Middle Tennessee State Review

Once again, hard to find much to get upset about from this game. We looked good, and we looked good in a hurry. We jumped out to a 28-0 lead early.

Here is my favorite takeaway from the game.

First 4 Possessions	GT	MTSU
Points	28	0
Points/Possession	7.0	0
Yards	332 (26 plays)	126 (26 plays)
Yards/Play	12.77	4.85

That is beating someone about as badly as they can be beaten. Our first four possessions took us just barely into the 2nd quarter. 332 yards in barely more than 1 quarter is ridiculous.

Middle Tennessee State may not be very good, but they are an FBS team, and are significantly better than Western Carolina. Plus, this was on the road. Anyway you look at it, this win was impressive.

I believe the first 4 drives give you the clearest picture in a game like this (or, more specifically, however many drives it takes for one team to put away the other team). The game was never in doubt from this point forward, so the stats and the final score may be misleading due to lack of motivation, focus, substitutions, etc. If we left our first team offense in the entire game, it looked like we might score every time we had the ball.

But, here are the full game stats, just for fun.

Full Game	GT	MTSU
Points	49	21
Points/Possession	4.9	2.1
Yards	596 (75 plays)	342 (64 plays)
Yards/Play	7.95	5.34

Still pretty impressive.

The defensive stats were not overwhelming, but they did score 14 of their points on the last 2 possessions. Meaning, through 8 possessions, they had 7 points. Allowing roughly 1 point per possession is very good.

Offensively, 4.9 points per possession is really outrageous.

However, as exciting as I am tempted to be at this point, we have not accomplished anything that proves we are as good as I want to be.

Dominating teams like we have is consistent with being a very good team, but there is a long list of teams that have come out and dominated overmatched opponents early and then ended up not being very good. Georgia Tech in 2007 was one of those teams. Remember a very impressive (at the time) win at Notre Dame, followed up by a total domination of Samford? That picture perfect 2-0 start led to a 7-6 season, after which we fired Chan.

So, don’t get too excited.

But, things are looking very good so far.

A few of my concerns:

Offense - Our O line is not getting the push I’d like. The passing game has been great, but when we run the ball, we are having to convert more 3rd and 4th downs than I’d like. On the second drive, for example, we had to convert 2 third downs and even a fourth down in order to get to the end zone. But, I’ll have to admit, this is being a little picky. Our other early drives were easy TD’s. But it was the passing that created that. Two of our drives were 1 play, 70+ yard “drives”, and that one play was a pass. The other early TD drive was greatly aided by a 43 yard pass. While I love the new passing execution, we are a running team. And I would like to see our strength ripping off 10 yard run after 10 yard run against MTSU, and never getting close to a third down.

Defense - Not as dominating as I’d like. The numbers on the early drives, especially the first 2 or 3, were more impressive, but I would have liked to see us clamp down a little longer. For the game, MTSU’s offensive numbers were actually pretty good. Plus, we did benefit from 2 turnovers in our territory in the first half. If they don’t throw a pick and cough up the ball, they might well have scored more. As always, you could argue we forced those turnovers, but frankly I’d rather just play good straight up defense and force a punt. Also, we once again did not get much pressure on the QB, but once again, they were throwing a lot of quick passes. Short drops, short routes - makes it difficult to get pressure. We’ll see how we do against teams that try to drop back and throw downfield a little more.

On the plus side, Kansas’ offensive coordinator was quoted in the AJC this week as saying that our defense is much improved this year, and we are clearly well coached. Said something to the effect of we are sound in our scheme, and rarely get out of position. Of course, this is an opposing coach discussing us during game week, so he is very unlikely to say anything other than very positive stuff. Not going to give up bulletin board material for no reason. But, I guess that is something.

Special teams - No real concern here. Punting was good. I guess there was the fake punt we gave up. But, in the grand scheme of things, if MTSU wants to fake a punt on 4th and 5 against us, they are probably going to convert. I would like to see us a little more aware that on 4th and short near midfield, a fake is likely, but whatever. Overall I would say special teams improved.

Overall, there are still some areas for concern, and I am still very curious to see how we do against competition that is a little closer to our level. But, to this point, we have done well. We have done everything you could ask. This team appears to have a good attitude, a good work ethic, and does not take anything for granted. And we have some talent. That is a very good combination for a coaching staff as good as ours.

Very shortly, we’ll find out just exactly how excited we should be.