BC Preview

 Got it right last week.  In fairness, that was an easy call.

Lots of GT fans are up in arms about how big the blowout was.  Much ado about nothing if you ask me.  We tried to play them straight up (hopefully to learn and grow) and playing hurry up, taking shots downfield etc led to a 17 possession game.  That's a ton.  They are a lot better than us.  That is a lot of chances to score on us.  73-7 isn't really any worse than 52-14 in my opinion, but I guess reasonable minds can disagree.  

Anyway, on to BC.  They are decent on defense, not very good on offense.  We are decent on offense, not very good on defense.  (Really have not been impressed this year with Collins' defensive coaching - supposed to be his strength - and we aren't very good.  We need better talent, but we are 13th in the ACC in yards per play allowed - our talent isn't that bad I don't think).

The game is at BC.  Obviously a slight advantage for them.  I think they are better than us anyway.  I'm a little surprised the line is only 4 points.  I would think BC covers that.  I expect us to lose by 10 or so.  But, stop me if you've heard this before, turnovers will be key.  We force a lot and give up a lot.  In fact, we are 3rd from last in turnovers lost nationally, and 4th in turnovers forced.  That's crazy.  That is also why we beat Louisville badly (should have lost) and lost to Syracuse badly (should have won).

So, if the turnover margin is +/- 3 in either direction, that team will win.

Assuming no crazy turnover story, I would expect a slow battle that is close but BC wins... 31-21.  Maybe.  They power run as always and throw a little, not very creative but not bad.  They have a great tight end.  There is a long running joke, with some truth to it, about GT not being able to cover tight ends.  So watch for that.  On the other side their D is ok but not flashy.  Our offense has some talent.  Need to play sharp.  

I'd bet BC to cover the spread and win by 10.  

As always, I hope I'm wrong.  Go Jackets!

Clemson Preview

 Well, I was badly wrong again.  The reason was turnovers.  Which are hard to predict.  I think the Syracuse game should have been close.  And we probably should have lost to Louisville.  But both games were affected significantly by turnovers.  However, I'm very happy with the win.

No reason to spend too much time this week analyzing things.  Clemson is really good.  We'll get beat.  Hopefully we can play well, get Gibbs many touches, and Sims will continue developing.  

But I expect a loss.  Probably won't be close.

Hope I am wrong again.  And as always go jackets!

Louisville Preview

 Ok, well, I apologize for the wildly incorrect prediction.  

Sadly, what happened I think was that the opponents of GT are not as good as we thought.  FSU is awful.  Even worse than it appeared.  And UCF lost to Tulsa, after not looking all that impressive versus East Carolina (eventually routed them but I think East Carolina is bad).

So, I was overrating GT and our improvement.  We move the ball pretty well on offense but are sloppy with turnovers and inefficient cashing in points.  The O-line is probably not as improved as I had hoped.  The defense is still under talented.  

I do not think Syracuse is all that good, and frankly that game should have been close.  We gave them a 17 point win with turnovers.  But I was incorrect - we were not and are not significantly better than Cuse.  And its looking like 4-7 may have been optimistic.  We might go 3-8 or (gulp) even 2-9.  

Statistically, we are similar to Louisville in terms of yards per play on offense, and yards allowed per play on defense.  But I think Louisville has played a much tougher schedule.  Miami instead of FSU.  Pitt instead of Syracuse.  

So I'm afraid Louisville will beat us pretty easily.  They are solid on offense.  Pitt largely shut them down but Pitt is a good defense.  We are not.  Louisville's defense is not terrible but not good.  I expect us to move the ball.  But we've struggled turning that into points.  Turnovers.  3rd down execution.  Missed FGs.  Etc.  To quantify that, Phil Steele has tracked yards per point for many years.  Measures how efficiently a team turns yards gained into points - really its about efficiently executing.  A team that scores every drive would average 7 points (a TD) for every 50-80 yards gained (the average drive), or about 1 point per 10 yards.  Average tends to be more like 1 point every 15 yards.  1 point every 20 yards is generally bad.  So far this year we have 1362 yards and just 57 points, which is 1 point every 23.7 yards.  That is AWFUL.  Among the worst I've ever seen (although admittedly I don't follow this stat that closely).  

That means, for a single TD, on average, we need to gain about 165 yards.  That's not good.

Anyway, if we clean up the turnovers we might keep it close because Louisville's defense isn't great.  But I expect more of the same from our offense.  I think we need to play risky football to gain those yards - we aren't good enough to move the ball without taking chances.  At least that's what I think I'm seeing.  Sims improvement will really help there but we may be 1-2 years away from that.

I am afraid it'll be something like 38-21 Louisville.

I hope I am just as wrong this week as I was last week.

As always, let's go jackets!

Syracuse Preview

 Well, that game was no fun.  I thought, early in the 4th quarter, I had the game predicted pretty well.  We trailed 28-21.  Looked about right.  

UCF is a good team, well coached and a really tough offense to stop.  We just turned the ball over too much and gave them too many short fields.  The game actually had 15 possessions, which is a couple more than average.  I was hoping for a low possession game, something like 10, where we eat up clock and keep the ball so our defense can rest.  That didn't work.  UCF ran 92 plays.  

We've gotta take better care of the ball, but that's expected with a true freshmen at QB.  He still looks like he has loads of potential, so there's good news.  And Gibbs appears to be as good as advertised.  Great kick return to setup the first TD, and then he scored the next 2 himself.  I believe he had around 200 yards of all purpose offense.  

So some positive takeaways but more or less a forgettable result.  

On to Syracuse.  Interesting team.  Not supposed to be any good this year according the preseason experts.  But Cuse's offense was supposed to be the better unit.  It has not played out that way so far.  If you believe the hype, UNC and Pitt are supposed to be good teams.  And Cuse kept it close early in both, with a scrappy defense but an ABYSMAL offense.  

This offense for Syracuse is seriously among the worst I've ever seen statistically.  Averaging 180 yards per game total.  120 passing 60 rushing.  That is awful.  Less than 2 yards per carry rushing.  Only 4.1 yards per attempt passing.  If they run once and pass twice in a series, on average they'd be facing 4th down.  That's... impressively bad.

Now its only two games, but its been two epically bad offensive performances.  

Their defense statistically is middle of the pack in the ACC so far.  We are middle of the pack in both offense and defense.  Given that, I'd expect to see us move the ball steadily as we have, but struggle to score.  However, we should end up with something like 24, 28 or 31.  They should be at 10 or 14, if I'm right.  

I know the Vegas spread is GT by 8 (and the computers, which still factor in last year right now, have this game as about a toss up), but I think we win comfortably.  We'll see.  Maybe Cuse playing at home for the first time figures out its offense.  Maybe UNC and Pitt are just really, really good on defense (but I doubt it).  

I think GT 28-10 or maybe 31-14.  That's my pick.

As always, let's go Jackets!

UCF Preview

 Great start to Year 2 under Collins.  Obviously, no idea if FSU is any good or still a dumpster fire.  They definitely have some talent, but are they a good team?  Either way, getting a win on the road in week 1 is excellent.  

How good does that mean we are? My gut is that we are much improved (sorta obvious) but still not all that good.  I'm still looking for 4-7 or 5-6 this year, probably.  Although I'd love to be wrong.  

If we win again tomorrow, I'm probably wrong.  So let's all hope for that.  UCF is favored by about 7.  Based on the preseason hype, they should be a worse defense than FSU (somewhat worse, not a huge difference) but quite a bit better on offense.  Really no weakness on offense.  Phil Steele has their O-line and running backs top 10 nationally, and their WRs and QBs about 25th nationally (and this is out 130 teams, because it was done before any covid opt outs).  So, they should be very tough to stop and will be a good test for our defense.  

On defense, their secondary is very good but they are weaker than FSU up front.  UCF has a good but not great defensive line, but average linebackers.  No real weak link on the team, which is why they are ranked, but their defense is worse than their offense, and the linebackers are probably their worst unit.  That may mean we try to attack them with delay handoffs, screen passes, play action, and similar plays designed to stress the linebackers speed and ability to read keys.  Wildcat option runs with Sims might work as well.

I'm looking for us to hopefully sustain drives, eat clock, shorten the game in terms of possessions, and try to manufacture a couple extra stops with a big sack or a turnover.  If the game has 10 possessions (equal to last week but lower than average), I would expect UCF to score maybe 4 or 5 TDs.  Something like 38-31 or 35-28 is the most likely outcome in my opinion, with UCF winning.  We need the offense to execute well all day and for Sims to continue making plays if we want to pull the upset.  

Given that our offensive line looked OK against what is supposed to be a great D-line, I'm excited to see how we can do against a D line that isn't quite that good (although UCF is still pretty good there).  Establishing a consistent rushing attack would obviously help, and we've got several very talented running backs to help with that effort.  

I'm curious and optimistic, but trying to remind myself we are still rebuilding, we are still young, and UCF is a good team.  I think we can win, but I know we are not supposed to...

As always, let's go Jackets!

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!