Vad Lee Sighting

andrew

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Would a Spring Football League team beat Bama or Clemson or OSU?
No chance. Honestly they'd be hard pressed to beat us probably.

Watching the highlights it struck me how small they all are compares to SEC or NFL.
 

gtfan088

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Vad got the option knocked out of him at UNC that year. Glad he saw a better path for himself and moved on instead of trying to force it at GT.
I think you might be misremembering. He played against UNC twice, the first time splitting snaps with Tevin in a 68-50 win in Chapel Hill, and the next year winning 28-20 in a monsoon.
 

ncjacket

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i forgot about that. We ran that against USC in the bowl game. Not to hijack a thread, but there was some really creative stuff we could have done out of that formation to better integrate the passing game. After Vad left, I recall CPJ tripled down on the conventional flexbone.
Yeah. Remember watching the Duke game where we ran the diamond and he passed for like 3 TDs. If we had committed to incorporating the passing game CPJ might still be here. Option concepts with the ability to beat teams throwing the ball might have blown people’s minds.
 

MeatWrench

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I think you might be misremembering. He played against UNC twice, the first time splitting snaps with Tevin in a 68-50 win in Chapel Hill, and the next year winning 28-20 in a monsoon.
Win or not. He took a hit against them and was never the same attacking the edge. Started falling down to avoid contact behind the line.
 

WracerX

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Yeah. Remember watching the Duke game where we ran the diamond and he passed for like 3 TDs. If we had committed to incorporating the passing game CPJ might still be here. Option concepts with the ability to beat teams throwing the ball might have blown people’s minds.
Maybe. But following the tripling down on the triple option, we beat uga twice, won an orange bowl, and had an 11 and a 9 win season. We also had a ööööshow season with a lot of injuries.

Not having enough 3O qbs in development is really what killed the option.
 

WreckRod

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Maybe. But following the tripling down on the triple option, we beat uga twice, won an orange bowl, and had an 11 and a 9 win season. We also had a ööööshow season with a lot of injuries.

Not having enough 3O qbs in development is really what killed the option.
I think the every other year blocking rules changes were even more responsible than QB development (or lack thereof). The same offense from '08 and '09 would get flagged every couple plays in the current rules.
 

ncjacket

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Maybe. But following the tripling down on the triple option, we beat uga twice, won an orange bowl, and had an 11 and a 9 win season. We also had a ööööshow season with a lot of injuries.

Not having enough 3O qbs in development is really what killed the option.
That’s why I said might. Obviously just my opinion and no guarantee but it may have also helped with recruiting and gotten us the same or better results. Who knows?
 

swampsting

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I still can’t believe how good Justin was. Looking back at some of the highlights is like looking at some of the best football players in history at the college level. The dude was incredible.

Do yourself a favor and go watch the Orange Bowl highlights again. Monstrosity.
Or Duke from 2016.
 

swampsting

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The coach who installed it (the guy from California) left the staff - not sure if it was right after we boat-raced USC or not but that could be why it disappeared after that.
Bryan Cook. And he came back. He was on the staff the last PJ year.
He was OC at Southern under Tyson Summers .
 

swampsting

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The UNC game there with Vad are crazy highlights (and how about Godhigh that day, too?)

But rewatching the Sun Bowl against the University of Spoiled Children (who acted like it before the game, it seems), Vad was so close to breaking big runs. He had legit speed.
I'll still never forget him lighting up Georgia for 3 passing TDs - and then us pooping the bed after that. As bad as letting them off the hook in 09 was - and it was bad - 13 ain't far behind.
To stay on the 13 game another minute, Richt went for it on fourth down on their side of the 50 about midway through the fourth quarter, and got it. It was a huge call and they went down and scored. If he punts it, he runs the risk of not getting the ball back at all. If he doesn't get it, that game is over like A Rod and J Lo.

On the radio show that year, PJ defended Vad a lot. Said repeatedly "the problem ain't the quarterback."
Well, what might have been had he stayed. He didn't, and we got Justin Thomas. Who saw it all.
Damn near did close to it all too.

As for who followed JT, I rewatched a little bit of Miami 2018 recently (there was truly nothing else on). There were times TaQuon made good throws. There were times he instead looked like the Braves bullpen. But he could run. Good Lord he had some wheels.
 

swampsting

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Step Durham and Anree Saint Amour are also in The Spring League.
 

swampsting

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Some other ACC names in the league:
Anthony Ratliff-Williams (played at UNC)
Deondre Francois (ex FSU QB)
Adam Choice (of Clemson)

Oh, and the play by play guy for the game tonight on FS1?
Brandon Gaudin.
 

Tampa Jacket

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Th
Maybe. But following the tripling down on the triple option, we beat uga twice, won an orange bowl, and had an 11 and a 9 win season. We also had a ööööshow season with a lot of injuries.

Not having enough 3O qbs in development is really what killed the option.
Not having enough QBs in development and not being able to recruit enough FBS talent on the defensive side of the ball killed the option.
 

knoxjacket

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Th

Not having enough QBs in development and not being able to recruit enough FBS talent on the defensive side of the ball killed the option.
When we were getting outgained on the ground by teams running dives and off-tackles the problem was not QB.

we consistently had the worst DL in the league and when the rules were changed to require actual blocking we had the worst OLs in the league too.
 

AugustaJacket

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I'll still never forget him lighting up Georgia for 3 passing TDs - and then us pooping the bed after that. As bad as letting them off the hook in 09 was - and it was bad - 13 ain't far behind.
To stay on the 13 game another minute, Richt went for it on fourth down on their side of the 50 about midway through the fourth quarter, and got it. It was a huge call and they went down and scored. If he punts it, he runs the risk of not getting the ball back at all. If he doesn't get it, that game is over like A Rod and J Lo.
2013....what an utterly disappointing game. Not sure if the 2nd half was taking our foot off the gas, lack of depth, both, or what...
 

FatJacket

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When we were getting outgained on the ground by teams running dives and off-tackles the problem was not QB.

we consistently had the worst DL in the league and when the rules were changed to require actual blocking we had the worst OLs in the league too.
Is there any actual blocking in the pussy football played today by players who would be great in the football of old.
 

rghoae

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I think the every other year blocking rules changes were even more responsible than QB development (or lack thereof). The same offense from '08 and '09 would get flagged every couple plays in the current rules.
People really don’t seem to understand our lack of success.
The blocking rules affected us dramatically. One of the biggest issues was our Olinemen couldn’t block downfield anymore. This completely defeated the entire point of the OLine cut blocking strategy that we had,where the goal of the OLinemen was to dive at the DLinemen’s feet with the purpose of slowing them down, so they could get to the second level and block defenders there, so any play that made it past the line of scrimmage threatened to go 30-40 yards.

Further blocking changes made it difficult for our ABacks to cut block at the edge and open that up either.

These changes completely eliminated big plays for us. However, we’d still get yards, but now nearly every TD required 15-20 plays, as opposed to frequently requiring under 10 plays before, which meant the odds of us gaining absolutely nothing from a drive due to a turnover, or due to an illegal formation or false start taking us to 1st and 15, or due to a loss of yards on a single play increased dramatically.

The offense still racked up the yards. But converting the yards to points got significantly harder.
That being said, some of PJ’s protégés are Army and Navy adapted successfully. CPJ seemed unable or unwilling to do so. And besides defense (which was fundamentally our true problem) this was the biggest issue we faced in the 2nf half of CPJ’s tenure.
 
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