Talent fees, executive orders, Zach Pyron, we got it all!
Frodo Swagginz: Why do we keep using Pyron on goal line situations? Are we lulling teams into a false sense of security that he’s going to run everytime so that one day he will line up and sling it? Is he just a more physical runner than King?
Logan: I feel like both are the potential answers here. Pyron and King are about the same height, but Pyron has a bit more meat on his bones so maybe that could help him push in goal line situations. Pyron is a capable thrower, so he may have an option to throw if he sees the opportunity. Also, Its good to avoid risking an injury to your starting QB if you have backup who is just as able to get a touchdown running up the gut.
Chris: In my head the last part Logan mentioned is key – we’re not risking King’s health or losing any goal line running ability so it seems like a win-win. Also maybe just a nice way to keep him involved in case he has to step in more at any point.
Ben: T O U C H D O W N V U L T U R E 2 . 0!!! Yeah, Logan and Chris already hit the nail on the head. I think, especially as we get deeper into conference play, you’ll start seeing Pyron pass packages.
gtbadcarma: I did think the team would be 3-1 at this point but how Tech has made it there is unexpected. My worry is that over the last 4 games I continue to see a lot of the same problems, slow/lack of adjustments and what I see as a lack of preparation or game planning. Given that the only teams that Tech has beaten are not the best teams (I doubt any will be bowl bound) and tech will be moving into playing better teams, are you uneasy or optimistic about what the rest of the schedule brings? What must we see against Louisville to remain optimistic and what cant happen against Louisville if we are to remain optimistic?
Chris: Am I allowed to say I’m “uneasily optimistic”? I have more faith in Key and his staff than I did in Collins and his to make the right mid-season adjustments, though I am a bit worried that the OL will regress against better opponents and that the defense is cursed. A good showing against Louisville will certainly go a long way towards boosting my optimism. In particular I want to see if our inability to run effectively against Syracuse was a fluke or not; if it was and our run game is as solid as it appeared to be earlier, then I’ll feel good about the rest of the season. If not, I’ll feel a lot worse.
Logan: depends on what we are talking about in regards to optimism. Given we have/had one of the worst schedules in college football; the 3-1 start makes me feel optimistic that we can make a bowl game and get some upsets along the way, but I no longer have optimism for us to make the playoffs. We had such a hot start with what felt like a ton of hype to have a long winning streak and potentially do something amazing this year. All of that optimism slipped away after the loss to Syracuse and watching FSU lose 3 in a row. If we win against Louisville I think the fanbase would be back to feeling excited and optimistic on the season overall. I want us to win, but if we lose a close game I have optimism we’ll still make a bowl game. Depending on who you are maybe making a bowl game sounds good to you, or maybe you feel like we are setting our standards too low.
Ben: Ask me again next week! It’s really tough to say because we have seen some different things. Cuse did exactly what they needed to in finding Tech’s weak points, and they still nearly let Tech come back and win that game. I’ll echo what Chris said about slow adjustments, but at this point, I’ll still stick with optimism and the hope that Key will right the ship. That may change depending on how this game goes, though.
Jeff: I feel about the same because I’ve also seen many teams on the schedule not perform as well as they were hyped. Louisville is a tricky one to guess because they’ve looked great beating the teams they were supposed to beat, but those two teams are 0-6. Duke and UNC for being undefeated look like a disaster in certain phases of the game and I think they’ve skirted on weak competition. Notre Dame lost to NIU…Virginia Tech is all over the place, and NC State isn’t great either. Will we make the ACC Title game? Maybe not, but 7-8 is still very realistic.
Partywaggin: Is the D-line too small, too tired, or too unskilled? Still thinking about all the time the Orange QB had back there.
Chris: I’m not quite sure. I don’t claim to be a scheme guy, but it still feels to me like we aren’t putting guys in the right position to succeed all the time and getting all the pieces of the puzzle together. If the LBs etc can get home more often on their blitzes then I think that can in turn lead to more success from the DL as the OL has more to worry about rather than completing ignoring the safety blitz that comes 30 seconds after the snap.
Ben: I think fatigue plays a semi-decent role. Since Week 0, the team has flown to Ireland, back to Atlanta, to New York, back to Atlanta, and now to Louisville. That’s a whole lot of travel without a bye week in the span of a month. I’d be exhausted too! I also think that the defense hasn’t been overly aggressive. We saw a lot of that against Georgia State.
Jeff: Syracuse had a serious matchup advantage that was probably not looked at enough with TE Oronde Gadsden. Tech’s LBs are built more for run-stuffing and struggled following Gadsden on routes. Gadsden is the top tight end in the ACC. I do think fatigue did play a part. Tech has done very well in the redzone though where things become condensed. That was a major issue in previous years.
GTSMURF: Friday night is the initial COFH matchup of the 24-25 year in volleyball. ugag is 6-3 with a loss to F$U and a win vs BC. Do we win this opening round as we should?
Jack: Absolutely. We’re playing better volleyball now than we were when we played them last year. Bertolino and Otene are much cleaner on offense. The service errors have gone down. Our middle play has improved largely because of DeAndra Pierce. I don’t think this should be much of a problem on paper.
Frodo Swagginz: Early odds have Brent Key at +800 to be the next Florida HC, though he definitely is not the front runner. Do we actually believe that he would leave his beloved alma mater?
Logan: I doubt Key leaves for Florida, he seems pretty happy here. That said money can be very convincing. We’ll see how much money UF feels like throwing at Key, if it even comes to that.
Chris: I would certainly be surprised, especially at this stage. I’m not foolish enough to believe he’ll never leave us, but I don’t get the impression he’d want to leave a work in progress.
Jack: I’d have it at +10000 to be more accurate honestly.
Ben: I would be absolutely shocked if Key took the job. I think he could do well there, but I don’t think he’s interested at this point. Like Chris said, I don’t think he’ll never leave, but I think he wants to do right by his alma mater.
Jeff: I’m not sure many coaches unless it’s a huge step up want to deal with the expectations at Florida right now.
TkTheGoat: How much, if it all, is this years team better than last years? And… What is the best case scenario for FSU considering the “hard” part of their schedule hasnt picked up yet. Also, they’ve played three teams that have a case for being in the Top 25.
Chris: I think it’s better. On offense it’s essentially the same skill positions but with a better OL, though the defense may be a bit of a wash. Re: Florida State, whoo boy. I’m pretty comfortable writing off Clemson, Miami, UNC, and Notre Dame as upcoming losses for them, and I wouldn’t exactly feel good about them against Duke or Florida. I think the ceiling is 6 wins.
Jack: Every single game, we get a little bit better. Where and how changes (which is good!), but the trajectory of this team has been upwards ever since the bad man left. I’d give last year’s team a C+ purely based on the football, and I’m at a B+ for this year’s team so far. They have not been fully out of any games yet, plus have more feedback than just about any other team out there on themselves, which is huge going forward.
Logan: I think we’re clearly better on both sides of the ball, but being better doesn’t necessarily translate to wins. Other teams got better too, Syracuse is a clear example of that. I think we are improving, but we have to keep doing it throughout the season to beat some of these good teams we are facing.
Regarding FSU, I think they’ll be happy to make a bowl game at this point.
Ben: Weirdly, I think this team is more confident. This of course isn’t a national championship level team, but I am seeing improvements in fundamentals, at least in some games. What is most notable to me, though, is that they don’t give up. Brent Key does a phenomenal job keeping his team motivated. That’s how they managed to make the Cuse game as close at it was.
Jeff: I’m going to give FSU a little slack in that Georgia Tech, Boston College, and Memphis all might be pretty good teams this year. Still, they have a huge hole to climb out. Georgia Tech is absolutely a better team this year. Though the defense still has some problem areas with the LBs the group overall has done a lot better in getting of the field.
Jellopacket98: Tennessee is going to start charging a 10% “Talent Fee” so it can continue to buy the best players. What year do you think the bubble finally bursts and we finally get a structured and regulated pay scale for college athletes? This arms race of stockpiling cash and begging fans/alumni to continue to fill the coffers so they can dole out larger and larger sums of money to 18 year olds isn’t sustainable. It’s already trickled down to the high school level where kids are dropping out of one high school and openly seeking the highest bidder for their services.
Chris: I think it’s gonna happen sooner rather than later. Everything about the way this is currently working feels unsustainable, and stuff like the Talent Fee is going to quickly start alienating fans. Since the beginning I’ve felt like there’s going to be a market correction at some point – once all the excitement dies down these boosters (who ostensibly made their big money by not making bad business decisions) will eventually start to balk at how much they’re being asked for fork up for unknown returns. I’m not really sure what exactly happens at that point though – maybe the next step is a super league with structured payouts from TV deals and “salary caps” for member programs?
Jack: The State of Georgia is actually trying to get ahead of it: https://www.11alive.com/article/sports/local-sports/kemp-signs-order-schools-pay-student-athletes-name-image-likeness/85-ecf13ee9-4a78-4355-8ab5-3ea152c99466
DressHerInWhiteAndGold: We are mere days from Sports-tober; what are you excited to see in the Wide World of Sports?
Chris: I just wanna see some Tech football wins.
Jack: Oh my so much. Postseason baseball is of my favorite things. I’ll watch any and every game regardless of who’s playing. The meaty part of football of course is extra weird this year with all the new intraconference matchups that exist. College volleyball is in full swing and has more and more quality teams you can watch just about any given night.
Logan: I’m excited for pretty much everything except basketball. I don’t think basketball gets exciting till playoffs.
Email Submission: 1) Why does this team seem to play so much better as underdogs?
Chris: I think you see this a lot in sports, something about playing with expectations is different and harder to handle. To me it’s something you have to work on culturally – you have to be able to motivate yourself internally and not just when you’re up against long odds.
Logan: I think it’s generally easier when you don’t have any expectations on you to live up to. Also it can give your team a “I’ll show you” attitude. Our current locker room seems to thrive on that attitude.
Ben: I think Brent Key has said something along the lines of teaching these guys how to be winners. It’s different from teaching them how to win. That’s still a work in progress.
2) With question 1 in mind does that make you feel any better with the fact that we will likely be underdogs in half of our remaining games?
Chris: Sorta kinda? I feel weirdly confident about Louisville for this reason (don’t cite this to me later if it doesn’t work out), and I still don’t really believe anyone else in the ACC is amazingly strong.
Logan: I never feel great going into a week knowing the other team is favored over us. It makes me anxious knowing we are never expected to win. It does make me feel better to know we are capable of pulling off big upsets, and it makes it fun to brag about after we win the game. That only happens after we win the game though. I until then I’m just anxious.
Ben: Yeah, I guess. With most of the teams we play, there’s so much parity, that Tech’s schedule could go in so many different directions.
3) What is our weakest position group and what do they need to do if we are going to win against Louisville?
Jack: Our pass rush, so I guess that means edge rushers. We still have not done enough to disrupt the passing game of anyone we’ve played against (save for VMI) to where teams need to stress out about it. If we’re going to make another leap this season, in part it has to come from getting better at pressuring the quarterback. This game is an opportunity for that leap.
Logan: Either the D-line or the Defensive Secondary is the weakest position. It’s kind of a toss up sometimes, and when one does poorly it tends to affect the ability of the other to get things done. This week the D-line needs to contain the outside runs to make Louisville more one dimensional. The secondary has to avoid falling for play action and giving up big plays. Louisville scores most of their points off of play action plays, so we can’t afford to fall for those plays and give up easy touchdowns.
Ben: Pass rush. Tech has struggled to finish sacks and generally put pressure on opposing quarterbacks. It doesn’t matter how good your secondary is. If you give an opposing quarterback time, he’ll find an open man.