Virginia Postgame

[MountainBuzzMan]

I’ve been a huge homer for Collins the last 2 seasons. Love the energy, the love of GT and Atlanta, he’s a local guy, etc. I’ve tried to give him some cover with the “scrimmage“ seasons rhetoric even though elementary coaching mistakes were being made every week. This year should have been different but it’s not because he just isn’t a good game day coach and it’s obvious not much development is taking place. Those who say Sims is getting better are accurate. But it’s not due to coaching, it’s due to natural progression of an athlete getting playing time. What we see from Sims is a kid who is better because he is playing, so naturally he’s going to get more comfortable and use to game speed. If he was getting any coaching at all he would be way beyond where he is now after getting double digit starts.

A random thing I saw from Collins this week which speaks volumes is on a UVA pass play where the WR caught it and our DB pushed him back 5 yards and Collins is pleading with the ref to spot it at the point where he hit the ground and not 5 yards upfield where his progress was stopped. It’s like he doesn’t even know the rules. In fairness (although it just may have been the TV angle) I didn’t notice him fighting ball boys for the ball to hand to the ref this week. I like the guy, but I’ve never seen high school coaches do the goofy stuff he does on the sideline. He does everything except actually coach. Most coaches are already thinking of the next play before the ball is even snapped on the current play. Collins from what we see is almost like a fan. The play is over, he argues about a spot or fiddles with the ball or dabs everyone up all while the next play clock has started and then he thinks, oh, it’s 2nd and 5. Did y’all notice when he was yelling to the team that it was 4th down. What kind of head coach has to tell his grown arse players what down it is instead of matching wits with the opposing coach. If we were improving I could laugh this off as just his goofiness, but if he does this during games I can only imagine what team practices are like.

It is not dissimilar to being a CEO, you have to understand your own strengths and weakness. Then fill in a staff around yourself that helps balance out everyone's strengths and weaknesses.
I do think he has a lot of what it takes to be a good head coach. But actually coaching is not one of them. His job is to bring in the talent and build up Tech as a place to come play and making it relevant with the media. His job is also to bring in the coaches under him who are actual coaches and not afraid to push back a little. Not bring in your friends or people you like.

Until he can recognize that, then this whole experiment is doomed to failure. Each loss bringing it closer to a crashing end. He has almost zero runway left before people will stop buying his crap.
He has got to fix the defense and find a way to finish strong this year or there is a real risk of this recruiting class falling apart and we have a lame duck coach for 2 more years until we can afford to try again. Except hopefully pick a real coach not a spokes person. I honestly hope he can find a way to fix the Defense

 

[Yaller Jacket]

I can see in the next couple of years this team looking like some of the PJ years. That is, having an offense no one can stop and a defense who stops no one. As Sims and the line and excellent backs and receivers mature and Sims learns not to throw into coverage.

I don't have anything against the 3 man front, but I do not like it when we only rush three. I don't care if we had 8 Deon Sanders covering, if you get no pressure, one of the receivers will get free and a quarterback with no pressure will find him and throw it to him. If we had a single cat-quick, athletic rush end who can shed a block, that would do wonders.

I thought we played the conventional run pretty well. What killed us was the QB keepers and passing plays when he tucked it and ran.

Let's give UVA some credit for making some good plays, especially 99.

 

[Jacket05]

Here are a couple of my thoughts:

• We have played 4 straight games with offenses ranked in the top 20 of total offense with Pitt and Virginia as #4&5 respectively (yes somehow Duke is #16). So these teams have been putting up big numbers against most of the teams they played this year. It is not like we made terrible offenses and QBs look like world beaters.
• There are still glaring deficiencies on our defense. We are constantly dropping 8 into caverage but still managing to leave receivers wide open. This is extremely frustrating as our secondary is our most veteran group and supposed to be Collins specialty. We are also not able to get pressure fast enough with only 3 rushers. The 3-3-5 worked great against UNC when we were bringing a 4th and sometimes 5th rusher from different places every play. This caused missed assignments on D and allowed a more effective pass rush. It seems like we have mostly abandoned that since then.
• I have been very critical of the OL this year but they played much better tonight even through the injuries. Another positive thing I wanted to note, when lining up 2 plays after Paula had the holding call it was clear he was still getting on himself about it, but Cochran noticed and stopped him to coach him up so he didn't let it effect his play moving forward.
• Sims gives us the best chance to win games but he HAS to get the INT issue fixed! I did see some improvements this game from him too. He held onto the ball well on some tough runs where he had previously had issues fumbling. It also seemed like he did a much better job working down his progressions in the passing game.
• Kick-off unit may be the best unit on the team.
• The Braves are going to the World Series for the first time this century!

 

[bke1984]

If we had any sort of defense , we would be PRAISING his improvement after this game. Can he get better ? Sure !! But last time I looked FB is a team game.

Maybe if you look at stats. Watch the plays man. He gets rattled and throws into a mess of defenders far too often. Gotta stop.

 

[Tjacket]

Maybe we should get a respected defensive-minded coach……oh, wait…..

Yes new DC wait this is the good “ole”boy staff

 

[LibertyTurns]

We have played 4 straight games with offenses ranked in the top 20 of total offense with Pitt and Virginia as #4&5 respectively (yes somehow Duke is #16). So these teams have been putting up big numbers against most of the teams they played this year. It is not like we made terrible offenses and QBs look like world beaters.

As of last week’s games Vag offense is #17, Unc is #21, Pitt is #40, Dook is #111. Yesterday was technically the first Top 20 offense we have faced. Not sure the statistics are able to differentiate down to a single rank, so let’s call it 2. GT’s defense is #83, not too far ahead is the offense at #75. We got a long way to go to field a P5 level defense OR offense.

In case anyone is wondering, Vag defense was #91 coming into the game. Was not surprising we scored on them, was surprising the relative lack of production in the 2nd & 3rd quarter.

2021 COLLEGE FOOTBALL OFFENSIVE FEI RATINGS | Football Outsiders

Rk Team Rec FBS OFEI ODE Rk OTD Rk OVD Rk OFD Rk OBD Rk OTO Rk 1 Ohio State 11-2 11-2 2.08 1.85 1 .508 1 .648 1 .891 1 .016 1 .078 24 2

www.footballoutsiders.com

 

[alagold]

I hope no one looks at the score and thinks how "close we came". Even in the age of offense,our DEF is dreadful. It seems every QB is a All-am vs us. We have some talent on Def but the coordination is really BAD at times.On the (goalline we had 2 guys cover one rec and allow the QB to walk in) in just 1 instance.Lots of passes but no ints and few PBUs. LBs that can't get off blocks in a 3-3-5, can't happen.

Getting THREE on-side kicks doesn't NEARLY overcome the --ints, missed blocks and tackles (#18 for a TD), and blown assignments.

 

[Jacket05]

As of last week’s games Vag offense is #17, Unc is #21, Pitt is #40, Dook is #111. Yesterday was technically the first Top 20 offense we have faced. Not sure the statistics are able to differentiate down to a single rank, so let’s call it 2. GT’s defense is #83, not too far ahead is the offense at #75. We got a long way to go to field a P5 level defense OR offense.

In case anyone is wondering, Vag defense was #91 coming into the game. Was not surprising we scored on them, was surprising the relative lack of production in the 2nd & 3rd quarter.

2021 COLLEGE FOOTBALL OFFENSIVE FEI RATINGS | Football Outsiders

Rk Team Rec FBS OFEI ODE Rk OTD Rk OVD Rk OFD Rk OBD Rk OTO Rk 1 Ohio State 11-2 11-2 2.08 1.85 1 .508 1 .648 1 .891 1 .016 1 .078 24 2

www.footballoutsiders.com

The screenshot below is total offense prior to our game. After yesterday's games Duke and UNC moved up to 14&15.

NCAA College Football FBS current team Stats | NCAA.com

Discover the current NCAA FBS Football leaders in every stats category, as well as historic leaders.

www.ncaa.com

 

[Buzzbomb]

Why do folks continually bring up Duke and their top 20 offensive rating?
Cut. ran up some big numbers vs. NC A&T, Charlotte, Kansas and NW.
I believe they scored 7 total points against UNCheat and The French, combined.
Getting 27 vs. our Defense should be their highlight game, but unfortunately we have a deteriorating unit.

 

[LibertyTurns]

The screenshot below is total offense prior to our game. After yesterday's games Duke and UNC moved up to 14&15.

NCAA College Football FBS current team Stats | NCAA.com

Discover the current NCAA FBS Football leaders in every stats category, as well as historic leaders.

www.ncaa.com

View attachment 11480

Padding stats in garbage time against garbage teams doesn‘t equal being a good team, but you keep crowing about our historic effort against the mighty Dook offense if it makes you feel good about our phenomenal defense.

 

[forensicbuzz]

And the blocked extra point is another one....

PAT=point after touchdown. Did we miss 2?

 

[forensicbuzz]

I'm happy you feel like that but if you see things that need to be fixed it's sad the coaches don't ( or know how to fix them ) Offense I see improvement , defense I don't not even a little. And think back to each game when you say Armstrong isn't trash ( no he ain't) but why is it everyone we play has a good to great QB , could it be our BD's .

As far as the players will get better than you have to coach them up , other than CTC I have not seen any of them able to coach players up.

I remember something my high school said to a player one day , son you have potential and he ask the player what did that mean, The player said no , and the coach said maybe one day you will be good but right now you play like sh*t.

On defense you need players who want to hit and hit hard I'm not seeing many who do.

We all are things that need to be fixed. So do the coaches. That doesn’t mean they wave a magic wand and cure all ills. Some things just aren’t fixable without better personnel, somethings will fix themselves with a little bit of maturation.

It seems you are fixated with the coaching staff not seeing the things you see. I guarantee you they see everything you see and probably 10X more. Some things just take time.

Remember, we have a bunch of young kids playing significant minutes. Other coaches, really smart coaches who are paid a lot of money, are game-planning each week to take advantage of their inexperience. It takes time for these kids to build up a “history” of looks and the knowledge how to adjust to these looks. It’s a freakin chess match sometimes. Point/Counterpoint.

 

[Jacket05]

Padding stats in garbage time against garbage teams doesn‘t equal being a good team, but you keep crowing about our historic effort against the mighty Dook offense if it makes you feel good about our phenomenal defense.

First off I never said we had a good D, in fact I said that we have glaring deficiencies. Second I agree that Duke probably shouldn't be up there and is likely padded by a few games but we also didn't play that bad against them. However Howell, Pickitt, and Armstrong are all regarded as some of the best QB's in college football. In addition, each one of them has a big time WR in Downs, Addison, and Thompson. My point was that everyone was making it out like these are all terrible offenses and we just made them look like they were good. I understand that is a common issue with GT defenses in the past but I don't think is the case here.

 

[slugboy]

It is hard to win a game when do go through a stretch where you are out scored 48-14. This team has way too many stretches like that where the defense totally collapses. Didn’t Pitt score 42 in the first half? In my memory, Tech has never had a front four capable of regularly pressuring the QB since 1990, and we have never had a great defense, but it seems they have always been better prepared and coached than this.

We have good DEs and decent DTs. We can improve our DL play, but to me, I see more problems in the back 7-8 than in the front 3-4.

Here’s the condensed game. Go to any UVA offensive play. Count seconds after the snap. Armstrong is getting the ball off in under three seconds, often faster than that. The only sack is going to be a straight up jailbreak or one player just whipping their blockers.

I’ll give you that there’s room for DLine improvement, but receivers are open from the get-go and we’re missing tackles too. They’re also getting blocked. There are glaring coverage problems.

 

[stech81]

It seems you are fixated with the coaching staff not seeing the things you see. I guarantee you they see everything you see and probably 10X more. Some things just take time.

Yes I don't think this defensive coaching staff can fix anything. And The Head Coach talks about how good his defenses were at Miss State and UF, I would say talk is cheap ( if you think 2 m is cheap). Problem now no avg or good defensive coach would come here to work. So all I can say is oh crap 4 more years of excuses.

 

[billga99]

The key to me is progress. On defense outside of the NC and Kennesaw St. game (and Clemson ineptness on offense against everyone), we have had a tough time stopping the other teams on our schedule. By the way, these were the first 4 games we played including Northern Illinois which had its moments but not on the last drive. The last 3 teams we have faced have been Pittsburgh 580 yards, Duke 489 yards, and UVA 636 yards averaging 571 yards. My guess is we will struggle against every other offense we face this year. We struggle against the run some and the pass a lot. Collins came in with 2 big pluses, recruiting and his performance as a Defense Coordinator at Ms. State and Florida. Recruiting has improved but the defense is no better than under PJ. And with our much faster pace of our offense (versus the 3O offense), the defense's struggles have been really exposed in a lot more drives per game, and a lot more points against us. I really think we need a new DC and a more varied schemes on defense. I don't know enough about the defense position coaches but clearly that needs to be reviewed in terms of how their groups are performing and their ability to recruit for their positions on whether they should continue.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

Collins and Stansbury need to talk.

Statement of the year award!

 

[bke1984]

He got slapped in the head. Of course, it was going to be not as accurate.

If you are going to grade the non INTs, grade the drops of Kalani and McGowan that were perfect throws

Oh I agree those were bad. And he gets credit for good throws. But only one of those made a difference.

But c’mon man, he’s got to be a better decision maker. What about the 2-3 other passes where he just chucks the ball into a group of defenders randmonly trying to make something happen?

 

[takethepoints]

I didn't watch the game - I watched the Braves (yay!). But, come on, 636 yards total O? And 240 of that on the ground? I mean, these guys had a hard time getting to 100 YPG rushing before they ran into Tech. We're getting better on O ourselves (at least against teams that, you know, can't stop anybody), but I expected that we would get better on D this year. After all, Collins is supposedly a D guru. Instead, another track meet ensued. Also, I noticed that we had diddly in sacks and TFLs. Part of that is Armstrong, of course, but we need more pressure in the worst way.

Well, maybe more when I watch the game film. I'm not, mind, disappointed; this was at Scott Stadium, after all, and I didn't expect to win. But it does make getting to even 5 wins more difficult. I don't see one team left that we'll be favored against.

 

[bke1984]

When you rush 3, you have 8 in coverage. The offense has 6 eligible receivers, and one is the QB, which means you have 8 people covering 6. You can do this, especially on third and 12.

Yes, you can. But it’s generally a good idea to you know…cover with those 7 that you have back there rather than putting them in the softest zone imaginable.