Duke Preview

If we want to be bowl eligible, we probably need to win this one.  We are about 20-30%, according to the computers, to beat each of UNC and VT.  And about 40% vs UGA.  We are supposed to beat Virginia (75 or so %), but if we lose to Duke, we'd need to win 2 of those games.  With UVA not being guaranteed, and being an underdog in the rest, winning two would be seriously in jeopardy.  But if we beat Duke, we'd be a near certainty to win 1 of the remaining 4.

Now, being bowl eligible isn't all that much to get excited about, I understand.  But after a 3-9 season, its not a bad way to be.  I'd prefer us to win out.  Because 5-3 in the ACC Coastal could well win it (obviously as a tiebreaker of some sort).  I've seen this movie before.  I'll believe somebody emerges from this morass at 6-2 when I see it (even though VT has a relatively easy schedule left and only 1 loss).  The Coastal is chaos, per usual.  If we win out, 5-3 has a shot.  But that's a big if.

First up is Duke.  Losing two in a row to Duke is tough, even if they are better than old Duke.  I really don't want to lose 3 in a row.  They aren't very good at all on offense (around 100th best nationally in per possession stats).  Unfortunately, that's about as bad as our defense is.  Our offense is top 20 though, which is better than their defense rating, which is around the 40 range.  So we are (allegedly) slightly better overall, and we are at home.  This game could look a lot like the Vanderbilt game, given that Duke has a similar profile (credible defense, woeful offense).  If your offense is not good enough to move the ball against us, you are in trouble.  Defensively, Duke has been stingy against us both of the last two years (yes, even against our 2014 offense, which was close to unstoppable for most teams).  They are well coached.  But they aren't all that talented.  That is a similar profile to Vanderbilt, honestly.

Offensively they don't offer much to scare anybody.  This is one of Cutcliffe's worst offenses.  But our defense, on the wrong day, can make anybody look good.  Here's to hoping that doesn't happen.  I am thinking we win, something like 31-24.  But it probably won't be easy.

As always, Go Jackets!

Pittsburgh Review - Georgia Southern Preview

This won't be much of a post.  The Pitt game was awful as I'm sure you know if you watched.  We actually played pretty well on offense.  Couldn't get a stop on defense.  Still had a great chance to win.  Didn't execute.

This weekend is similarly simple.  We are better and should win.  But Georgia Southern is not bad.  They beat Florida a few years ago, nearly beat us in 2014, and took UGA to overtime last year.  If we don't play well we could lose.  Hopefully, we know that, and we are ready.

But now we need to talk about Paul Johnson.  As I understand the contract terms, really no way we fire him this year.  Too much money.  But the buy out drops substantially next year.  He's 3-3, coming off of 3-9, and unfortunately, this year and last year is making 2014 look like an outlier.  Because now we have 4 mediocre or poor years out of the last 5.  Looking ahead, we have 3 games we should win (but could lose) and 3 games we should lose (but could win).  So you figure probably 6-6.  Win the bowl and maybe that is ok.  But if we don't execute and find ways to lose winnable games, 5-7 or worse could be real trouble.  At that point, I would think 2017 would need to be 10 wins or else Paul Johnson would be gone.  8-5 probably wouldn't save him in 2017 if he had been 3-9 and 5-7 the past two years.

Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe he'd be ok.  I still sort of want to keep him, because I love the offense and I think he's a good coach with a good system and fits in well at GT.  But at some point he has to get results.  His first four years were mostly good, his last 4 years mostly bad, and now in year 9, it is still bad.  I think college football fans are way too quick to see "trends".  One bad year (or sometimes even part of a year) and suddenly a coach or a team is "trending down".  But now, I'm ready to say it looks like coach is trending down.  Post 2009 there has been a little uptick in 2011 (that fizzled) and a big uptick in 2014.  And other than that, 4 years of pretty bad stuff (and teetering on a fifth year).

So, we'll see how the year finishes.  I think we can play with and possibly beat every team left on the schedule (except maybe VT, we'll see).  But we can easily lose to everyone left as well.  We haven't had the greatest track record in close games lately....

As always, Go Jackets!

Miami Review - Pittsburgh Preview

Strange times to be a Tech fan.  This week we find ourselves bigger underdogs to a 3-2 Pittsburgh team, when we are 3-2, than we were last season to an 8-3 UGA team, when we were 3-8.  I guess that's just college football.

Anyway, good news, good news and then bad news.  The good news is that Clemson looks legit.  Yes, they did eventually allow Louisville's offense to get into a rhythm, but they got a lot of stops and really were dealt some bad situations thanks to turnovers.  And Louisville may be one of the best offenses in the country.  I think Clemson's defense is excellent and we shouldn't be too worried, since Louisville's offense in the first half looked very much like our offense, for the game.

The other good news is that we played Miami a pretty even game.  We don't know if Miami deserves their ranking yet, but they are ranked #10.  So, that's something.

The bad news is that we still threw away 14 points on silly turnovers and never really threatened to win the Miami game.  I can sit here and claim we played them even, but if the game were in doubt, maybe they press a little harder for points?

Who knows.  Its over now.  We move on.  I still think we might be a pretty good team but we need to start playing smarter, more efficient football.  Right now we are somewhere in between 2014 and 2015 in that regard.  We need our performance in that regard to move towards 2014.

We've actually, surprisingly (and quietly?) been carried by the defense so far this year.  Besides our terrible habit of allowing the opponent to score a TD on their first possession (4 straight games now), we held Miami to 14 points on 8 possessions after that.  Not bad defense.  And we held Clemson to 14 points on 10 possessions, after the opening drive.  After the respective first drives, we shut out Vanderbilt and allowed Mercer a FG.  And obviously our defense performed well, at least in terms of numbers, against BC.  They still haven't played anybody with a defensive pulse, except VT, against whom they scored 0 points and went three and out on 11 of 15 possessions.  So... hard to say much from the BC game in favor of our defense, but allowing only 14 points is never really a bad thing.

Meaning, while our defense hasn't been pretty and inspires basically no confidence for me to watch... they have put up decent results.

Offensively, we've been...  irritating.  Clemson and BC made us look silly, but we moved the ball well against Miami.  Just couldn't score.  And really looked impressive against Vanderbilt, who doesn't have much name value but does have, statistically, a good defense.

I still don't really know what to make of this team.  My gut thinks we might lack the playmakers and talent to have any real margin for error execution wise, and that might doom us to another bad year.  Maybe 6-6, maybe worse...  But I'm still hoping we can get to 8 or 9 wins.

This game will go a long way toward clarifying.  Pittsburgh is far from overwhelming, but they are average or probably somewhat better than average on both sides of the ball, and its a road game.  Offensively they've put up great numbers.  About 250 yards per game rushing, averaging more than 5 yards per carry, and a team passer rating of about 150.  That's fairly efficient.  They run the ball about 2/3 of the time and do it effectively, so this should be a short game (as always for us, but even moreso).  Might be only 7 or 8 possessions each, unless of course they are stopping us quickly.  Their rush defense has put up excellent numbers so far, but then again they haven't faced a rushing attack like ours, and the opponent's rushing defense numbers aren't a very good predictor of how they'll perform against us anyway.  Their pass defense has been very poor, which is... interesting.  I'm not sure if we can capitalize on that but Justin Thomas has at times been a very effective passer.  We'll see.

I predict a very low possession game.  Close and down to the wire.  Something like 24-21.  Turnovers, or otherwise which team can make the plays late in the game, will win.  I hope its us.  Would be a nice change from what's been normal for the past season and a half.

As always, Let's go Jackets!