VT Postgame

[bke1984]

Two things:
1. I feel that you cannot exclude those first quarter yards to surpport your points. The first quarter is still part of the game that we played and we came out out with a good game plan and caught VT off gaurd.
2. You cant forget this is still a Bud Foster Defense that gives us fits every year. Those are some big dudes on that line and we were moving the ball pretty well. Besides 2 or 3 drives where they beat us, how many of our drives were cut short bc of self inflicted issues. I am counting 4 off the top of my head - 3 fumbles and 1 unsportsmanlike penalty. That is a lot of potential yards lost when we were moving the ball pretty well on those drives.

Based on those two observations and using the eye test, I feel we were not too bad on offense. Were we great? No, but I feel our offense was good enough to win last night. I am just dumbfounded what happened with ball security.

Look, I'm all for being optimistic, but that ship has sailed this season.

We were horrible on offense. CPJ will tell you the same thing...so will anyone on the staff and anyone that played in the game. We ran 60 plays for 258 total yards. 58 of them came on one play because of a massive blown coverage on the first drive. We averaged 3.4 yards per play the rest of the game. You are not going to win football games with those numbers.

Do I think our offensive scheme is bad? Not really. I actually really liked the screens and passes to the flats that finally showed back up (though we probably won't see them again until 2017). I just think our offensive line is bad. If it were just VT I might see your point, but everyone we've played has pretty much shut us down. We have a bad offense this year.

 

[Eastman]

The record this year has been horrible disappointment for me but as I worked on business year-end reviews, I had to smile when I thought about how glad I am that many of you on this board will not be writing my year-end review. If my year started like the TECH team losing a huge amount of talent and then an inordinate amount of injuries to key personnel caused me to have to use a large number of first year employees that I know are young, inexperienced and therefore not fully ready, I wouldn't be expecting a successful year. Before the year started I certainly was full of unjustified hope and that has now been crushed for this year but I am still optimistic for the future so that's what I'm going to focus on.

 

[bke1984]

The record this year has been horrible disappointment for me but as I worked on business year-end reviews, I had to smile when I thought about how glad I am that many of you on this board will not be writing my year-end review. If my year started like the TECH team losing a huge amount of talent and then an inordinate amount of injuries to key personnel caused me to have to use a large number of first year employees that I know are young, inexperienced and therefore not fully ready, I wouldn't be expecting a successful year. Before the year started I certainly was full of unjustified hope and that has now been crushed for this year but I am still optimistic for the future so that's what I'm going to focus on.

Lol. Good analogy. However, I'm not sure it's the young guys that have caused the brunt of our problems. Imagine if your well established employees just forgot how to do their jobs for the entire year and made mistakes week after week that caused your business to underperform. How would their reviews turn out?

 

[first&ten]

Offense didn't look bad are freaking kidding me

Right on killem! The offensive genius johnson could only produce 14 points, all in the first quarter.

 

[AE 87]

Right on killem! The offensive genius johnson could only produce 14 points, all in the first quarter.

LOL. This!!! Why in the world did we keep calling that fumble play. And then that nonsense about not playing MM because of fumbles but playing MA and Snoddy who must have been fumbling like crazy during practice. I mean, we've got a track record here. In 30 years of coaching, he's had an offense implode like this, ... never. It must be the coach. LOL. Stupid is what stupid says.

 

[iceeater1969]

Looking from ground level , it sure appears the defense seems to know our plays better than us. A split second after snap they are headed to the ball. They almost intercepted the lateral as it arrived to the ab. There was no time to cut nor was there any place to go as a second defended was almost there. The vt players what ever their ability plus their coaching crushed the TO when it went wider than qb keep.



I

 

[Declinometer]

For some reason it looked like on the snaps, Burden was snapping the ball a half a count late. It was strange. At times it looked like procedure on the offense.

 

[gtg936g]

Very frustrating game, like a lot of others this year. We just can't consistently execute, and we can't stretch the field vertically enough to make defenses respect the pass. This equates to an inept offense. Sometimes failure leads to success later on. Maybe that will be the case for us next year.

 

[awbuzz]

with the backs and the o-line making errors in blocking for pass protect, it's hard to stretch the field with the long pass.

 

[Lee]

with the backs and the o-line making errors in blocking for pass protect, it's hard to stretch the field with the long pass.

Which is why we should have continued to gash them with the screens and dump offs to the flat that killed them all 4 times we did it.

This is what is frustrating to me. When Paul finds a running play that the other team can't stop, he will run it until they prove they can. The 2nd half of the MSU and Ugag games last year come to mind. Why can we not do the same with the little short passing game until the other team makes an adjustment?

I'm not saying run it every play, but once or twice a series when we are struggling to move the ball is not too much to ask IMO. Doing so might slow down the aggressiveness of the defense and take some pressure of of our already struggling Oline leading to more success in running our bread and butter. Seems like common sense to me, but I guess I'm missing something.

I think PJ is a very good offensive mind. When he's got guys that know exactly what to do and where to be, he is great at in game adjustments. Changing blocking schemes, splits, and little nuances are where he makes his money. Where he struggles, IMO, is putting guys in the best position to succeed when they don't know where to go all of the time or can't execute everything this offense demands. I think if he could learn to simplify things and find alternative ways to make the defense pay for selling out when we obviously can't block them, this offense will be unstoppable.

The thing is, I know he has some of this in his playbook because we saw it in the dump offs and screens. Why he doesn't run stuff like that more I don't know. It seems to be more of an ego thing than anything else.

 

[JacketFromUGA]

Why he doesn't run stuff like that more I don't know. It seems to be more of an ego thing than anything else.

Perception bias I feel here

 

[iceeater1969]

Which is why we should have continued to gash them with the screens and dump offs to the flat that killed them all 4 times we did it.

This is what is frustrating to me. When Paul finds a running play that the other team can't stop, he will run it until they prove they can. The 2nd half of the MSU and Ugag games last year come to mind. Why can we not do the same with the little short passing game until the other team makes an adjustment?

I'm not saying run it every play, but once or twice a series when we are struggling to move the ball is not too much to ask IMO. Doing so might slow down the aggressiveness of the defense and take some pressure of of our already struggling Oline leading to more success in running our bread and butter. Seems like common sense to me, but I guess I'm missing something.

I think PJ is a very good offensive mind. When he's got guys that know exactly what to do and where to be, he is great at in game adjustments. Changing blocking schemes, splits, and little nuances are where he makes his money. Where he struggles, IMO, is putting guys in the best position to succeed when they don't know where to go all of the time or can't execute everything this offense demands. I think if he could learn to simplify things and find alternative ways to make the defense pay for selling out when we obviously can't block them, this offense will be unstoppable.

The thing is, I know he has some of this in his playbook because we saw it in the dump offs and screens. Why he doesn't run stuff like that more I don't know. It seems to be more of an ego thing than anything else.

Unlike the long time posters, I welcome your point about flare passes. They worked for mid gains not great gains - Imo we need ab that can burn folks on these ( called) plays .
I think coach knows we must get the offense clicking and he believes the guys are close so he gives it a try again. Jet made some good runs then pass attempt for big loss.

 

[Yaller Jacket]

When I saw the success of the little sideline screen passes, I was just happy to finally see something we could execute which would serve that purpose. More would have been good, but at least we have something else besides TO or heave it.

 

[Lee]

Unlike the long time posters, I welcome your point about flare passes. They worked for mid gains not great gains - Imo we need ab that can burn folks on these ( called) plays .
I think coach knows we must get the offense clicking and he believes the guys are close so he gives it a try again. Jet made some good runs then pass attempt for big loss.

JT did look more explosive to me as well. The extra rest definitely helped him. I was also hoping to see more midline bc their DT was killing us. I thought that might have given him some more opportunities for big plays.

Now that we don't have a shot at a bowl game, I would consider giving Justin this week off to let Jordan get some reps and let Justin get as healthy as possible for the dwag game. That's the only one that matters at this point.

 

[Lee]

Perception bias I feel here

Possibly. Do you have a better reason for why we did not run them more?

If you don't think he has an ego, there's a some bias on your end as well. I dont hate PJ. Like I mentioned earlier, I think he's a really good coach, especially when he has experienced guys that know where to go. His biggest weakness to me is that when he doesn't have those pieces, he is not good at making adjustments to maximize what the players he has can actually do.

All coaches have weaknesses. All I said was I can't figure out why he wouldn't take advantage of VT's aggressiveness when it was proven we had a way to do so that we could actually execute. If you can give some rational reasons why we didn't, I would love to hear them.

 

[CuseJacket]

Which is why we should have continued to gash them with the screens and dump offs to the flat that killed them all 4 times we did it.

This is what is frustrating to me. When Paul finds a running play that the other team can't stop, he will run it until they prove they can. The 2nd half of the MSU and Ugag games last year come to mind. Why can we not do the same with the little short passing game until the other team makes an adjustment?

I'm not saying run it every play, but once or twice a series when we are struggling to move the ball is not too much to ask IMO. Doing so might slow down the aggressiveness of the defense and take some pressure of of our already struggling Oline leading to more success in running our bread and butter. Seems like common sense to me, but I guess I'm missing something.

I think PJ is a very good offensive mind. When he's got guys that know exactly what to do and where to be, he is great at in game adjustments. Changing blocking schemes, splits, and little nuances are where he makes his money. Where he struggles, IMO, is putting guys in the best position to succeed when they don't know where to go all of the time or can't execute everything this offense demands. I think if he could learn to simplify things and find alternative ways to make the defense pay for selling out when we obviously can't block them, this offense will be unstoppable.

The thing is, I know he has some of this in his playbook because we saw it in the dump offs and screens. Why he doesn't run stuff like that more I don't know. It seems to be more of an ego thing than anything else.

I don't know whether I agree or disagree with the hypothesis that we need to attempt a greater volume of short passes. I really don't.

That said at least one of those Thursday night was absolutely a check-down by JT. I haven't seen Thomas make that progression nor have the time to make that progression much this year. Consequently it's possible those plays are already being called more frequently than it appears and JT just finally had time/awareness to execute.

Some of the short routes were clearly screens for sure.

 

[Lee]

I don't know whether I agree or disagree with the hypothesis that we need to attempt a greater volume of short passes. I really don't.

That said at least one of those Thursday night was absolutely a check-down by JT. I haven't seen Thomas make that progression nor have the time to make that progression much this year. Consequently it's possible those plays are already being called more frequently than it appears and JT just finally had time/awareness to execute.

Some of the short routes were clearly screens for sure.

I agree it was nice to see him go through his progression and make the check down. I made a comment about it to those around me in the stands during the game. I know he hasn't had a lot of time this year, which makes it tough. If we can protect him and he can learn to do that consistently it will help our passing attack tremendously.

I wasn't suggesting that we should do this all of the time either. I just think it would force teams to back off the aggression a little bit which would make it easier to do what we want to do.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

We have to do everything better...because it's all pretty bad. Especially the pass pro tho

 

[JacketFromUGA]

I don't know whether I agree or disagree with the hypothesis that we need to attempt a greater volume of short passes. I really don't.

That said at least one of those Thursday night was absolutely a check-down by JT. I haven't seen Thomas make that progression nor have the time to make that progression much this year. Consequently it's possible those plays are already being called more frequently than it appears and JT just finally had time/awareness to execute.

Some of the short routes were clearly screens for sure.

CPJ has said in some stuff that we have short stuff but they are check downs and are not thrown because other options are chosen.

Also we got the ball to our burner a back on a short screen pass. He then fumbled it. Was a bummer.

 

[I am a b 2]

I agree it was nice to see him go through his progression and make the check down. I made a comment about it to those around me in the stands during the game. I know he hasn't had a lot of time this year, which makes it tough. If we can protect him and he can learn to do that consistently it will help our passing attack tremendously.

I wasn't suggesting that we should do this all of the time either. I just think it would force teams to back off the aggression a little bit which would make it easier to do what we want to do.

The coaches didn't play his protection 71