaches putting them in better positions to get good results. The play ratio was 60/40 run/pass. There were three sacks, so it was probably 55/45 play selection. I think a lot of what some people have been complaining about with respect to Patenaude has been the appearance of trying to force 60/40 pass/run with players who can't do that.
 

pbrown520

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
586
We didn't score much, but the offense was still much better this game. We actually sustained drives which ended up helping the defense tremendously. At one point in the second half we had run 35 plays to their 10. I was pleased. It was nice to see some new play packages that looked well prepped.
 

Lee

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
841
Not disputing your evaluation of Graham in the least, but some of what you credit him for having done, could probably have been done by ANY QB that the coaches decided on as the starting QB. It was the constant random rotation of QBs, even within a given series of plays, that affected the whole feel of the offense. I thought it would end up being Graham before the season ended anyway, but they should have settled on one long before last week, and just let him take his lumps until he fell flat on his face or really grew into the job. I am pleased as hell with Graham's performance, but just think where he would be now if they had settled on him 3 weeks ago. And if he wasn't ready 3 weeks ago, then Tobias should have gotten the nod until Graham WAS ready. So how does he get ready, you might ask? Well, I think he would have had more of a chance than he actually got with all the rotation, if he had just come in when Tobias wasn't getting it done.

I agree with you in that I did not like the 3 qb rotation. I also think if we had stuck with Oliver early we would have beaten the Citadel as well.

By no means do I not think they could’ve handled the qb situation better. Quite the opposite. But I do have to admit, I do not have near the information they did to make the decision. In their defense, I think their hesitation with Oliver being “the guy” is that he can’t do the things that Graham can to open the offense up. I personally had much higher hopes for Johnson and was hoping he was going to be the guy going into the season, but that didn’t pan out.

I also think that they got stuck between wanting to show what the new offense would look like and purely trying to win (in the Citadel game) and it backfired. It was obvious that Oliver needed to finish that game as the qb. If we got that right and won that game, this whole forum would be much different right now.

Outside of the Citadel game though, it’s hard for me to critique their QB usage (even though I would’ve liked to have seen Graham earlier in the Clemson game).

Having one guy leads to continuity and we are seeing that. I’m excited to watch the continued progression!
 

Lee

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
841
The Temple game wasn't horrible on offense except for constant turnovers. The strategy in the Clemson game seemed to be run with Oliver. Not a bad strategy because I don't think anything the team in the first game in a new system against a team as good and deep as Clemson would have done better than what happened in that game. The next few games had constantly changing QBs and running plays that didn't work, and didn't appear to have any chance of working. In the Citadel game, Oliver was moving the ball well. If he got in a third and long during a long drive, instead of seeing if Oliver could get a first or gain enough to be close enough to go for it on fourth, they sent in Johnson who was sacked a couple of times I think. It has appeared that when something starts working, they quickly went away from it and tried plays that didn't play off of the successful plays. In the second half of the Duke game, it was like playground ball, just take long shots on every play. It worked on three drives, but two or three other drives were three and out so it left the defense on the field for a very long time.

In the Miami game, there were issues and mistakes. However,(this is just my opinion from watching the game live) the play calling consistently used what was working. They put in an extremely quick slant pass. They put in that jet sweep--forward pitch pass play. Mason ran really well, and they used his running to set up pass plays. They used option concepts more. They put in motion that could have been used for a rocket toss. They put Graham under center on some short yardage plays.

In short it appeared to my untrained eyes as though the game plan was better thought out than in previous games. I don't think all of the progress on offense in this game was due to players playing better. I think at least part of it was due to the offensive coaches putting them in better positions to get good results. The play ratio was 60/40 run/pass. There were three sacks, so it was probably 55/45 play selection. I think a lot of what some people have been complaining about with respect to Patenaude has been the appearance of trying to force 60/40 pass/run with players who can't do that.

I don’t disagree with most of what you posted. The thing I would ask that you consider is the gameflow.

I won’t comment on the Temple or UNC games (I was out of the country for both). The Duke game got out of hand in the 2nd quarter. While I think we were trying to run our offense once we got down several scores. A big part of me thinks we were working on some things while trying to hit explosive plays.

This is really the first game since Citadel that we haven’t had to get out of our gameplan.

Could the playcalling have been better? Yes. Would the Duke game have been different if Graham hit Oliver on the wide open post route to put us up 14-3. I think that’s a yes too. Not only because of the score, but also because of the confidence it would’ve given Graham and the whole offense. Little things like that, while seemingly small, could’ve had a significant difference on game flow and outcomes. Especially with young players.
 

Whiskey_Clear

Banned
Messages
10,486
Guess we will have to put an asterisk on the 2008 GT/Clemson game too. Our kicker threw a TD that game and we only won by 3.

Oh, we also had a punt return for a TD as well. Some people just want to look for something to complain about. I’m going to enjoy the win!

Seems as if , in another time, we had a place kicker take a direct snap while set up to kick a field goal. Yet he threw it to a receiver for a TD instead.

Don’t seem to recall anyone taking exception back then.

Amen brother!

Are you guys even aware of the context of the initial discussion here? It was about a drive ending in a fake punt. Not that there was something bad about scoring on a fake punt. Just checking because it’s hard to tell when y’all mad. :D
 

Whiskey_Clear

Banned
Messages
10,486
Our O-line and D-line will be at a disadvantage against the rest of our opponents. It’s a fact that ain’t changing this year and maybe next, and I’m quite sure if we as fans know it, then the coaching staff definitely knows it. Time and patience are our friends.


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So we have more line talent than Miami but less than everyone else we play the rest of the year and next year and including Miami?

You must think today was a fluke win?
 

Lee

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
841
Are you guys even aware of the context of the initial discussion here? It was about a drive ending in a fake punt. Not that there was something bad about scoring on a fake punt. Just checking because it’s hard to tell when y’all mad. :D

Are you aware that the whole context if his posts in this thread are to diminish what the offense did today?

Pointing out that this has happened before (ironically in CPJ’s 1st year) almost in the exact same scenario was to show the ridiculousness of the comment.

Whether our punter threw a td pass or not has no reflection on the offense and their improvement today. It was one play. A big play none the less. If it didn’t happen and we lost with the same offensive output, I would’ve still said the offense improved. I wouldn’t be as happy, but that doesn’t change the truth of the previous statement.
 

Whiskey_Clear

Banned
Messages
10,486
Are you aware that the whole context if his posts in this thread are to diminish what the offense did today?

Pointing out that this has happened before (ironically in CPJ’s 1st year) almost in the exact same scenario was to show the ridiculousness of the comment.

Whether our punter threw a td pass or not has no reflection on the offense and their improvement today. It was one play. A big play none the less. If it didn’t happen and we lost with the same offensive output, I would’ve still said the offense improved. I wouldn’t be as happy, but that doesn’t change the truth of the previous statement.
I think you are responding to his appraisal of the offense today emotionally rather than logically.
 

Southpawmac

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,111
So we have more line talent than Miami but less than everyone else we play the rest of the year and next year and including Miami?

You must think today was a fluke win?
We don’t have more line talent than Miami. Just cause we won doesn’t mean our line is more talented just that we played better this particular day. If talent was everything there would never be upsets. I could make a three pointer and Trae Young could miss right after me. That wouldn’t mean I was more talented than him.
 
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