Western Carolina Review

It was obviously a strange game. It was the first game in the Paul Johnson era where GT gained more yards passing than rushing (365 to 297). We also gained the most total yards in the Paul Johnson era (662). We also scored the most points in the Paul Johnson era (63).

[disclaimer - the above is just my opinion. I am 98% sure everything I said is correct, but I did not check any of it. If that lack of journalistic integrity bothers you, feel free to send a complaint to my editor...]

We also played the worst opponent we have faced in the Paul Johnson era. And its not really close. Western Carolina is not only an FCS team, they are a very bad FCS team. One of the worst teams in the Southern Conference, in fact. To put this in perspective, 2010 Jacksonville State and 2010 South Carolina State (the opening game/scrimmage opponents in 2008, 2009 and 2010) were 13 points better (Jax St.) and 7 points better (SC. State) than Western Carolina, at the end of 2010, according to Jeff Sagarin’s poll.

Essentially, all weak opening games are not created equal. Western Carolina was a team we should have annihilated. And we did. So no problems there, but also not that much to get excited about. We could be great or we could be just like last year.

Offense

I would be much more excited about the passing game if:

1 - We gained 360 passing yards against athletes comparable to ourselves

2 - I did not think Paul Johnson was going out of his way to boost the confidence of our WR’s and QB’s

3 - We did not call plays early in the game that were very out of character.

The bottom line is, if you have significantly better athletes, AND you catch the other team off guard, you should be able to do whatever you want. It was clear to me that Western Carolina prepared for our running attack (as they should). Frankly, I am a little concerned with the success they had stopping our running game. (More on that in a minute).

We showed up looking to throw the ball, and we did so early and often. Western Carolina was unprepared, and I am not sure it would have mattered if they had been prepared. We simply have better athletes. Our WR’s had little trouble getting open, and the throws were pretty routine. Additionally, much of the damage was done on very easy WR screen type passes, where they just could not tackle our guy.

In short, I’m not sure if our success has more to do with us or them.

However, last year our execution in the passing game was atrocious at times. Specifically, we had great difficulty catching the ball. With that in mind, it was encouraging to see us catch the ball, even if the WR’s were open and the throws were easy. You have to start somewhere.

On the whole, I expect little to change in the passing game (except, hopefully, our ability to execute). I expect Paul Johnson to call the plays more or less the same as he always has (which is to say, Paul’s playcalling will be based largely on what the defense is doing). And I expect us to run 75-80% of the time, and generate about 75% of our yards on the ground. Even in the passing onslaught that we hit Western Carolina with, I did not see any new passing plays, or anything that our passing offense could not have done last year, had we simply caught the ball better.

The running game does concern me, if only a little bit. Specifically, the offensive line. We had trouble overpowering Western Carolina. To put it mildly, we should be able to overpower Western Carolina. That’s not good. We gained 297 yards on 48 rushing attempts. That is good for 6.18 yards per carry. Last year we averaged 5.6 yards per carry. So, that seems to be pretty good. Honestly, I’d like a bigger margin, given how bad I think Western Carolina really is, but overall, maybe thats not terrible.

However, Orwin Smith gained 77 yards on one long TD run. Besides that, we gained 220 yards on 47 carries. That is 4.68 yards per carry. I don’t really care if that is manipulating the stats. I don’t want to be able to find a subset of 47 rushes against Western Carolina where we average only 4.68 yards per carry. That worries me.

There are two points that still allow me to be cautiously optimistic. First and foremost is the fact that we jumped all over them in the first quarter. We did exactly what we were supposed to do. On our first four drives, we only ran the ball 8 times and 3 of those runs went for touchdowns. In that scenario, its easy for players to get flat. Ideally, you would like for your players to play hard the entire game, but they are humans. They know when the game is basically over, and its just difficult to stay focused. When its 28-0 to end the first quarter, its very easy to let up and lose your edge.

The second reason is that our offensive line is very young. Actually, the whole team is very young. But especially the offensive line. You would expect that O Line to not play anywhere near its full potential in its first game with this group of 5 starters. I expect them to improve dramatically over the course of the season. Additionally, they are supposed to be maybe the most athletic and talented group Paul Johnson has had at GT.

Basically, Thursday’s game was not very informative for a lot of reasons. But, I did see many things that I liked. Tevin looks more comfortable, confident, and more in control. We have a lot of young players that I believe look very talented. And our offense overwhelmed an outclassed opponent very quickly.

Special Teams

Not much worth looking at here. And that is concerning. This was supposed to be a focal point of the offseason. And we looked sloppy fielding punts, our kick coverage did not blow me away, we had a lineman (really??) attempt to fall on a punt and fumble it, and - the big one - we let Western Carolina block a field goal and return it for a TD.

Thats pretty terrible.

However, it was the first game, and we are a young team. These things will happen. Even as young as we are, it would not have been unreasonable to expect better special teams play than we had. But, we should also expect to improve. It will need to happen quickly, because UNC is only 3 weeks away. And Kansas can beat us, as they showed last year. And really, Middle Tennessee State is not a bad team. They almost beat Purdue at Purdue last week.

In short, if we don’t play well, we could be in very losable games very quickly. And a significant special teams error or two could easily cost us a chance to win in a close game.

I’ll withhold further judgment for now, but special teams will be an area to watch closely this weekend.

Defense

For the second straight year, I was really more curious to see the defense than the offense. When you are as bad as we have been on defense the last two years, the defense starts to get a lot of attention. I thought Groh, overall, did a pretty good job last year. But, its a complex scheme, and it takes a while to get everyone playing without thinking, which is necessary in order to play fast enough to be a good defense.

Thus, I was very curious to see what we looked like in year 2.

On the whole, I am somewhat indifferent. Not particularly impressed, but did not see anything that concerns me too badly.

Western Carolina did not do a whole lot to us. The defense really only gave up 7 points, on one somewhat lazy drive in the second quarter. Besides our defense letting that drive go 70 yards in 13 plays, the catamounts offense did not threaten our end zone much at all.

The special teams essentially gave up 14 points, thanks to a FG return TD and a fumbled punt allowing Western Carolina to take over at our 3 yard line. I don’t blame the defense at all for those 14 points.

However, we did give up 300 yards, one long TD drive, and a few too many easy pass plays to a team that we athletically outclassed. That prevented it from being a great performance.

I have decided that the fairest way to judge the defense (and the whole team, really) is based around the first quarter. Or, more accurately, you judge while the game is somewhat close. The reason for this is simple, and has basically been explained above. The relative motivation levels of the two teams change very differently during the game. Western Carolina probably does not lose much motivation no matter what happens. They show up expecting to lose, and nothing really changes when the score is 28-0. They still want to work on their offense, and get better. Conversely, once we get a lead, we begin liberally subbing to get our bench some experience, and its very difficult to stay focused and givie 100% effort when the game is clearly out of reach.

Is this a perfect way to judge the defense? No. Of course not. But, the fact is, in a game like this, I don’t think there is a really good way to judge the defense (or the offense). This is the best we method we have.

I’ll set the arbitrary rule that, in a game where the home team expects an easy blowout, the starters will play hard for at least 1 quarter, and beyond that, will begin to let up a little bit once the lead gets to be more than 3 TD’s. (So, 24 points or more. If that happens in the first quarter, then the let up probably starts around the end of the first quarter).

I think thats a somewhat accurate standard.

So what did the defense do during that period?

Well, at the end of the first quarter, the game was already out of reach (more than 3 score lead), so we’ll just look at the first quarter.

During that period, the defense performed as follows:

- 6 possessions for Western Carolina

• 25 plays, 54 yards.
• 2.16 yards per play allowed
• 3 first downs allowed
• 3 sacks
• 1 forced fumble
• 5 punts forced

So, that is actually pretty dominating. Which is exactly what I expect against a team we should dominate. But still, its good to see. Their longest drive went for 25 yards, and they never made it into our territory, except for when they started there thanks to a Charles Perkins fumble. But, on that drive, they started at our 31, and we pushed them 3 yards backwards and forced a punt.

The rest of the game was ok. Allowed 301 total yards, on 77 plays, for a little under 4 yards per play. Gave up 7 points. 5.3 yards per pass, and 2.6 yards per rush. Both of those are pretty good numbers, but probably not as dominating as they could have been.

But, as I stated, when the game was in doubt, we were very dominating.

That begs 2 questions:

1 - Does a dominating performance against Western Carolina mean we will be better able to defend teams like Virginia Tech, UGA, Miami and Clemson?

2 - If so, can we play good defense for more than 1 quarter?

Obviously, any answer to those questions is just a guess at this point. But we can, at the very least, compare the defense’s performance to past years against our season opening weak opponent. Again, Western Carolina is significantly worse than even those teams (Jacksonville St. and South Carolina St.) but the comparison may still be useful.

In comparing these games, I’ll use the same standard. At a minimum, we will look at the first quarter. After that, the defense’s performance “counts” up until we get a lead of more than 3 scores.

Year	Points per Possess. Allowed (Season)	Points Allowed (while opening game in doubt)	Points per Possess. (while opening game in doubt)	Yards Allowed (while opening game in doubt)	Yards per Play (while opening game in doubt)	Yards per Possess. (while opening game in doubt)
2008	1.69	0	0	49	2.23	8.16
2009	2.27	7	1.16	136	4.12	22.67
2010	2.25	3	0.5	175	4.38	29.16
2011	?	0	0	55	2.16	9.16

I think its important to note that the 2008 defense was pretty good, and the 2009 and 2010 units were well below average. And I think its equally important to note what a good defense does to an outclassed team while the game is in doubt (compare 2008 to 09 and 10).

I try not to put too much stock in the stats compiled in blowouts, as these games don’t really matter. Often they can be misleading. Just because you blow out an FCS team, that does not mean you are necessarily good. And conversely, if you struggle more than you should, that does not mean you are bad. But, I wonder if there is at least a correllation there, and how strong it is.

In any case, the above numbers make it appear that our 2011 defense may be more like the 2008 defense than the defense of the last two years.

Obviously, we can’t really know that at this point in the season. And I can’t stress enough that Western Carolina is bad. Still, I’m encouraged to see us play how we are supposed to play.

In 2009 and 2010, we allowed our weak opening opponent to move the ball far too easily, far too early in the game. Maybe that should have alerted us that we had problems on defense.

Hopefully, our performance in the 1st quarter against Western Carolina means we have fixed many of those problems.

Overall, after reviewing the game tape and the stats, I feel pretty good about the opener. We have a lot of things to work on, but I also see plenty of things to be excited about. We are young, and should get better. But the potential is there, and we seem to have a good attitude.

2011 Georgia Tech Football

After last year, I am tempted to begin with a Mark-Mcguire-style “I am not here to discuss the past” paragraph. To put it mildly, 2010 GT football was not good. It was almost as bad as my predictions. Ouch. I think I technically predicted 11 wins (although in that article I think I did point out that I was just making us the favorite in 11 games, and that since a couple upsets were likely, 9 wins might be more accurate). Either way you slice it, my blog should have very little credibility at this point. So I’ve got my work cut out for me this season. Here goes:

All offseason, the sense that I get from the media and many GT fans is that we struggled both on offense and defense last year, and that neither was good. In fact, the general sense seems to be that the offense was just as much to blame as the defense, and in fact the offense was the worst its been under Paul Johnson. The media’s theory basically holds that the loss of Dwyer and Thomas made our offense worse than the previous two years. And now, without Nesbitt or Allen, its likely to get even worse.

If you have noticed that the media is mistaken in this regard, I award you two points. Contrary to the belief that is held by at least some people, our offense was better in 2010 than it was in 2008. That is to be expected, because 2008 was our first year in the scheme, and we didn’t really know what we were doing. But don’t let anybody try to tell you that we just don’t have the talent anymore to be as good as we were in 2008. Fact is, 2008 will probably be the worst offense Paul Johnson will ever have at Georgia Tech. It is just very difficult to learn our scheme in one Spring. Yes the 2008 team did have plenty of talent, and that helped. But on the job training, questionable execution, and only using half the playbook prevented us from being very good on offense.

Of course, many people didn’t really notice that at the time. The main reason is that we were busy winning 9 games and exceeding everyone’s wildest expectations. Winning tends to have that effect. When a team is winning, everybody gets credit, whether its really deserved or not. The fact of the matter is that the defense was significantly better than average in 2008, and the offense was in fact below average. Yes, below average nationally. It was close to average, but it was clearly holding the defense back. I have to confess, at the time I really enjoyed watching the 2008 offense. It was new, it seemed exciting, and it seemed to work. But I have watched some old 2008 games now that I’ve seen the 2009 and 2010 offenses, and there is really no comparison. We looked slow, sluggish, and not very well organized. We didn’t execute very quickly or smoothly.

Many GT fans may already be aware of that general point, even if many casual football fans are not. But let’s take a closer look to see just exactly how the offense and defense have performed by year.

I want to begin by saying that I judge offensive and defensive performance in terms of points per possession. That is all that I think really matters. How many points did you score, or did you allow, given how many opportunities you had. The reason for this is simple. Some teams score quickly, some score slower. Some teams pass more, which tends to stop the clock. Some teams run more, which tends to run the clock. Thus, judging how good an offense or defense is in terms of points per game just doesn’t work. Some teams games are longer than others. I would be willing to bet that Texas Tech plays games that have many more drives, and more plays, than the games that Georgia Tech plays. In effect, they are simply playing a longer game, even though both are 60 minutes.

I would also be willing to bet that Georgia Tech, especially for the last 2 years, has had fewer possessions per game than most teams. But, I don’t like to just bet. I prefer to look at data. So I collected some. Here are the numbers.

	GT Possessions per game	National Possessions per game
2008
Offense	11.53	12.21
Defense	12	12.22
2009
Offense	10.64	12.18
Defense	10.92	12.14
2010
Offense	11.46	12.24
Defense	11.23	12.24

So Georgia Tech does in fact have significantly fewer possessions per game than other teams.

You might ask why the offense and defense numbers do not match up. Well, I did not include possessions where the clock ran out for the half or the end of the game. The majority of these possessions are largely irrelevant, as the team with the ball just runs out the clock and has no meaningful chance to score. There are some times that probably should count, but they are rare, and compiling a list that properly includes all of those would require me to go game by game for every team in the country. I don’t have that kind of time.

Anyway, the possessions do not match exactly for offense and defense because its possible for one team to get an extra possession in a game, due to not counting these possessions. Actually, its possible even if you count every possession, but I digress...

So what is going on here? Why does Georgia Tech play games with fewer possessions? Well, we run the ball, and that eats up clock. We run the ball almost every play. We also tend to have a good offense that rarely goes three and out, so we do not have many quick possessions. Additionally, in the last 2 years, our defense has not been very good. We do not hold our opponents to many quick possessions. We allow sustained drives. Both of those factors contribute to the average possession in a Georgia Tech game taking longer than it would otherwise. (These principles are further supported by the fact that in 2008, when Georgia Tech had its best defense and worst offense of the last 3 years, it was closest to the national average in possessions per game. Better defense and worse offense results in more possessions, because both teams are giving the ball up quicker. AND, further supported by the converse. In 2009, with our best offense and worst defense, we had the largest discrepancy in possessions per game, compared to the national average. We held onto the ball for longer, and we rarely got it back very fast.).

The primary effect of this fact is that it tends to make our offense look worse than it really is, and our defense look better. Common sense tells you that if you only have to defend 11 possessions per game, and not 12, then you should expect to give up fewer points. And if only have the ball 11 times in a game, you should expect to score fewer points.

Thus, the points per possession stats give you a more accurate picture.

Below is a chart showing points per possession for both the offense and defense, by year, compared against the national average. It also shows Georgia Tech’s offense and defense national ranking, based on points per game.

	Offense Pts/Poss	National Average	Offense Pts/game	National Average/GT Rank	Defense Pts/Poss	National Average	Defense Pts/Game	National Average/GT Rank
2008
	2.11	2.22	24.4	26.92/ 74th	1.69	2.08	20.3	25.62/ 28th
2009
	3.17	2.22	33.8	26.87/ 14th	2.27	2.08	24.8	25.45/ 56th
2010
	2.27	2.29	26	27.7/ 71st	2.25	2.15	25.2	26.49/ 57th

Thus, the 2008 defense was quite a bit better than either 2009 or 2010. That is probably not exactly “news” to most fans, but the margin is very significant.

Also of note is just exactly how good the 2009 offense was. 3.17 points per possession over the course of a season is a fairly ridiculous average.

You’ll also notice that, if you did not look at points per possession and instead focused on points per game, you would arrive at the same erroneous conclusion that many casual fans and many in the media have about 2010 Georgia Tech - that the defense was better than the offense. After all, the offense ranked 71st and the defense ranked 57th. However, remember the principle discussed above. Georgia Tech’s games are shorter than average. And that inflates the stats of our defense, while unfairly making the offense look worse than it really is. When you compare points per possession against the national average, you see that the offense was basically average, and the defense was significantly below average.

One thing that I find encouraging is that our 2010 offense, despite its struggles, was still significantly better than the 2008 offense. So, even when we struggle on offense, one would think we are capable of winning 9 games (or maybe even more) if we have a good defense.

Another thing that I find encouraging is that the defense in 2010 actually improved ever so slightly. Effectively, we were exactly the same, but when you lose two players as talented as Morgan and Burnett, you would expect some drop off. The fact that there was none indicates to me that Groh was in fact a coaching upgrade. Given that Groh runs a fairly complex scheme and last year was year 1, Groh may turn out to be a huge upgrade. (Remember how much progress the offense made from year 1 to year 2 in Johnson’s complex scheme? I expect similar results this year for Groh.)

So, how do we get more accurate national rankings of GT’s offense and defense? Easy. We convert the points per possession into the “average” points per game, by multiplying GT’s points per possession times the national average of possessions per game. That will give us a much more accurate comparison of GT’s offense and defense against the nation, and let us see which was better each year, and by how much.

	Converted Offense Points/Game	Converted National Ranking	Converted Defense Points/Game	Converted National Ranking
2008
	25.76	57th	20.65	29th
2009
	38.61	5th	27.56	76th
2010
	27.78	55th	27.54	67th

I think those numbers more accurately reflect just exactly how awful the 2009 defense was, and thus just exactly how much the 2009 offense carried that team to 11 wins. And, while the margin is not great, the 2010 offense was slightly better than the 2008 offense, at least suggesting that with better defense, we still could have had a very good season.

The last chart is also fairly obvious, but I think worth a look anyway. Let’s look at the average “adjusted” rank of the offense and defense, compared to our win total.

	Adjusted Average Rank of Offense and Defense	Season Win Total
2008
	43	9
2009
	40.5	11
2010
	61	6

This just in - better offense and defense equals more wins. OK, so that is pretty obvious, but I like to see the extent of the difference.

The plus side here is that I see both units getting better this season. Briefly, here is why:

Offense -

Last year the offense struggled largely due to a combination of factors, none of which are very likely in any given year. First, we got the turnover bug. 27 turnovers are a lot to lose. Georgia Tech was significantly below average in turnovers lost, and turnover margin. Both of those are, in my opinion, a result of execution, focus, and a decent amount of luck. I don’t think you should expect to be significantly below or above average in turnovers in any given year. So this factor represents one somewhat unlikely occurrence that hurt our offense.

Secondly, our WR’s played about as poorly as they could play. Looking back over the season, I counted more than 30 outright drops. I mean passes that hit us in the hands and clearly should have been caught. For a team with only 65 completions, 30+ drops is simply ridiculous. You’ll never convince me that GT all of sudden can’t recruit WR’s that are capable of catching the ball. Not when every other FBS and FCS team is able to do so. I don’t know if the cause was bad luck, a psychological block, or something else, but I am confident this phenomenon is not likely to repeat itself.

Third, its obviously not likely to lose your starting QB in the middle of the season, to a season ending injury. Yes it happens to some teams every year (like the turnover bug or a case of the drops...) but its not very likely.

So, we weathered all 3 of those somewhat unlikely events, and still produced a slightly above average offense. Is it possible we could have to deal with those three again? Sure. In fact, they could get even worse. But, its not very likely. I would expect us to float back towards average in all of those areas, and maybe even as far as above average.

With regard to everything else, I expect the offense to keep churning along. Paul Johnson does a pretty good job with it every year. This team will certainly have some strengths and weaknesses that may be different from years past. I don’t buy the argument that our talent is evaporating. Guys like Dwyer and Thomas were very good, but I think we have several young players with plenty of talent. The offensive line is young and thin, but thats been the case for 3 years now, and hasn’t slowed us down too much.

In short, I expect a pretty good offense. Very likely better than last year. Maybe about the same, possibly worse but that is the least likely result.

Defense -

Here we should get better simply because Groh is a good coach who knows his system very well, but it takes a few years to get the players to fully understand it. Specifically, Groh has stated it usually takes 3 years to get everyone on the same page. But, in year 2 we should be better than year 1. Everyone will be playing faster, reacting more, and thinking and hesitating less.

Additionally, we have the entire defensive line back, and most of the linebackers. The secondary is entirely new, and that is a big concern, but word there is that this young group is the most athletic and talented we have had in a long time. Plus, the entire secondary last year, starters and backups, was learning the new system. Many of the backups who will now be starting earned significant experience last year. So the loss of 4 starters, which often could be a disaster, may not be as bad as it seems.

All in all, I expect significant improvement from this group. It does tend to be easier to improve when you have not been very good, and this group has not been very good the past 2 years.

In the next few days, extending into next week, I’ll be making some other season preview type posts. Included in that group will be a game by game breakdown, and a look at our talent and experience in each position group. But for now, I’ll let on that I expect a better season than last year, and frankly I see no reason why we can’t be in the thick of the conference race. I fully expect the Virginia Tech game to decide the winner of the Coastal, as it does every year. At home, with an improved offense and defense, I believe we have a shot to win. But we are young enough that I expect some growing pains. 8-9 wins may be all that we can realistically expect. And that could become 6-7 if the breaks go against us, or maybe 10 if we get more than our share.