2018 Season Preview

Here we go again.  And by that I mean we begin another season, but also here we go again with yet another Defensive Coordinator.  That job has been a revolving door for Coach Paul Johnson.  I didn’t know anything about Wommack, and didn’t like the job he did in 08-09.  At the time, I loved that Paul Johnson fired him after a great season for the team (2009), because the defense did not do very well.  In hindsight, given Paul Johnson’s defensive track record, maybe Wommack wasn’t so bad. 

I loved the Al Groh hire.  Paul Johnson is a guy who routinely has a good or very good offense, but a mediocre or bad defense.  So he hired a guy who is the opposite.   Al Groh routinely had good or very good defenses at UVA, but mediocre or bad offenses.  So, great combination right?  Well, it turns out, the head coach has some influence over which unit is good.  Its not all scheme.  It can be influenced by everything from personnel decisions (a talented player might be a LB and running back in high school) to practice time and the focus on certain units.  Groh apparently ran his program with a defensive focus, and could not replicate that as DC under Paul Johnson.

I thought Roof would do OK and he did, but he was sort of a bland hire in my opinion.  Unlikely to turn the defense around, but a solid coach who wouldn’t let it get terrible.

However, if we want to be any good, we simply need a better defense.  Will we have it under Nate Woody?  Well, he had a very good record at Appalachian St.  Whether that will translate to this level remains to be seen, but he might be a very good coach.  At a minimum, he runs the kind of scheme I want us to run.  Heavy on blitzing and creating negative plays.  No more bend but don’t break.  We attack.  Teams will either punt or score, but they’ll do it quickly.  I like that with our offensive scheme because it should mean we dominate time of possession, and wear out their defense while our defense stays rested.   Our offense rarely goes 3 and out, and tends to help our defense by shortening the game in terms of possessions.   But that advantage is wasted when we play bend but don’t break, so the other team tends to move the ball as well.  We played an 8 possession game against Mercer a couple years ago, largely because we couldn’t get their offense off the field.  We won 35-10, but there is really no excuse to let Mercer march up and down the field.  With this defense, we might allow 14-20 points for Mercer (maybe maybe not) but the game likely has 13 or 14 possessions, so we would have scored more like 50-60 ourselves, and the game would have been over at halftime.  And honestly, their offense probably starts to feel pressure and lose their rhythm, while our offense builds a rhythm.  That’s what happens when an offense goes on a 7-10 play drive, and the other offense only runs 3-5 plays, and that keeps happening. 

So, if we can successfully generate negative plays, backfield pressure, and turnovers, that should work in our favor in terms of how games flow.  By the second half our offense will be in rhythm, theirs will not, and our defense will be rested while theirs is not. 

Offensively, we should be pretty good this year.  We are normally good on offense, and this team has experience and talent at QB, B-back and A-back.  The O-line is the key, and is moderately experienced.  But that unit has been all over the map with no real explanation the past 5 years.  We’ll just have to see.  The WRs should be mediocre, but good enough to get the job done if Marshall plays better this year. 

I think we’ll be a good team, but once again a tough schedule.  Draw Louisville from the Atlantic with Clemson, UGA as always, the Coastal is pretty deep with Miami and VT being very good and UNC and Duke actually being pretty good.  So it’ll be a tough road, but here are my predictions:

Alcorn St – nothing to see here.  Easy win.  Excited to see the defensive scheme.  I want a lot of sacks and negative plays.

At South Florida – tough game here.  They’ve been a good team for 3 years, but this year they return very little.  Most of their yards and tackles graduated, and they don’t have many seniors in key positions.  Still a road game against a legitimate team.  I’ll say GT is 60-70% to win, and we should win.

At Pitt – Another tough but winnable game.  Road game at a team that’s always at least decent.  They have about the average experience level returning.  I’ll call this 50% for GT.

Clemson – Home game, but against a national title contender.  We know the story here.  Great D-line.  Probably a 31-10 loss or something like that.  I’ll give us perhaps a 5-10% chance.  They are simply loaded.  Need them to play a poor game.

Bowling Green – Not a good team.  From the MAC. Likely to be among the worst in FBS.  90% win.

At Louisville – very tough draw here from the Atlantic.  Post Lamar Jackson, but given Petrino’s track record, probably still the Atlantic’s 3^rd best team.  They do return the least experience in the ACC though.  A game we can win. I’ll call it 50% as well.

Duke – home game but Duke will probably be better this year than last.  This was our worst defensive game last year (actually maybe the worst defensive game in the CPJ era, which is really saying something).  Hopefully we get revenge.  I’ll call it 60% for us to win thanks to home field. 

At VT – We have really had their number lately.  Haven’t lost in Blacksburg since 2012.  Crazy.  Anyway, they should be good per usual, but don’t return all that much experience.  Below average nationally.  We will have a shot, but they will be favored.  I’ll call it 30-40% for GT.

At UNC – Most seem to think they’ll be better (hard to be much worse) but they will also be relatively inexperienced.  A lot of unknowns here.  Even though we are on the road, and haven’t won here since 2012, I’ll call it 50%. 

Miami – Supposedly a great team this year.  We’ll see, but they should be good at a a minimum.  Will be a tough game.  Not Clemson tough, but tough.  I’ll call it 25%. 

UVA – Home game and they are not supposed to be good.  I’ll say 80%.

At UGA – Hate em, but they’ll be good again.  Lost a fair amount of playmakers, so they won’t be quite as good as last year.  The way they are recruiting, I expect 2019 and 2020 to be VERY good years for UGA.  But this year may be a very small step backwards.  Still they will probably be a top 15 team, maybe better.  We play better in Athens than Atlanta in this series, but I’m only going to give us a 20% chance here.

Add that up and its about 6.5 wins.  Just a tough schedule.  Not very many gimmes.  I’ll predict 7-5, with one big upset (ooh I hope its UGA) and one flop (South Florida?   UVA?).  Unfortunately, pretty much the status quo.  But we should return to a bowl game.

If Coach Woody proves as good as we hope, maybe we could win 8 or 9, but I think its unlikely he’ll get the defense that good that fast. But here is to hoping.

As always, let’s go Jackets!