Kansas Review

Wow.

Well, its a good thing this game was played in Atlanta. I’m not sure they have enough rock chalk in all of Kansas to tally all those touchdowns. (hey-oh! ok, maybe not my best work there...)

The offensive numbers were staggering. I mean silly stupid. We had more 10+ yard gains (20) against Kansas than 5 teams have so far this season. We had more 20+ yard plays (14) than 67 teams have so far this season. We had more 30+ yard plays (9) than 100 teams have so far this season. We had more 40+ yard plays (5) than 106 other teams have this season.

There are only 7 teams in the country that have as many 50+ yard plays this season as we did against Kansas (4). Clemson, Houston, Oregon and Washington St. each have 5. Florida State, Fresno State, and Nebraska each have 4.

We had more 60+ yard plays (3) than all but 5 teams have this season. Four of those teams have exactly 3 on the season (Clemson, Florida International, NC State, Oregon). Only one team has more 60+ yard plays all year than we did against Kansas alone. Washington St. has 4.

There have been 38 plays of 70+ yards, by all teams combined. Georgia Tech has 6 of them. The national average is 0.27. So we have as many such plays as about 23 other teams, on average. I have not added up all the numbers, but it appears we (probably) have much such plays than any other conference.

It is really difficult to put into perspective exactly how good our offense was. Here are some numbers:

	GT Offense vs. Kansas
Points	66
Points Per Possession	6
Yards	768
Yards Per Play	13.47
Maximum Possible Total Yards	815
Percentage of Yards Gained Compared to Yards Possible	94.23
Rushing Yards	604
Yards Per Rush	12.1
Passing Yards	164
Yards Per Attempted Pass	23.4
Yards Per Completion	41
Percentage of Plays that were TD’s	15.79%
Percentage of Plays - TD or First Down	57.89%
Percentage of Plays - 10+ Yards	35.09%
Percentage of Plays - 20+ Yards	24.56%
Percentage of Plays - 30+ Yards	15.79%
Number of Plays - 60+ Yards	3
Number of Plays run from further than 60 Yards away from Kansas’ End Zone	22
Percentage of 60+ yard plays, of Plays that possibly could have gone 60 yards	13.64%

You get the idea.

We outgained Kansas by 406 yards. Pittsburgh is currently 61st in the country in total yards per game, with an average of 404. 60 teams in the country do not gain as many yards per game as the margin by which we outgained Kansas.

My favorite stats are the points per possession, and the percentage of possible yards that we actually gained. (note, for these calculations, I ignored our final 3 play drive that effectively ran out the clock).

If we had scored a touchdown every single time we had the ball, and thus gained every yard that was possibly available to us, we would have gained 815 yards. We actually gained 768. This number is usually along the lines of you actually gained 400 or 500 yards out of more than 1000 possible. 768 out of 815 is absurd.

6 points per possession is the highest total I’ve ever seen.

More than 1 out of every 2 plays we ran was either a first down or a touchdown. More than 1 out of every 3 plays we ran went for more than 10 yards.

Some of those numbers arent even correct. For example, the 30+ percentage is wrong. We ran 57 plays, but 15 of those came inside Kansas’ 30 yard line. So, only 42 of our plays could possibly have gone 30 yards. 9 of them did. So, more than 1 play out of every 5 that could have gone at least 30 yards did. (I calculated that in the chart for 60+ yard plays, but I only did it because I thought it was funny).

And really, all of these stats are wrong, but several of our plays really went “infinite”. Normally, most or all of your touchdowns are plays where, even if there wasnt an end zone, you only would have gained 3 or 4 more yards before being tackled. Not this game. If there was no end zone, I think they’d still be chasing Orwin Smith.

At one point in the 3rd quarter, Orwin Smith had 20 more total yards than Kansas (note, this stat did not include kickoff return yards).

We scored 28 points in the 3rd quarter, without ever being in Kansas’ red zone. In fact, this game might have hurt our red zone stats, at least in terms of total trips per game. (you have to actually stop in the red zone, and then run another play, in order for it to count as a “trip” to the red zone.)

All of those numbers are fun, and we set a bunch of records (total yards in a game [presumably only because they didnt keep records back when we played Cumberland] rushing yards, yards per carry [this was an NCAA record], longest run in GT history [set for the second time in CPJ’s career - Dwyer’s 88 yard run against Miss. St. was the then-longest] etc...)

But, Kansas’ defense is not real good. I mean, they aren’t as bad as we made them look (I don’t think Parkview is as bad on defense as we made Kansas look), but here are their numbers from their first two games. Which, mind you, were not exactly played against stellar offenses (McNeese St. and Northern Illinois):

Kansas Defense Allowed	McNeese St.	Northern Illinois	Georgia Tech
Points	24	42	66
Total Yards	420	462	768
Yards Per Play	5.6	7.5	13.5

So, they are not good. But, its hard to be disappointed with our numbers, no matter how bad the defense is.

I guess that is what you get when you allow our first team offense to play more than 1 quarter...

How about the defense?

I thought we looked good. We did not dominate Kansas defensively, but we played well. We forced 5 three and outs, another four and out, stopped them on downs once, and forced a total of 7 punts. We also held them to a field goal once when they got in scoring range, which we never managed to do last year.

However, there are areas for improvement.

Third down defense. For the game, we let them convert 9 of 17. Thats a little high. For the first half, we let them convert 7 of 10. That is VERY high.

On their two TD drives of the first half (which allowed them to keep this game close for much longer than it should have been), we forced a total of 6 third downs. Average distance of convert was 4.83. Average gain for Kansas was 11.5 yards. They converted all 6.

That is a lot of chances to get stops, and a whole lot of failure.

Here is a weird stat. Kansas average yards per play, by down:

Kansas (Game)	Yards Per Play
1st	3.78
2nd	5.58
3rd	7.53

On just their two first half TD drives:

Kansas (2 first half TD drives)	Yards Per Play
1st	2.78
2nd	5.44
3rd	11.5

Those numbers are a little frustrating.

Hopefully, its nothing serious. I can’t think of a logical reason a defense would be worse on some downs than others, in the long term. Other than psychological reasons anyway. We need to be tougher. Hopefully, we will. We did tighten up in the second half (after, presumably, Groh made some adjustments). We only allowed them to convert 2 of 7 third downs in the second half, and we also got a stop on 4th and short.

Here is a look at what our defense held Kansas to, in light of what other teams have allowed.

Kansas Offense Gained	McNeese St.	Northern Illinois	Georgia Tech
Points	42	45	24
Yards	447	535	362
Yards Per Play	6.9	5.9	5.2

Maybe not as dominating as I’d like, but not bad. We are significantly better than those two defenses (which we should expect to see, but its good to see that we are in fact). As a side note, without looking, I would assume that Kansas’ lackluster total yards stats against McNeese St. resulted from beating them badly in terms of special teams and turnovers. That results in fewer yards available to gain. The yards per play stats indicate that Northern Illinois’ defense (despite allowing more yards) probably played Kansas tougher.

Not real important though. The key for us is that we faired much better than either.

Kansas defense appears, at this stage, to be very bad. So, our offense’s performance, while very impressive statistically, should maybe be taken with a grain of salt.

The defense, however, maybe not. It remains to be seen exactly how good (or bad) Kansas is. But, all signs to this point indicate that Kansas’ offense actually may be pretty good. They could in fact be one of the better offenses we will face all year.

So, it was good to hold them to 24 points. It was even better to hold them to 17 during non “garbage time”. It was even better to see how close we were to getting stops on their TD drives. Really, we could easily have held them to 3 points through 3 quarters.

We are still a fairly young defense. We are in year 2 of the system, which is better than year 1, but I would still expect to see improvement as the year goes on, both because we are young and relatively unfamiliar with the scheme.

So, seeing a fairly sound defense that makes Kansas (probably at least an “average” offense) work for everything they had to get - overall I would say it was a good sign.

Special Team, I did not see much of anything that was real noteworthy. Kick coverage looks good. Our punt return team looks good. (Love Laskey back there, although he needs to learn to make the first guy miss a little better). Our one punt looked good. Our one field goal looked good. We did run into the kicker and allow them another chance after a miss. Need to clean that up. But, overall, not bad.

At this stage, I would still advise a little caution. We look like we might be a VERY good team. But, we still have not played a good defense, or anything approaching a complete team.

We almost had some costly fumbles against Kansas. We allowed a handful of big plays.

If Kansas is improved this year (even if only slightly) and actually are a halfway decent team, then we might be very good. If they are as bad (or worse) as last year, then we are still almost certainly improved, but maybe not as much as I’d like.

We will know a lot more this time next week. UNC is probably not as good as a lot of the media seem to think. But they are 3-0, and appear to be at least a pretty good football team. They certainly have some NFL prospects, especially in the front seven on Defense. So, we will see how the offense looks against a good defense (finally).

I’m excited, but will be very nervous for that game.

For now though, Go Jackets! And, one more time, wow.

Week 3 Picks

Last week's picks: Not very good. 3-7.

Free Money (best picks)

Virginia Tech will beat East Carolina by more than 19.5 LOSS

Alabama beats Penn St. by more than 9.5 WIN

Stanford beats Duke by way more than 21.5 WIN

Solid Bets (Good picks)

Miss. St. will beat Auburn by more than 7. LOSS

N.C. State beats Wake by more than 2.5 LOSS

Georgia beats South Carolina outright in my upset special, so they definitely cover + 2.5 LOSS

Georgia Tech covers by more than 11.5. WIN

Boston College loses by less than 6.5 at Central Florida LOSS

Tossups

UNC will beat Rutgers by more than 10.5 LOSS

Virginia beats Indiana by more than 6.5 LOSS

On the season so far:

Free Money	2 for 3
Solid bets	1 for 5
Tossups	0 for 2

This week’s picks:

Free Money

Oklahoma beats FSU by more than 3.5.

Solid Bets

Duke will lose by less than 7.5 at BC. Don’t ask me how I know. I know.

Georgia Tech wins by more than 14.5 at home against Kansas.

Michigan St. loses by less than 4.5 at Notre Dame.

Virginia Tech beats Arkansas St. by more than 25.5.

Tossups

Auburn loses by less than 3.5 at Clemson. Probably wins outright.

Maryland wins by more than 1.5 at home against West Virginia.

Florida beats Tennessee by more than 9.5.

I can’t believe I am saying this, but UNC beats UVA by more than 10.5.

Miami beats Ohio St. by more than 1.5.

Kansas Preview

I’m going to do something I don’t usually do here. Risk jinxing the team.

But I don’t care. I’m confident.

I’ll say it.

This should be an easy win.

Why? Well, here is why:

1 - Kansas has not played a very tough schedule, and yet they have been tested.

2 - Their defense is not very good

3 - This is their first road game of the season, and Turner Gill has never won a road game

4 - Revenge

Going point by point -

1 - They have been tested. This is something of an understatement. In the first game, against mighty McNeese St., Kansas had a fairly comfortable win. They lead 21-3 at half, and McNeese St. never got closer than 11 points. But, they did close to 21-10, 28-16, and 35-24 before Kansas won 42-24. Meaning, the first string likely played most of the game. Not exactly impressive to have to play your starters the whole game to put away the... (anybody know McNeese St’s nickname? I sure don’t).

And then last week, at home, Kansas needed a 4th-and-goal-from-the-6 TD pass with 10 seconds left in the game in order to win 45-42. To put it mildly, that is being “tested”. To be fair, Northern Illinois is not a bad team. According to Jeff Sagarin’s poll (which admittedly is not perfect with only 2 games to use as evidence, but its something) Northern Illinois is about as good as Wake Forest, and is better than Duke and Boston College. According to Sagarin, GT allegedly “should” only beat Northern Illinois by 11 at home. However, I am still not impressed.

2 - Kansas has given up 49 first downs in 2 games. 24.5 first downs a game is a lot. They are giving up 441 yards per game. That is a lot. They are giving up 33 points per game. That is a lot.

AND its really a lot when the teams you are giving it up to include McNeese St. and Northern Illinois.

3 - Hmmm.. don’t really need further discussion of this point, come to think of it.

4 - I hope our team has not forgotten the embarrassment we suffered at Kansas last year.

Concerns:

This will be the first real test for our defense. I believe Kansas’ offense is not bad, and for the first time, we’ll be up against athletes that are as good, roughly, as we are. Our first string defense and normal subs will have to play more than 1 quarter for the first time.

I would expect our offense to score many points, but maybe it won’t be as easy as it seems on paper. One reason is Turner Gill. The Kansas head coach was an option QB at Nebraska back in the day. Last year, their defense seemed to know how and when to cheat against the run, and frustrate our offense. In particular, we had a difficult time getting anything going on our pitches. Coincidence? Or did Mr. Gill give his defense a few pointers, a few ideas about what really frustrates an option QB?

Additionally, Kansas is only allowing a very respectable 3.84 yards per rushing attempt. In theory, rushing is still our strength, although a look at our stats for the moment does not make that apparent.

However, Kansas is giving up nearly 9 yards per pass attempt, and has conceded 320 yards per game in the air. Their pass efficiency defense is in the 160’s, which is real bad. For reference, a passer rating of 160 will usually put you in the top 10 nationally. So, Kansas’ pass defense has gotten lit up by McNeese St. and Northern Illinois. Might this be a game where our passing attack has to carry us? Who would have thought that was possible 2 weeks ago? I still won’t be surprised to see us rush for 400 yards and settle back into a more normal passing attack for a CPJ offense, but I am very curious to see how our passing game performs going forward.

Special teams are always a concern. Until we look like a good special teams unit for 3 or 4 games in a row, I’ll be worried about a catastrophic error or two in the special teams unit.

Overall, at home, in our first “big” game, with this young team that has shown so much promise, I expect a good result. Our defense may be a little more shaky than we’d like, and it may be close for a while, but I expect a fairly comfortable win.

I’ll call it GT 52, Kansas 24.

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.

Middle Tennessee State Preview

Well, clearly I showed up flat this week. Completely unfocused. Not ready to play.

BUT, I did it with the best intentions. I'm hoping to reverse jinx the team. I figure there is only enough room for one of us, me or the team, to be flat in the same week. When the team comes out fired up tonight, you can thank me.

(OK I'm aware that this doesn't really make sense. Had a busy week. What can I say...)

Anyway, here is the 2 minute version of the preview.

Middle Tennessee is not a bad team. The majority of fans, in my opinion, underrate them. In recent years, they have beaten Minnesota (on the road), Maryland (I think both home and away), and played a somewhat competitive game at Clemson before eventually losing by a couple touchdowns. Additionally, they very nearly beat Purdue at Purdue last week, up by 4 with 1 minute left.

Of course, that begs the question, how good is Purdue? My guess is probably not very good. But they are still a BCS conference team, and they were playing at home.

Thus, the Blue Raiders are a decent team, and they are well coached. Moreover, this is a home game, and they are having some sort of 100th year anniversary (I think) celebration based around this game. I believe we were intentionally scheduled as the "big name" opponent for the big weekend.

All that is just to say, they are going to come out flying. This is maybe the biggest game any of these MTSU players will play in college. This is almost certainly their biggest home game. The home fans will be electric. Its only 30,000 seats, but any stadium can be intimidating and can influence the game when its completely packed and the fans are going crazy. Its not always about sheer numbers. 30,000 in a 30,000 seat stadium is probably more of a home field advantage than 65,000 in a 90,000 seat stadium. Open space and empty seats detract from crowd noise. There won't be much of either tonight, I don't think.

In general, I always worry about games against legitimate lower conference opponents. They always have a situational advantage, because they are playing one of their toughest opponents of the year, while the other team is playing one of its weakest. When its Western Carolina, no motivational edge tends to matter that much. But when the "easy" team is actually somewhat decent, you can get upset if you aren't careful.

When you are playing on the road, its just that much worse.

When there are extenuating circumstances that make them even more jacked up than they would be otherwise... well, I'm worried.

If we come out focused, ready to play, and play up to our capability, we should be ok. They are good enough to keep it close for a while, but it should be a comfortable 14-20 point win (or more) in the end. If we do that.

If we come out a little relaxed, thinking we'll probably win, we could get smacked in the mouth right away and end up in a dogfight that we might well lose.

From what I have been reading all offseason, and so far during this season, this young team has a much better attitude and work ethic than last year. Coach Paul Johnson said that Wednesday's practice was very good, high energy, and he thinks we will be ready to play.

I hope he is right. If he is, I think we'll be fine.

I'll predict that he is right. MTSU plays well, especially early, but we win by 21, and thus cover the 11.5 spread.

Here are this week's picks:

Free Money (best picks)

Virginia Tech will beat East Carolina by more than 19.5

Alabama beats Penn St. by more than 9.5

Stanford beats Duke by way more than 21.5

Solid Bets (Good picks)

Miss. St. will beat Auburn by more than 7.

N.C. State beats Wake by more than 2.5

Georgia beats South Carolina outright in my upset special, so they definitely cover + 2.5

Georgia Tech covers by more than 11.5.

Boston College loses by less than 6.5 at Central Florida

Tossups

UNC will beat Rutgers by more than 10.5

Virginia beats Indiana by more than 6.5