Brent Key midseason poll... are you happy?

[gnats67]

The BG game was definitely on Thacker. Dude was totally dialed out. Literally sitting on the sidelines at a table while the world burned. The question is how Key didn't see this. Thacker is extremely incompetent at the level he's been at. Unbelievable. He's a decent coach and a decent guy but he should have been fired when Goof was..

 

[GTCrew4b]

I keep looking for a “pleased so far but not ecstatic” option.

 

[THWG247]

Key's heart is 100%. You got to like the dude. I remember when he played. He was White and Gold all the way. The move to shift Thacker to me was nuanced. Decisive without being dismissive. Thacker's a good guy he's just not ready for that level of responsibility. Sherrer will be better at least for the rest of the year and then I think Key should hire a new man. I would imagine JBatt would be on board with that as well. But as much as we don't want to admit after the misery of the Goof saga we are in a rebuild. Key deserves his time to recruit and get his players and formulate his team and the way he wants things to go. It may take a couple of years. Hang on, fellas (and gals) I see aeroplanes and lightning.

If Sherrer improves our defense enough to win 3 or more games and a bowl then he deserves the job imo, lets see what the guy can do

 

[jacket67]

Giving up 38 unanswered points to BG is an epic failure, and probably worse than anything that happened under the clown. I'm willing to set that aside (along with last year's UVA game) for the time being. Blame anybody you want, but it's still Key's team. Still hoping that CBK grows into the job and proves those things were flukes.

 

[OptionJacket]

The BG game was definitely on Thacker. Dude was totally dialed out. Literally sitting on the sidelines at a table while the world burned. The question is how Key didn't see this. Thacker is extremely incompetent at the level he's been at. Unbelievable. He's a decent coach and a decent guy but he should have been fired when Goof was..

Acting as if we shouldn’t have lost to Bowling Green is funny. They whipped us in all 3 phases of the game. Their OLine owned us and they were smart enough to attack our weakness. It wasn’t all Thacker. We couldn’t score, we couldn’t block, we couldn’t catch, we couldn’t punt, nothing. 38 unanswered points is on the head coach. Hopefully Key learned from it because BC has a high end OLine so they are about to run the ball straight at us and after sitting there for 4 miserable hours watching Bowling Green do it I really don’t know if our staff knows how to stop it. Thankfully, Miami didn’t do that and wanted to sling it around which allowed us to stay in the game with the picks. Something tells me BC isn’t that stupid when everyone knows our weakness is stopping the run and tackling.

 

[OptionJacket]

This vanilla, pistol, RPO offense is boring!! Almost Everybody runs it and knows how to defend it. Only superior athletes or defensive stupidity makes much of a difference in predicted outcome. Not suggesting we go back to the 3O, but I would love for us to go to a multiple, Ralf Friedgen/Joe Hamilton style offense, which incorporated some option elements.

Totally agree. We are the definition of the vanilla college offense of the moment. Zero imagination. Every DC knows exactly what we will do. In my view this is why we go on long droughts on offense. Louisville had us figured out after 1/2 a game. Sure, we can make plays that way ON OCCASION, but we are going to continue to have a ton of 3 and outs in the process. I like Faulkner trying to play dress up with all the pre-snap motion but with 6 games of film every DC can see thru it. Faulkner needs to find HIS wrinkles for HIS offense if he wants his career to take off. We don’t have a Brock Bowers or Calvin Johnson to bail us out. The beauty of Friedgen was we could go under center, shotgun, empty back field, I formation, no TE, 1 TE, 2 TE, or whatever the game needed at that time. And we sure as heck weren’t in shotgun on 3rd and half a yard with a 170 pound RB. Doing what we have been doing is obviously better than what we did with Sims, but King is going to get killed at some point because we are obvious in our playcalling.

 

[CarsonNewmanJacket]

Fixed it for you.

This vanilla, pistol, RPO offense is boring!! Almost Everybody runs it and knows how to defend it. Only superior athletes or defensive stupidity makes much of a difference in predicted outcome. Not suggesting we go back to the 3O, but I would love for us to go to a multiple, Ralf Friedgen/Joe Hamilton style offense, which incorporated some option elements.

I was always a fan of the Jamey Chadwell/Urban Meyer spread option. It would be spread enough for the annoying “triple option doesn’t work” crowd and option enough for the annoying “bring back Paul Johnson” crowd. It’s also fast pace and effective enough to cook most good defenses.

 

[justafan]

No. We seem to be doing the same thing as everyone else but with less. We need to be distinctive, do something to equalize despite the disparities in talent and money. We lost badly to a bad Bowling Green team and the DL is weak.

 

[justafan]

Fixed it for you.

This vanilla, pistol, RPO offense is boring!! Almost Everybody runs it and knows how to defend it. Only superior athletes or defensive stupidity makes much of a difference in predicted outcome. Not suggesting we go back to the 3O, but I would love for us to go to a multiple, Ralf Friedgen/Joe Hamilton style offense, which incorporated some option elements.

And what's the theory of success? That we'll be better at it than everyone else despite inferior talent? Or that we'll somehow get superior talent despite having less money? It's as if Key is pursuing some Bama model but without all the advantages of a Bama.

 

[LongforDodd]

The BG game was definitely on Thacker. Dude was totally dialed out. Literally sitting on the sidelines at a table while the world burned. The question is how Key didn't see this. Thacker is extremely incompetent at the level he's been at. Unbelievable. He's a decent coach and a decent guy but he should have been fired when Goof was..

The TV broadcast showed Key having a one on one with Thacker about early fourth quarter. I'd love to know what he told him

 

[WracerX]

Giving up 38 unanswered points to BG is an epic failure, and probably worse than anything that happened under the clown. I'm willing to set that aside (along with last year's UVA game) for the time being. Blame anybody you want, but it's still Key's team. Still hoping that CBK grows into the job and proves those things were flukes.

38 consecutive points. Not 38 unanswered. Unfortunately, the answer was only 7.

It was bad, but several clown games were worse.

 

[LaFlavor]

I'm seeing improvement, but there are still things to fix. The team seems bipolar, not even just from game to game but from quarter to quarter or even drive to drive.

I was really thinking we might go bowling this year, and the win against the 'caines keeps that a possibility. I haven't forgotten about the BigSue game, though, and without that total meltdown I'd be pretty optimistic. I'd be really high on Key and the team had they not totally, embarrassingly blown it against BGSU and held it together vs looville.

 

[GTCrew4b]

I'm seeing improvement, but there are still things to fix. The team seems bipolar, not even just from game to game but from quarter to quarter or even drive to drive.

I was really thinking we might go bowling this year, and the win against the 'caines keeps that a possibility. I haven't forgotten about the BigSue game, though, and without that total meltdown I'd be pretty optimistic. I'd be really high on Key and the team had they not totally, embarrassingly blown it against BGSU and held it together vs looville.

Yeah I think A lot of people would be happy if we were 5-1 with our only loss being @ Ole Miss

 

[Architorture23]

We’re certainly much better off than the last 3 years but we’ve still got a but of an uphill climb to bowl eligibility, which is my “happy mark.”

We needed to beat the teams we were supposed to beat PLUS snatch an unlikely win. We got our unlikely win but now we need another one* because of BG.

*Perhaps not as unlikely as Miami but we need to beat BC and UVA and snatch one from Clem/Cuse/UNC/UGA.

 

[Supersize that order mutt]

3-3 is where we should be for a good coach. It’s not dynamite, but it is solid.

The way we got to 3-3 is both hopeful and concerning. The BG loss was horrible. And that is compounded by the loss to an awful UVa team last year. Beating Miami was great. And honestly, being in the game with them on the road was encouraging. We have been in the game in the 4th quarter with 3 top 25 teams. Yes, we want wins but the first step is being competitive.

We should have two absolute layups. And we should be able to go 1-1 against the unranked teams. UNC isn’t out of our range either. Going 3-2 against that group should be expected.

uga is almost certainly a loss. But we should play them tough regardless.

The mutts will lose one game before they play us, and then we will drive the nail in the coffin to keep them out of the NC playoffs, regardless of how they do in the SECCG

 

[LaFlavor]

Yeah I think A lot of people would be happy if we were 5-1 with our only loss being @ Ole Miss

I only mention it to point out just how thin the line between lukewarm and really excited is. The more I think about it, the more I'm sure the whole team must have gone out the night before bigsue and gotten completely wasted.

 

[stinger78]

I think Syracuse is very beatable. They opened with wins against Colgate, W Michigan, Purdue, and Army, all pretty handily, but have subsequently lost games to Clemson (31-14) and UNC (40-7). They have not hung with those two conference foes. They beat Purdue (2-4) as their only P5 win and are @FSU this week. We'll see how that all works out.

I don't know that we can count any game as a sure win, but I think this one is very winnable, as are BC and UVA if we bring our "A" game.

 

[LaFlavor]

I don't know that we can count any game as a sure win, but I think this one is very winnable, as are BC and UVA if we bring our "A" game.

I wouldn't necessarily count the team out of any game. We certainly won't be favored versus UNC, Clemson, or u(sic)GA but we they probably won't be much more favored that Miami was.

 

[Dirty Jacket]

It’s never as good or as bad as it seems or something.
He’s been fine given the circumstances. He could have simply not lost a game he had no reason to lose and we’d all be ecstatic right now. Except jts. He’s only ecstatic on the day head coaches get fired.

 

[GTFLETCH]

The Good: we are 3-3 at the midpoint. However the way we got the third win was pure luck at Miami's expense. Still worried about how bad we were during the BG game.

Coming out of the bye week with BC, UNC, UVA.... Those three games will tell us a lot about the 2023 Yellow Jackets Football team.