Virginia Postgame

[Coloradojacket]

Defense did very well against Miami and Pitt, then not so great against Virginia. Seems the overall upward trend line is intact, though. They've allowed a total of 12 points in the last three 2nd halves combined. First halves weren't so great, but it would appear 2nd half adjustments are working. Or, they got stronger as the games wore on. Maybe it's better conditioning. Whatever it is, we're playing a lot better in the 2nd halves over the last three games.

Considering the number of D-lineman out and that position was thin to begin with and loss of line backers is showing. Also we faced probably the best QB from a duel attack that we will face all year. He has hardly been stopped.

 

[alagold]

WE played about as well as could be expected with a 16 pt line.The ole "wack-a-mole problem keeps coming up. (what bad is going to happen THIS week. ex-Did better on Off and bad on kick game.(coverage, FG, and the catch at 2) Good on fumbles but poor punting.
Getting better though.

 

[bobongo]

Realizing some of this is self-perpetuating, some the fault lies with the O in the 2nd half doing 3or4&Os, some ST, but there's a coupla telling stats that point to why the D had 2nd half probs:

At the half, TOP was even GT 14:27 UVa 15:33. In the 2nd half it was GT 10:19 UVa 19:41 final total GT 24:46 UVa 35:14.

Total Plays GT 54 (29+23) UVa 72 (36+36) after being fairly evenly split at the half, in spite of our quick opening drive & score.

It is much more physically taxing to play D than O. Given the number of DLs we have lost to injuries, and now some of the 2nd & 3rd level are going down, too, D performance is also influenced by how long the O can sustain their push/BigMo.

Guess that's why it's called a team.

But we've been very stingy with the points in the second half of the last three games. Interesting that UVa had the ball nearly 2/3 of the time in the 2nd half due to the offense getting a lot of 3 & 4's and out. But, the defense surrendered only 9 points in the 2nd half as opposed to 24 in the first half. And that is becoming a trend. Vs. Miami, 21 in the first half and 0 in the second. Vs. Pitt, 20 in the first half and 3 in the second. So are we perhaps in better conditioning than our opponents? As you say, defense is more physically taxing than offense and we are thin. Yet we are outperforming on D in the second half. Interesting.

To sum up, over the last three games we've given up 65 points in the first half and 12 in the second.

 

[yeti92]

Can we talk about the amount of non-calls against UVA on their first scoring drive? I counted at least 3 very obvious holds right in front of the refs on different plays and what seems to me should have been an unnecessary roughness call on the play where there guy downfield kept blocking our guy out of bounds and into the bench after the play was over. How do I become a ref, because I'd love to get paid for being about 50% at my job and only have to work for about 12 days a year.

 

[takethepoints]

I had three observations about the game. Some of them probably mentioned above, but I don't have the time to look. Apologies for repetitious material.

• Graham looked a lot better this week. Some of that is his being a freshman QB in this O. It has been mentioned here that he looks kinda like Joe Hamilton when he was a freshman. To some extent that's true. Joe used to really bother me when he first started; you never knew which Joe would show up. When the Good Joe turned up all was well, but that sure didn't happen regularly. Same with Graham. He was under as much pressure against Pitt as he was yesterday and he couldn't hit the board side of a barn. And his WRs did their bit by dropping the ball right and left when, remarkably, he did. Yesterday, it was all skittles and beer; no one could do any wrong. I think we can expect that to continue to happen. There's no question that he has the talent, however.
• Last week: Mason 15 carries, 61 yards, 3.7 ypc. Yesterday: Mason 19 carries, 94 yards, 4.9 ypc. This is so, so simple: give him 20 carries and he'll give you 100 yards or better (his gross yesterday was 103). Why, why, oh, Football Gods above, are we not doing this? I know some will say that it's a matter of watching film and if we are getting stuffed early. Horse pucky. It's a matter of planning to run and doing it. Shoot, if we gave Mason 30 carries, he'd probably give us north of 150 yards. Btw, it is no coincidence that the O works better when Mason gets established. Well, maybe the O staff will come around.
• All of a sudden, the OL is doing ok. (Not great, mind, but ok.) I think the answer here is simple as well: we've got most of our injured scholarship OLs back. And now they have had a couple of games to play together and get some communication going. As they get more game experience, we should continue to see improvement. Next year, everybody but Southers will be back and we'll have a couple of frosh coming in who look like they could play. But I think we can look for further improvement now as our present guys get more experience. Btw, this is not meant as a diss to our walk-on OLs who have contributed; some of them will do just fine in the future, given the chance.

Well, that's it. An encouraging performance. Nice to see Collins disappointed too; I was getting real tired of all that upbeat talk after every loss. He's right: losing sucks.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

Losing sucks but not all losses are the same. This season for GT is nothing more than a series of scrimmages for our staff to evaluate what we got and where we are going so I’m not losing sleep over any game or loss. I know many can’t handle that thought but it’s the simple truth. No one will remember this season in 6 months just like no one cares about the 2015 season right now. It’s gonna take 2-3 more recruiting cycles to turn over the roster but the path has been set and this staff is moving forward. The recruits are buying Collins and that’s all that matters. Y’all will be in your seats screaming and yelling when we start winning and no one will care how we got there.

 

[Scubapro]

Losing sucks but not all losses are the same. This season for GT is nothing more than a series of scrimmages for our staff to evaluate what we got and where we are going so I’m not losing sleep over any game or loss. I know many can’t handle that thought but it’s the simple truth. No one will remember this season in 6 months just like no one cares about the 2015 season right now. It’s gonna take 2-3 more recruiting cycles to turn over the roster but the path has been set and this staff is moving forward. The recruits are buying Collins and that’s all that matters. Y’all will be in your seats screaming and yelling when we start winning and no one will care how we got there.

I hope you are right.

 

[Animal02]

Losing sucks but not all losses are the same. This season for GT is nothing more than a series of scrimmages for our staff to evaluate what we got and where we are going so I’m not losing sleep over any game or loss. I know many can’t handle that thought but it’s the simple truth. No one will remember this season in 6 months just like no one cares about the 2015 season right now. It’s gonna take 2-3 more recruiting cycles to turn over the roster but the path has been set and this staff is moving forward. The recruits are buying Collins and that’s all that matters. Y’all will be in your seats screaming and yelling when we start winning and no one will care how we got there.

Saying no one cares about 2015 proves you are dead wrong.

 

[bobongo]

Can we talk about the amount of non-calls against UVA on their first scoring drive? I counted at least 3 very obvious holds right in front of the refs on different plays and what seems to me should have been an unnecessary roughness call on the play where there guy downfield kept blocking our guy out of bounds and into the bench after the play was over. How do I become a ref, because I'd love to get paid for being about 50% at my job and only have to work for about 12 days a year.

They go both ways. I thought there were a couple of times we could have gotten called for pass interference but weren't. ACC refs are pretty weak but the calls even out over the long term.

 

[stech81]

Losing sucks but not all losses are the same. This season for GT is nothing more than a series of scrimmages for our staff to evaluate what we got and where we are going so I’m not losing sleep over any game or loss. I know many can’t handle that thought but it’s the simple truth. No one will remember this season in 6 months just like no one cares about the 2015 season right now. It’s gonna take 2-3 more recruiting cycles to turn over the roster but the path has been set and this staff is moving forward. The recruits are buying Collins and that’s all that matters. Y’all will be in your seats screaming and yelling when we start winning and no one will care how we got there.

I really don't think our AD or CGC would say that or they would have to cut season ticket by half.

 

[LibertyTurns]

Saying no one cares about 2015 proves you are dead wrong.

I’m quite sure 100% of this board cared about 2015 & still cares that we plunged into the ditch that year. There were just markedly different reasons for the caring. There are defining moments & that year plus the 3-3 start at in 2016 did CPJ in. Despite the 9-4 record, 3-0 against the mighty SEC, AND beating Dook it was just a matter of time until he packed it in. I predict that was the most miserable 9-4 season we’ll ever see on the Flats. It was just godawful how divided the fanbase was for a season by overall record many in here define as successful.

 

[WreckinGT]

Losing sucks but not all losses are the same. This season for GT is nothing more than a series of scrimmages for our staff to evaluate what we got and where we are going so I’m not losing sleep over any game or loss. I know many can’t handle that thought but it’s the simple truth. No one will remember this season in 6 months just like no one cares about the 2015 season right now. It’s gonna take 2-3 more recruiting cycles to turn over the roster but the path has been set and this staff is moving forward. The recruits are buying Collins and that’s all that matters. Y’all will be in your seats screaming and yelling when we start winning and no one will care how we got there.

If you don’t care about wins and losses right now and won’t for a few years until the current group of guys are gone or replaced, then what exactly do you even get out of watching games right now?

 

[Milwaukee]

If you don’t care about wins and losses right now and won’t for a few years until the current group of guys are gone or replaced, then what exactly do you even get out of watching games right now?

Probably watching a team build and improve. It's very common actually, but it requires foresight. Take that as you may.

 

[Eli]

You can’t say family is the number one priority and then process kids. It just doesn’t match up.

Family's break up. Haven't you ever watched Oprah ?

 

[WreckinGT]

Probably watching a team build and improve. It's very common actually, but it requires foresight. Take that as you may.

If you are waiting for all of the current untalented players to be gone then what building and improvement has meaning to you?

I’ll tell you what is actually common. Rooting for the guys you have and not pretending they aren’t capable of winning games with good coaching.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

I really don't think our AD or CGC would say that or they would have to cut season ticket by half.

No kidding they wouldn’t SAY it, but actions always speak louder than words. TStan set all of this in motion during the hiring phase. Do you think he and Collins didn’t create this game plan together? Remember when we waited over a month to hire Key? Do you not believe TStan wasn’t totally on board? Do you remember when we rotated QB’s the first 4 games? You don’t think TStan was in the loop? Come on, every move this AD and staff has done from day 1 has been about the long term. From helicopters to social media to rotating players it has all been about the future. And yes, I’ve enjoyed this season because I enjoy watching the behind the scenes of how things get built. Right now, we are clearing the lot and putting in the footers.

 

[bobongo]

If you are waiting for all of the current untalented players to be gone then what building and improvement has meaning to you?

I’ll tell you what is actually common. Rooting for the guys you have and not pretending they aren’t capable of winning games with good coaching.

As for me, I care about winning but realistically I understand it's an uphill climb right now. I'm not going to get too frustrated or down on players or coaches for losing, as long as they're doing their best and I can see improvement. We're all "rooting for the guys we have".

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

If you are waiting for all of the current untalented players to be gone then what building and improvement has meaning to you?

I’ll tell you what is actually common. Rooting for the guys you have and not pretending they aren’t capable of winning games with good coaching.

I hear you but we don’t have the depth right now so our good players are being left out to dry by the incapable ones. I can promise you that Graham, Juanyeh, Thomas, and Swilling are also happily looking towards the future as they see the caliber of recruits Collins is going after. I would tend to believe our entire team is looking forward to getting a competent kicker.

 

[tmhunter52]

Folks have noted that the guys have played hard this year, and I think one big reason for that may be the way Collins treats them. I noticed that after Juanyeh made the fair catch at the 2-yard line, he didn't get in his face and yell at him on the sideline as we've seen some other coaches do. He put his hand on his shoulder and talked to him about it in a calm manner, using the occasion as a teachable moment, I would imagine about field and situational awareness. Another time he was calmly giving Curry some extra coaching on the sideline after he got himself out of position and missed an opportunity to stop Perkins from making a long gain. It's one thing to excoriate a player in private, but I always cringe when a coach does it in public. It's refreshing to see Collins does not do this. I really like that about him and it's a refreshing change from some of the antics we've seen in the past.

I know some successful coaches do bark at players on the sideline, but I like Collins' style much better and I think it fits our situation. There's no need in my book to have some screaming public scene with players who are just trying their best.

We know that Collins is gentle with his players’ psyches. Maybe that’s the way it needs to be for players used to getting participation trophies growing up.

 

[Tech93]

O line is getting better. Got young talent at skill positions. Graham should be good, but needs to get more consistent with accuracy. Could have kept a couple of drives going in 4th quarter had he hit open receivers which may have changed outcome of game. He should improve by next season, but have to have a good QB to be successful.
Kicking game is horrific.
Need front seven improvement going into next year on D.