What are we on offense?

Ibeeballin

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Yay!!! Another pointless offseason thread. Lol

The last few years I have been struggling with this question: are we a smash-mouth, power football team or are we a finesse team that wins with smoke n mirrors?
 

gtg936g

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I would say we are a mix of both. We show the finesse side when we run options/counters/mis-direction plays. We are a brute force team when we line up and run the dive into the mouth of the defense. One of the things that is a challenge for our opponents is that they do not know what they will face on each play. One play the DE plays soft and is not blocked. The next he is steam rolled by our OT.
 

JacketFromUGA

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I'd say its different on every series let alone every game. UGA game last year we were a smash mouth team but I feel the UNC game we were more reliant on smoke and mirrors and finesse
 

Boomergump

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We are still a smoke and mirrors team, built on execution and deception more than brute force. With that said, we are a lot more physical than we used to be. In other words, I wouldn't like our chances of having won 11 games doing deep hand offs with a zone blocking scheme. Even when it looked like we were pounding UGA and MSST, there was still a lot of scheme there that was thinning out the defense and confusing them.
 

orientalnc

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We are still a smoke and mirrors team, built on execution and deception more than brute force. With that said, we are a lot more physical than we used to be. In other words, I wouldn't like our chances of having won 11 games doing deep hand offs with a zone blocking scheme. Even when it looked like we were pounding UGA and MSST, there was still a lot of scheme there that was thinning out the defense and confusing them.
I am not sure what the point is, but I watch the MSST replay again today and we were blowing the back 5-6 yards on almost every play. Maybe it scheme, but I think we recruit good drive blockers.
 

thwgjacket

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6'2 230+ pound running back coming down hill behind a line that was described by a UGA announcer in the following way. "That big Tech line has our linemen on skates." Sounds pretty smash-mouth to me.
Our OL next year will most likely average about 6'4 and be over 300 pounds.
 
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The answer is two fold. We were a finesse team when CPJ was building the OL, so we can still run the soft stuff. Now we are both. The OL recruiting has finally caught up and makes the offense more dynamic than it has in years. We could see this offense put passing and running yards better than what Fridge did w/ Joe and Goose.
 

33jacket

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i'll bite

here is your answer....when the going gets tough what do we do? Go back to establishing the dive. And we "do what we do". We did that vs miss state, uga, etc all in the second half.

Why? Because the straight at you thing is what we do. Its who we are....its smashmouth.

To me, what you rely on when the tough gets going...gives you your teams' identity. We knew what ours was last year. Coming straight at you.

Will this years team have that? maybe not. I can tell you past teams didn't....2009 did. So its up to the team....but i think paul likes what we established last year.
 

Ibeeballin

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i'll bite

here is your answer....when the going gets tough what do we do? Go back to establishing the dive. And we "do what we do". We did that vs miss state, uga, etc all in the second half.

Why? Because the straight at you thing is what we do. Its who we are....its smashmouth.

To me, what you rely on when the tough gets going...gives you your teams' identity. We knew what ours was last year. Coming straight at you.

Will this years team have that? maybe not. I can tell you past teams didn't....2009 did. So its up to the team....but i think paul likes what we established last year.

I would say the 09 offense was more finesse than smash mouth.

This was on my mind thinking about other spread option team and the perception of them
.
Oregon: goes by the Atlanta Hawks creed of pace & space with there zone read scheme
Clemson: a lot of window dressing and relying matchups
Auburn: maybe a head scratcher like us by most the national media see them as a power running team

Let's not forget, before this season the stigma was we couldn't beat teams that had good DLs
 

AE 87

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I think we're hard nosed finesse in the sense of we're Judo not fisticuffs. I think that also explains the challenge of big DLs.

It's not really smoke and mirrors though, imo. We're not really deceiving opponents as much as outwitting them and using their strengths against them.

This year, we were a bit more able to stay in a line of scrimmage slugfest. Yet, CU, uva and vpi still slowed us down a good bit. We're still Judo, just getting bigger, imo.
 

Vespid

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I think we're hard nosed finesse in the sense of we're Judo not fisticuffs. I think that also explains the challenge of big DLs.

It's not really smoke and mirrors though, imo. We're not really deceiving opponents as much as outwitting them and using their strengths against them.

This year, we were a bit more able to stay in a line of scrimmage slugfest. Yet, CU, uva and vpi still slowed us down a good bit. We're still Judo, just getting bigger, imo.

Good analogy. I think more Brazilian jiu jitsu maybe. ;)
 

slugboy

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To me, neither.
Smoke & Mirrors means your opponent doesn't know what's coming. With us, they often do, but can't stop it.
Our guys are tough, but they're hitting the other guy better than they're hitting us. Smash mouth is overpowering the other guy--we're getting them off-balance. I like the Judo or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu comparisons--especially sitting on top of the other guy and methodically pummeling away on them at the end.
 

dressedcheeseside

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6'2 230+ pound running back coming down hill behind a line that was described by a UGA announcer in the following way. "That big Tech line has our linemen on skates." Sounds pretty smash-mouth to me.
Our OL next year will most likely average about 6'4 and be over 300 pounds.
The dumbarse DC at Ugag had their DL lined up a yard off the ball. Our OL must have been licking their chops.

On the main topic, our deceptive scheme gives us a significant advantage when we decide to ram the ball up the gut. The D either plays back, like Uga, to give them more time and space to read and react/avoid cuts or it's a step slow to the point of attack because JT freezes them in their track with the mesh. JT has, by far, the most deceptive mesh of any GT qb in the CPJ era and it's only gonna get better.
 

Skeptic

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I am not sure what the point is, but I watch the MSST replay again today and we were blowing the back 5-6 yards on almost every play. Maybe it scheme, but I think we recruit good drive blockers.
Play some of the off-tackle "dives" back and forth a few times -- at least I have to as I am terrible at looking at film -- and watch how often the DE isn't blocked. He is allowed, even invited, to charge straight downfield, I am guessing to stop the pitch, and before he can change direction Days or Laskey has cut behind him while an Aback is helping out with a linebacker. Drive blocking, sure, though the announcers almost always were wrong in describing the runs as "up the middle", but deception and scheme sets it up and gets 'em loose. I think that is what Boomer is referring to.
 

vamosjackets

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We are still a smoke and mirrors team, built on execution and deception more than brute force. With that said, we are a lot more physical than we used to be. In other words, I wouldn't like our chances of having won 11 games doing deep hand offs with a zone blocking scheme. Even when it looked like we were pounding UGA and MSST, there was still a lot of scheme there that was thinning out the defense and confusing them.
I don't see zone blocking as more "smashmouth" than what we do. If anything, I think our blocking scheme is the most smashmouth in all of football. We're telling our guy on our staple play on the playside to fire off the ball hard with a flat back, getting leverage by having a lower pad level than the guy across from you, re-establishing the LOS. Zone blocking is more standing up being a dancing panda bear. Now, granted the teams with the OL who have dancing panda bears with superior upper body strength are going to be better because they're going to be able to handle the DL and steer him the way he's already going, creating a seam for the RB. So, there's physicality there too (more like greco-roman wrestling). But, when you see our drills of OL vs DL are performed on the boards and/or in the cage, that is a greater physicality aspect to me. Our guys are asked to be bulldozers. The lower body strength of our OL will be the most important physical trait.

As far as the finesse part goes. If we're getting whipped at the smashmouth aspect, that part goes south too. The advantage of our offense is that it give you multiple ways to kill the opponent. BUT, it still depends on at least the possibility of success at that smashmouth aspect. If their DL can whip our blocker(s) so bad as to be able to shed him AND make the tackle on the Dive, that defense will be able to cover everything. They might not, if their scheme isn't sound or if their players aren't disciplined, but they CAN actually cover everything numbers wise. However, if our blocker(s) can get push on their DL, then they cannot cover everything. They're going to have to over-commit to something, which is where our finesse comes in. When they over-commit, we've got a plethora of "options" to make them pay and all of that requires precision and execution on the part of the other finesse pieces (QB, AB, WR, pulling or pass-blocking OL).

In short, our finesse is the ideal compliment to our smashmouth.
 

33jacket

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I would say the 09 offense was more finesse than smash mouth.

This was on my mind thinking about other spread option team and the perception of them
.
Oregon: goes by the Atlanta Hawks creed of pace & space with there zone read scheme
Clemson: a lot of window dressing and relying matchups
Auburn: maybe a head scratcher like us by most the national media see them as a power running team

Let's not forget, before this season the stigma was we couldn't beat teams that had good DLs

your last line...that was not because of identity crisis. That was due to lack of talent on the OL....our identity to me, or what I think Pauls ideal identity for his offense, was the 2014 team...physical, BB dive and smashmouth style...to me...thats the ideal.

if you look at primary 2009 ball carriers...nesbitt in the midline and dwyer. AB's were not featured, the one who was was 230lbs (allen)....so I still think that team smashmouth....

anyway just my thoughts
 
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