Positives from Clemson

FullMetalBuzz said:
That game hurt, but there are a few silver linings we can build on:

  • 2 interceptions of possibly the best QB in the country
  • No more 10 yard cushions on receivers
  • Mason averaged 5.5 yards per carry against Clemson. He can have a good year vs the Coastal with that kind of performance.
  • No major injuries
  • Team did not quit and kept playing hard even though they were whipped
  • Got the best team on our schedule out of the way early. It only gets easier from here.
Anything else positive?
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It didn't rain.
 
johncu said:
He's probably going to be replaying that play in his head for a long time. I think he probably just assumed he'd outrun him and was surprised when Lawrence even made the effort, much less actually cut off his angle.

Swilling had a really good game, though. Made multiple big PBUs and pretty much shut down the best WRs in the country when he was man-to-man. He's gonna be a real bright spot for us this season.
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Haven't you heard? Clempsen players are all in.
 
OL was sooooo bad that we are unable to start our best passers.

BUT...Our secondary is really good. And with the way we are already recruiting at that position, we are gonna be NFL good.

P.S. thanks a lot, Parker Braun. REALLY appreciate it bub
 
Positives -
Secondary on D looked solid. We got beat by the Clemson receivers, but overall held our own pretty well considering the lack of pass rush.
Run D looked good early. Not many teams are going to keep Clemson bottled up. They didn't look rattled after giving up the long 90 yard run, which was due to a overwhelmingly talented back.
Punting was decent

Hurry up looked ok. There were a few times we could have caught Clemson with zero down linemen had we snapped the ball 0.5 seconds sooner. I am going to assume we will get faster with that as the season progresses.
TO is a solid runner.
Mason looked very good as a shotgun RB.
We had open guys on several of the passing plays, poor throws ended a few drives.
Graham showed nice touch on his passes.
 
WracerX said:
Was only a few inches to long on that coffin corner punt that hit the pylon. That was almost perfect.
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What is the rule on a punt that hits the pylon? Looked like the ref let it play into the end zone but I’m surprised it wasn’t ruled dead - OB or end zone - after it hit the pylon.
 
ScionOfSouthland said:
What is the rule on a punt that hits the pylon? Looked like the ref let it play into the end zone but I’m surprised it wasn’t ruled dead - OB or end zone - after it hit the pylon.
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I would have liked to have seen a replay to see how close it was to being out of bounds just before the pylon.

I think it was dead when it hit the pylon; ref was just being slow.
 
ScionOfSouthland said:
What is the rule on a punt that hits the pylon? Looked like the ref let it play into the end zone but I’m surprised it wasn’t ruled dead - OB or end zone - after it hit the pylon.
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I believe the pylon is the endzone, so it was ruled a touchback. Had it landed a few inches up field, they would have stated on the 1.
 
Ok so I will admit I wasn't all too happy last night thinking we should've made a better showing for ourselves. After letting it settle some and thinking back to some of the positives, I decided to go against my own judgement and compare stats from last year. While none of the stats look really "good", I was pleasantly surprised at what I saw. Here are some stats I compiled comparing to last year's game against Clemson:

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Despite the ridiculous amount of yards we gave up, our defense actually played better than last year IMO. The yards per play given up by our D was up but let's not also forget how skewed those numbers are when you add in the 3 big plays of 90, 62, and 48 yards. That's 200 yards of offense on only 3 plays. Just taking away that one long run drops that yard per play number down a whole point. Another stat I forgot to include was points per possession. Last year Clemson averaged 4.1 ppp and this year that number dropped to 3.3.

The really surprising stats to me were the offensive production stats. As bad as I thought we looked, we looked better in game 1 of a new regime against the #1 team that we did last year. All this also with 4 turnovers. This Clemson team is different than last year to me too. Last year they were still figuring out exactly who they were at the point we played them. This year they came into the game knowing they were the best team in the nation and were out to prove it. I am looking forward to seeing this team continue to improve and as long as we can keep up the momentum in the recruiting game, I'm excited for the future.
 
OptionJacket said:
The biggest positive is that the game was on the ACC Network so most of the country didn’t see it and will only see the final score. Now it’s up to Collins to make the adjustments.
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By Saturday, even the people who did watch won't remember who Clemson's opponent was.
 
GoGATech said:
Ok so I will admit I wasn't all too happy last night thinking we should've made a better showing for ourselves. After letting it settle some and thinking back to some of the positives, I decided to go against my own judgement and compare stats from last year. While none of the stats look really "good", I was pleasantly surprised at what I saw. Here are some stats I compiled comparing to last year's game against Clemson:

Capture.JPG


Despite the ridiculous amount of yards we gave up, our defense actually played better than last year IMO. The yards per play given up by our D was up but let's not also forget how skewed those numbers are when you add in the 3 big plays of 90, 62, and 48 yards. That's 200 yards of offense on only 3 plays. Just taking away that one long run drops that yard per play number down a whole point. Another stat I forgot to include was points per possession. Last year Clemson averaged 4.1 ppp and this year that number dropped to 3.3.

The really surprising stats to me were the offensive production stats. As bad as I thought we looked, we looked better in game 1 of a new regime against the #1 team that we did last year. All this also with 4 turnovers. This Clemson team is different than last year to me too. Last year they were still figuring out exactly who they were at the point we played them. This year they came into the game knowing they were the best team in the nation and were out to prove it. I am looking forward to seeing this team continue to improve and as long as we can keep up the momentum in the recruiting game, I'm excited for the future.
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Nice post. The numbers actually point to a better game than it looked on the field.
 
coit said:
Defense was solid, but ran out of gas for obvious reasons. Clemson exploited our aggressiveness by running a lot of counter and trap plays.

This is made worse by us not giving the 10 yard cushion. Our DBs are in a tough position to make the stops at the second level.
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As far as running out of gas, help is on the way. We won't be nearly this thin next year.

As far as the defense being overaggressive, I think the positive defensive plays we made outweighed the big plays we gave up, at least internally to our kids. I think it helps their confidence more to have some TFL's rather than an unending string of 10 yard gains, which was our alternative last night.

As far as putting our DB's in a tough position, I think this is part of their development and the kids welcome it. Our defense is changing as much as our offense, and it will take time for both to jell.

Clemson did not just mail it in. They put together a sound game plan against us, and we will see variations of this game plan all year.

I thought we got MORE pressure against Lawrence than I expected. Yes, he was (usually) able to get the ball out on time, but he did not have all day to BBQ a half pig and build lego models and watch car repair youtubes. The Clemson o-line will be the best we see all year. I think better than Athens Correctional's. I think our kids did a helluva job on penetration.
 
Techbert said:
As far as the defense being overaggressive, I think the positive defensive plays we made outweighed the big plays we gave up, at least internally to our kids.

I thought we got MORE pressure against Lawrence than I expected. Yes, he was (usually) able to get the ball out on time, but he did not have all day to BBQ a half pig and build lego models and watch car repair youtubes. The Clemson o-line will be the best we see all year. I think better than Athens Correctional's. I think our kids did a helluva job on penetration.
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Yeah, as the DC said: with Clemson you can't take away everything. We didn't plan or expect Lawrence to run the way he did. Lawrence said that was a focus of his off season improvement and it seems like it really paid off.

I think his runs loosened up the defense and contributed to some of the other long runs; not an excuse.
 
GoGATech said:
Ok so I will admit I wasn't all too happy last night thinking we should've made a better showing for ourselves. After letting it settle some and thinking back to some of the positives, I decided to go against my own judgement and compare stats from last year. While none of the stats look really "good", I was pleasantly surprised at what I saw. Here are some stats I compiled comparing to last year's game against Clemson:

Capture.JPG


Despite the ridiculous amount of yards we gave up, our defense actually played better than last year IMO. The yards per play given up by our D was up but let's not also forget how skewed those numbers are when you add in the 3 big plays of 90, 62, and 48 yards. That's 200 yards of offense on only 3 plays. Just taking away that one long run drops that yard per play number down a whole point. Another stat I forgot to include was points per possession. Last year Clemson averaged 4.1 ppp and this year that number dropped to 3.3.

The really surprising stats to me were the offensive production stats. As bad as I thought we looked, we looked better in game 1 of a new regime against the #1 team that we did last year. All this also with 4 turnovers. This Clemson team is different than last year to me too. Last year they were still figuring out exactly who they were at the point we played them. This year they came into the game knowing they were the best team in the nation and were out to prove it. I am looking forward to seeing this team continue to improve and as long as we can keep up the momentum in the recruiting game, I'm excited for the future.
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Very good objective post. Definitely some positives to take from this game and build on. The next two games are much more critical building blocks.
 
CheWreck said:
I felt the same. But why didn’t he cut back into the field when Lawrence was closing in? Lawrence wouldn’t have been able to stop and reverse field. Whenever you have a big play like that and fail to make the end zone, it’s usually very hard to make it in on the ensuing short drive.
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So true, however Swilling didn't want Lawrence to snap an ankle, or rip his ACL due to a cutback. He spared him is all I can figure.
 
Lol didn’t see this thread, started my own.

Tackling seemed much better.
 
Techbert said:
I thought we got MORE pressure against Lawrence than I expected. Yes, he was (usually) able to get the ball out on time, but he did not have all day to BBQ a half pig and build lego models and watch car repair youtubes. The Clemson o-line will be the best we see all year. I think better than Athens Correctional's. I think our kids did a helluva job on penetration.
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Great post. IMO our defensive gameplan was actually pretty good. We did a lot of creative things to create pressure and confuse Lawrence, and we did indeed bait him into several pretty bad passes. He only threw 4 INTs all of last season, and the 2 he threw last night easily could have been 3 or 4 if someone had been around to catch the balls we tipped.

Yeah, we got burned a few times, but that's pretty much unavoidable when you're up against that kind of talent and your offense can't get any momentum at all to protect you.
 
I too believe CGC will have good defenses eventually at GT, I saw things that indicate that to me. He had them at MSU and FL.
51 had to be gassed at times, did he not play DL and OL?
Hard to know what our OC"s offense will eventually look like until he gets a QB that fits what he wants to do. Not saying we don't already have one, just don't yet know.
 
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