Game thoughts

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Game thoughts:
  • This is definitely the low point of GT football since I have been a fan.
  • Losing to an FCS 3O team followed up by CGC's previous team is unfortunate to say the least. Schedule-results wise, I can't think of a worse way to undermine confidence in the CGC era.
  • No real complaints about defense, impressed with their performance overall.
  • Offense is hot garbage.
    • Can't blame the coaches for Oliver putting the ball on the ground with terrible timing (having a hard time blaming Oliver for the second one, too).
    • However, even taking away the fumbles, it really doesn't look like we had enough offensive punch/plan to win the game
    • Oliver can hit seam routes well enough. The dude isn't completely incapable of throwing a pass. Focus should be on enabling the run game by punishing box-stacking with quick outs/seams/bubble screens. I still just dont get what our offensive plan is supposed to be.
    • Patenaude needs to get out of the box and get on the field. He needs to stfu about all of his smart-boy package/field position calls and focus on getting some simple things running efficiently. Someone needs to tell him very straightforwardly that he is not an offensive mastermind and needs to walk before he runs.
  • Coaching:
    • Collins - I am still on the juice train but unfortunately it looks like his learning curve is going to be steeper than we hoped
    • Key - Had and still have no real reason to be excited about him. No one can explain why we are paying this guy $600k, more than he made at Alabama. Looking forward to him proving myself and anyone else that questioned his credentials completely wrong.
    • Patenaude - dude's gotta go. Aside from strategic positions (namely C-level), organizations can't afford to weather bad hires if they are obviously not going to pan out. He is BTL, not even a developmental guy, and needs to be processed out.
  • Giving CGC a longer-than-normal contract was a harebrained idea. The only way it would have looked good is if CGC really knocked it out of the park his first year. I guess that's still possible... with that said don't know why our ADs insist on writing dumb contracts.
 
EffinDane said:
Game thoughts:
  • This is definitely the low point of GT football since I have been a fan.
  • Losing to an FCS 3O team followed up by CGC's previous team is unfortunate to say the least. Schedule-results wise, I can't think of a worse way to undermine confidence in the CGC era.
  • No real complaints about defense, impressed with their performance overall.
  • Offense is hot garbage.
    • Can't blame the coaches for Oliver putting the ball on the ground with terrible timing (having a hard time blaming Oliver for the second one, too).
    • However, even taking away the fumbles, it really doesn't look like we had enough offensive punch/plan to win the game
    • Oliver can hit seam routes well enough. The dude isn't completely incapable of throwing a pass. Focus should be on enabling the run game by punishing box-stacking with quick outs/seams/bubble screens. I still just dont get what our offensive plan is supposed to be.
    • Patenaude needs to get out of the box and get on the field. He needs to stfu about all of his smart-boy package/field position calls and focus on getting some simple things running efficiently. Someone needs to tell him very straightforwardly that he is not an offensive mastermind and needs to walk before he runs.
  • Coaching:
    • Collins - I am still on the juice train but unfortunately it looks like his learning curve is going to be steeper than we hoped
    • Key - Had and still have no real reason to be excited about him. No one can explain why we are paying this guy $600k, more than he made at Alabama. Looking forward to him proving myself and anyone else that questioned his credentials completely wrong.
    • Patenaude - dude's gotta go. Aside from strategic positions (namely C-level), organizations can't afford to weather bad hires if they are obviously not going to pan out. He is BTL, not even a developmental guy, and needs to be processed out.
  • Giving CGC a longer-than-normal contract was a harebrained idea. The only way it would have looked good is if CGC really knocked it out of the park his first year. I guess that's still possible... with that said don't know why our ADs insist on writing dumb contracts.
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I agree with a lot of this, but I don't have a problem with CGC's contract. That's an indication TStan knew he wouldn't even contemplate assessing his job performance until after Year 3. He basically gave him 2 free years. Rhule from Baylor (I believe) while unrelated circumstances had a similar 7 year deal so I'm guessing that's simply the market these days for major over-hauls.
 
EffinDane said:
Game thoughts:
  • This is definitely the low point of GT football since I have been a fan.
  • Losing to an FCS 3O team followed up by CGC's previous team is unfortunate to say the least. Schedule-results wise, I can't think of a worse way to undermine confidence in the CGC era.
  • No real complaints about defense, impressed with their performance overall.
  • Offense is hot garbage.
    • Can't blame the coaches for Oliver putting the ball on the ground with terrible timing (having a hard time blaming Oliver for the second one, too).
    • However, even taking away the fumbles, it really doesn't look like we had enough offensive punch/plan to win the game
    • Oliver can hit seam routes well enough. The dude isn't completely incapable of throwing a pass. Focus should be on enabling the run game by punishing box-stacking with quick outs/seams/bubble screens. I still just dont get what our offensive plan is supposed to be.
    • Patenaude needs to get out of the box and get on the field. He needs to stfu about all of his smart-boy package/field position calls and focus on getting some simple things running efficiently. Someone needs to tell him very straightforwardly that he is not an offensive mastermind and needs to walk before he runs.
  • Coaching:
    • Collins - I am still on the juice train but unfortunately it looks like his learning curve is going to be steeper than we hoped
    • Key - Had and still have no real reason to be excited about him. No one can explain why we are paying this guy $600k, more than he made at Alabama. Looking forward to him proving myself and anyone else that questioned his credentials completely wrong.
    • Patenaude - dude's gotta go. Aside from strategic positions (namely C-level), organizations can't afford to weather bad hires if they are obviously not going to pan out. He is BTL, not even a developmental guy, and needs to be processed out.
  • Giving CGC a longer-than-normal contract was a harebrained idea. The only way it would have looked good is if CGC really knocked it out of the park his first year. I guess that's still possible... with that said don't know why our ADs insist on writing dumb contracts.
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agreed with a lot of that. Gameplan seems to be "let's be balanced" but also appears to abandon the running game pretty quickly. Not that I entirely blame them, given how badly we're losing the trench battle. And if we're losing the battle upfront vs Citadel and Temple, whatever Key is trying to teach clearly isn't translating either.

The Citadel one still is the worst. If these OL guys are a bunch of FCS kids, they should've been more competent against an FCS school. Oh well - can only go up from here, eventually.

positives: Graham and our WRs appear to be competent. They made some great snags on Saturday from some fairly high throws. At some point, we're gonna hit one of those long throws. We should've hit at least 1 of 'em on Saturday, to Sanders I think. Wide open but barely over thrown. When we starting hitting those plays, it'll build some confidence, same way the early INTs vs Clemson clearly has the secondary playing with confidence.
 
Grief-stages.jpg


I would say we are still fairly early on our 5 stages. I'm catching wind of a handful of deniers, although that crowd is fading after the last 2 losses. Clearly there is a large contingent that fall within the anger bucket. I personally am bargaining with the reality that it will take time to turn-over this roster to support the offense we would like to run at a P5 level. I'm working toward coping with the fact that this likely will be a multiple season rebuild project. I applaud those of you who are already accepting of the present realities of GT football. You are clearly the more advanced of all of us.
 
EffinDane said:
Patenaude needs to get out of the box and get on the field. He needs to stfu about all of his smart-boy package/field position calls and focus on getting some simple things running efficiently. Someone needs to tell him very straightforwardly that he is not an offensive mastermind and needs to walk before he runs.
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CGC has repeatedly claimed that CDP is one of CFP's "best young offensive minds" (or STTE), so I guess when your boss is offering that level of public praise you feel pretty good about yourself.

I agree with you completely that the way he discusses the games in pressers seems completely oblivious. It's like he doesn't realize we can all watch the games and see how he's doing. It's a lot of catchphrases and fake coach-speak. How about telling me what you're going to do differently in light of the obvious failure of what you're currently doing?
 
EffinDane said:
Game thoughts:
  • This is definitely the low point of GT football since I have been a fan.
  • Losing to an FCS 3O team followed up by CGC's previous team is unfortunate to say the least. Schedule-results wise, I can't think of a worse way to undermine confidence in the CGC era.
  • No real complaints about defense, impressed with their performance overall.
  • Offense is hot garbage.
    • Can't blame the coaches for Oliver putting the ball on the ground with terrible timing (having a hard time blaming Oliver for the second one, too).
    • However, even taking away the fumbles, it really doesn't look like we had enough offensive punch/plan to win the game
    • Oliver can hit seam routes well enough. The dude isn't completely incapable of throwing a pass. Focus should be on enabling the run game by punishing box-stacking with quick outs/seams/bubble screens. I still just dont get what our offensive plan is supposed to be.
    • Patenaude needs to get out of the box and get on the field. He needs to stfu about all of his smart-boy package/field position calls and focus on getting some simple things running efficiently. Someone needs to tell him very straightforwardly that he is not an offensive mastermind and needs to walk before he runs.
  • Coaching:
    • Collins - I am still on the juice train but unfortunately it looks like his learning curve is going to be steeper than we hoped
    • Key - Had and still have no real reason to be excited about him. No one can explain why we are paying this guy $600k, more than he made at Alabama. Looking forward to him proving myself and anyone else that questioned his credentials completely wrong.
    • Patenaude - dude's gotta go. Aside from strategic positions (namely C-level), organizations can't afford to weather bad hires if they are obviously not going to pan out. He is BTL, not even a developmental guy, and needs to be processed out.
  • Giving CGC a longer-than-normal contract was a harebrained idea. The only way it would have looked good is if CGC really knocked it out of the park his first year. I guess that's still possible... with that said don't know why our ADs insist on writing dumb contracts.
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Agree with some of this:
- Definitely not the low point of GT football since I have been a fan. This isn't even close to the B*** L**** years. Or, for that matter 2015 to me. I expected us to suck this year as we changed systems; I did not expect us to be 3-9 the year after we went 11-3, were ACC runner ups and won the Orange Bowl game against Mississippi State.
- I do blame Oliver for the second fumble. Three points of contact, young man....he had 2...and that allowed it to be punched out from behind and run back for a TD.
- Key -- yeah WAYYYYY too early to form those kinds of opinions about him. The whole "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" argument rings true here to me.
- Patenaude -- so far I'm not impressed either but four games isn't a valid sample size...especially when you're turning over the ball 3 times inside the opponents 35. ( I do think the playcalling was horrendous when we turned it over on downs inside the 10 though. We passed it down the entire field and then decided we were a running team for 4 downs when there is less room to run the ball)
- Giving the 7 year contract was probably necessary. Have no problem with it.
 
18in32 said:
There is also less room to throw the ball at the goal line.

Just as much room to fumble, though.
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True. But a mobile QB who rolls out of the pocket presents defensive choices that running the ball does not. Hell, if there was ever a time for the QB substitution strategy, putting Oliver in for a couple of plays there was probably the best strategy.
 
We are trying to be run first but when teams put 8 in the box we switch to pass but we are trying to throw deep when what we need is quick. Slants, curls, dump off to the back in the flats. This would help.
 
GoGATech said:
Also hard to blame the coaches for zero confidence in the kickers to give us 3.
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yeah I don't get whatever has happened to Wells. From reports of plenty of fans who've seen him in warmups, he can't hit water if he kicked from a boat right now.
 
yellowbritchies said:
Yow! that is a sobering stat!
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It may be an example of the voodoo that is used to rank recruiting classes, especially those that are not near the top of the heap. The comparison of a collection of high school players that have never played a down of college football or been coached by a college staff would be iffy at best.
 
I'm excited about the future of our defense. Of course we have to have better offensive production, and that will come when we build a better OL. In the 2nd half Saturday, our defense gave up 97 yards and 3 points. That 3 points came on a drive aided by the facemask 15 yard penalty. Of those 97 yards, 77 were rushing yards. 46 of those rushing yards came on Temple's last offensive possession in sub 4 minute end of game time. Not saying we weren't trying at that point, but the game was out of reach. So until that point, we allowed 51 yards of offense in the 2nd half. CBS Sports has Temple ranked as the #41 team as of now, ahead of 9 ACC teams and 7 SEC teams. Defense is their strong suit, and for the most part, our offense had success moving the ball, just had trouble putting it in the endzone. We continue to make progress every week, but people don't see it unless we win. It will come.
 
yellowbritchies said:
Yow! that is a sobering stat!
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I think it is obvious GT has a more talented roster but GT would love to have Temple's OL; they are night and day better than we currently have. We would love to have their LBs. We would love to have their QB; mainly because of his pro-pass abilities not his talent. There WRs are very good also; I expect we are close on talent but they have more experience.

So GT is more talented at most other positions and has much greater talent at a few positions but the weaknesses in the positions above gave Temple a more talented starting 22 than we put out there. IMO.

IMO, it should have been a 17-20 type game and have come down to the last few minutes of the game. The first fumble really took the sails out of the team and the 2nd was a game changer.
 
texstinger said:
-OL is very thin (bad if you want to say that). That is due to the way we were forced to recruit previously due to the system. And we had 2, I think, leave and now we have 2 hurt. CPJ surprisingly retired for a reason. To us anyway. But he knew what he had left in the cupboard.
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Blaming Johnson as the sole reason for our current oline woes needs to stop. I will admit that CPJ, really Tech as a program since the mid 90s, always had issues with Oline and Dline depth. However, the current staff did run off three oline men.

Two were recruits who ended up signing at Louisville and App State, so a power 5 school and one of the better G5 teams. The guy who went to Louisville is listed in the two deep. I would bet they are better players than the walkons we are using to patch up our wounded oline.

Worse than the above, the staff ran off all-acc olineman Parker Braun. He starts for Texas now btw, which is shocking because he’s only been ‘ankle-biting’ the last 3-4 years. You think he be buried in the depth chart because he would struggle to pick up pro style block schemes.
 
GT18YJjr. said:
Blaming Johnson as the sole reason for our current oline woes needs to stop. I will admit that CPJ, really Tech as a program since the mid 90s, always had issues with Oline and Dline depth. However, the current staff did run off three oline men.

Two were recruits who ended up signing at Louisville and App State, so a power 5 school and one of the better G5 teams. The guy who went to Louisville is listed in the two deep. I would bet they are better players than the walkons we are using to patch up our wounded oline.

Worse than the above, the staff ran off all-acc olineman Parker Braun. He starts for Texas now btw, which is shocking because he’s only been ‘ankle-biting’ the last 3-4 years. You think he be buried in the depth chart because he would struggle to pick up pro style block schemes.
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We didn't run off Braun. I expect it is more likely we told him it was going to be an ugly year and he needed to transfer to help his NFL career BUT the most likely scenario is he knew it was best for himself and made the decision on his own like he said.

It might have helped to have those 2 freshmen so that we had 2 more bodies for this year but all that would have done was add 2 more option specialists to the roster that would have taken up space that we needed for linemen built the way we need. Look at Temple: their OL had builds totally different than anyone on our roster except for maybe Quinney.

It is a transition: the offensive roster was not made for what we need to do in the future. You can either hinder that transition and drag it out or move on as quickly as possible. Moving on is the best long term strategy but does make it harder in the short-term.
 
I had figured our offense would be a struggle and that at times we going to have turnovers on bad passes and/or busted plays for big losses but still put up yards based simply off some skill position talent and running ball decent. I did not foresee a battered already sub par Oline, a revolving QB door in nature it's been handled, and game planning and forced play-calling that has worsened the overall downfalls of our offense currently.
- Oliver has been very frustrating he's a heck of a athlete and gamer but he's dangerous because he does try too much and has proven careless with the ball so far a terrible flip INT against Clemson and the 2 fumbles against Temple are signs of that plus his overall passing skill is lackluster not pretty passes, Graham probably better passer all be it still not great he's been high on so many throws this year even before hurting his thumb he's throws a good spiral but his location is questionable and I think theirs concern on his ability to read defenses as well that INT toward end of game was terrible. We truly don't have a good QB currently playing and perhaps from what I seen of Yates he's a better all around QB but perhaps they don't want to burn him on a lost season and still learning.
-Running Backs and WRs talent wise seem okay to me they can compete and make plays and if had a more consistent QB probably could have good games.
-Oline is banged up not deep and bad to begin with...Southers the transfer is a complete turn-stall at RT people just speed rush right past him regularly and they just aren't consistent in their blocks running or passing. They do manage to play penalty free mostly that's the only plus but it's going to be a few years of recruiting and just overall development for some of these young guys to grow as well as develop into decent results. Cooper/Quinney/Lee I think next year will be with growth and PT be decent players.

Defense I have not too many complaints over... I see players out there who are young but are developing nicely and making plays a few mistakes continue to happen via penalty and bad angles but those are wrinkles that continue to iron out, the Secondary is a overall strength and pretty good across the board. The LBs have some guys who can move and as the learn will be good LBs, the D-line is all effort and respect that but overall the talent/size is not really there and super shallow so only recruiting and further development will fix that....so considering what they are talent wise and experience I'm okay with the defense especially since the Offense does them no favors by sustaining drives or keeping close

I have no idea why we aren't attempting FGs maybe it's Collins pressing to try and get something out of his offense or he doesn't have any confidence in his kickers but unless something happened behind the scene with Wells he seemed to be one of the more reliable kickers in ACC outside of long 45+ yard attempts? The coaching staff Collins needs at some point with this team to transition from the rah rah to the actually tough leadership and really let kids know particularly the offense guys it's got to be better I understand we are asking kids who aren't suited to do things at QB do more they need too but you can't be a push over patsy to these guys.

Imho Yate's even as a freshman is still the most polished passer and QB in regards to reading defense's you have and I understand the notation of not burning years for good players but if you believe in your recruiting you should be able to continue to stock the QB pool and go ahead in start that development for him as a College QB as soon as you think he's ready to go out and play. He's a guy that seems to deliver good passes hitting WRs in stride in short and intermediate passes and also scans the routes like a true QB his uncle is TJ Yates he's been schooled up by all accounts in being a True QB and plus he seems to have Russel Wilson like ability in extending plays while still getting downfield with the ball and finding WRs on broke coverage.
 
As weird as the goal line fumble looked, I think maybe Oliver just didn't see the guy coming from his side until the last second. Maybe he didn't have the ball as secure as it should be because he didn't see the hit coming. Terrible luck, standard GT football. His other fumble started out as a good play to avoid a sack/TFL, IIRC, and then the defensive guy got a good hit on the ball. He needs to work on ball security, but in both situations he was in the middle of making a play when he lost the ball, at least. (Then with the revolving door of QBs, I guess you're always afraid you're about to get yanked on a whim anyway.)

I have no idea what's up with our kickers - either there are injuries, or the staff has wrecked their psyches, but it's pretty f'd up that we don't even try to kick anymore. I just can't fathom how Wells, who was pretty solid last year for what we asked of him, could go completely into the toilet unless there's an injury or some bad coaching of some sort.

JRjr
 
vapspwi said:
As weird as the goal line fumble looked, I think maybe Oliver just didn't see the guy coming from his side until the last second. Maybe he didn't have the ball as secure as it should be because he didn't see the hit coming. Terrible luck, standard GT football. His other fumble started out as a good play to avoid a sack/TFL, IIRC, and then the defensive guy got a good hit on the ball. He needs to work on ball security, but in both situations he was in the middle of making a play when he lost the ball, at least. (Then with the revolving door of QBs, I guess you're always afraid you're about to get yanked on a whim anyway.)

I have no idea what's up with our kickers - either there are injuries, or the staff has wrecked their psyches, but it's pretty f'd up that we don't even try to kick anymore. I just can't fathom how Wells, who was pretty solid last year for what we asked of him, could go completely into the toilet unless there's an injury or some bad coaching of some sort.

JRjr
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I'm not sure how he didn't see the guy on the goal line play; at least he should have. It was frustrating because all he had to do was hold the ball tight and he likely falls into the endzone even with the hit. He could have had the presence of mind to switch the ball to the other hand.

The other was more understandable because the guy did come from behind him BUT after you fumble once, you should hold the ball a little stronger.

The combination really changed the game.
 
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