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Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Georgia Tech 2016 Season Preview

I’ll begin with a confession.  Last season was so depressing that I didn’t even remember when I had blogged last.  I thought I made it longer than the UNC game, but apparently not.  I feel a little bad for quitting on the season at 2-3.  I do remember briefly considering returning after the FSU win but I never got around to it.  Obviously I’m a fair weather blogger.   

After having an entire offseason to reflect, I’ve come to several conclusions about 2015.  First of all, we were maybe the best 3-9 team ever.  We were less than 1 touchdown underdogs, at 2-5, to a 6-0 top ten FSU team, and to an 8-3 UGA team when we were 3-8.  And both of those lines proved to be about right.  In a year when we finished 3-9, we defeated an FSU team that finished 10-3, and that win really wasn’t much of an upset.  I mean, it was an upset, but only a slight one.  That’s really odd.  

Which leads to the next thought - what really plagued us in 2015 were all the intangibles.  The things you can’t really put your finger on.  Youth.  Chemistry.  “Knowing how to win”.  All those romanticized football ideas.  Because when it came to lining up and gaining yards and stopping the other team from gaining yards, we were much better than our record.  We easily could have (probably should have) beaten UNC, the team that won the Coastal.  We could/should have beaten UVA, Pitt and VT as well.  Really only Miami, Clemson and ND beat us anything remotely approaching decisively.  

So what happened?  I think being young was one issue, but I think the bigger issue was something that I think happens to GT a lot.  But I can’t prove it, and I don’t have any insider access from which I’ve developed this theory.  Its more of a hypothesis.  But basically, its this - GT doesn’t ever really have dominant talent.  We usually have pretty good talent, and combined when good coaching, thats occasionally enough for a year like 2009 or 2014 (or 2006, or 2000 etc).  We’ve finished in the top 10 (or close to it) a handful of times in the past 25 years, but I think, to find a GT team that actually had top 10 talent (or close to it) nationally, you’d have to go back to 1990.  Meaning I think, in those good years, we somewhat overachieve with good execution, work ethic, attitude, coaching, strategy etc.  But then coming off those good years, we fall apart.  2010 and 2015 we entered the year ranked, and both years we returned an all conference level QB that was a heisman candidate.  And we went 6-7 and 3-9 for Paul Johnson’s two worst seasons.  Both of those years we lost a lot of talent around the QB, but everybody said we had recruited pretty well and it would be “plug and play” or whatever.  Maybe everyone discounted the value of the contribution from those other players, but I think part of it is attitude in the offseason.  2009 followed a good year (2008) but we missed some goals that were probably attainable - we didn’t win the Coastal (when we probably should have) and we got murdered in our bowl game.  So maybe those disappointments provided the spark for hard work in the offseason.  Maybe, maybe not.  But coming off an upset victory, in blowout fashion, in the Orange Bowl, in 2014, I think we got big headed.  I say this mostly because we returned almost the full two deep from a really good offensive line, and they struggled mightily last year.  That’s odd.  So, basically, I have no proof of this, but I’m flailing for some sort of explanation to figure that out.

To be sure, I think everyone (myself included - although I was worried) undervalued how difficult it would be to replace the very good skill players we lost after 2015.  I believe the new group in 2015 was talented but young.  I’m excited to see their development, because, presumably, everybody worked real hard and nobody had a big head this offseason, and I think many could be very good players.

The final takeaway from 2015 for me is how small the margins can be for a team like GT, with pretty good but never great talent.  And I mean that across the board - we never have great talent across the whole roster like Ohio St., Alabama, Oregon etc.  We sometimes get great individual players.  But the difference in 2014 and 2015, it could be argued, is really only 10-20 plays.  Change that 4th and 15 conversion on VT, Butker misses that last second FG at UGA, and we don’t get that fumble to Ga Southern, and 2014 is suddenly the same as 2012.  We don’t win the coastal, don’t beat UGA, only win 8 games, and have a loss to Ga Southern (like the Middle Tenn St loss in 2012).  That’s literally 3 plays, and its not like I’m cherry picking random plays after the fact.  Those were all plays that were somewhat unlikely, and at the time, I think most, certainly me, felt we had already lost those games.  All occurred late enough to be the difference, by themselves.

Conversely, there were several plays last year.  I remember the painful overthrow of an easy 20 yard TD against UVA, the dropped 95 yard should have been a pick 6 by DJ white against UNC, Pitt’s 50 yard FG, several plays against VT.  Those plays go differently and we easily could have won 6 or 7 last year, even if you change the fluky FSU finish.  That’s the margin between 2014 and 2015.  That small.  And I think that’s true even though watching those two teams play, especially late in the year, you would think 2014 was 5 or 6 touchdowns better (and maybe they were).  Football is just a funny game.  

So, all of that to say, I expect this year to be a return to normal.  I expect to win at least 7 or 8 games, and be a factor in the Coastal.  I expect that to be true, even though the O-line is a mystery and there aren’t many reasons to be optimistic about the defense.  I feel pretty good about QB and the offensive skill positions.  We need the defense to be opportunistic like 2014, and we need the offensive line to play well.  But its an even year, and that’s the been the senseless pattern the last few years (2012 and 2014 good, 2013 and 2015 bad for the O line).  At this point, Clemson looks like the only game that isn’t realistically winnable.  But Mercer may be the only game that isn’t losable.  Welcome to GT football.

Boston College will be an interesting test to open the year.  Boston College returns a fairly experienced group, from what was an excellent defense and a woefully bad offense last year.  On offense, they were 126th out of 128 teams, according to football outsiders (possession efficiency based rankings, adjusted for opponent quality).  We had a terrible year, falling from 3rd in 2014 to 88th in 2015.  Defensively, Boston College ranked 3rd, and we ranked 62nd.  So they were college football’s third best defense and third worst offense.  They return a lot of that offense (85% of their yards) but not as much of the defense (66% of their tackles).  However, they rank 32 overall on Phil Steele’s combined experience chart, meaning they return a fairly experienced team overall.  

For what its worth, Boston College had the same 3-9 record that we did last year, but allegedly weren’t as good.  Massey projects a 6 point GT win and a 68% chance that GT wins, if the two teams played in 2015.  Interestingly, (based on largely nothing), Massey projects a 7 point GT win and a 67% chance of a GT win this year.  Both of those were on a neutral field.  Vegas has us favored by about a FG.  

Obviously, GT football is difficult to predict, but I think we start off with a win.  The last time we had a terrible year after a great year (2010) we came back after apparently a pretty good offseason and started 6-0, rising all the way to a #12 ranking, before faltering down the stretch, although that team was pretty good and was only a couple plays away from winning 10 games and the Coastal.  So, you know, see the discussion above.  GT football at its finest.  To be fair, I think there are a number of teams like GT in this regard.  We probably aren’t all that unique.  There may be 15-20 teams similar to us, for a variety of reasons, but similar in that their talent level is good enough to sometimes compete at a high level, but never great enough to win 8 or 9 games in a down year, after a lackluster or bigheaded offseason or whatever.  

I think we worked hard and this team’s attitude and chemistry will more closely resemble 2014 than 2015.  I like our young offensive talent and I love Justin Thomas.  Defense is, as always, a question mark, but I think this’ll be a good team.  

As always, Go Jackets!

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