Game Report: Vandy is a bad bad football team

[kirbee]

Sorry, I cheer for Vandy as a 2nd or 3rd team. I grew up in Nashvegas and had season tickets as a child. Many close family members are alumni. But that team out there Saturday night was one of the worst I've seen line up against the Jackets. I really expected more.

Bottom line: Vandy was small (did you see #10 on defense - he was tough, but maybe 135 lbs), slow, scared, and confused. Best wishes to Vandy this year, but I think its going to be a long one.

That said I was proud of the way the Jackets shook off those 1st game nerves by the second quarter and put a whooping on them!

POSITIVES:

* Loved seeing Suggs gain his confidence quickly. The last TD to Glover was a bullet and he threw it with an Elway like purpose.

* Loved what I saw from Glover and Watkins. Their hands -- as reported in practice reports -- are impeccable. Did you see the picture of Watkins in the paper on his catch? Point made.

* Hollings had his comming out party!! Love seeing a Tech TB with break away speed. He was a suspect holding call from being over 200 yds.

* The LEFT SIDE of the line was playing blocking sled with the Vandy DL. Nat was driving his man 8 yards straight back on several snaps.

* Defense was stuffing the run and hitting hard. Harvgrove got that first sack of many to come.

* DBs kept everything in front and swarmed up to lay the wood.

* RHINO! I love this guy! He changes everything and is worth about 10-30 yards per punt. He is so huge in changing field position and momentum.

* Bilbo is a freak show. He is ultra smooth and just has an electricty about him. He has NFL talent IMO. We really need to use him more. That 60 yard rainbow bomb he threw to Thomas was one of the prettiest passes I've ever seen. (Too bad Thomas let it go between his hands). He needs more PT.

NEGATIVES:

Yes there were negatives. Picky, picky!

* False starts!! There were at least 10 called on the Jackets. I think Nat got 3 in the first quarter. This MUST be resolved. We had waaaayyy too many penalties.

* We are big time LEFT HANDED on offense. Every play we ran in the 1st quarter was to the left. Teams will see this on film and make us pay for it if we don't mix it up more/establish a right side. Bilbo on the naked bootleg comes to mind!

* We need to get up to the ball and snap it! Vandy was VERY confused and making adjustments before the snap every time. We would line up and it looked like Suggs was waiting for them to get ready before calling signals. Hello? I understand you want to read the defense but if they don't have a guy covering Watkins out wide because they haven't seen him yet, what else is there to read?

* I only saw one option play and it was run by Suggs. Very disappointed! Maybe we're saving it?

* O'Brien made a bad call in the 1st Qtr. We should have ran the ball on 3rd and 1. We would have easily gotten it.

* Opponents receivers are wide open on field crossing routes. Vandy's RFr QB Cutler just was too overwhelmed to find them. Trust me, BYU and Clemson QBs will.

* Vandy's QB had too much time to pass. This may have been (almost) intentional. The front 4 were stymied by Vandy's OL. We did blitz once or twice sucessfully (the 2 ints come to mind).

* It was honestly hard to tell about the defense. Vandy tried almost nothing on offense. They were complete vanilla and were as threatening as the 8 year old Flatrock Vols (Nashville sandlot league).

* I did not see much mixing of the 1st and 2nd teams. Maybe one series. I would like to have seen some rotation going on so they all get used to playing real time.

* Though I love seeing the KO team on the field, I didn't like the KO coverage. They all get sucked inside and Vandy almost broke one.

* Dyke shanked 2 punts and Magnet missed a 51 yarder into the wind by 2 yards short. (Ok, I'm digging).

Bottom Line
One more scrimmage and then the real season starts with Clemson and BYU, 2 scary games. This game didn't change my opinion of our team from preseason. We're not better or worse, it is hard to tell when the competition isn't there. This team has some tools and potential, but they haven't been tested in the fire completely. We shall see!

Go Jackets!

 

[GT98]

Good game recap--echoed a lot of my thinking on the game.

As far as the offense goes, I think that once that O'brien/Gailey saw that Hollings would be able to get to the corner and exploit his speed (he was a lot faster than I thought) by running to left and that Vandy could not stop it, just keep doing it. Offense was very vanilla and I am glad that we can line up and pound a lesser opponent and not show much of anything for Clemson to look at. Maybe the left side combo of Dorsey/Robinson will allow us to be left handed at times, but I think that this o-line (w/3 soph.) can be very good if we avoid injuiries there.

The defense did not blitz much if but for maybe a handful of plays. One thing that I did notice, is that the d-linemen got their hands up! Blocked/tipped some passes at the line; I have not seen our d-linemen do that in a long time.

Dyke looked shaky to me; definitely cannot shank the ball against the better teams.

Good to see the 2nd/3rd teamers getting a lot of playing time. Need to make sure that we jump on Uconn in the same manner as we did Vandy in the 2nd quarter.

Great night overall--stadium looked good and the fans seemed to be into as much as one can be for a blowout.

 

[GT Adamni]

Good observations, and I agree with all of them.

One slight correction, it was Bridges that let the bomb from Bilbo go through his hands, not Thomas.

You are right about their receivers being open too often. Luckily for us their QB kept missing them. This is my biggest concern at this point. It needs to be corrected before we play Clemson.

 

[GTTerrific]

Kirbee nice break down of the game. Adamni is correct. It was Bridges who missed the reception on the long pass from Bilbo. That was great play except for not catching it. He was right there with the DB until the ball was in the air, then he showed great separation. This was his first game under the lights in this type of atmosphere. He's going to have a great career at GT.

Want to say something Kirbee. It's not just you. Have read every single recap on here and the hive. For the most part, including your recap, there have been more negatives than positives.

After coming back from game day and reading these reports I have to admit it's depressing to me.

Had an awesome game day experience at GT. I realize that everything wasn't perfect, but to hear all this negative after coming out as well prepared as we were in a first game with a new qb, new tb, new defensive scheme, and new coaching staff it sure is depressing to hear so much negative. Sure I can sit down and pick apart the games positive and negatives. I saw the open recievers when the Vandy qb scrambled expecially. Sure I saw a lot of things we needed to work on. Saw a lot of things we did extremely well for a firm game too. Of all the first games played I've watched no one has looked more more impressive in all phases of the game than we did Sat night. I give a lot of credit to our coaching staff and players for what they accomplished. Have a lot of confidense they'll be able to build on Sat night.

 

[ramblinwise1]

Call me an optimist but I thought it was a good outing, hell I was concerned about a fairly close game if we came out flat/confused. 1Q was pretty bad for all the reasons cited. Vandy is Vandy.

Another pet peeve of mine... saw way too much of the 1 back offense, shades of last year. OK in passing situations but not on 3rd and 2, or 2nd and 3. Did NOT throw to the tight end, if I recall correctly. MUST do 3-4 times/game.

Reasons for optimism: Hollings is the real deal, period. Will be much more productive than JFB was last year IMHO.

Suggs: disappointing at first, looked out of sorts, but gained complete composure by 2Q. Bilbo, how can you keep this guy off the field??? If he can read coverages, we'll see him in the NFL at QB someday. Chan MUST play him more, can't let him get frustrated. Don't know why he doesn't come in everytime we get in the red zone to add another running dimension.

 

[gnats67]

Agreed. Nice report. Hollings showed ALOT for a first game. If we can get to the corner against some of our better defensive opponents, watch out!
Bilbo is dripping with potential. Time bomb waiting to go off.

 

[GT98]

Originally posted by GTTerrific:

Want to say something Kirbee. It's not just you. Have read every single recap on here and the hive. For the most part, including your recap, there have been more negatives than positives.

After coming back from game day and reading these reports I have to admit it's depressing to me.

[/QB]

<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">I disagree w/you. Every thing that I have read pointed out that we looked very good for opening night and have a few things to work on before we get into the meat of the schedule w/Clemson in a couple of weeks. I think that you were reading too much of the people complaining about the band location (I could hear them fine from the Upper East, Section 224) or the cheddar cheese gameday gold miscue from whoever was in charge of that. If anything, that should tell you if the biggest topic of discussion is either one of those, then the team must have looked pretty good. Also, some fonts/people are never gonna be happy unless they have something to complain about.

The team has a few coverage issues to work on before the Clemson game, but I am not so sure that that was more of a product of playing a soft zone once the rout was on. Also, I am nitpicking when the only thing that I saw that was poor was Dyke's punting (early on). I have no doubt that he will be in better form from here on out.

Relax.

 

[kirbee]

Thanks for correcting me about Bridges/Thomas guys. GTTerrific, nice point about Bridges being right with the DB and then separating from him to go get that ball. Good to see that break away speed.

Sorry if I sounded a little negative. I didn't mean too. I definately had a great time and was thrilled with how the boys looked. They obviously took care of business. Everyone on the team deserves praise for a great game.

I just don't want folks to get the idea from this game (ie the score) that we're now top 10 material or that there aren't things that can be corrected. This team has the potential to have a great season, but they aren't there yet.

Go Jackets!!

 

[ahsoisee]

GT Adamni, love the hat on your avatar. After reading all the posts under this thread, there is only one item disappointing about the game. There were way to many penalties due to mental mistakes, however, it was the first game.

Some of the other items mentioned may be intentional at this time. Running to the left on every play may be setting things up for the bigger games (make them think we can't go to the right).

You set your defense up prior to a game according to your opponent. Maybe the defensive backs did play off the ball a good distance against Vandy, but maybe Tenuta saw that was the best strategy against them (45-3), and we can't argue with the results.

Clemson throws a lot of short passes. We make them think we are soft on short coverage prior to their game, then we come up tight when they go to throw. We use a couple of easy games to throw them off.

If we go up against a good team with tall WRs and good catching tight ends, we might see Houston or Burton as the nickel back. This was a good game to see how Rhino would do in this situation.

Again, maybe some of the items that seemed to be negative, were there by design. We will have to wait until the season starts in the third game to find out. Tenuta is pretty clever.

 

[kirbee]

You may be right ahsoisee, good point.

We didn't blitz a lot and that was the right strategy against a Freshman QB starting on the road. Make him prove you have to take chances to stop him. Play back and see what he can do (nothing). So it worked. We shall see how the strategy develops down the road.

 

[GTTerrific]

Kirbee, Just venting a little. GT98 is correct in that it's several things I've read added up that make is seem so negative. The color issue and the band issue are two points. It probably wasn't fair to you that I vented after your post. Your recap was a good one. There were more negative issure brought up in your post than positives,but I do agree with you on just about every one though.

 

[Beesnut]

We won 45-3. It was never close.

Nuff said.

 

[kirbee]

Picked this quote out of the Tennessean and it goes with what I thought.

But what the crowd saw out there Saturday night was that we didn't show our whole offense. We were only able to do certain things. We expected to be able to do more, but with the way the game unfolded, we only showed basically half of what we had.

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