My attempt at an objective analysis.
1. I am going to lose what's left of my hair if I continue to hear complaints over "conservative" playcalling or "soft coverage" this season. I honestly do not know how folks can continue to stress about those two things and function as a football fan.
2. Our offense was not "conservative." Furman put up 538 yards of offense, 42 points, threw the ball at will, and ran for 215 (UT ran for 93). Yes, we will continue to run a fullback dive from time to time as it is a core staple of this offense and it forces defenses to respect that we will continue to run in the middle of the field. Sometimes teams make adjustments and things don't work quite as well. Exactly what else did you want our offense to do last night?
3. Furman, along with virtually every college defense, runs primarily zone coverage (though we played a lot of man coverage last night too). They do that to keep an offense in front of them. You especially do that against a team like GSU that has several players on offense that are incredibly dangerous in space. You'll notice in the first half that GSU was able to move the ball, and started to stall inside the 20 - our defense was stopping their run game and the closer you get to the goal line, the less space you have to operate.
4. But what about pressure? See above. You can't overrun a guy like Dan Ellington. He makes one guy miss and he's gone. We tried to control him in the pocket and keep him in front of us. Largely, that plan worked.
5. I'm not worried about the defense. I expect GSU will be about the best offense we will see all season (maybe VT). GSU just hung 38 on an SEC team. They can play. Dan Ellington is a phenomenal player. So no, it wasn't a perfect game defensively, but there's no team in the SoCon with the talent GSU has on offense.
6. I really was pleased with everything I saw out of the team - the fight, finishing runs, tackling was pretty good. Really the only thing I didn't like all night was the WR pass. I didn't like the call and liked the execution even less. It was really the only blemish on an otherwise great evening for the offense.
7. We did some stuff defensively I'd not seen before. A few times we played with 6 DBs, removed both ILBs, and played Wilkins (spur) at MLB. I've never seen us do that. Remember, Duane Vaughan is in his second game as a defensive coordinator and we spent most of the second half playing two freshmen at CB matched up against some big WRs.
8. No one mentions this, but the defense came really close to forcing two turnovers that ended up as a 14 point swing. A little cleaner catch on the INT and a half an inch difference on the fumble, and that would have been two take aways and zero points for GSU.
9. I thought all night we hit them harder than they hit us.
10. The seasons first turnover came, what, in the fourth quarter of game two on the WR pass? Our ball security has been great this season.
1. I am going to lose what's left of my hair if I continue to hear complaints over "conservative" playcalling or "soft coverage" this season. I honestly do not know how folks can continue to stress about those two things and function as a football fan.
2. Our offense was not "conservative." Furman put up 538 yards of offense, 42 points, threw the ball at will, and ran for 215 (UT ran for 93). Yes, we will continue to run a fullback dive from time to time as it is a core staple of this offense and it forces defenses to respect that we will continue to run in the middle of the field. Sometimes teams make adjustments and things don't work quite as well. Exactly what else did you want our offense to do last night?
3. Furman, along with virtually every college defense, runs primarily zone coverage (though we played a lot of man coverage last night too). They do that to keep an offense in front of them. You especially do that against a team like GSU that has several players on offense that are incredibly dangerous in space. You'll notice in the first half that GSU was able to move the ball, and started to stall inside the 20 - our defense was stopping their run game and the closer you get to the goal line, the less space you have to operate.
4. But what about pressure? See above. You can't overrun a guy like Dan Ellington. He makes one guy miss and he's gone. We tried to control him in the pocket and keep him in front of us. Largely, that plan worked.
5. I'm not worried about the defense. I expect GSU will be about the best offense we will see all season (maybe VT). GSU just hung 38 on an SEC team. They can play. Dan Ellington is a phenomenal player. So no, it wasn't a perfect game defensively, but there's no team in the SoCon with the talent GSU has on offense.
6. I really was pleased with everything I saw out of the team - the fight, finishing runs, tackling was pretty good. Really the only thing I didn't like all night was the WR pass. I didn't like the call and liked the execution even less. It was really the only blemish on an otherwise great evening for the offense.
7. We did some stuff defensively I'd not seen before. A few times we played with 6 DBs, removed both ILBs, and played Wilkins (spur) at MLB. I've never seen us do that. Remember, Duane Vaughan is in his second game as a defensive coordinator and we spent most of the second half playing two freshmen at CB matched up against some big WRs.
8. No one mentions this, but the defense came really close to forcing two turnovers that ended up as a 14 point swing. A little cleaner catch on the INT and a half an inch difference on the fumble, and that would have been two take aways and zero points for GSU.
9. I thought all night we hit them harder than they hit us.
10. The seasons first turnover came, what, in the fourth quarter of game two on the WR pass? Our ball security has been great this season.
