Stats

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Week 4 - Miami Post Mortem


Alright guys.  Sorry for the delay.  Actually, sorry for the lack of a post.  Because I'm not sure there will be a Miami post game analysis.  I keep trying to muster the strength to review the tape.  Not sure I can do it.  That was a tough one to take.

I was feeling pretty good for a while there.  I predicted 35-17.  We were rolling along at 36-19.  Everything was great.  I should have seen it coming.  GT football seems to like to do this to me.

We even overcame the awful start.  Blow a coverage and give up an easy TD.  Then the silly-stupid-one-of-the-strangest-plays-by-a-senior-I've-ever-seen safety on the kickoff.  What.  The.  Seriously?  But even down 19-0 we came back and took command.

I would try to write a review but I've spent a few days trying to forget as much about that game as possible.  Maybe I'll get around to watching the tape.  But I won't promise anything.

There won't be an MTSU preview or review.  I am out of town this weekend and, thats just the way it is.  Or I'll do it real quick.  We win.  Big.  The spread I saw was 27.5.  I would bet that.  At home, after this loss, I think we blow out MTSU.  It will be worse than UVA was.

As for the rest of the season, there is still plenty to play for.  I'm trying to come back.  I think I'll get there.  I think we can beat Clemson.  Yes I'm worried about the defense, and I'm no longer sure Groh is the man for the job.  (this was supposed to be the season we got a lot better - but it looks like UVA and VT are just bad offenses).  However I'll give him the whole year before I judge.  I still think our defensive scheme matches up well with Clemson, as I did last year.  And I've not seen anything to indicate their defense will slow us down much at all.  They have athletes on offense  But even if they score 45 I think we can win.

We will need to get a lot better between now and UGA to have a chance there.  But everybody else on the schedule between now and then is beatable.  I guess that is something to play for.  Maybe we can even still win the conference at 6-2.  Neither Miami nor VT looks invincible.  Crazier things have happened in this conference.  I don't know.

Anyway, I'm just trying to take it slowly.  The season so far has been such a let down.  So close.  Not sure its healthy for me to jump right back into it.  So, taking it slow.  Just for the next couple weeks, I think we annihilate MTSU and the Clemson game will be a good one.  We might lose.  We could win.  Let's go from there.

Go Jackets!

Friday, September 21, 2012

Week 4 - Miami Preview


Just like last week, I’ll begin by showing what we did wrong last year.  Once again, I am only showing what I consider to be egregious mistakes.  Things that could have been easily corrected, and had a significant impact on the game.  For most clips, I freeze frame the key portion, explain it, and then show the clip again with no interruption. 

This was probably our worst game of the season last year, in terms of execution.  Miami’s defense deserves some credit, but we did a lot of this to ourselves.  See below.





3 of these plays resulted in GT losing the ball.  Two were third downs, and both of these involved poor pitch reads.  On 3rd and 4, Tevin was under pressure immediately, but it appeared the pitch man might have had a chance to convert.  On a separate 3rd and 7 play, Tevin cut inside when we had only 1 defender on the outside, to defend Tevin plus Sims as the pitch man.  If Tevin cuts outside, we probably convert easily and it might have been much more.  Both of these plays occurred near midfield.  Finally, on 4th and 3 at Miami’s 30 yard line, we missed a pretty open 10 yard throw.  Should have been just pitch and catch, and our ball at Miami’s 20.  Instead, it was a turnover.  Think we could have used 3 extra possessions, 2 at midfield and 1 at Miami’s 20 yard line?  

Additionally, we got a bad break on Roddy’s long run.  Roddy stiff armed the defender’s facemask while the defender horse-collar tackled Roddy.  Both are 15 yard penalties.  Unfortunately, those offset, so the whole run was negated.  Had there been no penalties, we had a 40 yard gain to Miami’s 40 yard line.  If only Miami had committed the penalty, its our ball at their 25.  But the interesting part is, if only we had committed the facemask, its still our ball near midfield.  Instead, we end up with the ball at our own 20.  Basically, we were punished because Miami also committed a penalty.  I think they should change this rule, and give each team the option of declining the other team’s penalty.  If the result is better for us by declining their penalty and accepting our 15 yard penalty, I think we should be allowed to choose that option.  Miami should not benefit from committing a personal foul.  But effectively, that is what happened.  

So anyway, enough about last year.  If we execute that poorly again, we will probably lose.  But hopefully we execute well, or at least at a normal level.  

Miami at the moment does not look very good.  Especially on defense.  Boston College is not known as an offensive power, and yet Miami allowed them 537 total yards.  So far this season, Miami has been a very bad defense.  They’ve also been a bad rushing defense.  They gave up 233 yards to Bethune Cookman.  But, let me tell you why I don’t care about rushing defense stats.  Our offense is different from everyone else’s.  I mean, there is some variation between all offenses, but I think our rushing offense is different to a much larger degree.  And what that means is its hit or miss as to how we will perform against a “good” run defense or a “bad” run defense.  Because whether a run defense is good or bad is determined by the stats it compiles against everybody else, most of whom run the ball in a very different way from how we run it.  We sometimes have great days against good defenses, and bad days against bad ones.  And most every year, at least one pretty bad run defense shuts us down.  See below:

2008


Opponent
GT Rush Yards
Opponent Run Defense National Rank
Rank Among GT Opponents
Miami
472
72nd
8th
Miss St.
438
74th
10th
UGA
409
27th
4th
UNC
326
58th
7th
FSU
288
42nd
6th
VT 
278
14th
2nd
Duke
224
75th
11th
Clemson
207
36th
5th
LSU
164
17th
3rd
BC
162
7th
1st
UVA
156
73rd
9th



So our best day was against the 8th toughest, and our worst was against the 9th toughest D we faced?  We lit up UGA (4th toughest) and struggled to run on Duke (11th toughest)??  



2009 


Opponent
GT Rush Yards
Opponent Run Defense National Rank
Rank Among GT Opponents
WF
412
82nd
10th
Vandy
404
105th
12th
FSU
401
108th
13th
UVA
362
95th
11th
Clem
333
67th
7th
UNC
317
10th
1st
VT
309
41st
5th
Duke
306
74th
9th
Clem
301
67th
7th
Miss St.
213
62nd
6th
UGA
205
36th
4th
Iowa
143
34th
2nd
Miami
95
31st
3rd



Aha!  Some order.  Well, sort of.  We had our four highest totals against the four worst defenses we face.  And our 3 worst were against the 2nd, 3rd and 4th toughest.  We did have the one game against UNC (the best run D we faced) where we put up one of highest totals all year.  But in 2009, we sort of made sense.  As you’ll see, this was the only year really.



Opponent
GT Rush Yards
Opponent Run Defense National Rank
Rank Among GT Opponents
UVA
477
105th
10th
UGA
411
56th
4th
UNC
372
22nd
2nd
VT
346
64th
5th
MTSU
329
94th
7th
Duke
320
113th
12th
Miami
308
83rd
6th
Kansas
291
107th
11th
Air Force
279
103rd
9th
NC State
247
14th
1st
Clem
242
28th
3rd
Wake
209
98th
8th



Ok see here we go again.  Our 2nd and 3rd highest totals all year against the 4th and 2nd BEST defenses we faced.  And our worst game was against the 8th.  We did worse against the 11th and 9th toughest defenses we faced than we did against the 5th, 6th and 7th toughest.  We don’t make any sense.



Opponent
GT Rush Yards
Opponent Run Defense National Rank
Rank Among GT Opponents
Kansas
604
117th
12th
Clemson
383
83rd
8th
MTSU
382
114th
11th
Duke
364
85th 
9th
UNC
312
27th
4th
Utah
311
20th
3rd
NC State
296
37th
5th
Maryland
272
111th
10th
UVA
272
48th
6th
VT
243
14th
2nd
UGA
243
11th
1st
Miami
134
68th
7th



A little more order here.  We struggled against the 1st and 2nd toughest defenses, and our best day was against the worst.  But the Maryland game is confusing, and of course, there was another game where a not so good defense (Miami) shut us down.

In fact, in 3 of Coach Johnson’s 4 years, our worst performance of the season came against only the 7th, 8th and 9th toughest run defenses we faced.  (and this does not actually include the Gardner Web game.  I included only FBS teams so we could see a true national rank, but technically in 2008 our worst total of the season was Gardner Web, which is even more mystifying).  

Also of note, two times the defense that shut us down was Miami.  And last year, the Miami defense that shut us down was not very good.  So, I’m not ready to say we are going to run all over Miami just because they are a bad defense on paper.

Teams with great athletes and speed often give us problems.  And Miami still has that. They lack experience, and they are a little undersized, but that is not a huge problem with us.  We are not going to try to overpower you (at least not that much).  So, I expect us to struggle some on offense.  Yes I know I said this last week.  Whoops.  But I really mean it this time.  I am hopeful that we will execute very well, but even if we do I think we’ll only score maybe 35 or so.  Not the 56 nonsense we put up on UVA.  If we don’t execute so well, it will be more like 14 or 17.  Here is hoping we execute.  

Either way though, if our defense plays the way it has been playing, we’ll have a chance to win.  I think Miami’s offense has athleticism more like VT’s than UVA’s.  But nevertheless, we held VT to 7 points through 3 quarters.  I expect we can do the same thing to Miami.  Hopefully, if our offense is sputtering, the defense can close this game out.

The one thing that Miami has that we have not faced yet is a true playmaker at running back.  He is young, but Duke Johnson has really impressed me.  He has excellent speed, good power for his size, and he is shifty enough to make it hard to get a good hit on him.  Most defenders, in space, are forced to try to arm tackle him, and he is too strong for that.  And if you give him a crease, he will usually take it all the way.  Oh and he also returns kicks, so our special teams will need to be ready.

Our defensive front needs to play well.  I think they are better and they will.  We have a lot of speed, especially at linebacker, and we will need it against Duke Johnson.  I think they put more pressure on our defense than UVA did, but ultimately we will keep them from scoring too many points.

I think we win something like 35-17.  This game still terrifies me, for the reasons listed above.  Our offense has at least one mystifying game per year, and its usually to a team like Miami.  And their offense has the playmakers to hurt us if we don’t play sound with our assignments.  But I still think the smart pick is on GT to win comfortably.  We will need to play well.  Here is hoping we do.

Go Jackets!

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Week 3 - UVA Review


Well.  Not much to review from that game.  Pretty good effort.  Obviously.  All the way around.  Hard to argue with 600 yards and 56 points.  

I could not be happier with the defense.  We held them to 7 points until garbage time.  Excluding the one TD drive, we held them to 90 total yards and about 4 first downs on their first 9 possessions.  They scored zero points on these 9 possessions.  Two of those drives started at the GT 40 and the GT 20.  We stuffed their rushing attack.  As I stated in the preview, allegedly they have two excellent offensive tackles.  Did not look like it here.  Down 28-7, they tried to run right at us on 3rd and 1, and then again on 4th and 1, from the 11 yard line.  Nothing.  We stopped the run, pressured the QB, and the pass coverage was excellent.  I really have no complaints whatsoever.  If we play defense like that for the rest of the season, we will be in a position to win a lot of games.

Of course, it is to this point unclear how good UVA’s offense is.  They only scored 17 on Penn St.  Penn St. is pretty tough to figure out right now.  They typically play pretty good defense, but then again this year is a little out of the ordinary for them with all the sanctions.  They have lost quite a few players to transfers.  And of course, Virginia’s only other game was against Richmond.  So that does not tell us much.  I guess we will find out as the season progresses.  But the early returns are exactly what I wanted.

Offensively, 210 yards on your first 4 plays from scrimmage is pretty strong.  35 points on 6 drives in the first half.  I guess I could nitpick a little bit.  We did not execute as consistently as I would have liked.  After a 60 yard run got us into the red zone, we had to convert a 3rd and 9, and then needed 4 plays to push in from the 4 yard line.  We had some poor blocking at times.  But, really, that is picky.  You are going to have a bad play here or there most every game.  We hit plenty of big plays, and for the most part executed very well.  

I would like to single out Robbie Godhigh.  First of all, I criticized Godhigh and the other A-backs for poor blocking at VT.  Upon further review, the A-backs mostly did OK at VT.  The blocking issues in Blacksburg had more to do with the WR’s and B-backs.  The A-backs and O-line did not block great, but it was not a major problem either.  

But Godhigh has impressed me thoroughly since then.  He is consistently taking his man out of the play with great blocks.  And often he gets up quickly enough that he nearly has time to block a second man.  I bet, at some point this season, he is going to put 2 guys on the ground on 1 play.  And, probably my favorite play of the game is shown below.  Godhigh literally blocks 3 guys at the same time, with 1 block (he blocks his guy, and knocks him back into a 2nd guy, and then the 2nd guy stumbles and hits a 3rd guy).  Watching live, I was very puzzled.  It initially looked like we missed several blocks on the line.  I thought this play was going nowhere.  Then, Tevin just kinda walks into the end zone.  Had to watch the replay to figure it out.  Oh.  Godhigh took out 3 guys.  Ok.  Cool.  Kid can block.  See below.  





If there was a down side to this game, it would be special teams.  We jumped offsides on a couple extra points.  We gave up a long kickoff return.  We fumbled a punt.  A lot to work on here.  Its frustrating because I had been very pleased with what appeared to be great improvement in the special teams play.  This was a step backwards.  Although I guess an optimist would say that its better to get a few big mistakes out of the way in a game where you have a 40 point lead.  Maybe that was good.  I guess we will see.  But mistakes like that could easily cost us a game or two later in the season if they repeat themselves.

Anyway, overall a great performance.  

Go Jackets.