A True Test for the Defense is Coming

floridajacket said:
The pass is really crucial if, like Wofford, Duke focuses entirely on the run.
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You can't really use Wofford as an example of anything offensively. We stayed vanilla and didn't run the TO. And we passed more than we would normally by design.
 
Offense is going to score 30+ defense is going to get a pick or two off of Boone and we go to 6-0
 
floridajacket said:
I think it's a bigger test of our defense than Miami as far as precision and execution. Miami, especially Duke Johnson, has far better athletes but they also had an inexperienced QB.

Duke put up a lot of points against FSU and TAMU just through every player always being in the right place at the right time. They're the "possession receiver" of offenses. They're not the fastest or the biggest, but they're in the right place at the right time. And CPJ hinted at some defensive execution issues as far as checkdowns. So that has me worried.

I still feel cautiously optimistic mainly because of our offense. We won't win by 44 points because defenses just don't give up very long plays against us like they used to. Instead, we grind out these games where we get 7 drives and score touchdowns on 4 of them while holding opponents to 2 touchdowns and 1 field goal.

Compare this drives chart:

http://espn.go.com/ncf/drivechart?gameId=400548278

With this drive chart:

http://espn.go.com/ncf/drivechart?gameId=400547790

We'll keep winning by 10-20 points but we still won't look that "impressive" because of our lower drives per game. My only real concern on offense is JT needs to settle in the first half. He needs to give receivers a chance to catch the ball and not zip it over their heads. The pass is really crucial if, like Wofford, Duke focuses entirely on the run.
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So, when exactly was it that Duke put up a lot of points on FSU.
FSU pummeled Duke 45-7 last year.

And, no long plays? Um, didnt JT5 have a 50+ yd TD run...that was called back on a rather bogus blocking penalty? I saw several plays on Saturday that were shoestring tackles by Miami that kept Laksey from going to the house several times.

Dont know what your watching, but it doesnt seem to be GT football.
 
3GT said:
So, when exactly was it that Duke put up a lot of points on FSU.
FSU pummeled Duke 45-7 last year.

And, no long plays? Um, didnt JT5 have a 50+ yd TD run...that was called back on a rather bogus blocking penalty? I saw several plays on Saturday that were shoestring tackles by Miami that kept Laksey from going to the house several times.

Dont know what your watching, but it doesnt seem to be GT football.
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Not sure if srs.
:squint:
 
We're going to beat Duke. It's one of the few times all year that we won't be outmanned athletically at almost every position. Combine that with what appears to be a GT team that is all business and that has yet to play its best football and I just don't see anything other than another GT win.

Duke was a nice story in 2013, but let's be realistic. Their season was the definition of a fluke. The media keeps going on and on about coastal champs, but really? Did anyone watch the coastal last year? Congrats Duke on being king of that short bus. And everyone also makes a big deal out of how well they played in the bowl game, while conveniently forgetting about the fact that A&M's defense was a complete dumpster fire all year long.
 
If I were Duke I'd put 8 or 9 in the box and make us pass. They should get a few stops that way, and then if their offense plays really well they have chance. I think Miami simply respected the pass too much and their CBs sucked at rush defense.
 
staggerwing said:
Duke was a nice story in 2013, but let's be realistic. Their season was the definition of a fluke. The media keeps going on and on about coastal champs, but really? Did anyone watch the coastal last year? Congrats Duke on being king of that short bus. And everyone also makes a big deal out of how well they played in the bowl game, while conveniently forgetting about the fact that A&M's defense was a complete dumpster fire all year long.
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Winning this game will send them back to irrelevancy! Let's do it
 
3GT said:
So, when exactly was it that Duke put up a lot of points on FSU.
FSU pummeled Duke 45-7 last year.

And, no long plays? Um, didnt JT5 have a 50+ yd TD run...that was called back on a rather bogus blocking penalty? I saw several plays on Saturday that were shoestring tackles by Miami that kept Laksey from going to the house several times.

Dont know what your watching, but it doesnt seem to be GT football.
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I'll try not to be sarcastic, but I'll readily admit to not having perfect memory. The first half of the FSU game stuck out in my mind because I expected FSU to pummel Duke. They did eventually, but Duke had a 67 yard drive for a missed FG while the game was still 0-0. It looked like for a time that Duke could go up by 7-0. FSU didn't score until their fourth drive.

Sure, the game got out of hand starting in the second quarter, but I mentioned the FSU game off-hand. Actually watching the game, it certainly was not the "pummeling" that one expected especially in the first quarter.

As far as no big plays, you cite one play that was called back? I don't have number of 50+ yard plays available, but man it's pretty clear that either all our drives or almost all our drives have stringed together 5-20 yard runs. Most of those shoestring tackles would have been good 20 yard plays without the tackles, but the Miami DB's wouldn't have had trouble limiting the plays after catching up.

Teams use to play "assignment football" against the option in the sense that the defenders on the perimeter would try to get TFL's while most defenders focused on the dive. If the players on the perimeter missed in the backfield, then the AB could take it to the house. Now defenders put more effort into sitting back a little bit and at least disrupting runner some, allowing other defenders to support and limit the run.

Certainly as far as the big play argument goes, the gold tint on your glasses is very, very deep. Even if JT's run wasn't called back, in general defenses have given up less big runs against us.
 
staggerwing said:
We're going to beat Duke. It's one of the few times all year that we won't be outmanned athletically at almost every position. Combine that with what appears to be a GT team that is all business and that has yet to play its best football and I just don't see anything other than another GT win.

Duke was a nice story in 2013, but let's be realistic. Their season was the definition of a fluke. The media keeps going on and on about coastal champs, but really? Did anyone watch the coastal last year? Congrats Duke on being king of that short bus. And everyone also makes a big deal out of how well they played in the bowl game, while conveniently forgetting about the fact that A&M's defense was a complete dumpster fire all year long.
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Agreed.

Worth repeating so the naysayers can read it again:

We're going to beat Duke. It's one of the few times all year that we won't be outmanned athletically at almost every position.

Combine that with what appears to be a GT team that is all business and that has yet to play its best football and I just don't see anything other than another GT win.


Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep !!
 
floridajacket said:
I'll try not to be sarcastic, but I'll readily admit to not having perfect memory. The first half of the FSU game stuck out in my mind because I expected FSU to pummel Duke. They did eventually, but Duke had a 67 yard drive for a missed FG while the game was still 0-0. It looked like for a time that Duke could go up by 7-0. FSU didn't score until their fourth drive.

Sure, the game got out of hand starting in the second quarter, but I mentioned the FSU game off-hand. Actually watching the game, it certainly was not the "pummeling" that one expected especially in the first quarter.

As far as no big plays, you cite one play that was called back? I don't have number of 50+ yard plays available, but man it's pretty clear that either all our drives or almost all our drives have stringed together 5-20 yard runs. Most of those shoestring tackles would have been good 20 yard plays without the tackles, but the Miami DB's wouldn't have had trouble limiting the plays after catching up.

Teams use to play "assignment football" against the option in the sense that the defenders on the perimeter would try to get TFL's while most defenders focused on the dive. If the players on the perimeter missed in the backfield, then the AB could take it to the house. Now defenders put more effort into sitting back a little bit and at least disrupting runner some, allowing other defenders to support and limit the run.

Certainly as far as the big play argument goes, the gold tint on your glasses is very, very deep. Even if JT's run wasn't called back, in general defenses have given up less big runs against us.
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Man, I seriously dont know what team you're watching.

Here's what you said: "Duke put up a lot of points against FSU..."

Duke lost: 45-7. It was a beat-down by every measure.

What do you define as a "big play" ??

To me, anything 20+ is a "big play."
 
GTCrew4b said:
so taken in conjunction with how many fewer plays we run relative to other "big play teams" we're probably in the top third of big plays as a percentage of plays. Also a fair number of teams above us have played 6 games to our 5.
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Eh, not really. On plays of 40+ we even out a bit, but our rate of big plays is still way below the top 20 or so teams. I guess we may be in the top 3rd, but I didn't want to run the numbers on 40 teams.

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öööö spreadsheets. I'll believe what I want to believe.
 
Discussion reached the critical spreadsheet stage. Sound the alarm.
 
GTCrew4b said:
I think Duke's experienced offense and non-crazy playcalling coming off of a bye will give our defense its stiffest challenge yet.

Looking at the Depth Chart it looked like they have an upperclassman at every starting position on offense. Granted they're Duke upperclassmen, but still that type of experience will not lend itself well to our current strategy of waiting for critical mistakes. I think we'll be more willing to press in coverage this week, but the defense will have to play another smart, disciplined, fast game.

Both VPI and Miami came in with some injury concerns to their offensive line. Duke has no such health concerns. And we had the bye week to prepare for Miami.

I think we'll finally see the shootout many of us have been predicting throughout the year.

I still think we can beat Duke with a B- overall game, but we'll need the defense to make a couple stops.
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Couple of things:

Saying dook has no injury concerns because they haven't had players injured is overlooking the serious injuries they had before the season started to Braxton Deaver and Kelby Brown.

One area of interest will be third down. dook is 102nd at converting third down attempts, 102nd in FBS. That said, they are pretty good at running the ball (where we are terrible on defense).

The other area of interest is that their defense has been stout in terms of scoring at 13.6 ppg.

I generally agree that we can't sit back and wait for mistakes on this one. They won't beat themselves. We are going to have to go out and get some points early and make them abandon the run game. If we can force them to throw the ball, where they haven't been particularly effective (low completion rate AND low YPA) we should be fine.
 
We have definitely been moving the ball more methodically than usual early in the season - which is strange to me given the fact that JT5 is the first homerun threat at QB we've ever had. What's our longest TD of the year so far? I can't remember one longer than 30 off the top of my head. In fact I can't remember one longer than 20. Snoddy barely missed and JT5's huge one against VT got called back. Other than that we've been moving the ball methodically rather than busting them - which is fine with me if we continue to turn the ball over less than once per game.
 
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