OMG - Postgame Thread

[bonham]

Alright, time to talk about how we actually played though. A few thoughts:
1) Brent Key's presser he makes some confusing comments about it coming down to a 4th down. It didn't. He also says 23-17 was the score when referencing the XP. Do we have a problem with our coach having game awareness too? Even discrediting those notes as pure excitement, my general takeaway was that he was happy with the team's performance in the game and what we're capable of as if it's a goal to be just good enough to hang around with the #17 team in the nation and get lucky at the end because their coach is an idiot. I may be old school here, but I think a head coach's number 1 job is to demand perfection from his team. We were far from perfect in this game.
2) I am not a fan of punting on third down which is effectively what we did with the ultra conservative play calling in 3rd and long situations. I get that 3rd and 8+ is low percentage, but if you're going to run at least disguise a pass threat to run a draw or something similar. We might as well have actually sent the punt team out to get them to burn a timeout in confusion.
3) holding #2
4) I don't know what we tweaked mid 3rd quarter or if it was just their DL getting tired, but it's amazing how much simpler the game is when your OL can cut off the backside DL and actually open up a run lane. Their LBs were still good enough to make quick contact, but we actually ended up creating lanes there at the end. Good on Jamal Haynes to bring the truck and get into the end zone.
5) I don't know what has happened to our passing game. Camera angles aren't great to see if route combos have changed in some way, but generally we aren't getting receivers running wide ass open the last 2 games like we were in the first 4. The pass was what opened up the run the first 4, so intuitively it seems defenses are dropping more in coverage and daring us to run the ball and we can't. There were multiple instances where we got stuffed against a 5 or 6 man box in 12 personnel.
6) We're shooting ourselves in the foot when we run RPO. Blowing assignments, early snaps, ball slipping out of the hands on the pass.
7) We're much improved pass blocking over last year, but gave them so inexcusable free lanes to the QB tonight.
8) 454-250, 35:26-24:34 --- we had NO business winning this game. We never seem to get undeserved wins so I'm glad we got one, but we need to call a spade a spade. We won this game because Miami turned the ball over 5 times.
9) The defense kept points off the board because of 5 turnovers. That's exactly what happened at WF. This isn't a sustainable recipe for defensive success. We've got to be better than 450+ yds on defense if we want to win any more games this year.
10) Defensively we were super vanilla which I'm ok with given the circumstances. I thought we did a better job at giving our guys assignments that allowed them to keep the offensive plays in front of them and then rally to the ball. I think BC is going to punish us if we keep it vanilla.
11) Whatever we saw on film that told us to let the corners sink after 2 seconds was great scouting. TVD was bewildered for a while.
12) call of the game was the double a gap blitz where our DL all fired out and opened up the gaps for the LBs. Well executed, simple play call in the perfect situation. Limited them to 3 pts when they'd been driving.
12) LOS was really sliding backwards on us for 2.5 quarters and Miami could run for 5 yards a pop at will. I don't know why they didn't. I guess they got impatient. That's stupid.
13) 288 passing yards, but 3 picks... mixed bag for our DBs if we're being honest
14) The refs helped us out. That could've gone very differently. They missed some blatant holding calls on a couple of our big plays, gave us timely penalties to extend our drives and kill Miami momentum, and the two reviews at the end standing. I think we all know that these things don't normally go our way.

Overall, I'm ecstatic we won. We were pests that hung around in an ugly ugly game and when the ball bounced our way with a stroke of luck (Miami stupidity), we took advantage of it. I think we have a lot of room for improvement and I don't want our team to get a big head about a lucky win.

wow you know stuff. Should have a separate post game thread with analysis. Like BOR used to have,

 

[GTLiebs]

We won 2 in a row last year, but you got to win the second game to win three in a row.

use

Alright, time to talk about how we actually played though. A few thoughts:
1) Brent Key's presser he makes some confusing comments about it coming down to a 4th down. It didn't. He also says 23-17 was the score when referencing the XP. Do we have a problem with our coach having game awareness too? Even discrediting those notes as pure excitement, my general takeaway was that he was happy with the team's performance in the game and what we're capable of as if it's a goal to be just good enough to hang around with the #17 team in the nation and get lucky at the end because their coach is an idiot. I may be old school here, but I think a head coach's number 1 job is to demand perfection from his team. We were far from perfect in this game.
2) I am not a fan of punting on third down which is effectively what we did with the ultra conservative play calling in 3rd and long situations. I get that 3rd and 8+ is low percentage, but if you're going to run at least disguise a pass threat to run a draw or something similar. We might as well have actually sent the punt team out to get them to burn a timeout in confusion.
3) holding #2
4) I don't know what we tweaked mid 3rd quarter or if it was just their DL getting tired, but it's amazing how much simpler the game is when your OL can cut off the backside DL and actually open up a run lane. Their LBs were still good enough to make quick contact, but we actually ended up creating lanes there at the end. Good on Jamal Haynes to bring the truck and get into the end zone.
5) I don't know what has happened to our passing game. Camera angles aren't great to see if route combos have changed in some way, but generally we aren't getting receivers running wide ass open the last 2 games like we were in the first 4. The pass was what opened up the run the first 4, so intuitively it seems defenses are dropping more in coverage and daring us to run the ball and we can't. There were multiple instances where we got stuffed against a 5 or 6 man box in 12 personnel.
6) We're shooting ourselves in the foot when we run RPO. Blowing assignments, early snaps, ball slipping out of the hands on the pass.
7) We're much improved pass blocking over last year, but gave them so inexcusable free lanes to the QB tonight.
8) 454-250, 35:26-24:34 --- we had NO business winning this game. We never seem to get undeserved wins so I'm glad we got one, but we need to call a spade a spade. We won this game because Miami turned the ball over 5 times.
9) The defense kept points off the board because of 5 turnovers. That's exactly what happened at WF. This isn't a sustainable recipe for defensive success. We've got to be better than 450+ yds on defense if we want to win any more games this year.
10) Defensively we were super vanilla which I'm ok with given the circumstances. I thought we did a better job at giving our guys assignments that allowed them to keep the offensive plays in front of them and then rally to the ball. I think BC is going to punish us if we keep it vanilla.
11) Whatever we saw on film that told us to let the corners sink after 2 seconds was great scouting. TVD was bewildered for a while.
12) call of the game was the double a gap blitz where our DL all fired out and opened up the gaps for the LBs. Well executed, simple play call in the perfect situation. Limited them to 3 pts when they'd been driving.
12) LOS was really sliding backwards on us for 2.5 quarters and Miami could run for 5 yards a pop at will. I don't know why they didn't. I guess they got impatient. That's stupid.
13) 288 passing yards, but 3 picks... mixed bag for our DBs if we're being honest
14) The refs helped us out. That could've gone very differently. They missed some blatant holding calls on a couple of our big plays, gave us timely penalties to extend our drives and kill Miami momentum, and the two reviews at the end standing. I think we all know that these things don't normally go our way.

Overall, I'm ecstatic we won. We were pests that hung around in an ugly ugly game and when the ball bounced our way with a stroke of luck (Miami stupidity), we took advantage of it. I think we have a lot of room for improvement and I don't want our team to get a big head about a lucky win.

1 thing on the turnovers, a few of them felt much more created intentionally on our side rather than stripping a ball or a bad pass or such, which is at least a bit more sustainable/indicative of defensive performance. Would also add as a minor quibble that I'm pretty sure the end of game lateral-fest was counted as one of the 5 turnovers.
The other thing about the defense, which probably needs some of the advanced stats stuff, is how well did they actually do against what Miami had been doing. It's possible, but not ideal, for 450 yards given to Miami to be better than 400 yards given to BG.

 

[swampsting]

Total offense: 453-250
First downs: 23-13
Time of Possession: 35:26-24:34.
Those are the numbers that usually go with a beatdown. Except, they didn't.

And we won.
Still can't believe it.

 

[GoGATech]

Alright, time to talk about how we actually played though. A few thoughts:
1) Brent Key's presser he makes some confusing comments about it coming down to a 4th down. It didn't. He also says 23-17 was the score when referencing the XP. Do we have a problem with our coach having game awareness too? Even discrediting those notes as pure excitement, my general takeaway was that he was happy with the team's performance in the game and what we're capable of as if it's a goal to be just good enough to hang around with the #17 team in the nation and get lucky at the end because their coach is an idiot. I may be old school here, but I think a head coach's number 1 job is to demand perfection from his team. We were far from perfect in this game.

Agree, HC has to demand perfection but don't agree with you that he was content to just be around and get lucky at the end. I think the point of emphasis is that while we played far from perfect, he was happy that we played hard and until the very end and gave ourselves a chance to win it, regardless of how it ended up happening.

2) I am not a fan of punting on third down which is effectively what we did with the ultra conservative play calling in 3rd and long situations. I get that 3rd and 8+ is low percentage, but if you're going to run at least disguise a pass threat to run a draw or something similar. We might as well have actually sent the punt team out to get them to burn a timeout in confusion.

Yeah we need to be more aggressive in 2nd/3rd and long.

3) holding #2

I haven't seen the replay of the latest ones but I know the 2 he got called for against Wake were bullshit.

4) I don't know what we tweaked mid 3rd quarter or if it was just their DL getting tired, but it's amazing how much simpler the game is when your OL can cut off the backside DL and actually open up a run lane. Their LBs were still good enough to make quick contact, but we actually ended up creating lanes there at the end. Good on Jamal Haynes to bring the truck and get into the end zone.

I've been waiting on someone to show the effort Jamal did on that play. That was 100% "want to."

5) I don't know what has happened to our passing game. Camera angles aren't great to see if route combos have changed in some way, but generally we aren't getting receivers running wide ass open the last 2 games like we were in the first 4. The pass was what opened up the run the first 4, so intuitively it seems defenses are dropping more in coverage and daring us to run the ball and we can't. There were multiple instances where we got stuffed against a 5 or 6 man box in 12 personnel.

To me King still zones in on his primary target too long before going through his progressions or hitting a check down. I saw several instances of open receivers where he threw the ball to the wrong guy. One was the 2nd interception.

6) We're shooting ourselves in the foot when we run RPO. Blowing assignments, early snaps, ball slipping out of the hands on the pass.
7) We're much improved pass blocking over last year, but gave them so inexcusable free lanes to the QB tonight.

Agree with both of these

8) 454-250, 35:26-24:34 --- we had NO business winning this game. We never seem to get undeserved wins so I'm glad we got one, but we need to call a spade a spade. We won this game because Miami turned the ball over 5 times.

Ehh.. we were keeping things in front a lot and trying not to give up the big play. We did once because CP Lee was lined up wrong and didn't get to his spot in time. That type of defense typically results in giving up a lot of yards and TOP, but not a lot of scores because you can tighten up when the field compresses near the endzone.

9) The defense kept points off the board because of 5 turnovers. That's exactly what happened at WF. This isn't a sustainable recipe for defensive success. We've got to be better than 450+ yds on defense if we want to win any more games this year.

For starters, like someone else said, it was really 4 because one was the desperation lateral play at the end that resulted in a fumble. Of the 4, the 3 INT's were extremely good plays by the defense, not just handed to us. We played defense well enough to keep points off the board. Held them on downs their 1st drive, then forced 2 punts in a row. The first interception we got was on a drive after we finally started driving and threw one ourselves, so that's basically a wash. It was also on a 3rd and 13 play from the 21 yard line so most likely would have only resulted in a FG there anyway. Another interception came on just the 2nd play of a drive for them from their own 25. Can't assume that drive ends up in points for them. As a matter of fact, the only 2 times they scored TDs were when we shanked a punt to the 50 yard line giving them a short field, and on the drive where they threw the long pass on Lee's mistake. So it wasn't just the turnovers that kept them from scoring. We should have even had another pick right before half and that would have erased that FG. Lee dove for it and it bounced off his hands but I think Brooks was already in position to pick it off had he not come across.

10) Defensively we were super vanilla which I'm ok with given the circumstances. I thought we did a better job at giving our guys assignments that allowed them to keep the offensive plays in front of them and then rally to the ball. I think BC is going to punish us if we keep it vanilla.

Agree the defense played fairly vanilla and as you said the main point was keeping everything in front. Keep things in front and play aggressively can work, but we don't need to start playing on our heels and being reactive or folks will start exploiting that.

11) Whatever we saw on film that told us to let the corners sink after 2 seconds was great scouting. TVD was bewildered for a while.
12) call of the game was the double a gap blitz where our DL all fired out and opened up the gaps for the LBs. Well executed, simple play call in the perfect situation. Limited them to 3 pts when they'd been driving.

Agree on both here except they weren't driving when we stopped them for a FG there. It was after King had just thrown an interception and they ran it back to the 14. We held them on 3 straight plays to force the FG.

12) LOS was really sliding backwards on us for 2.5 quarters and Miami could run for 5 yards a pop at will. I don't know why they didn't. I guess they got impatient. That's stupid.[\QUOTE]
I'd have to go back and re-watch some, but it seemed our DL was getting better at getting off blocks later in the game. I think we started playing Lockett and Douse inside and moved Scott out to the end and started getting a better push.

13) 288 passing yards, but 3 picks... mixed bag for our DBs if we're being honest

I'll take that stat line. We had some more well defended balls too.

14) The refs helped us out. That could've gone very differently. They missed some blatant holding calls on a couple of our big plays, gave us timely penalties to extend our drives and kill Miami momentum, and the two reviews at the end standing. I think we all know that these things don't normally go our way.

Refs definitely helped us, mainly with not having a good angle to overturn the fumble at the end, but other than that I think they were equally crappy on both sides. Miami got several super generous spots that gave them manageable 3rd downs. There were times too when I thought penalties should have been called on Miami (can't remember exact scenarios off hand) and actually saw the official grabbing for the flag but then didn't throw it.

Overall, I'm ecstatic we won. We were pests that hung around in an ugly ugly game and when the ball bounced our way with a stroke of luck (Miami stupidity), we took advantage of it. I think we have a lot of room for improvement and I don't want our team to get a big head about a lucky win.

Sure it was a lucky (stupid) win, but again you have to put yourself in position to take advantage of that and we did. After last week we could have easily come out and gone through the motions, expecting to lose and have 40 hung on us, but we didn't. We fought hard and made chicken salad out of chicken öööö.