Post game thoughts/observations

GoGATech

GoGATech

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Aug 26, 2008
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- Really missed Leonard and Edwards tonight. Leonard would be starting over Benson and Benson missed the block on the interception to open the game. Nate had his man beat, that was a TD if Sims doesn't get hit as hes throwing. Benson also whiffed the block on the 1st blocked punt, then later dropped a pass that hit his hands that would've been 1st down. Edwards would've started at NB over Bennett and Wallace. They both got beat a few times.

- Special teams (punt team) need work. The 1st Fg miss wasnt bad, it was a 50 yarder with plenty of leg just a little wide. The blocked punts were unacceptable.

- Clock management was horrible. I was hoping we had made improvements here. Doesn't appear so.

- OL still needs work. Maybe they will gel as the season progresses but there were several facepalm moments. Some are understandable as we are young there and facing one of the best DL in cfb, but all the false starts have to be fixed. When they were able to give Jeff a decent pocket, good things happened.

- Sims can be great. I only saw a couple bad throws that were on him. He was getting hit a lot still. I would have liked to see him take off a little earlier sometimes. He stuck in a little too long a few times with room to run and got hit when he was throwing when he likely couldve picked up a chunk with his legs.

- We really missed Thomas after he got ejected. Defense started to crumble after that.

- Clemson had some luck, not that they needed it, but it definitely helped some. We came out in 2nd half and hold them 3 and out, then score a TD to cut the lead to 4, then appear to hold them 3 and out again but they get bailed out by DPI on an uncatchable ball out of bounds, not to mention the missed false start on that same play. Still held them to a FG there. Next possession they have it we have DJU dead to rights on 3rd down and he makes the circus play to Shipley because he just happened to be back there because he got knocked down by our pass rush. Finish that play and we're getting the ball back again late 3rd down 7.

I think if I had told any of you before the game we would be within 4 early 3rd qtr, down 7 late 3rd qtr, or down 14 with the ball to start the 4th you would have called me a liar. No national analysts surely thought so. They all expected a bloodbath from start to finish with zero chance of us being competitive.
 
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GoGATech said:
- Really missed Leonard and Edwards tonight. Leonard would be starting over Benson and Benson missed the block on the interception to open the game. Nate had his man beat, that was a TD if Sims doesn't get hit as hes throwing. Benson also whiffed the block on the 1st blocked punt, then later dropped a pass that hit his hands that would've been 1st down. Edwards would've started at NB over Bennett and Wallace. They both got beat a few times.

- Special teams (punt team) need work. The 1st Fg miss wasnt bad, it was a 50 yarder with plenty of leg just a little wide. The blocked punts were unacceptable.

- Clock management was horrible. I was hoping we had made improvements here. Doesn't appear so.

- OL still needs work. Maybe they will gel as the season progresses but there were several facepalm moments. Some are understandable as we are young there and facing one of the best DL in cfb, but all the false starts have to be fixed. When they were able to give Jeff a decent pocket, good things happened.

- Sims can be great. I only saw a couple bad throws that were on him. He was getting hit a lot still. I would have liked to see him take off a little earlier sometimes. He stuck in a little too long a few times with room to run and got hit when he was throwing when he likely couldve picked up a chunk with his legs.

- We really missed Thomas after he got ejected. Defense started to crumble after that.

- Clemson had some luck, not that they needed it, but it definitely helped some. We came out in 2nd half and hold them 3 and out, then score a TD to cut the lead to 4, then appear to hold them 3 and out again but they get bailed out by DPI on an uncatchable ball out of bounds, not to mention the missed false start on that same play. Still held them to a FG there. Next possession they have it we have DJU dead to rights on 3rd down and he makes the circus play to Shipley because he just happened to be back there because he got knocked down by our pass rush. Finish that play and we're getting the ball back again late 3rd down 7.

I think if I had told any of you before the game we would be within 4 early 3rd qtr, down 7 late 3rd qtr, or down 14 with the ball to start the 4th you would have called me a liar. No national analysts surely thought so. They all expected a bloodbath from start to finish with zero chance of us being competitive.
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Reasonable description. Refs did us no favors, and I wish we had chewed clock a little more at times to give the D some rest. I didn't feel bad about the D definitly better communication.
 
Defense looked good against a struggling Clemson offense. Offensive play calling is very chickenshit. Sims looked worse than before but I think that has to do with playcalling and lack of OL. Special teams are atrocious. This team will be 1-4 by October 1st.
 
Akinji07 said:
Defense looked good against a struggling Clemson offense. Offensive play calling is very chickenshit. Sims looked worse than before but I think that has to do with playcalling and lack of OL. Special teams are atrocious. This team will be 1-4 by October 1st.
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I think the playcalling had a lot to do with our opponent. We couldn't get any real run game established against that front and didnt have time for many deep shots. They knew we were going to have to rely on screens and underneath stuff and we were still able to execute alot of those. I think when we get Leonard back the TE will be utilized more too.
 
G776T said:
I don't really want to defend Collins cuz his game management is garbage and he clearly sucks at self evaluation but,

There isn't a team on our schedule not named uga that we don't beat playing like we did tonight without two blocked punts
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Yeah. There's still a lot to clean up and that final looks bad but we did give them a 5 yard field and a 15 yard field for 2 gimme TDs. (Defense almost stopped one of those) Also gave them a short field on their FG drive after we went for it on 4th down. I mean that's 17 points that they didnt have to do much for. The last TD late with their backup in when we were subbing guys too. Thats 24 of their 41 points.
 
QB - Sims had a bad night. The INT isn't on him, but he probably should've had 2 more that would've been on him.
RB - non-factors. We've clearly taken a step back
WR - some good, some bad. A few dropped passes and lots of bad routes. When you run sticks, get to the damn sticks.
TE - atrocious. A liability blocking and receiving.
OL - completely incapable of establishing a run game, got physically manhandled every time. Our most experienced player got his butt whooped by their DE a handful of times to the extent he had a career game. We need to keep a TE in at least long enough to chip the DE because Williams gets beat to the edge. Poor effort on the screens early by our OL. Our players at least seemed to be in a better position than past seasons and mostly gave Sims a clean pocket not that he used it. Our TEs and RBs "help" made the OL look worse than it was, but I do question what Chip was thinking having our TE trying to block their DE without at least some help.
DL - looked much improved, but wore down by the end of the third. I'm skeptical of it being more than a flash in the pan, but am encouraged that our DTs held ground at the point of attack and kept double teams off our ends. We basically got pancaked the entire 4th quarter.
LB - we don't have anyone behind Thomas ready to play. That much is obvious. Ace made some good plays, but was out of position several other times. We were lucky that Clemson didn't spread the field much early, we still struggle covering space.
DB - a few coverage sacks, so that's a positive. Shout out to #14 in a good way, shout out to #24 in a bad way. #7 was getting targeted a lot. I'd say this group was improved, but Clemson seemed to gain yards at will when they spread the field out more and challenged us vertically. Their play calling was strange to me, they really don't trust DJU. I guess they want to ease the younger guy in.
K - better than I expected
P - did any coach time this kid once in practice?
 
G776T said:
I don't really want to defend Collins cuz his game management is garbage and he clearly sucks at self evaluation but,

There isn't a team on our schedule not named uga that we don't beat playing like we did tonight without two blocked punts
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I've seen this same sentiment several places. When did punting/blocking for the punter/special teams in general become something that we just assume doesn't ever happen? Especially in a game where it happens twice?
 
There's nothing the Geoff Collins haters saw that could change their opinion. There's nothing the Geoff Collins supporters saw to change their minds either. It was Clemson after all and it is hard to make informed opinion when your offense plays its first game against that defense full of five stars. It went about as I expected, which is we would play them close for a half, their QB would stink but only need to make a few plays to win, and Clemson would win by 17+ after pulling away in the second half, getting some cheap scores from our mistakes.

So I'm not really a GC supporter more than I think it's unfair to judge him until he's given the time that *any* coach would need to transition us away from the triple option program commitment. I also thought it was not fair to judge Patenude (sp?) while he pretty much had no OL to make his offense work. Last night kind of shows that you can change the OC but if you still have OL problems, nothing will work. Quick summary:

The good:
  • Sims has made progress
  • Defense can play well for a 3/4 of a game but doesnt yet have the depth to play a whole game
  • Kicking looks like it has potential. The missed long FG looked strong, just slightly off target
The bad:
  • Collins is horrible at timeout and clock management. Even Dabo LOL'd at this mid game
  • False starting for the DL shift once was forgivable... by the fifth time, I questioned everything (this is on the players too, not just coaches)
  • OL needs to grow in a hurry
  • RBs looked like they lacked burst
  • Receivers drop too many passes
  • Offensive design was meh but again, against Clemson a lot of offensive designs will look meh
 
Overall, we are still a bad team. We made so many unforced errors. Our offense isn't there. Yeah, we should beat WC. However; I am not so confident about the next 3 games, after that. The O better catch fire and quick. Our D is good, however; not very deep. You can see that they were gassed, come the 4th qtr. We don't have the talent in place, to toil with higher level teams. Plain and simple. Our best players, would be a 2nd teamer, at best, on most high level teams. With that said, our 2nd team, probably wouldn't make the squad of a high level team.

I agree with most, our RB spot was invisible. We had some piss poor blocking. I think we need a new O line coach. However; I think we will end up with a new staff, come next year. I think Collins will not only go down, he will go down, taking whoever he can, with him.
 
The fact that we are unprepared for so many things is what is always baffling to me.

-Clemson shifting their DL; we are unprepared
-Clemson no huddle off offense yet we still try to sub on D; unprepared
-We come out in punt safe (out of a timeout!) yet we are unprepared to line up against a fake punt formation (in punt safe!)
-Our punter is taking 3-4 seconds to kick the ball; totally unprepared for game action

Could list more from this game, or 50 more from the last 3 years. All come back to the coaches having the kids prepared for basic game situations; or the coaches putting the kids in a position to fail
 
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