Watching the replay

Watching CPJ and Pelton's argument, I thought it looked pretty healthy actually. Was clearly about blocking technique, and Pelton was defending his guys. Ain't easy being in middle mgmt. Sometimes you gotta know when to say No. Doubt CPJ will comment on it tomorrow but would love to hear more details.


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Ok, woke up this morning early and fast forwarded to the 3rd quarter.

Here's Southern's first drive:

DL gets manhandled.
DL gets manhandled.
LB out of position to take the pitch.
LB and DL can't beat blocks.
Good job by the corner to beat the block on the WR screen, because we were out of position. (yay)
Missed a tackle on the QB, but held him up long enough to get him down. (yay)
On 3rd and 8, bad snap, bailed them out with the PF. (WTF moment)
Ok on the next run.
Good pressure on the pass to force 3rd and long again.
Great tackle on the quick out to force the 4th down.
4th and 1 we align dumb, taking a big risk to try get off the field. We only played the inside run and gave them everything else they might want. Not sure who decided the D here. Regardless, our safety ran right up into the line and right into a blocker. Even with the bad call it didn't have to be a TD.

So that drive, defensively, we did some good things. Should have gotten off. Only a couple of major screwups, but the screwups were there, so they scored.

Will continue. I only caught the game live on the radio.
 
Our first drive of the 2nd half..

Bad throw
Well covered option
Bad throw
Punt

Southern's second drive:
Good D on the first inside run.
Second run absolutely nobody takes the QB and they gain 41 yards. Looks like Keshun Freeman is responsible for both the dive and the pitch. This is ridiculous for a D that sees the 3O every spring game.
Next play is a 30 some odd yard pass where our corner gets beat deep. He started with a 7 yard cushion, but bit on the out and up.
Next play TD, meh.

So on this drive we look like a poorly coached D.
 
Our 2nd drive..

Laskey dive for 4, don't mind the play call here after two INCs last drive.
Same play other side for 8. Note Southern's doing the VT defense here, with the wide DE and blitzing LB to present a 5 man front. So Southern is switching fronts here, even/odd.
Laskey again for 3, which again is nice. (D in even front)
Thomas on the counter option, got a yard, could have pitched it for more.
Thomas out to Snoddy, could have actually probably scrambled for the first. Roddy Jones on the radio said that we had some deep receivers open as well.
Punt.

So our first two drives of the 2nd half seem like young-QB mistakes to me. I think the play calls could have worked.

Southern's third drive...
Ok stop on first down.
Great stop on 2nd down, Nealy got to the QB and we had a guy covering the pitch.
On 3rd down, we're soft in the zone at the sticks and give them the first.
Next play 68 yard TD pass. They wore DJ White out. No double move that time, he just out ran DJ White. Ugly.
 
Our third drive...

Nice play, nice block, nice pitch, 7 yards.
Laskey ahead for 7 yards.
Bostic on the counter for 5.
Days ahead for 5, chop block call that was a bad call, but if you're going to be cutting on the line you have to be able to overcome an occasional bad chop block call.
GREAT pass on 3rd and long. Love that we throw to the B out of the formation. Good play call too.
Next pass he threw away, but he seemed to have time. I would have liked to see more from this play.
Next play is that same interior counter but one of their DLs completely blows up our RT. Loss of yards.
Next pass sails on Thomas. Receiver was open, pass pro wasn't great.

So Thomas is really not doing well getting balls on target in the 2nd half to this point.

It is worth pointing out, that CPJ has not "abandoned the pass" at any point in the second half. Lots of folks accusing him of getting to vanilla with the lead in prior seasons, me included, especially that Miami fiasco a couple years back. He has not done that in this game. He is still passing, even on first down. He is still trying to score. We're just not executing as consistently as we could be.
 
Southern's fourth drive...

We actually cover the triple option well here but we blow two tackles and the pitch guy gets 20 yards.
We cover it just as well the next play and stick the pitch guy for a loss.
Tackle well on 2nd down out pass and force 3rd down.
On 3rd, we have the right defense called. Everybody's covered AND we have a spy on the QB in Quashon Nealy, our supposed best LB. Nealy stares right at their QB when he starts to scramble, closes too soon, takes a horrible angle, and turns him loose for like 30 yards.
Give up an interior run for 5. D looks tired in the trenches.
Play action pass isolates their RB on our LB and it's an easy 30 yard gain. VT is going to wear us out on that play. Paul Davis doesn't realize his responsibility until Brita is already behind him.
Next play looks like the D just quits. Look tired. Nobody fights a block and they walk into the end zone for a TD and the lead.

At this point I wonder if it's the whole Roof and the Fat Bodied Football Players thing from Cuttcliffe's takeover at Duke is showing. The one nice thing about this drive defensively is we honestly looked to have the right plays called and people making the right reads. The scary thing is that even with that we had players getting pushed around by Georgia Southern.
 
Our fourth drive...

We switch to the tight formation. I like that we keep varying formations.
JT keeper on the tight formation option for 11.
Same play for 2 yards.
Laskey for 3.
The 3rd and 5 pass is one of two pick plays we run out of this formation. The one I like is where the As streak and the WRs cross, but this time we had the As cross and the WRs go down and out for comeback routes. Really bad pass pro here, JT is forced to scramble, but two of the receiver options are out of the play because they're at the other side of the field, and he can't deliver the ball to either of the ones on the correct side. Everybody was covered. He didn't really have any room to scramble for the first either. So we punt.

Interesting thing here, Johnson punting. I think it's the right call, but in prior years he would have been more stubborn and gone for it. Despite the horrid results on the field, it seems to me that Johnson is staying level headed, which is an improvement over some of the games in the past couple of years. IMO.

Southern's last drive...

Run up the gut for 5. DL looks tired.
Next play is well contained and defended, illegal formation on them (accepted)
One hops his receiver on the out, OK coverage, not a great pass rush.
Huge cushions on 3rd and 10, they audible. Even with the cushion, we turn a guy completely loose behind the safety. We look like we're in a deep zone for this play, but still can't cover the guy. I can't tell why from the camera angle. No pass rush. Big 3rd down and long conversion.
Next play that same WR is behind our safety and they don't connect, even though we have five in coverage. That would have been a TD. What is going on with our secondary? Tired? We now have two spies on the QB/RB for draws.
Next play is the triple counter, we cover it great. Seems like we made this adjustment schematically. So now it's 3rd and long again.
They throw a swing pass, we have the guys there to make the play, and we miss four tackles to give them a first down. Tired?
Next down is a designed QB sweep for a dozen and we're all blocked. Tired?
Run up the middle for 6. Tired.
Run off tackle for 6. Tired.
Crazy pitch and we recover.

Looked to me like it was an obvious lateral. Not sure why the refs jumped to "forward pass," we never get that benefit of the doubt vs us.

So my take away at this point is that our conditioning blows. The defensive calls weren't terrible, but we were gassed. And you can't blame the O, because they were taking time off the clock on their drives. The D needs to do better.
 
Thanks for making notes. I watched the replay last night, and the main thing I noticed was that Southern played really well in the second half. We gave them new life on their 1st drive with the personal foul after the bad snap. On each of the next two drives, their QB threw a perfect long pass to a well-covered receiver (not much you can do to defend that). We were not as pass-happy as I thought from the stands, and some of JT's passes that looked poorly thrown were probably intentional due to our receiver being covered. He lit them up pretty well in the first half, so it was reasonable to keep it going.

Tech missed tackles and assignments, and our DL got manhandled in the second half, but GS deserves credit for playing extremely well after halftime. Our youth and lack of depth on defense was a factor and that's a concern, but our offense is becoming a thing of beauty.
 
Our last drive.

Nice hand to Laskey up the middle on first.
Second down we finally run the rocket toss. We've been showing rocket motion and then running counter draw all day, and wearing them out on it. They've adjusted to the counter on rocket motion, so we run rocket for a first down. Not a huge gain but it is a first.
Speed option, nice pitch to Bostic for a first. Great perimeter blocking here.
Laskey gets the give off the counter 3O, gets 3. CPJ is not hurrying up here because he doesn't want to give GSU the ball back. This is a "last team to score wins" scenario. Good clock management to keep rushing the ball with over 2 minutes to go.
Thomas passes deep, Smelter fell over. Could have been open.
Thomas scrambles for the first on 3rd and 7. This guy is so fast. He just flat outruns the LB spy. We need to do more of this 'show pass and scramble' stuff.
Laskey for 6 on the triple.
Thomas on the designed QB draw for 15ish.
Now in trips, Laskey ahead for 3 to kill more clock.
Next play JT tries to audible the route with Smelter, but it appears they weren't on the same page after the snap. Looks pretty obvious to me that JT wanted Smelter to come back on a hitch and he didn't.
3rd down play is the TD. We've all rewatched this like ten times already, basically they blitz a middle LB, he comes through completely clean, and JT is able to scramble away from him and make the play.

If we can get more of these "scramble and find the open crossing route guy" plays working, our offense can be really nasty. Like, really nasty.

Overall, Justin Thomas continues to be a really bright spot for our football team. If this guy can catch the same sort of Hero Complex that Joe Hamilton caught, and can deliver, he could be a really insane QB by the end of next year.
 
On game plan..

We ran four formations:
Base
Twins
Trips
Tight

It was clear that Southern was overplaying the rocket all day because they'd seen us wear folks out with it on tape the past two weeks, which is why we gashed them with the counter draw off rocket motion. We didn't run much base 3O, but we ran it a little. We seem to be running more counter triple than base triple this season. Didn't notice the midline this game. Liked the designed QB draws. Liked that we didn't abandon the pass even when it wasn't working. If we can turn some of these bad passes into scrambles we can be really deadly.
 
JT is so fast and can actually make people miss I feel like rolling him out to one side where he can either throw it or run it is always a good play. Especially when running trips to one side and he rolls out to the other - which is roughly what happened on that last play. It looked to me like he and the main part of the play was left but ended up going right because he ole'ed the LBer. Whether by design or if Hill just made a great adjustment to help his QB it worked out well.

Wish we were just better at form tackling - if defensive players did nothing different in terms of beating blocks or better angles - but just gather/breakdown and then drive and wrap up, we'd be giving up less than half yardage so far. I know being in position is important, but, man, seems like we should spend 50% of our practice time on that Seahawks tackling video and the other 50% on game prep for next team.

Beating blocks! I feel like we're the only team in America who likes to attack the blocker instead of the gap. Do these guys on D line understand the idea is to get PAST the olineman? So far the D line looks like they are playing against a Michael Vick at QB so they are terrified about contain instead of just trying to get after the QB. DE's in particular need to be unleashed to just rush the QB. Same problem when we blitz people - the blitzer just runs into a blocker! WTF?
 
I am reluctant to post this because I don't want to make an excuse for horrible play, but I wonder how much our sauna game in NO carried over. We had to play a full game in a hot environment (our own fault). Gas was basically playing the band against Savannah State last week.

I expected we would wear them down in the second half, and it looked like the opposite.
 
savbandjacket said:
I expected we would wear them down in the second half, and it looked like the opposite.
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This was shocking to me too. We had the ball 20+ mins in the 1st half which I thought would lead to good things in the 2nd half. Apparently all it did was rest Georgia State's offense.
 
It seemed Southern came out the second half refusing to go down without a fight. We seemed ready to coast to victory and ended up needing a lucky break and inspired play to win the game.
 
Agree with a lot of the sentiment here regarding JT5 and his scrambling ability. I almost want him to tuck it run more than I want him to let it fly when he rolls out and some space starts to take shape in front of him. He's one of the more dangerous guys in the ACC with the ball in his hands - not just speed, but the acceleration. He has had several miserable throws over the first 3 games and a few great ones. But you get the sense that he's going to be a monster once he really settles into the offense. Really excited to watch him the next 2.5 seasons.
 
One thing to consider about all the "JT needs to scramble more" is he's probably been encouraged to throw it due to his durability issues. I agree he needs to be a touch more aggressive, but not much. It's a fine line.
 
GTCrew4b said:
One thing to consider about all the "JT needs to scramble more" is he's probably been encouraged to throw it due to his durability issues. I agree he needs to be a touch more aggressive, but not much. It's a fine line.
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Totally valid.

QuadF said:
Solid notes, beej. Really appreciate it.
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No problem. I'm glad I got a chance to go back and log the 2nd half, because only listening on the radio I really didn't get a sense of what was going wrong.

On offense, I think it was largely a combination of dumb luck and not executing on some passes that could have worked, and I credit CPJ with not abandoning the passing game out of frustration, as we've seen him do in the past. It seems CPJ knows that if we can develop this passing game with JT it will finally open the door for us.

On defense, it looked like we had some bad calls, which eventually got cleaned up, but by the time they got cleaned up our guys were too tired to do it right.

Our conditioning really worries me. We could lose to UNC this year. Ugh.

Flipside, if JT turns into superman, we could go undefeated. If the lightbulb really goes on with him, and he starts throwing accurately, every game could be a "whoever scores last affair," and that means a coin flip's chance vs anyone we play.

I'm not holding out hope this year, but next year, oh man.
 
I find it hard to believe CPJ started Vad all last season when he had this kid. I wonder if JT just looked like crap in practice because the dude can flat out play.

GT could easily be sitting at 2-1 or even 1-2 if Vad is still our QB.
 
wesleyd21 said:
I find it hard to believe CPJ started Vad all last season when he had this kid. I wonder if JT just looked like crap in practice because the dude can flat out play.

GT could easily be sitting at 2-1 or even 1-2 if Vad is still our QB.
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Keep in mind that Vad had an extra year's experience running the offense. And was supposed to be the next big thing at Tech as well.
 
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