Tough Day for the CPJ Supporters/Haters

Offense did just enough against a fast, strong defense. They covered edge plays really well and defeated a lot of blocks. 4 or 5 big plays won us the game on offense.

Defense didn't look great but got us a couple of big plays, as well. They bowed up and forced FGs and that won us the game on defense.

And Special Teams with a return TD and a couple of clutch FGs (49 yarder was no joke) won us the game on STs.

That's a total team win even though O and D didn't really have great days.
 
TQM is the worst passer n CFB, bar none. He can complete a pass if the other team blows a coverage and even then it depends upon the day if he can get the ball to a wide open target. First down passes are nearly 100% drive killers. It’s not his fault, and he gives great effort, but man watching him play QB is a roller coaster.

As far as CPJ, this just shows how good a coach he is. This offense is fun to watch when it’s working. Too bad it gets vilified when it doesn’t work since any offense looks bad when it doesn’t work, not just the TO.
 
wesleyd21 said:
I think any objective observer would have to tip their cap to PJ. What a great turnaround.

Loses his starting RB in week 2, figures some things out, and plods forward with what he’s got to work with.

This also makes Stansbury look smart...which is great for a new AD.
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Not a tough day at all. I always enjoy the wins, and give credit where credit is due. Have said on many occasions CPJ has shown the ability to improve the team over the course of the season. But we always start fresh in August, no carryover from the previous season. Typical of this year, slow start, quirky game day calls, mysterious line up decisions. It is what it has been. Since I was against the original hire, I am not nearly and objective observer. The team has improved, but has also benefited from meltdowns in Miami, Blacksburg, and Chapel Hill, along with freebies from Louisville, Alcorn, and Bowling Green. We have one more opportunity to measure our progress against top notch opposition. I count UVA as a good team, and we clawed and fought and got a victory. Hoping Stansbury still "looks smart" next Sunday.
 
Did I miss something? Was Stansbury supposed to fire PJ mid season or risk looking stupid?
 
johncu said:
That's really interesting that you say that, because I had the exact opposite impression. Mendenhall is a damn good coach. His defense was defeating blocks and making assignment plays. We couldn't death march and we weren't able to hit on any big plays because we couldn't catch them out of position.
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Right. Because we were extremely predictable. We had <3 first down plays that were not QB Keepers. Time and again we were in 2nd and long because of that play.

johncu said:
Yet we somehow ground out drives and put points on the board and scored when it counted. I thought the QB counters, A-back misdirection plays, and even the WR reverse were great calls when UVA was shutting down the option, and the hitch n go on 3rd down to Stewart was fantastic. It's a ballsy move but we probably don't score there without a big play. And this isn't offense-related, but I think the entire staff needs credit for our special teams play yesterday. We weren't just better in ST yesterday, we dominated that phase of the game and ultimately won because of it.
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Agreed. Our punter was responsible for 10 pts and arguably 17, given that we scored after that crucial fumbled punt by UVA. Wells had the best game of a GT PK since Butker left. He was Mr. Clutch.

Basically this feels completely different than the USF game where it seemed like we could move the ball at will but somehow öööö our pants and lost. Yesterday we played a good team and won despite not playing our A-game. Sounds like the epitome of good coaching to me.
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We won in spite of predictability on offense and tons of missed tackles in the secondary on defense. But at the end, a W is a W and yesterday was clearly the best team we've beat all year.

I don't think CPJ did anything to lose the game but he made fewer bad calls than Bronco.

1. Why did UVA not try to score at the end of the 1st half? They got the ball with 3 TOs and basically sat on it.

2. 3rd and 1 in the red zone with 30 seconds left...why throw a pass into the end zone into double coverage? Terrible play call by Bronco.
 
vapspwi said:
It seemed to me that we ran a variety of stuff that’s not our bread and butter generally. A lot of counters, that (bad) reverse, stuff like that. Not as much of the usual dives and pitches.

It was still frustrating that Marshall gets stuffed at the line on keepers so often (though he has a couple of good ones early). And it was more obvious than usual that our pass game is mostly contingent on the other team being fooled or screwing up. Doesn’t seem like we can complete passes without a defensive lapse (notwithstanding Brad’s big effort catch).

JRjr
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Our pass game will be fine if Marshall throws on time. Every pass play we ran today had open receivers. The only one they really defended well was the curl to Brad on 3rd down. The rest had open receivers that TM was just late on. They missed two OBVIOUS defensive holds on Stewart/camp on 3rd down on our last possession in regulation. Even the UVA boards were talking about how crazy it was that a flag wasn’t thrown on that. The DB was literally holding Camp’s arm for a good 5 yards.

Refs missed the false start on the last kick of the game too. Ending up helping us despite their best efforts.
 
Everybody needs to remember this:

Bronco Mendenhall is a literal perfect coaching template to beat CPJ. There has never been a better one. He's cut from old cloth, the cloth that played option all the time and knew how to beat it. He's never coached a year in his life where he didn't have at least one option team on his schedule. He knows it all, and he likes coaching against it. As I watched us pummel Louisville and numerous teams afterwards, I knew that we were going to run into this when we played UVA. It will continue to happen. Bronco is a damn good coach, and UVA doesn't deserve him. The only reason he took the job was because the dude is a fiend for horses, and Charlottesville VA is like "expensive horse snob central."

That said, our performance vs UVA is not necessarily indicative of a failure of our offense, just of a really well prepared defense. We probably do better against UGA, although I'm not sure it will be enough.

Future wins over UVA are probably going to have to look a bit like this one.
 
BackstreetBuzz said:
Gotta give CPJ credit. The team really turned it around after a slow start. CPJ is a good, smart coach. In addition, for the most part, his players stay out of trouble and graduate.

In comparison, Bronco is a good coach, but made about 5 dumb decisions yesterday that probably beat Virginia.

If CPJ would just put in a shotgun passing package for 3rd and long, end of half and game, when the 3O is just not working or just to make the defense back off a bit, I would be fully on board.
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He helped us win by calling a timeout on 3rd and 32
 
Yukonwreck said:
Hoping Stansbury still "looks smart" next Sunday.
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You realize out of 129 FCS teams, only 2 would be favored to beat UGAg.

OTOH, we need to beat the öööö out of the mutts. I want is just to give them a humiliating loss. No more squeakers. A blowout. They have humiliated us many times I'm the series. Time to lay the wood to them
 
beej67 said:
Everybody needs to remember this:

Bronco Mendenhall is a literal perfect coaching template to beat CPJ. There has never been a better one. He's cut from old cloth, the cloth that played option all the time and knew how to beat it. He's never coached a year in his life where he didn't have at least one option team on his schedule. He knows it all, and he likes coaching against it. As I watched us pummel Louisville and numerous teams afterwards, I knew that we were going to run into this when we played UVA. It will continue to happen. Bronco is a damn good coach, and UVA doesn't deserve him. The only reason he took the job was because the dude is a fiend for horses, and Charlottesville VA is like "expensive horse snob central."

That said, our performance vs UVA is not necessarily indicative of a failure of our offense, just of a really well prepared defense. We probably do better against UGA, although I'm not sure it will be enough.

Future wins over UVA are probably going to have to look a bit like this one.
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I'm not so sure about this. If you care to, watch the backside safety every time we run an option play. He reads the AB motion and literally takes off on a full sprint toward the playside and blows up the pitch point. Marshall's two long runs were only there because the safety bumped into a teammate on the way across. The pass was wide open all day, we just don't have a guy to complete it. Marshall missed Stewart on what should've been a TD late in that game by throwing off his back foot, and Camp should've been wide open on an earlier play but the safety grabbed and held him (somehow uncalled). I think we'll have a better passer going forward, so we should be able to take advantage of their aggressiveness more in the future.
 
RamblinWreck92 said:
Right. Because we were extremely predictable. We had <3 first down plays that were not QB Keepers. Time and again we were in 2nd and long because of that play.
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Those were option plays that UVA just blew up. Bronco did a damn good job of preparing their defense. They clearly made it a priority not to give up anything on the perimeter and we couldn't get enough of a push to make up for it with the dive. Honestly I think without some creative playcalling and our improved special teams, we lose this one by 14-21 points. But like I said, I'll take this over putting up 600+ yards of offense and losing.



RamblinWreck92 said:
1. Why did UVA not try to score at the end of the 1st half? They got the ball with 3 TOs and basically sat on it.

2. 3rd and 1 in the red zone with 30 seconds left...why throw a pass into the end zone into double coverage? Terrible play call by Bronco.
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Yeah, Bronco made some headscratching calls. CPJ would NEVER have kicked that FG that Bronco did to tie the game at 24. IMO that was a weak call on 4th down when you've got a QB that is fast and strong and should easily be able to pick up the first. The 3rd down fade that you reference was almost as dumb. Perkins was tearing us apart with the short pass - why even try to go deep?
 
johncu said:
I'm not so sure about this. If you care to, watch the backside safety every time we run an option play. He reads the AB motion and literally takes off on a full sprint toward the playside and blows up the pitch point. Marshall's two long runs were only there because the safety bumped into a teammate on the way across. The pass was wide open all day, we just don't have a guy to complete it. Marshall missed Stewart on what should've been a TD late in that game by throwing off his back foot, and Camp should've been wide open on an earlier play but the safety grabbed and held him (somehow uncalled). I think we'll have a better passer going forward, so we should be able to take advantage of their aggressiveness more in the future.
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This is not a hypothesis supported by evidence.
 
JJacket said:
You realize out of 129 FCS teams, only 2 would be favored to beat UGAg.

OTOH, we need to beat the öööö out of the mutts. I want is just to give them a humiliating loss. No more squeakers. A blowout. They have humiliated us many times I'm the series. Time to lay the wood to them
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Of course I realize that. The question is why are we so inferior to them? Why have we degraded to hoping to beat Pittsburgh, while they are knocking on the playoff's door--again? I understand the disadvantages we have and have always had. But to have won only four times in the last 18 or 19 tries is not acceptable.
 
johncu said:
You don't think Justin Thomas would've been able to make those throws? Or Nesbitt? Or even Vad Lee?
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Justin Thomas may have been 3-4 on the day. Nesbitt and Vad 2-4. Oliver (the next actual QB) very likely 1-4. Tevin probably 1-4, and I like Tevin.
 
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