The 1 thing this team is missing

coit said:
Your last point bears some discussion. People talk about him missing reads and such, but there are many times where he shows no intent whatsoever to do anything but keep the ball. Some of those are called plays of course, but in pitch situations it is easy to see that he is keeping the ball. We gotta find a way to get the A backs into he offense.
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I’ve seen many plays this year where it is clear that TM should pitch the ball to his flanked A back, only for him to hold it for no gain or loss of yardage. Not that him pitching it means we take it to the house, but it likely means 4, 5, 6 yards on the play, the ramifications of which could be significant, particularly in key situations.

Someone else commented, and I agree, that we’ve had double digit leads against 3 of the 4 teams we’ve fallen to this year. We’ve been in position to put teams away. But we’ve failed. We haven’t gotten off the field and we haven’t had sustained drives when we needed them. That simple.
 
There has been a plethora of 4-4 or 5-4 GT squads I've had to watch over the past 20 years or so. This one happens to be a much better one.

The line between winning and losing is pretty thin. Losing 3 extremely close games (0-3) will make this season not-so-special. Everyone is bummed because even the most casual observer of Tech football realizes we probably arent as bad as our 4-4 record indicates.
 
WracerX said:
TM is the worst throwing QB Johnson has had. His downfield ball hangs in the air and his short pass shows zero touch.

I don't know how to fix that. Maybe we bring the number of passes down to about 4-6 per game.

The guy is a hardnosed runner and fast. So it falls on Johnson to make the tweaks to the O to fit Marshall.
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Do you think passing from under center EVERY play is a problem, especially with the anemic OL coaching they receive?

What about trying to throw too many long passes, as compared to giving him things he is more capable of completing?

Got to believe an ego problem is going on with coach(es) and some players are suffering due to it.
 
ptcJacket said:
Someone else commented, and I agree, that we’ve had double digit leads against 3 of the 4 teams we’ve fallen to this year.
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That strategy should be in the Dummies Guide to Creating a Butthurt Fanbase.
 
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texstinger said:
Do you think passing from under center EVERY play is a problem, especially with the anemic OL coaching they receive?

What about trying to throw too many long passes, as compared to giving him things he is more capable of completing?

Got to believe an ego problem is going on with coach(es) and some players are suffering due to it.
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The passes were there. He blew two short passes by rifling them at the receiver. On the down field passes, too much air under the ball giving the D time to adjust. The short passes are fixable. The long ones, not so much.

The pass blocking has been horrific, no doubt.
 
texstinger said:
Do you think passing from under center EVERY play is a problem, especially with the anemic OL coaching they receive?

What about trying to throw too many long passes, as compared to giving him things he is more capable of completing?

Got to believe an ego problem is going on with coach(es) and some players are suffering due to it.
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Passing under center is what gives us play action opportunities that are sometimes the only reason our quarterback has time to throw(when he has time to throw).
 
BigDanT said:
Passing under center is what gives us play action opportunities that are sometimes the only reason our quarterback has time to throw(when he has time to throw).
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Though less so during obvious passing downs. In fairness, the number of situations in games when this ought to be the case may not warrant the practice time that would be necessary to effectively introduce an alternative.
 
savbandjacket said:
Ehhhh. I’m not sure of that. Outside of Jeune, I don’t see anyone on either side of the ball looking at making a career of football. I’m not even sure about Jeune because we can’t get the damned ball to him.
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Antonio Simmons
 
There's no instinct, no confidence on this team. The don't believe they are the better players, and the play like it. We think too much, guess too much, and react too much, instead of forcing the other team's decision. We can't exert our will. We are guessing what to do every play.

Watch the Clemson game or the game yesterday or Miami, we sit on our heels on defense. We are ready to give up yards. A wr or rb breaks loose on the outside and our dbs are running downfield like a lead blocker for the guy. No aggressiveness, no attacking the ball carrier. When was the last time you saw a good form tackle on a ball carrier running in the open field? Not this season. Watch Clemson's D, the defender at the point of attack is ready to lunge forward and flatten the ballcarrier, and he has 5 other guys flying into kill if he somehow misses. No one with a halfway decent offensive line is scared of Tech's D-line, they get pressure like 3 times a game, an generall the qb has 8+ seconds to throw the ball. There a few players on D who tend to play more aggressive, but most of the D is thinking and guessing on each play, leaving us playing slow and giving up yards.

The offense is the same way too. Taquon's thinking too much, maybe because he has no confidence in any of his blockers to make their assignments. But he spends too much time dancing side to side or running backwards and getting tackled for no gain or negative yardage. He needs to learn how to push forward for positive yards. Matthew Jordan is far better at this. Maybe we need to compile a statistic from game film of how often his juke attempts fails to gain us any yards so he can see it doesn't work as well as he hopes it will. He has also got to learn how to throw a ball away, he's taking way too many sacks because he wants to run away from the defender instead of getting rid of the ball. He's still too much of an A-back. The A-backs run the same way, scared. They stop to change direction instead of cutting at speed and blowing past the defender, and they end up getting tackled on the spot. Benson runs more aggressive maybe 80% of the time, otherwise he runs like this too. Looks to me like maybe just slightly better than a Laskey/Sims lever B-Back, a hard runner but no real breakaway speed. I also can't figure out how the guy cannot keep a football in his hands better than he does. Howard I like, he runs hard every opportunity he gets and when he cuts, he cuts by step forward and carrying speed, none of the stop and go nonsense.

I don't know if confidence has anything to do with our special teams, but they are bad. Kickoff team is largely terrible, they all need to learn how to tackle, particularly since we can't kick it out of bounds every play unfortunately. Cottrell needs to be removed from return duties. Punt team needs to learn how to tackle. Punt return needs to legitimately try to block kicks every play, since Brad rarely has the opportunity to run with it and never gets many yards. Just don't send everyone but Brad like we did during Paul's 1st half ending timeout and playcalling seizure. I fully expected the punter to lob a duck right over our whole teams head and score another touchdown right before half.
 
OmnipoTech said:
There's no instinct, no confidence on this team. The don't believe they are the better players, and the play like it. We think too much, guess too much, and react too much, instead of forcing the other team's decision. We can't exert our will. We are guessing what to do every play.

Watch the Clemson game or the game yesterday or Miami, we sit on our heels on defense. We are ready to give up yards. A wr or rb breaks loose on the outside and our dbs are running downfield like a lead blocker for the guy. No aggressiveness, no attacking the ball carrier. When was the last time you saw a good form tackle on a ball carrier running in the open field? Not this season. Watch Clemson's D, the defender at the point of attack is ready to lunge forward and flatten the ballcarrier, and he has 5 other guys flying into kill if he somehow misses. No one with a halfway decent offensive line is scared of Tech's D-line, they get pressure like 3 times a game, an generall the qb has 8+ seconds to throw the ball. There a few players on D who tend to play more aggressive, but most of the D is thinking and guessing on each play, leaving us playing slow and giving up yards.

The offense is the same way too. Taquon's thinking too much, maybe because he has no confidence in any of his blockers to make their assignments. But he spends too much time dancing side to side or running backwards and getting tackled for no gain or negative yardage. He needs to learn how to push forward for positive yards. Matthew Jordan is far better at this. Maybe we need to compile a statistic from game film of how often his juke attempts fails to gain us any yards so he can see it doesn't work as well as he hopes it will. He has also got to learn how to throw a ball away, he's taking way too many sacks because he wants to run away from the defender instead of getting rid of the ball. He's still too much of an A-back. The A-backs run the same way, scared. They stop to change direction instead of cutting at speed and blowing past the defender, and they end up getting tackled on the spot. Benson runs more aggressive maybe 80% of the time, otherwise he runs like this too. Looks to me like maybe just slightly better than a Laskey/Sims lever B-Back, a hard runner but no real breakaway speed. I also can't figure out how the guy cannot keep a football in his hands better than he does. Howard I like, he runs hard every opportunity he gets and when he cuts, he cuts by step forward and carrying speed, none of the stop and go nonsense.

I don't know if confidence has anything to do with our special teams, but they are bad. Kickoff team is largely terrible, they all need to learn how to tackle, particularly since we can't kick it out of bounds every play unfortunately. Cottrell needs to be removed from return duties. Punt team needs to learn how to tackle. Punt return needs to legitimately try to block kicks every play, since Brad rarely has the opportunity to run with it and never gets many yards. Just don't send everyone but Brad like we did during Paul's 1st half ending timeout and playcalling seizure. I fully expected the punter to lob a duck right over our whole teams head and score another touchdown right before half.
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Special teams are called a look into the future. And it’s not good.
 
If you were to ask me at the beginning of this season which of our units would be the best performing I would have laughed if you said it was the defense. Goes to show you that you never know what’s gonna happen!
 
ptcJacket said:
One final comment. I think Ta’quan Marshall could be the best QB we’ve ever had without equivocation. But there is one thing holding him back and it’s holding our team back: he’s selfish with the ball.
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WracerX said:
TM is the worst throwing QB Johnson has had. His downfield ball hangs in the air and his short pass shows zero touch.

I don't know how to fix that. Maybe we bring the number of passes down to about 4-6 per game.

The guy is a hardnosed runner and fast. So it falls on Johnson to make the tweaks to the O to fit Marshall.
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Or maybe coach Marshall to throw it better.

So far, neither has occurred. Marshall looks worse these days than he did at the beginning of the year.
 
jdubjacket said:
I just wish we had a passing attack that wasn't "30 yards or bust" particularly since our QB has no accuracy.
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It's baffling that our HC, an alleged "offensive genius" either can't or refuses to put in high-% passing routes into the offensive package. It'd likely do a good job of opening up the running game. Quick slants, out routes, etc - all are missing.

And stop rolling our RH QB to his left so that he has to stop, do a 180 to plant his feet properly and throw. It's just a laughably stupid passing offense and I think it shows CPJ is a 'genius' at planning run plays only. He completely fails to grasp even the simplest aspects of throwing the football.
 
What we really need is a plan B so that we don’t keep having these abortions. The ability to throw quick outs would be huge in games where the run game is completely stifled like the Clemson game. Good teams have this ability. When our primary offensive strategy isn’t working, we go into spaz mode and start chucking the ball on repeated low percentage plays. And it’s infuriating.
 
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