Has Georgia Tech’s defense improved dramatically?
Partywaggin: Why does everyone love DJU? He seems like a very average QB.
Ben: I can give you five reasons. But yeah, the long and short of it is that he was a 5-star player out of high school who has turned into a decent game manager, and that’s it. He’s never going to will a team to victory, and we saw that on Saturday.
Logan: The reason I hear on most of the sports talk radio is that DJU is not the type of player that can win you a game by himself, but he will never lose you the game by himself. We did kind of see that last week, DJU had a high completion percentage and none of his passes were at risk of being interceptions. On a team like FSU where the rest of the talent should elevate the team, a solid game manager who doesn’t make overly risky plays can be beneficial. If FSU had recovered some of our fumbles or gotten an extra defensive stop in Ireland DJU may provided enough to win the game, but that’s obviously not how things played out.
gtbadcarma: Watching the game I still can’t help but feel the playbook is a bit closed/restrained when it comes to the pass. With King going into his second year as starter do you feel it’s time to run a few more creative/long pass plays?
Ben: It’s the first game of the season. They aren’t going to put everything on tape quite yet. Expect it to open up as we get further into the season and especially into ACC play.
Logan: I think the restraints had to do with the gameplan. We wanted to keep FSU’s talented offense off the field as much as possible and burn clock to make sure the FSU defense was worn down and our defense had time to rest. One of the problems we ran into in some of our losses last year was scoring too quickly early in the game. Scoring quickly can be a great motivator for the offense but last year it left little time for our struggling defense to rest before being stuck on the field for long periods of time. Now that we have seen some defensive improvements I expect we will see some more aggressive throws, especially as the season goes on and we get chances to better understand our opponents playstyle.
GTSMURF: What’s the status on Ethan Mackenney? I see he is behind Corey Robinson and Jason Moore on the depth chart. Is he injured in any way? Surprised to see him not play anywhere Saturday after being listed on the depth chart and being as successful as he was last year.
Ben: If you go and listen to the Georgia Tech preview episode of Joey’s podcast (Link), Kelly Quinlan mentions that Mackenney is a good kid, but he just got passed on the depth chart. For me, that just speaks to how much this OL has improved.
Frodo Swagginz: If the defense post a similar performance against GSU as they did against FSU, do we start to have a little, miniature, tiny bit of hope?
Hope that the defense has made the jump to atleast average.
Ben: I’m already pretty hopeful. The tackling was much improved throughout the game. The defense also completely shut down the run after the first drive. FSU might not live up to that Top 10 ranking, but they are not a bad team. Georgia Tech’s defense played very well (not perfectly), and I don’t see why that shouldn’t continue.
Logan: I would say you should already have some hope. There are definitely still some questions, the biggest one is can we play as well against the “Bowling Green’s” of the CFB landscape as we play against the ranked opponents. I’m feeling hopeful that we will have a good season with around 7 to 8 wins at the moment, I think my outlook kind of depends on how things go this week if I feel we could potentially achieve more.
chilidogringsFO: What can we do to ensure Pyron gets at least 1 TD rushing attempt per game for the season? I love seeing his energy and enthusiasm and hes selflessness to the team after losing QB1 status.
Ben: I’m sure Buster Faulkner has certain packages to get Pyron involved that we’ll see more of throughout the season.
Logan: I think Pyron will get some more playtime in goal and go situations. We are currently treating him like a wildcat QB, I’m curious to see when he will eventually be allowed to pass the ball, I would expect it on a potential trick play in the future so keep an eye out for that.
goldfella: With the win over F$U, what should be the new over/under for wins this season?
Ben: I’ll still say anything short of 6 wins is a bit disappointing, but it’ll now be a lot easier to get to 6.
Logan: For us here at FTRS I think most people were saying 6 to 7 wins should be the minimum. I don’t think our perspective has changed much on that. Vegas and some other sites had our over/under at either 4.5 or 5.5 depending on the site. We still have a tough schedule, but if I was in Vegas I would move that O/U to a 6.5 with another potential jump after the Syracuse game if we do well there.
goldfella: Do you think our defense is drastically improved? Or was the performance more attributable to being able to sell out to stop F$U’s run game because their pass game hasn’t reached its full potential (and DJU is still overrated)?
Ben: I mentioned in an earlier question that DJU is basically a game manager. The whole idea of a game manager is to keep defenses honest against the run. Despite DJU doing fine (not great) in that role, FSU still wasn’t able to do anything with the run after the first drive. So I say defense is improved. Time will tell how drastic the improvement is.
Logan: “Drastically” may be a stretch, but I think there was some clear improvement on the defensive side of the ball. I think part of that was the game plan. It’s pretty clear that we were selling out on the run and saying “Go on DJU, prove you can beat us”, which we discussed above is not the thing DJU excels at. Our tackling in the open field looked better, the D-line looked significantly better at actually getting pressure, and the linebackers were great at identifying and filling gaps in the run game. The coverage was questionable to me, especially on safety blitz packages, we will see if that improves. I think we have the talent to do well, but we’ll see this week how the defense does against a team they don’t have any tape to game plan against.
DressHerInWhiteAndGold: How do we feel about the Atlanta Urinal & Constipational’s GT players of the decades?
Ben: I’m not the most historically knowledgeable when it comes to GT players, so it’s tough for me to say much, so I’ll stick to the aughts and the 10s. I won’t mention specifics on the 10s since it’s behind a paywall, but I was definitely surprised about some of the names that made the list. I don’t know that I’m really in a place to come up with replacements, but some of the folks on there were certainly not the immediate names that came to mind when thinking about the best players of that decade. With the aughts, I find it hard to argue the list they put forth, though I do wonder how much flack they would have gotten in they put Reggie Ball on there. Ball was by no means great, but in a weird sort of way, he was iconic. Like you thought of Georgia Tech football in the aughts, and he was the guy (or one of the guys) you thought about. He had some great moments and some really bad moments. If he had a halfway decent QB coach, he could have easily been a great QB in the league.
Logan: There were paywalls so I couldn’t really read the article… I’m just going to assume the AJC’s takes would disappoint me.
Yeller Bug: What grade would you give for our defensive performance for players, for coaches?
Ben: I find it hard not to give them an A. Sure the first drive was bad, but they tightened things up the rest of the game.
Logan: Somewhere between a B and an A since I’m a stickler. There were definitely some defensive drives that went better than others. The last FSU drive was on the verge of being stopped a couple of times but had a few times where defenders were in the incorrect place in coverage which led to first downs. The first drive was not great either. Other than that we looked really darn good, so yeah I think B+ or better would be pretty reasonable.
Yeller Bug: Given that we substituted virtually every play on defense, do you think a team running a HUNH offense without substitutions will give us more problems?
Ben: That’s always a concern. But if you have the opportunity to sub and keep guys fresh, why wouldn’t you?
Logan: It’s possible the substitutions were trying to keep our defense fresh in a game which was a grind it out matchup on both sides. Regarding the actual question though, I will be more concerned if we face a HUNH offense but I’m also not sure how many teams we face this year will be able to effectively run a HUNH offense. I know we face some talented teams but most of the coaches for those teams don’t typically run HUNH offenses. We’ll see what happens.
Submitted via email: Hello everyone,
Hope you’re doing well this week. I am after that big win Saturday! Big wins feel so good. Now let’s see if we can get a normal win this week against Georgia State this week.
My questions this week.
How nervous should we be going into the Georgia State game considering Key’s past trend of stumbling after a big win.
Have a good rest of your week. Later,
Gary Oak
Ben: I’m not the least bit nervous. I hope Georgia Tech wins 223-0. Even though they won’t, I don’t expect this one to be close at all.
Logan: I’m definitely nervous. I’m nervous about pretty much every game Tech plays in. I don’t really think we will lose, but at worst I think it will look like the NC State v Western Carolina game where the defense may be caught off guard since there isn’t a lot to go on predicting the Georgia State game plan with the new coach and new players. Our offense will take more risks which may lead to more turnovers than we had against FSU. While we win it doesn’t look as pretty as we hoped, that’s where I’m hoping the floor is for this game. I am expecting us to show up and win though. Man… I’m hoping we show up and win, we can’t keep losing G5 matchups forever.