A True Test for the Defense is Coming

3GT said:
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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You are on crack if you haven't noticed that the big plays this year are way down. Even CPJ has said so. We maybe have a handful of 50+ yard TDs, if that. We definitely haven't hit a big home run to an AB all year - Perk's got the longest run (of 63) but that wasn't a score. Zenon has one for 43. The longest runs of Bostic, Days, Andrews, and Snoddy are each under 20. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but our offense is mostly plodding along as opposed to putting up big numbers.

That's the reason most of our ABs are averaging 5-6 yards a carry. Last year you had many over 7 (Godhigh, Andrews, Hill, Bostic, Perkins). This year the only one over 6 is Perkins. And that's not counting that we've already player all of our cupcakes this year.

For example, we didn't hit a single rush play for over 20 yards against Wofford. We hit one for more than 30 yards against Tulane (41 yards). Perkins had his big rush against Southern, and JT had a nice one too, but other than that we didn't have one for more than 20 yards (in fact, Perkins lost yards on his only other carry).

EDIT: To be clear, by plodding along I mean the average play is in the 3-7 yard range without the big 20+ yard spikes we are more accustomed to under CPJ. Our offense is working fine, it's just that we are consistently hitting decent gains as opposed to the occasional home run.
 
Legal Jacket said:
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.
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Deaver and Brown were in fact huge losses. Brown probably up there with Boone/Crowder as the three guys they couldn't afford to lose. One of their leading WRs also hurt a thumb ligament against Miami - hoping to postpone surgery and play with a cast (not sure how that works for WRs). Leads the team with 3 TD receptions (third in receptions and yards).

https://www.dukechronicle.com/artic...ney-damages-ligament-thumb-looks-hold-surgery

Duke is not the kind of team that can absorb injuries. Even perusing their boards this year, basically all of them admit that they were incredibly fortunate to stay relatively healthy all last season during their ACCCG run.

Brown's absence will likely be felt even more against us as we rip them up the middle repeatedly. Smelter gets his 4th 100+ yard receiving day too.
 
gtrower said:
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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Smelter has been the king of long TDs this year - 19 and 71 against Wofford, 57 against Southern, and 31 against VT.

Otherwise our longest runs for TDs were 11 yards (Laskey, Wofford), 19 (Zenon, Tulane), 12 yards (Laskey, Southern), 2 yards (JT, VT), and 8 yards (Hill, GT).
 
Here is something else to consider.....

We have actually been a very good red zone defense this year. Hear me out.....

Out of 12 opponent attempts in the red zone, we've allowed 5 TDs and 4 FG. We've allowed 14 TDs total, which means 9 of the 14 have come from outside the red zone. This includes plays like the 92 yard run by Wofford and the fumblerooski TD by VT.

Duke doesn't scare me as a "big play" offense. Duke is in the bottom 3rd of the country in red zone offense conversion %, so even if they dink and dunk down the field we will stop them inside the 20. With a couple of defensive stops and a couple of FG in place of touchdowns.....we could win big.
 
Legal Jacket said:
Smelter has been the king of long TDs this year - 19 and 71 against Wofford, 57 against Southern, and 31 against VT.

Otherwise our longest runs for TDs were 11 yards (Laskey, Wofford), 19 (Zenon, Tulane), 12 yards (Laskey, Southern), 2 yards (JT, VT), and 8 yards (Hill, GT).
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Yeah I was looking at runs, but true about Smelter. Hope we take some shots to him downfield with Duke safeties creeping up as usual.
 
gtrower said:
Deaver and Brown were in fact huge losses. Brown probably up there with Boone/Crowder as the three guys they couldn't afford to lose. One of their leading WRs also hurt a thumb ligament against Miami - hoping to postpone surgery and play with a cast (not sure how that works for WRs). Leads the team with 3 TD receptions (third in receptions and yards).

https://www.dukechronicle.com/artic...ney-damages-ligament-thumb-looks-hold-surgery

Duke is not the kind of team that can absorb injuries. Even perusing their boards this year, basically all of them admit that they were incredibly fortunate to stay relatively healthy all last season during their ACCCG run.

Brown's absence will likely be felt even more against us as we rip them up the middle repeatedly. Smelter gets his 4th 100+ yard receiving day too.
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This. Brown had 17 tackles against us last year. He's the same type of player as that dude from NC State (forgot his name) who hit us up for like 15-18 tackles when we played here and they beat us 3-4 years ago.

He'd be a difference maker against us on defense. Without him I bet our ypp goes up at least 1 yard, if not more. He's a helluva player.
 
I'm mainly worried about Cutcliffe. He's about as diabolical as CPJ. He finds ways to win. In some ways I see this as a game of alter egos. We're the anti-Duke. They're the anti-TECH.
 
gnats67 said:
I'm mainly worried about Cutcliffe. He's about as diabolical as CPJ. He finds ways to win. In some ways I see this as a game of alter egos. We're the anti-Duke. They're the anti-TECH.
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Cutcliffe is still 0-6 against GT.
 
Architorture23 said:
Cutcliffe is still 0-6 against GT.
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0-6 with only 1 game (2010) that was actually a game. They've had a decent offense against a shoddy defense from us for a number of those games too. They'll need to win the turnover battle by 2+ to stay in the game.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if we fall behind 14-0 on Saturday and then win 42-14. I don't know if CTR holds back the QB pressure until the second half, or if we just outlast the opponent's OL. This year, the defense seems to increase their intensity level as the game progresses, like they're answering the call.
 
Legal Jacket said:
You are on crack if you haven't noticed that the big plays this year are way down.
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I actually think that this is one of the reasons we've had some success this year. Miami had eight possessions. Our defense will stay rested and theirs will get worn down. I loved the old days of Roddy getting a pitch and ripping 60+, but maybe this is the way our offense really should operate.

Maybe.
 
Architorture23 said:
Cutcliffe is still 0-6 against GT.
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Cutcliffe hasn't won, but the last four have been closer than we'd like.

Look, I feel as confident as anyone that we can beat dook, I'm just pointing out that we öööö well better be awake and on our game or this will be an L. This is not a game to sleepwalk through anymore.

In 2010 we were trailing in the third quarter and on the way to losing until an 85 yard pick 6 by Mario Butler. We were still up by only 3 points for nearly half the 4th quarter.

In 2011 we won by a TD and gave up more than 30 points. They also had the ball with a chance to tie with 4 minutes left.

In 2012, at home, we were up only 4 points going into the 4th quarter.

In 2013 we won comfortable, but we had to work for it.

Our best case scenario is something like last year. We need to be up multiple scores in the beginning of the second quarter. We need to make them abandon the run because they can't keep up with our offense.

If we let them get a lead, they will abandon the pass and lean on us through the run all game long. I don't think we will have an easy time stopping their run game and getting them off the field.

We need to start with the ball, go up 14-3, and then start lobbing to Smelter once they cheat up to stop the run.
 
Allen Koholic said:
I actually think that this is one of the reasons we've had some success this year. Miami had eight possessions. Our defense will stay rested and theirs will get worn down. I loved the old days of Roddy getting a pitch and ripping 60+, but maybe this is the way our offense really should operate.

Maybe.
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I think you are right.
 
gtrower said:
0-6 with only 1 game (2010) that was actually a game. They've had a decent offense against a shoddy defense from us for a number of those games too. They'll need to win the turnover battle by 2+ to stay in the game.
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2011 and 2012 were both losable as well.
 
coit said:
I believe that Duke will score some points in the first half, but that we will make adjustments as we have been able to do in the past few games and be effective in the second half.

And I believe that we will wear down there defense with our TOP advantage, and will grind the yardage out in the second half.

I think you negative nancys are really underestimating just how good the offense is executing. And they are doing it in ways that aren't necessarily going to be prone to mistakes. JT hasn't really done anything risky and he is running the TO very well. CPJ said as much himself last night. Said we ran the TO a lot more than we had yet this season, and that JT did a good job of reading the defense.
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We will need to execute the option well on saturday to win. We can't let them take a lead - especially not more than a possession up. This will also be the only remaining game where we are more athletic than the team on the other side of the field. We need to take advantage of it.
 
You guys are killing me.

We have beaten Duke with a helluva lot less to work
with on offense than we have on the roster...right now.

And, IMO, our D is as good or better now, as it has been the past 3+ years.

And, Duke has less to work with on both sides of the ball as they
did last year...when we pummeled them.

We will kick their azz !!!!
 
jacket67 said:
I wouldn't be surprised if we fall behind 14-0 on Saturday and then win 42-14. I don't know if CTR holds back the QB pressure until the second half, or if we just outlast the opponent's OL. This year, the defense seems to increase their intensity level as the game progresses, like they're answering the call.
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That's what baffles me about the Southern game. I spent all week telling fellow students (I attend Southern) about how good CTR's halftime adjustments are. In the Wofford, Tulane, VPI and Miami games, our D came out and dominated 2nd half.

Needless to say, I looked like a fool.
 
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