Week 7 Preview - Middle Tennessee State

As I am sitting here reflecting on the first half of the season, I am also watching WVU – USF and Kansas – Kansas State. WVU – USF are playing a pretty good game, while Kansas State is driving deep in Kansas territory about to go up 31-0. And its only the second quarter. I cant help but wonder… how in the $%^& did we lose to this team again? I would be willing to wager that 8 randomly selected members of Georgia Tech’s scout team, kicker Scott Blair, Paul Johnson and the girl from Little Giants could put up more of a fight against Kansas St than the Jayhawks are doing right now.

Hopefully, we have come a long way since that game. According to Sagarin, Virginia is 14 points better than Kansas, and we are only supposed to be 2 points better than Virginia. Thus, it would seem that our performance this past weekend would indicate we played better than we have all season long (Sagarin’s prediction is based on our previous games obviously). Especially when you consider that we led 33-14 and it should have been worse than that if we had not given UVA so much help stopping us in the first half.

So what to expect and what to look for this week? I confess that I don’t know much about Middle Tennessee. I do know that they won 10 games last year, and they played a fairly competitive game against Clemson in Death Valley. But that was last year. This year they are 2-3, and have not looked nearly as good. Sagarin has them as the 169^th best team in the country, and says we should win by 21 on a neutral field, and 25 at home. Their two wins came against Austin Peay and UL Lafayette. They lost by a touchdown to a bad Minnesota team, a touchdown to Memphis, and 42-13 to Troy.

I don’t know much about the way they play, but it sure seems like they aren’t very good. One thing I do know about MTSU is their QB, Dwight Dasher, is very good. He is a great athlete with excellent speed, and he is also a good thrower. He would be at a big time school but he is only 5’10 and thus the major colleges didn’t give him a serious look as a QB recruit. He will be a challenge for our defense. But it is a challenge I expect us to overcome, and I look for us to have success on both sides of the ball.

I especially look for us to have success on offense. We need to continue improving our consistency and teamwork on the offensive line. It appears from the Virginia game that they are starting to click. If we can do that, then all we have to do is make the right reads most of the time, and stop the silly fumbles, and we should be able to rack up touchdowns like Paul Johnson offenses tend to do.

Defensively, I expect to see us in the backfield all game. I want pressure and lots of it. Of course, we also need to be aware of our lanes so we don’t let Dasher escape. His name couldn’t be more appropriate, as he is faster than every member of our front seven that will spend most of the game chasing after him. So we have to contain. It can be tough to bring the type of chaotic blitzes that our version of the 3-4 likes to do while simultaneously staying organized enough to maintain containment responsibilities. But I don’t care. I expect us to do it. We will need to in the coming weeks, most notably against Tyrod Taylor, but Parker, Murray and even Jacory Harris have decent speed if they have to run.

As usual, let’s compare the talent of the two teams. I do this by looking at the numerical recruiting rankings posted annually by espn.com. These are less helpful than usual because MTSU has so many players that espn did not rank, so they retain the “40” default and I do not count them in the averages. MTSU had 19, 17, 14 and 19 such players in 07, 08, 09, and 10 respectively. Often times this means these players were not very good prospects leaving high school, but some of these players are actually very good maybe weren’t evaluated by espn.com’s scouts because they developed late. Anyway, here are the rankings that we do have.

	2007			2008			2009			2010
	GT	MTSU		GT	MTSU		GT	MTSU		GT	MTSU
Best	81	78		80	77		80	76		80	73
Top 5	79.4	74.4		78	73.2		79.4	75.2		79	N/A
Top 10	78.5	N/A		77.3	N/A		78.8	74.1		78.2	N/A
Avg.	75.65	73		76.53	70		76.85	74.1		77.06	70.33
Total Players	20	7		15	8		21	10		16	3

Not terribly surprisingly, we have a decisive talent advantage. Our biggest concern will be making sure they do not have an edge in terms of motivation and focus. By that I mean we need to show up ready to play. This team may be able to beat Kansas, especially considering how bad KU is looking at HOME right now against a Kansas St. team that just got hammered by Nebraska. (K St. up 45-0…). While I think we should win handily, if we show up and play like we did at Kansas, we could lose this game.

Let’s take a look at the season stats, although keep in mind MTSU hasn’t played as difficult of a schedule as we have. According to Sagarin, they have played the 189^th toughest schedule, while we have played the 81^st.

	GT	MTSU
Rush Yards Per Game	328	162.2
Rush Yards Per Carry	5.77	4.53
Rush Yards Allowed	153.2	185.4
Rush Yards Allowed/Carry	4.12	3.96
Pass Yards Per Game	84.8	221.4
Pass Yards Per Att.	7.1	6.5
Pass Yards Allowed	199.3	199.6
Pass Yards Allowed/Att.	6.3	6.2
Yards Per Play	6.0	5.5
Yards Per Play Allowed	5.3	4.9
Points Per Game	30.2	27.4
Points Allowed Per Game	24.7	27.4

That is all very interesting, but I think the difference in the quality of opponents the two teams have faced will make a big difference. I expect us to average well better than 3.96 yards per carry against MTSU, for example.

Here are my goals for the game.

The overarching goal is to improve in all areas. Improve our rhythm, teamwork and execution on offense, and improve our understanding of the defense.

The specific statistical goals are as follows.

Offense:

Gain at least 500 yards, 400 rushing and 100 passing. Given that we just ran up 477 rushing alone on UVA, this is set pretty low.

Score at least 50 points. We haven’t come near that mark since S.C. St., and I think it is time the offense gets rolling.

No more than two fumbles total, no more than 1 lost, and no more than 1 turnover.

Get some reps for the backup QB’s. I want to see Tevin get at least two drives and Sims get one. Judging from very limited action, Sims may be as good of a runner as Nesbitt, only faster. Wouldn’t that be something?

Defense:

Force 3 turnovers.

Get 3 sacks.

Hold them to less than 14 points, at least while the game is in doubt.

Hold them under 300 total yards.

I think those are all very manageable if we play well. But remember, the most important thing is to continue getting better.

As always, Go Jackets!