A True Test for the Defense is Coming

coit said:
Seriously, if you think Duke is so good, why not give us an assessment of why they didn't beat Miami.
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I don't think anyone is saying duke is world beaters, but the duke-miami game probably could have gone either way. One, they were playing at Miami. Not that it's a big home field advantage, but it's still a home field. Two, duke had more turnovers. Three, it's not like the game was a blowout - it was 9-7 Miami at halftime and 16-10 Miami at the end of the third.

Duke forced 5 punts in 6 straight possessions in the first half (the other was a missed FG on a 49 yard drive). Four of those were three and outs. That's not bad. While Miami averaged 6.6 yards per pass against duke and 5.0 yards per rush, they averaged 9.8 and 5.6 against us, respectively.

You can slice it any way you want, but that was basically a one score game until less than 10 minutes left in the 4th.
 
Architorture23 said:
They're all close until they're not close anymore.
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Yeah well in 2011 duke had the ball at midfield, 1st and 10, down a td, after scoring on 4 of their previous 5 drives. That was "close" until we picked them off with a little over two minutes left.

In 2012 the game was close until we went up two scores with 10 minutes left in the 4th quarter.

Anyways, my point is that some people on here are making it out like we can just show up on game day and automatically win against this duke team. It doesn't work like that anymore.

I guarantee you that #16 Virginia Tech thought the same thing last year when they were playing duke at home, but lost 13-10. I bet #24 Miami thought the same thing last year, when they lost to duke at home by 18 points. Just in case you don't remember, both of those teams beat us (even though we beat duke). Likewise, I bet Johnny Football didn't think they had a snowball's chance, when they barely edged duke 52-48 by scoring 21 points in the fourth quarter to duke's 7.

We can certainly beat this team, and I think we will. But there is a reason why we aren't 25 point favorites. We are playing a solid, well-coached team. To win, we will need solid effort from our team for all four quarters.
 
I think this will be our toughest and most important game of the year. Psychologically, we're in a perfect spot for a let-down, and Duke's in a perfect spot to get revenge. They're better than they looked against Miami. They're the defending division champions. And, if they beat us, they'll be the clear favorites for the ACCCG, because the rest of their schedule is much weaker than ours.

I just hope that we keep our edge and come out hungrier than they will be. I also hope we'll keep being lucky, take care of the ball on offense, and keep getting turnovers to stop drives on defense. It will be hard. I love Tech, and this would be a heart-breaker to lose. Plus, there's so much up-side, if we win. Boy, the football season is the best time of the year, but it is surely not relaxing.
 
CiraldoForever said:
I think this will be our toughest and most important game of the year. Psychologically, we're in a perfect spot for a let-down, and Duke's in a perfect spot to get revenge. They're better than they looked against Miami. They're the defending division champions. And, if they beat us, they'll be the clear favorites for the ACCCG, because the rest of their schedule is much weaker than ours.

I just hope that we keep our edge and come out hungrier than they will be. I also hope we'll keep being lucky, take care of the ball on offense, and keep getting turnovers to stop drives on defense. It will be hard. I love Tech, and this would be a heart-breaker to lose. Plus, there's so much up-side, if we win. Boy, the football season is the best time of the year, but it is surely not relaxing.
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I agree wholeheartedly with you -- it's all part of the existential dread that is part and parcel of Tech fandom...

Also, I hate dook! The thought of losing to them is nauseating.
 
We will have to do exactly what we did to Miami to win this game. Hold on to the football. Because they are going to nickle and dime us all the way down the field
 
CiraldoForever said:
I think this will be our toughest and most important game of the year. Psychologically, we're in a perfect spot for a let-down, and Duke's in a perfect spot to get revenge. They're better than they looked against Miami. They're the defending division champions. And, if they beat us, they'll be the clear favorites for the ACCCG, because the rest of their schedule is much weaker than ours.

I just hope that we keep our edge and come out hungrier than they will be. I also hope we'll keep being lucky, take care of the ball on offense, and keep getting turnovers to stop drives on defense. It will be hard. I love Tech, and this would be a heart-breaker to lose. Plus, there's so much up-side, if we win. Boy, the football season is the best time of the year, but it is surely not relaxing.
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I generally agree with your sentiment, but let's not carried away with duke being "favorites" to win the division if they beat us. They still have to get by a pretty solid VT team. They still have to get by what is looking to be a pretty decent virginia. And they have to play UNC (who is dying to beat dook at this point), and @ syracuse and @ pitt. I would be very surprised if dook is a favorite in each of those games.
 
Allen Koholic said:
When? When we beat them by four touchdowns or only three? Or that one year when they made it look close in garbage time? Other than Chan Gailey's ultimate derp moment, we've owned them. For twenty years.
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Seeing as the average margin of victory this decade has been ~ 2 TDs, I'd say you are stretching things a bit. Sure, we averaged a 3 TD margin of victory in the 2000s, but since Cutcliffe has had a few years to clamp down its been much less.
 
Some of you should re-look the game stats posted earlier:


Duke vs Miami stats: http://espn.go.com/ncf/recap?id=400547754

Against Miami, Duke had:

264 Total Yds
179 Passing
85 Rushing

Against Miami, GT had:

371 Total Yds
53 Passing
318 Rushing

Uh, no. I'm not worried about us running Duke into the ground.

Just go back and look at the videos of Burden & Mason driving Perryman...into the ground.

And some of you think we wont do that & more...to Duke? Pfffffft.
 
GTCrew said:
You must be blacking out during the portion of the game where we are on defense. You may want to see a doctor about that.
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you might want to see a doctor about that huge stick you have up your ass. or it might be your arm.
 
3GT said:
Some of you should re-look the game stats posted earlier:


Duke vs Miami stats: http://espn.go.com/ncf/recap?id=400547754

Against Miami, Duke had:

264 Total Yds
179 Passing
85 Rushing

Against Miami, GT had:

371 Total Yds
53 Passing
318 Rushing

Uh, no. I'm not worried about us running Duke into the ground.

Just go back and look at the videos of Burden & Mason driving Perryman...into the ground.

And some of you think we wont do that & more...to Duke? Pfffffft.
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Ok, let's rethink this.

One, Duke ran the ball 25 times against Miami. We ran the ball 65 times. The difference in yards per carry was less than 1.5 yards.

Two, Miami was selling out to stop the run against Duke. Against us, their D is a little more nuanced where it focused on stopping JT, and also tried to prevent our ABs from big gains, leaving the middle open. Even with running room Laskey still averaged only 4.6 ypc.

Three, those rushing stats you cite to include two negative "team" rushes (for -24 yards) that were the result of a fumble. If you take those away, Duke's ypc jumps a full point (109 yards on 25 carries).

Four, you are looking at the wrong thing. You are looking at Miami's ability to stop our run game versus their ability to stop duke's run game. What you want to do is look at OUR ability to stop the run. Which has been dismal. We are, by far, the worst major program in yards given up per rush play. That's why Miami's top two backs hit 116 yards on 16 carries against us. Sure, duke doesn't have Miami's firepower. But they are averaging 6.0 ypc against teams that are much better than us defensively in ypc.

You can point to strength of schedule, but it's not like ours is that great either.

We gave up 5.8 ypc to Wofford. Surely duke is better than them.

We gave up 3.8 ypc to Tulane. Surely duke is better than them.

GSU hit 7.4 ypc. They may be better rushing than duke, but it was still a dismal effort by our D.

We gave up 3.8 ypc against VT in our best rushing defensive effort of the year.

Our D needs work. Duke will give it to us, I'm sure.
 
Legal Jacket said:
Our D needs work. Duke will give it to us, I'm sure.
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How thick can people be, OMG.

It is no secret that our DL is undersized. We simply CANNOT get consistent pressure on the QB. We WILL give up yards to teams, and we have.

And as has been stated numerous times in this and other threads, the gameplan is to minimize big plays through the air. Therefore, we will give up small underneath routes pretty often.

This all changes once the opposing offenses have short field. Our secondary doesn't have to worry about 40 yard passes when the ball is at the 30 yard line or closer. The defense can afford to bring one or two guys on blitzes to pressure the QB.

That's the way it works. Is it that hard to understand?

So, the answer to your statement is that our Defense does not need work, it needs better personnel. Hopefully we will get it. In the interim, Roof has shown that he can bring a pretty good gameplan, and he has done a more than adequate job of in-game adjustments in our past couple of games, and really in every game except for the Southern game. But that was more on the offense for not being able to stay on the field.
 
Duke is Duke. They suck. If you think Duke is going to give us all we can handle, you can go fist yourself with Hulk hands.
 
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