Hungover from the loss

BarrelORum

BarrelORum

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Yesterday sucked in so many ways. I hate losing a big game that we just gift wrapped and handed the present to VT.

We killed ourselves yesterday. Turnovers killed us. Stupid penalties. Poor tackling in the first half. Etc.

But after I sobered up some I realized this team has a lot of things in it that I haven't seen from a GT team in a long long time.

Guts. These kids play with a lot of heart. There is no denying that. The look on Nesbitt's face at the end of the game said it all. He was just disgusted and pissed off.

Nesbitt executed 1000 times better yesterday than the week before at BC. He is definitely looking more comfortable in this offense. Yesterday was the first indications to me that we are finally starting to understand PJ's offense.

Our guys don't give up which is a totally different attitude than when we were under Gailey. Our offense fights and fights hard. Finally we have a coach who has instilled a tough nose attitude in the offense.

We are thin and young. We're just going to have to deal with it.

I was very pleased with the coaching. Give it some time, we are going to be a scary scary team. Its going to be a long while before VT beats us again. I not only feel bad for Miss St next week I feel badly for the rest of the ACC. If VT doesn't play perfectly from here on out, I think we got a real shot at the ACC CG.

The bad: We got to get AJ Smith back fast. Our interior olineman don't impress me at all. I think we need to consider burning Uzzi's redshirt.

Greg Smith in my opinion should be at WR. As an Aback, I'm just not confident in his skills to run the option. He also dropped an easy pass.

We had 8 penalties to VT's 3 penalties. Two of those penalties cost us this game. Only one of two were legit. I hate to tell this to the refs, but when the QB scrambles and runs past the line of scrimmage, he is a runningback. I don't know a tackler of a runningback that has ever received a helmet to helmet contact call. It wasn't malicious. It was the biggest load of garbage I've seen.

Regardless, we killed ourselves yesterday but I think this loss will do more good for this team in the long run.

I loved hearing PJ's post game comments.
 
Agree on Greg Smith. Although he has to catch the ball if he's going to play out there and still needs to make his blocks. But he's way too tentative at A Back.
 
BarrelORum said:
Guts. These kids play with a lot of heart. There is no denying that. The look on Nesbitt's face at the end of the game said it all. He was just disgusted and pissed off.
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I agree 100%. Contrast that with Reggie "It Ain't No Speed Bump" Ball...
 
BarrelORum said:
I think we need to consider burning Uzzi's redshirt.
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I agree with most of what you said, BOR, except burning Uzzi's redshirt. Even up the turnovers between the teams and we clobber VT. We beat them everyway except on turnovers/scoreboard.

Stop the turnovers!
 
Essobee said:
I agree with most of what you said, BOR, except burning Uzzi's redshirt. Even up the turnovers between the teams and we clobber VT. We beat them everyway except on turnovers/scoreboard.

Stop the turnovers!
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The two fumbles were caused by DLineman penetrating the gap between our center and guard. Specifically coming through between Cord Howard and Dan Voss.
 
BarrelORum said:
The two fumbles were caused by DLineman penetrating the gap between our center and guard. Specifically coming through between Cord Howard and Dan Voss.
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You're right. I recall that now.
 
BarrelORum said:
The two fumbles were caused by DLineman penetrating the gap between our center and guard. Specifically coming through between Cord Howard and Dan Voss.
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This is a big deal that I hope get's straightened out soon. Virginia Tech embarrassed our line all day and it caused a lot of disruption for Josh.

It stings that we lost, but I'm still excited overall for the season. I think we'll get the win against Mississippi State this week and be 5-1 and significantly better when we head to Death Valley to hand Bowden his pink slip.
 
BarrelORum said:
The two fumbles were caused by DLineman penetrating the gap between our center and guard. Specifically coming through between Cord Howard and Dan Voss.
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This may be true, but at least one of them should not have happened...Nesbitt got hit and just dropped the ball. He also dropped it two other times this game, one of which was recovered by us and the other when he was already down, but you could tell the ball came loose anyway. He had this problem last year too, and no amount of settling into the system will fix it...he just needs to learn how to hang onto the ball.
 
We turn the ball over too much, pure and simple. Very rarely will you turn the ball over 3 times and be in a position to win. That's it, and that's all, there is nothing more to it. It must stop.

Our interior O line play sucks too.
 
Greg Smith in my opinion should be at WR. As an Aback, I'm just not confident in his skills to run the option. He also dropped an easy pass.
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Maybe at WR for the scout team.
 
There's no doubt that Nesbitt needs to hold onto the ball better. But one of those fumbles doesn't happen if Voss and Howard protect the gap.
 
Guys, this team will be real good, pretty soon. There were flashes yesterday where we looked like Navy. On that 80 yard drive in the 4th quarter, we looked like we'd been running the 3O for a while. Nesbitt was a man out there...yeah we had turnovers but we all knew that would happen this year. We all conceded that just like Navy, our first year would be up and down with a lot of turnovers. We're getting it.

On defense, we need Jefferson and A-T back right now. Jackson is solid, but Tony Clark is a straight-up arm tackler. and when he's not arm tackling, he's diving at someone. I'm not trying to bash the guy...I'm just saying we need those two LBs back.
 
I mostly agree with BOR, except for one thing. And I disagree with PJ on this issue to, for what it's worth. The 2 big penalties we made on defense were stupid on our part. I understand the argument about the helmet to helmet happening all the time, but you have to understand that refs are going to penalize you if it even LOOKS like you are touching his helmet with yours. Not only that, but doing it near the sidelines is flirting with disaster.

Three other points on this that may seem petty (and are, but they are reality), you are not going to get fair ref calls (a) on the road, (b) against a team perceived to be an ACC title contender, and (c) with a large fanbase. Teams like ours just have to learn that we're playing uphill on an unlevel playing field, and we must take measures to compensate. We have to actually go out of our way not to even have the APPEARANCE of committing a penalty. That's just reality. Is it fair? No. But until we can become the fair-haired child of the conference, we must accept being the ref's piss-boy.

On the post-game comments: I was pleased to hear PJ not sugar-coat our performance. If we had Tommy Bowden as our coach, he'd be talking about how great it was that we went on the road, with a new offense, and beat the Vegas point-spread, went toe-to-toe with the ACC defending champion, and that we can still win the conference. PJ said: (paraphrased) "We made enough mistakes to lose this thing 10 times over. We are not a very good team right now." The players were hard on themselves. It was clear from the pictures of Nesbitt and the comments about guys hitting lockers and raging that the players are going pretty hard on themselves after this loss. But I guarantee you that's not going to stop PJ from going even harder on them. He's not going to back off for fear of harming their psyche. He's going to point out their mistakes and make sure they know it's unacceptable. And they will only come out of this loss better. As PJ said after the game: Good teams don't lose twice in a row.
 
Ish said:
Nesbitt was a man out there...
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...but he isn't 40. ;)

In all seriousness, good post BOR. I'm proud of the effort given yesterday, we just have many strides left to make in the execution department.

I'm fully confident that the coaching staff will handle all of these issues in time, and I look forward to seeing this team grow throughout the season and beyond. Like others have said, this loss stings big time, but the future is looking mighty bright.
 
Ish said:
Guys, this team will be real good, pretty soon. There were flashes yesterday where we looked like Navy. On that 80 yard drive in the 4th quarter, we looked like we'd been running the 3O for a while. Nesbitt was a man out there...yeah we had turnovers but we all knew that would happen this year. We all conceded that just like Navy, our first year would be up and down with a lot of turnovers. We're getting it.

On defense, we need Jefferson and A-T back right now. Jackson is solid, but Tony Clark is a straight-up arm tackler. and when he's not arm tackling, he's diving at someone. I'm not trying to bash the guy...I'm just saying we need those two LBs back.
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I agree.
AT will be back next week and will replace Tclark. So we will have AT, Jackson, and Sed as our LB's. Very good group that is young.

Next week, its time to crack some skulls.
 
They were playing both DT's 1-tech yesterday with the MLB tight. They were sold out to stop the dive, especially with the splits we use. They were going to penetrate. That will make your interior OL look worse than they are. Two DT's and a MLB *between* your G's, gapping hard. All you can do is try to keep them from penetrating. They will shut down the dive, if they're sold out to it. That said: our interior OL certainly has its challenges.

This is the plan we will see every week in our conference. I'd be surprised if the DC's haven't all talked about it. Take away the dive, then cover the toss and make Nesbitt run it 20 times a game. They will wear him out at that pace, and they know it. Jaybo's gonna have to play, just to spell Josh, before we go much further.

I'd say we are seeing the difference in D1A ball. They can elect to punish the QB, and they ahve the hosses to do it. PJ is going to morph in front of us. He doesn't want to lose Josh. I doubt we'll see him run as much from here on out. It'll be interesting to see what happens going forward.

I'd expect we see more lead option and sprint option. We saw a lot of the reverse option yesterday, but VT was all over that play, and the penetration really hurt execution.

The good thing is, if they commit 3 players between the G's, there will be openings elsewhere. You cannot shut down an option run with good execution. VT was busting it to the ball. Look for more back side passes, and a reverse or two to slow down pursuit going forward.

VT is the first D to have played us virtually the entire game in the 4-3. We still went for just under 300 yards on the ground!

There is so much promise in this offense, it's unreal. Until we can establish the dive, we will have to call a game that gives Josh more opportunity to pitch and throw. Our QB's cannot continue to take this beating.

Just a few random thoughts on what I saw. Overall, amazingly positive, but with a few things we're learning.
 
Question for you stinger. When a team sells out in the middle like that, they should be easier to beat on the edge, right? But you still have to be able to get the ball away from center to start the play. Even if we don't get any push from the interior line, they have to at least hold their ground, right? That's the biggest concern to me...we seem slow and weak there.
 
I agree with everything BOR said.

I'd like to add that we are GOING TO OWN THE ACC...for however long we have CPJ @ Tech.
 
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