2020 Season Preview and FSU Preview

 Previewing both the season and the first game at the same time.  We'll start with the season.

Actually a fairly difficult schedule.  UCF is the only non-conference game, and while they are not as good as usual, they are still pretty solid and should be close to top 25.  The ACC was mostly young last year (which was why it was so bad) and most teams are expected to be improved.  In what I'd call a shocking revelation, Phil Steele (who ranks each position group nationally every year) has the top 4 defensive lines in the country all from the ACC.  That's right.  I mean, I think he's wrong about that.  That can't be true.  But that's his ranking.  And we play all four of them (#1 Clemson, #2 Pitt, #3 Miami and #4 FSU).  Actually, if this were a regular year, we would draw the top 5 bc UGA is ranked #5.

Anyway, the point is the ACC is supposed to be much improved, and we play 10 teams from it, including Clemson, FSU, Miami, and Notre Dame.  

So, while I think we will be better, probably a lot better, than last year, it may not show up in the win column yet.  We'll see.

The main reason we'll be better is improved depth and experience in year 2.  The second biggest reason is the O-line.  Put simply, it was not good at all last year.  It'll be better this year.  We had 3 transfers but I believe the Vandy transfer decided not to play after all.  Still, younger players have grown and we do have two grad transfers coming in who are much better suited to the size and style we want.  

And we actually flashed some decent talent at WR last year.  Running back we are well stocked with an underrated, and perhaps one of the country's best, RBs in Jordan Mason, plus young talent in last year's 4 star freshman Jamious Griffin and this year's 4 star recruit Jahmyr Gibbs.  Griffin flashed potential last year, and Gibbs looks like a future star with incredible speed, quickness, and decent strength.  

That just leaves QB, and frankly I think James Graham will start and I think he was better last year than most others seem to think.  He was just a freshman playing behind a bad O-line.  But we have solid talent behind him that may develop as well.

I expect we are still 1-2 years away from being as good as we should get on offense, but I expect this year to be much improved.

On defense, I am hoping for solid if not spectacular.  Again, improved depth and experience.  We aren't going to have any heavy hitters on the D-line, but we are solid and deep there, and the scheme will help.  I was impressed last year with our ability to disguise blitzes and coverages (less impressed with the offensive scheming, but you win some you lose some I guess).  

Add it all up and I think we are 2 TDs better this year than last year.  Sadly, if you add 14 points to our score in every game last year, we only go from 3 wins to 5 wins (and one of those extra wins is the Citadel).  So, I still expect 4-7 or 5-6 probably at best, unfortunately.  However, we should be in more close games, and that is something.

As for FSU, they are supposedly loaded on defense (see the D-line discussion above).  To go with that D-line are top 30 units nationally at LB and DB.  Offensively, they are not supposed to be nearly as good, and its the first year of their coaching staff putting in what they do.  Given that, I would expect this to be a relatively low scoring game.  Lots of punts.  Offenses might get going.  I look for something like 28-20.  31-24 maybe.  FSU is favored by 12.5.  I think we keep it closer than that, but it'll be tough to win.  They've got talent and are at "home" (although that means less in the covid environment with no or few fans).  Its asking a lot for us to get a win in Tallahassee in week 1.  I think we could, but I expect FSU by a TD in a low scoring game.  

As always, let's go Jackets!

UGA Preview

Hey gang,

You've probably noticed there hasn't been a post since Pitt.

I just haven't had the emotional energy to devote to it this season.  I was pretty accurate about the Pitt game.  UVA was closer than I would have thought.  VT was abysmal (but they have been hot until UVA today anyway).  NC State we did what I thought we probably would, and gutted out a win over a bad team.  But the mostly constant losing has beaten me down. 

UGA will beat us badly tomorrow.  I don't feel like analyzing why.  The good news is that will finally mean this difficult season is over.  Maybe it was a necessary transition.  Maybe we could have been better.  But the team has kept fighting and some players have improved and we have some pieces to build upon for next year.  I'm just ready for it to be over, sadly. 

Let's go recruit, and keep building, and support this staff and these players.  And, as always, let's go Jackets!

Pitt Preview

So I am doing a terrible job of blogging this year.  Pretty much a lost season for the blog, I just don't have the heart to commit to it at this point.

Anyway, a quick recap of what has been missed - since the UNC game our defense has looked... questionable.  In fact, the football outsiders unit rankings have come out and our defense is 82nd.  Not good at all.  My suspicion is that, before the Duke and UNC games, it might have been up closer to 50th, but I can't prove that.  Duke was an abysmal defensive performance, though at least this time their offense is ok (unlike 2017, when we allowed 43 points on 9 possessions to one of the Coastal's worst ever offenses).

So, we are now a bad offense and a bad defense, ranking, 82nd and 94th, respectively.  Pitt is a great defense (14th) but an offense even worse than ours (98th).  We are at home.  What does that add up to?  Well, probably low scoring, but I wouldn't expect us to have a chance to win without turnovers or other help.

If you expect our Miami success to continue, I would say you may be a victim of the recency bias I talked about in the UNC preview (where our spread was probably about right).  However, it is also possible that we are improving and figuring out the new schemes.  That's the tricky part for year 1 of a change this big.  Like all football teams, we should still expect to see good games and bad games and fluctuations.  But we should also expect to see general improvement as the season wears on.  So how do we tell if the Miami game was mostly a random fluctuation, and we just played well that day - or does it represent signs that we are actually better today than we were 4 weeks ago?

If we are actually better today than 4 weeks ago, then our unit rankings of 82nd and 94th would not really be an accurate reflection of where we stand today (full disclosure, this is an issue for all teams, as all teams should improve a the season wears on, but I'd expect to see significantly more improvement from week 1 to week 13 for a team like us, adjusting to all new schemes and coaches).

So, tomorrow will provide more information.  I expect to see a close game for a while and then eventually a 10-14 point loss, but we'll see.  Maybe we really are improving.  Even given how much better we looked at Miami, we still only scored 7 offensive points in regulation.  Really what happened is we got turnovers, one for a TD, and a special teams TD.  But, we did look a little more consistent and we converted more 3rd downs than we have been converting, so... maybe.  Let's see if we can keep the improvement going tomorrow.

As always, Let's Go Jackets!

UNC Preview

Well, obviously I've not been around since the Citadel.  I've been in mourning.  Meant to post before Temple, but didn't get to it, and didn't really care.  Does that make me a bad fan?  Maybe.  I still support this team and this coaching staff, although I'm growing increasingly concerned that our offensive coaching staff is not what I want it to be.  We'll see as the year progresses.

Moving on past the bad news, the good news is that our spreads have mostly been accurate this year.  The Citadel was the big outlier (we were favored by 25+ I believe).  Temple was favored by only about 8-9, but that's probably where the game should have been without the two disaster turnovers.  USF and Clemson were spot on.

So why is that good news?  Well, UNC is only favored by 9 or 10.  I expect that's about right.  Many will think its crazy, but that's recency bias.  You know, putting too much emphasis on what just happened.  UNC played Clemson very close (likely a fluke, and just Clemson escaping one of its 1 or 2 annual sleepwalking games).  And we just got blown out (but like I said, turnovers, plus Temple is not bad - actually, not much worse than UNC if you believe the computers.  Or Pitt/Miami for that matter, and better than VT, but I digress (digressing in a parenthetical?  Impressive!))

Anyway, back to not nonsense - I expect we'll play UNC close.  It'll be low scoring because our defense is OK and our offense is awful.  If its not low scoring, it won't be close.  We can't score, so anything "high scoring" wil be a UNC blowout.  For example, if UNC's QB has a good day, we'll be in trouble.  But I think our blitz packages and secondary are good enough to keep it close for a while, and maybe even pull the win if we get the turnovers this time.  Might also depend on whether UNC is deflated from its close Clemson loss, or angry about it.  We'll see, but I expect something like 24-10, bad guys.

Hope I'm wrong and we win, and as always, Let's Go Jackets!

Citadel Preview

This will be quick.  And mostly a USF review, because I don't know very much about the Citadel, and also, we are playing, I mean really, its the Citadel.  Supposed to be the only easy win we get all year, and it really needs to be an easy win.

South Florida was encouraging to me for a couple of reasons.  First, obviously, games where we'e won with defense have been few and far between for the past 11 years.  And secondly, it was just good to see this team fight and gut out a close win that could have gone the other way.  I am fairly concerned about the offense, which I still think is more talented than many others seem to think.  However, our offensive line is clearly not good, and we lost two starters from that unit in the first quarter to injury.  So it is difficult to evaluate the offense.  And it (hopefully) will still be difficult after tomorrow, as we should roll to a comfortable 45-14 win or something similar, even with a bad offense.  After the game tomorrow and 2 extra practice weeks before Temple, the Temple game should provide a much better chance to see where the offense is in its development. 

And to be clear, I expect a bad offense this season and that would not be a sign of much concern in my opinion.  The reason I'm concerned right now is I am worried we may be even worse than just bad.  The transition will be difficult, and we don't really have the right pieces to do what the current staff wants right now.  But I still believe our talent is good enough to cobble together just a regular "bad" offense, and not a terrible one.  South Florida is among the worst defenses we will face all year, and 250 yards and 14 points is... not good.  But, maybe we can chalk that up to the scrambling offensive line having to shuffle a couple players unexpectedly, and hopefully we will see continued improvement as the year goes on.  Otherwise, expect a lot of games where we score 7 or 10 points, and it'll be a long year.

But I'm optimistic that we can be bad, and not terrible. 

Anyway, as I said, I know next to nothing about the Citadel.  So far this year they have played two pretty good FCS teams (Elon and Towson) and lost both by just 1 TD each.  Recently, they have not been terribly good at the FCS level, going 5-6 last year.  They run option, which you think we'd be familiar defending.  They did play Bama respectably for a half last year (might have been more about Bama sleepwalking than the Citadel doing anything).  Ultimately, in their last 3 games vs FBS teams, they were eventually blown out, although two of those were Bama and Clemson.  (The third was UNC).  In 2015 they pulled one of the all time upsets in my opinion, beating South Carolina 23-22.  So, the unthinkable can happen, but I hope... HOPE... we have enough to make this a comfortable win.

As always, let's go Jackets!

South Florida Preview

The Clemson game was actually more or less what I expected, and I'm pretty happy with it.  We didn't play as well as I'd like on offense, but then again Clemson's defense is very disruptive.  But our defense looked pretty good in my opinion.  With the game "in doubt", in the first half, we allowed only 2 TD drives on 7 possessions (I'm discounting the two times that our offense/special teams gave the ball to Clemson at our own 10/15 yard line).  And both of those TDs were long plays.  We did not allow sustained drives, and I a pretty sure Clemson is a very good offense.  Even allowing for the week 1 "we are out of sync" etc... that's still pretty good.

We'll get to find out pretty quickly whether my suspicion is correct and our defense is much better.  South Florida is not a good offense.  We made them look very good last year, but really they are not terribly good on that side of the ball.  Actually, per the computers, they aren't very good on either side of the ball.  But I think they are better on defense than offense.  So we really should be able to get stops.  In particular, their offensive line is not very good.  We'll see if we can capitalize and get pressure on the QB.

On offense, I think we'll have a lot more fun this game.  Hard to glean too much from our offense versus Clemson.  Many have complained that we ran too much.  45 runs to 18 passes to be exact.  But I'd point out many of those "runs" were sacks or scrambles, but were called as pass plays.  Clemson's D line is hard to block.  I think it was probably close to 35 runs and 28 passes, maybe even more passes.  Let's see what the offense can do when we can block people.

Vegas has us favored by 6.5.  I actually think we cover that and possibly win by 14-17.  We'll see, but I still think we are better than anyone thinks we are.  I'm excited, and as always...

Let's go Jackets!

2019 Season Preview

Ok gang.  Sorry for the delay on this post.  I know you've all been anxiously awaiting my analysis. 

The truth is, I don't have a whole lot to analyze.  I really have very little idea what the new schemes are going to look like, or even who the new players will be.  We lost our best offensive lineman.  Kirvonte Benson transferred.  Parker Braun transferred.  Most of the names people would have heard of are gone.  We have several QBs back, but with the new scheme, who knows who is going to be playing?

Defensively, it is really the same story.  I can tell you this - the base scheme on defense will be a 4-2-5.  That's pretty normal these days given how much spread is being run.  You need that extra DB and more speed.  Actually, Ted Roof made the same change a couple years ago, so this isn't really a big deal.  Offensively, we are going to taylor our scheme to our players every year.  The new OC - Patenaude - does not have a set scheme.  I like that and I don't.  Its interesting and sounds good, but also I suspect that means Patenaude won't be an expert in what we are running.  We'll see if it works out or not. 

One thing is for sure, in a couple years, we'll have access to a talent level that GT hasn't seen since probably 2009.  Collins is recruiting great and shows no signs of slowing down.  Our current class is ranked #25 (which would be our 2nd best recruiting class since I started at GT in 2003).  Our commits have great offer sheets.  We are going up against, and apparently beating, national powers in recruiting.  I didn't really think that was realistically possible at GT in the modern landscape.  Let's hope he can keep it going and maybe even get better.

But that's for the future.  Right now, we have our current players.  And the preseason magazines and other pundits are sure we have very little talent.  We are supposed to go 3-9 and finish 7th in the Coastal.  The last time we were picked 3-9 in preseason, UGA was a national title contender (sound familiar?) and we beat them in Athens, to get to 9-3.  That was 2008.  I wish I could see that happening this year, but I can't.  For one, we play UGA in Atlanta.  (ha ha ha).  But seriously, I don't think we have any Dwyers or Demaryius Thomas' in hiding on the bench.  I do however think our players are better than many others do.  I think our talent is "fine".  Not great.  Not even good.  But fine. 

I predict we will fare better than 7th in the Coastal, and win more than 3 games.  I think we go 5-7 actually.  We need one extra upset for a bowl game.  Here is to hoping we get it. 

If you want specifics, I think we beat the Citadel, lose to UGA and Clemson, and the other games are some degree of tossup.  I don't think any of them are games we can't win, or can't lose.  I think Temple, S. Fla., UNC, Pitt and Duke are our best chances to win, but we could win any of them.  We will lose several as well.  I think we go 4-5 in these 9 games, and finish up 5-7.

That is not good in my opinion, but given the transition, is acceptable for Coach Collins year 1.  However, I hope I'm underselling this team.  Either way, I doubt we know very much this time tomorrow, because Clemson can make really good teams look not very good.  I expect a blowout, but I hope to see signs of life.

As always, Let's go Jackets!