BarrelORum
Mediocre Poster
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2002
- Messages
- 16,274
First off, I don't have much to say because all the intangibles were there. Great coaching during the off week and the game. Great playcalling. Great effort. Great heart. Really everyone looked really good and played better. I felt good about the team watching the game live, but watching it on the DVR replay solidified my feelings even more.
On offense:
Wow, the Abacks blocked. PJ needs to keep it simple more often. When the Abacks block its a night and day game for us. I noticed when we got on the perimeter, as long as the abacks blocked it was ok if the tackles got blown up because we would gain positive yardage. Sellers and Barrack played ok. They are much better blockers in space, ie. going to take out a linebacker or safety than they are blocking a dlineman. When they do this, the play is almost always going to the outside. I noticed a few plays where they just got tossed around, but when they go after a linebacker, I feel sorry for the lb because every time they cut their legs out.
Runningbacks looked awesome. Josh showed why I think he has great potential. I just wish he could put it together for a string of games. He showed more guts yesterday than any player out there. UNC was constantly going after his legs sometimes after the tackle occurred. Dwyer had the game we've been waiting for. AA threw some nice blocks, and Roddy was his regular solid dependable self. Preston Lyons is a strong up the middle option. He brings it.
I've been cursing playcalling for the last two weeks because PJ seemed like he was out of his element. Not yesterday. He did exactly what we do best. I love the addition of the draw play to our offense. even the line was pass blocking like a pro offense on that call. Defense had no idea what happened.
Overall the only negative I found on the offense was the play of #71. Cord Howard is a senior and a second team All ACC player. He whiffed a handful of blocks badly yesterday and then at the end lost his composure and had a personal foul penalty assessed on him. I've been hard on the big man because in my opinion he's the most talented olineman we have in my opinion, so there's really no excuse. His pulling is suspect as anytime he pulls across the line to take out the DE, I'm like "Oh ****!". He gets there late or not at all or like a couple of occassions fell on his face and clogged the avenue for Nesbitt. We need Cord to be better and he can be better. It seems like he's regressed. When Cord is on, he's strong and moves people. But I think he plays soft and until I see him play 4 quarters of total effort, then I'll keep saying the same. The talent is there, that much is obvious.
On defense:
Our four leading tacklers were defensive backs, but that said, I thought Jefferson was in on almost every play. He showed a lot. Rashad Reid seemed to be playing 3 positions at once. Morgan Burnett with the exceptioon of one play, played like an all american.
I loved the new look DLine. Logan Walls has found a home. The guy can play. He was all over the place. Ebiguniwe showed some promise. We still need to manufacture more pressure and I think we helped that by going to a 4-3 defense. Cross played some solid minutes and Barnes and Peters rotated in a lot. Walls is definitely the starter now though.
Our secondary was lights out yesterday. How we go from Miami to UNC in performance is incomprehendable to me. As I've said all year, Reid needs to be a regular starter on defense. Reid next to Morgan Burnett has the best instincts of any defensiveback I've seen at GT.
I will say this. I don't think our new look defense was all that tested. For one, we held the ball on offense for 42 minutes and two, UNC's offense is lethargic. So this is a nice effort from the defense, but really its not a great indicator to me how much they improved yesterday.
Going back to offense, no one has the blue print to our offense. UNC's defense was pretty stout. I thought they tackled poorly, but PJ tends to make other teams do that.
The officiating yesterday as we all know was horrendous. Just how horrendous? It was the WORST I have seen since the GT/VT game last year. It was probably worse than that, but since we convincingly won, it doesn't stick out as much. Had this been a close game and we lost, Swofford would be getting some much deserved heat from DRad. Just some of the penalties I saw.
On the non-holding call on Morgan in the 1st series, Ebiguniwe was also being held. In fact I saw him being held 2 more times throughout the game with non-calls. We got horse collared twice and one facemask that I never saw called. Not to mention the end of the 1st half. If the refs didn't have an agenda, then they are completely incompetent. I don't know what can be done about this but as fans with you tube and blog abilities, we need to point so much fun at the incompetency of ACC refs that Swofford takes notice.
On offense:
Wow, the Abacks blocked. PJ needs to keep it simple more often. When the Abacks block its a night and day game for us. I noticed when we got on the perimeter, as long as the abacks blocked it was ok if the tackles got blown up because we would gain positive yardage. Sellers and Barrack played ok. They are much better blockers in space, ie. going to take out a linebacker or safety than they are blocking a dlineman. When they do this, the play is almost always going to the outside. I noticed a few plays where they just got tossed around, but when they go after a linebacker, I feel sorry for the lb because every time they cut their legs out.
Runningbacks looked awesome. Josh showed why I think he has great potential. I just wish he could put it together for a string of games. He showed more guts yesterday than any player out there. UNC was constantly going after his legs sometimes after the tackle occurred. Dwyer had the game we've been waiting for. AA threw some nice blocks, and Roddy was his regular solid dependable self. Preston Lyons is a strong up the middle option. He brings it.
I've been cursing playcalling for the last two weeks because PJ seemed like he was out of his element. Not yesterday. He did exactly what we do best. I love the addition of the draw play to our offense. even the line was pass blocking like a pro offense on that call. Defense had no idea what happened.
Overall the only negative I found on the offense was the play of #71. Cord Howard is a senior and a second team All ACC player. He whiffed a handful of blocks badly yesterday and then at the end lost his composure and had a personal foul penalty assessed on him. I've been hard on the big man because in my opinion he's the most talented olineman we have in my opinion, so there's really no excuse. His pulling is suspect as anytime he pulls across the line to take out the DE, I'm like "Oh ****!". He gets there late or not at all or like a couple of occassions fell on his face and clogged the avenue for Nesbitt. We need Cord to be better and he can be better. It seems like he's regressed. When Cord is on, he's strong and moves people. But I think he plays soft and until I see him play 4 quarters of total effort, then I'll keep saying the same. The talent is there, that much is obvious.
On defense:
Our four leading tacklers were defensive backs, but that said, I thought Jefferson was in on almost every play. He showed a lot. Rashad Reid seemed to be playing 3 positions at once. Morgan Burnett with the exceptioon of one play, played like an all american.
I loved the new look DLine. Logan Walls has found a home. The guy can play. He was all over the place. Ebiguniwe showed some promise. We still need to manufacture more pressure and I think we helped that by going to a 4-3 defense. Cross played some solid minutes and Barnes and Peters rotated in a lot. Walls is definitely the starter now though.
Our secondary was lights out yesterday. How we go from Miami to UNC in performance is incomprehendable to me. As I've said all year, Reid needs to be a regular starter on defense. Reid next to Morgan Burnett has the best instincts of any defensiveback I've seen at GT.
I will say this. I don't think our new look defense was all that tested. For one, we held the ball on offense for 42 minutes and two, UNC's offense is lethargic. So this is a nice effort from the defense, but really its not a great indicator to me how much they improved yesterday.
Going back to offense, no one has the blue print to our offense. UNC's defense was pretty stout. I thought they tackled poorly, but PJ tends to make other teams do that.
The officiating yesterday as we all know was horrendous. Just how horrendous? It was the WORST I have seen since the GT/VT game last year. It was probably worse than that, but since we convincingly won, it doesn't stick out as much. Had this been a close game and we lost, Swofford would be getting some much deserved heat from DRad. Just some of the penalties I saw.
On the non-holding call on Morgan in the 1st series, Ebiguniwe was also being held. In fact I saw him being held 2 more times throughout the game with non-calls. We got horse collared twice and one facemask that I never saw called. Not to mention the end of the 1st half. If the refs didn't have an agenda, then they are completely incompetent. I don't know what can be done about this but as fans with you tube and blog abilities, we need to point so much fun at the incompetency of ACC refs that Swofford takes notice.
