Which GT team is better? 08' or 09'?

wesleyd21

wesleyd21

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2008 GT scores thru first 4 games:

8/28 Jacksonville St W 41-14
9/6 at Boston Coll W 19-16
9/13 at Virginia Tech L 20-17
9/20 Mississippi St W 38-7

2009 GT scores thru first 4 games:

9/5 Jackson. St W 37-17
9/10 Clemson W 30-27
9/17 at Miami L 33-17
9/26 North Carolina W 24-7


I think we could all agree that our first 4 this year are a touch tougher versus our first 4 in 08'.

Having said that...we gave up 14.25 ppg in 08'. This year we are giving up an average of 21 ppg.

In our first four games last year, we averaged 28.75 ppg. This year, we are averaging 27 ppg.

I felt we were in trouble this year after the first half in the Jax State game when we gave up something like 5-7 first downs. Last year we only gave up ONE first down in the 1st half against their STARTING QB, Ryan Perrilloux.

I think we've got a lot of work to do on defense...hopefully....might have the blinders on here, but hopefully the damned wolf thing had A LOT to do with our early season woes.

But what bothers me the most: CPJ said we would definitely be better on offense this year. We haven't REALLY seen it numbers wise. Our D cannot get off the field sometimes. Is the defense to blame? Do y'all see our offense running better so far this year versus last?

Answering my own question, I'd say we are better at sustaining drives. We are infinitely better at this...just look at the amount of fumbles we had last year. We've certainly improved there....but we ain't bustin' as many big plays.

Sorry for the ramblin' post but I think I just might take last year's team (so far). We had a major drop-off once the competition heated up late last year. This year we have a very easy November schedule (outside of you-know-who) so we very well could be improved this year.

Its almost a draw in my book. What say you?
 
wesleyd21 said:
2008 GT scores thru first 4 games:

8/28 Jacksonville St W 41-14
9/6 at Boston Coll W 19-16
9/13 at Virginia Tech L 20-17
9/20 Mississippi St W 38-7

2009 GT scores thru first 4 games:

9/5 Jackson. St W 37-17
9/10 Clemson W 30-27
9/17 at Miami L 33-17
9/26 North Carolina W 24-7


I think we could all agree that our first 4 this year are a touch tougher versus our first 4 in 08'.

Having said that...we gave up 14.25 ppg in 08'. This year we are giving up an average of 21 ppg.

In our first four games last year, we averaged 28.75 ppg. This year, we are averaging 27 ppg.

I felt we were in trouble this year after the first half in the Jax State game when we gave up something like 5-7 first downs. Last year we only gave up ONE first down in the 1st half against their STARTING QB, Ryan Perrilloux.

I think we've got a lot of work to do on defense...hopefully....might have the blinders on here, but hopefully the damned wolf thing had A LOT to do with our early season woes.

But what bothers me the most: CPJ said we would definitely be better on offense this year. We haven't REALLY seen it numbers wise. Our D cannot get off the field sometimes. Is the defense to blame? Do y'all see our offense running better so far this year versus last?

Answering my own question, I'd say we are better at sustaining drives. We are infinitely better at this...just look at the amount of fumbles we had last year. We've certainly improved there....but we ain't bustin' as many big plays.

Sorry for the ramblin' post but I think I just might take last year's team (so far). We had a major drop-off once the competition heated up late last year. This year we have a very easy November schedule (outside of you-know-who) so we very well could be improved this year.

Its almost a draw in my book. What say you?
Click to expand...

Two reasoning's for the offense.

1. The difference in teams. Jax St is still Jax St, but last year we were a team who didn't know what we were capable of so the team played them a bit stronger than this year. Also, teams prepared more for us, particularly teams who we played early in the season, when fall practice might still be fresh in the mind.

2. How teams defend us. I think what you said about the sustained drives but less big play thing is spot on. This kind of has to do with how the defense goes about their plan. Maybe they keep linebackers or safeties farther back or whatever to be in a better position to prevent a big yard play. This probably makes it somewhat easier to gain 5-10 yard chunks and then we get some of our drives against UNC.

I think that makes sense because we didn't do so good a job sustaining a drive last year, so an opposing team might base a strategy on us sucking at that and relying on big plays.
 
Also, I'd say the net defense of Clemson, Miami and UNC are better than the net defenses of VPI, BC and Miss St at that time last year.
 
I'd say so far we are about even because we beat a team who beat us pretty bad and we lost to a team we beat pretty bad. We'll be a little behind after today because we won't beat Miss State as bad as we did last year, if we do beat them.
 
We won't know until the season ends. Our schedule this year is nearly identical, if not harder, in SOS as last year. If we have the same or better record this year as we did last year, I say we improved. If not, I say we did not improve.

The game tonight is big. I think everyone is expecting us to win. The one thing that scares me is thoughts of a loss tonight. If we lose tonight, where do we stand? We can only lose one more game this season to be where we were last year.
 
cajunjacket said:
The game tonight is big. I think everyone is expecting us to win. The one thing that scares me is thoughts of a loss tonight. If we lose tonight, where do we stand? We can only lose one more game this season to be where we were last year.
Click to expand...

Tonight is huge. Win tonight, and 10-2 is a very reasonable goal, and even a loss we shouldn't take nets us 9-3, the same as last year. However, lose tonight, and all of a sudden the pressure's on just to match what we did last year.

In my mind, 8-4 would be a big disappointment, especially given how we've started the season. Yeah, Miami was a big disappointment...but before the season started, taking 2 of 3 from Clemson, Miami, and UNC sounded pretty good.
 
We are a tad behind last year because of the defensive performance. The O is probably a little better than this time last year and has committed fewer turnovers. Tonight will tell us a lot.
 
I think we are better this year because we have played a couple of games that were full of mistakes (Clempsen and UNC) and still won. Last year all four of our losses were to a certain extent, self-inflicted.
 
wesleyd21 said:
But what bothers me the most: CPJ said we would definitely be better on offense this year. We haven't REALLY seen it numbers wise.
Click to expand...

Gotta disagree here; in three of our four games we've cracked BOTH 300 yards rushing and 400 yards total, that same feat was not there last year through four games.

We are better this year, we just hadn't played a complete game until last weekend.
 
I think this will be easier to comment on after tonight, and we'll likely know definitively after the FSU game. I know I keep saying it, but:

Win tonight with a good performance and we've shown that we're a team that started rough but is improving and will be deadly for the rest of the year.

Lose tonight and/or perform poorly and we've likely shown that we're going to be as schizophrenic as everyone else in the ACC and it's a toss-up whether we win 6 games or 10.

You simply can't downplay how important this game is tonight. We're going to show our true colors in Starkville tonight and I hope we learn that our team is finished fooling around and we're going to hit every single in the opponent like a freight train.
 
Along with some of the reasons stated, I think a little of fat cat syndrome has played a role.
Some players just are not clawing for yards like last year. Same for the D. As a result we are just a couple of inches short of making some plays.

I think we can get our mojo back.
Big test tonight.
 
I still think schedule and routine played a bigger factor in the comfort and focus level of the first 3 weeks. We did better last week, and I think we'll do better still this week and continue to improve. IF we do, we're positioned very well for the rest of the year.

GO JACKETS!!!
 
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