Sure would like to hear Demjackets....

[MEDJacket]

Astute and realistic comments from Midatlantech. For those of us up here in VA/MD ACC territory, you get a better perspective of the extraordinary year the Jackets had. Dominance in the ACC is there for the taking..VT will be down, I predict, and other than UNC I don't see another team in this division stepping up. Perhaps FSU in the other column. GT has all the momentum going into 2009 and beyond, should be fun to watch.

 

[stinger78]

I agree with your sentiments however, we did play badly. All those things that happened were because of poor play or poor coaching. Certainly LSU should be congratulated for playing well (4th string QB starts the game 12 for 12, 180 yards!).

I wish we could play LSU and VPI again, but we can't. If we want to be a consistent Top 15 team, we have to learn to play well every minute of every game.

DT's poor mechanics cost us a throwing TD early and the game could have been different. I'm not putting this all on DT, just using an example of how little things were not executed well and the snowball effect occurred. But we are too blame, we played poorly.

Yes, we had a remarkable year considering. Have we ever beaten Clemson, UGA, FSU, and Miami in the same year (not to mention surprisingly strong BC)?

We will get better at protecting the ball I hope. We will get better in the OL I hope. We will protect the QB when throwing I hope. We will get healthy at LB (or can Sylvester/Munroe/Machen do some pushing?), I hope. We will improve at DB, I hope.

I sense some real star playmakers returning in Josh, Dwyer, DT, Burnett, Jones, Taylor, Reid, and Morgan. But we have to play better to inch up the rankings.

I agree it was not our best effort, by far. However, we did not play 38-3 badly. That was the CU game score in 2003... now THAT was 38-3 bad! What we didn't do was respond well to adversity in the first half.

The D had several chances to make big, momentum grabbing stops, but didn't. How much of that was due to exhaustion? LSU held the ball for 11 of 15 minutes in the 2nd quarter as we gave up 2 possessions with NO plays (onside kick and fumbled punt), and a third after 4 plays (fake punt). 3 short fields, no big plays = 21 points.

Nor did the O make any huge, momentum grabbing plays. They did make one 45 yard drive on the first possessions and DT mistimed his jump on the ball and it got knocked away. They drove to the 15 on the third drive and settled for a FG.

First half should have been 14-3, or maybe 21-3 at worst. We're not out of our offense at that point and who knows what happens. We pound and maybe get the one big play from JD. Those 21 points were HUGE and took the game right away from us.

It was certainly not good, but upon reflection, it was not nearly as bad as the score made it feel. Still, we have much work to do, and the team is now painfully aware of it.