Why the dropoff?

77GTFan

77GTFan

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Nov 21, 2004
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We have gone from 7-1 to 2-4 in the ACC this year. Most felt our returning players were excellent. What do you attribute the drop in performance to?

My thoughts are:
1. We have really missed K-Mike on defense. Tenuta's D requires blitzers who get to the QB quick. Hall fit the bill well. I think his presence made Wheeler better, and certainly made QB's throw quicker, thus helping the secondary. New LB's are bigger, stronger, but they don't disrupt things and make plays like K-Mike.
2. Of course, we miss Calvin. Our passing offense deficiencies were overcome somewhat by such a great talent at WR. There is no hiding the fact now we are one of the worst passing offenses among BCS conference teams.
3. Tashard's injury. He is the best RB in the conference and our best option on offense by far. We miss him when he is not in the lineup or at 100%.
 
Well, it will probably be 7-1 to 4-4; playing Duke and UNC helps things.

Still, I think the dropoff came from losing Calvin and the three starting seniors on defense last year. It comes down to passing yards: passing TDs Calvin gave us and the bundles of passing yards that our defense has given us last year. I would hate to think how much Glennon "improved" against us this year.

We also played BC from the Atlantic this year, a definite upgrade from an awful NC St. team.

BTW, the coaching was the same or better this year than last year. Not sure how you could blame coaching for a dropoff with the same staff in place.
 
Calvin Johnson accounted for 15 of our 25 passing TD's last year and 50% of our total passing yards. The only other guy who even registered is James Johnson.

You have to remember that in the red zone last year, "fade to Calvin" was our Madden-esque guaranteed touchdown play. And it worked. He actually had more TDs than Tashard did.

This year, Demaryius Thomas actually leads the team in receiving with 374 yards and both of Taylor's touchdowns.

Summary: We miss Calvin a lot more than many of us though we'd make up for by losing Reggie.
 
With Calvin Johnson, we would probably make the ACCCG this year. Our defense is actually playing better than last year, but our offense is actually quite a bit worse without Calvin. I seriously think that having Calvin might have pulled us past every ACC opponent except BC. Playing BC instead of NC State didn't help and barely losing to Maryland on road instead of barely winning at home didn't help either.

I definitely think that Bennett passing stats would be significantly better with Calvin compared to what we have seen this year.
 
Agree on Kenny. Not too sure on K-Mike. Yes, I'd have loved to have had him this year, but I don't think there was a huge dropoff with his departure.

100% agree on CJ. I will admit that I thought the loss of Ball and CJ would equal out. How much wronger could I have been.
 
These three things:

BC instead of NCS on the schedule.
Dumb holding penalty vs Maryland.
Couldn't field a punt vs UVA.

..would take us from 2-4 to 5-1 with one blowout loss, which is right where we were at this point last season.
 
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