Thursday Night Breakdown

Photo Credit: Al Diaz - Miami Herald

I mean honestly, what do you say? We flat out got beat. Just handled in every aspect of the game. And it may seem weird, but in the end, this was a game we needed to lose. Let me start from the beginning and make an attempt to explain.

Bad Omen
I had a bad feeling about this game for a long time. It was just set up to be a massive fail.

1. Miami came in off the high of the FSU game.
2. Miami had extra time to prepare.
3. Miami had revenge on their minds from the beat-down the took last year.
4. Miami seemed to feed off the media hype of "the U is back" talk.
5. Tech has seemed oddly flat in our first two games, even while winning.
6.
7. Tiffany & I were invited over to a friends house for dinner and to watch the game. Special thanks to Matt & Katie for the yummy pork roast and chocolate cake. But oddly enough anytime we do this, the Jackets lay an egg. So I guess I can take the blame for the bad karma. Much like the UGA game in 2006 when our friend James slammed on the brakes headed down 316 into Athens. Tiffany grabs the door while bracing herself, accidentally pressing the electric windows button, thus lowering the windows, causing the GT flags to come loose and go flying down 316 to get run over time and time again. Yea, we lost that game too.
8. 3 Games in 12 days. This team is out of gas. Or do we have a conditioning problem?

Defense
Aside from a few stands late in the game that held Miami to a missing field goal try, I'm not sure we did anything right on D last night. The Hurricane offensive was well balanced, hitting short a long passes at will. Running for what seemed like 8 to 10 yards a carry. The secondary, which I had started to feel was a strong point of this team, just couldn't get it done. They're bodies were running around on the field, but I got the feeling that there minds were elsewhere. We had no answer for Miami's O. The Defensive Line you ask? Harris had all night to throw. One time I think I saw him hike the ball, make a ham sandwich with mayo, enjoy said ham sandwich then throw the ball down field. That's how much time he had. I'm not sure if their o-line is that good or we just played that bad. A question I have regarding many aspects of this game. The DL just didn't get any pressure all night long.

Oh, and can I mention tackling? Or the complete lack there of. More times than not I saw the first defensive Tech player flat out bounce off a Miami back or receiver, arm tackles all night long.

Now I will say, the defense does get somewhat of a pass due to the fact they were on the field all night long. They had to be slap out worn out and no amount of subbing was going to help after awhile. So my hats off to them for fighting hard and not allowing this to become a 60 point Miami game. It was headed that way. But I will also say that I like Randy Shannon better after this game. He could have easily ran up the score.

Ok, before I move on lets look back at the last 5 games and the points that D has given up:

vs UGA + 42
vs LSU + 38
vs JaxSt + 17
vs Clemson + 27
vs Miami + 33

Granted, I'm only giving final score. Special Teams scoring, defensive scores and junk points are not calculated into this observation. But aside of the JaxSt game (Div2, or whatever the heck they call it) Am I starting to see a pattern? Does Womack have an answer?

Offense
Slow motion. I thought after watching the first drive that maybe we were ready to play this game. Marched down the field running the ball pretty well. If memory serves me correctly I think we ran 12 straight running plays on that drive but then did what we've done all too well this year, stall. 3's will not cut it, we need to start punching that ball into the endzone and not hoping for the big play to always put up the TDs. Drive down the field, eat clock, shorten the game, keep their offense off the field, tire out there defense. All things we should be masters at with an offense like this. But last night they played that hand much better.

I thought we did a decent job of spreading the ball around in the running game: Dwyer, Nesbitt, Roddy, AA. But one of the major keys to this O (and any O) is blocking. Fundamental. If you have it DVRed go back and watch the drives after the opening one. You'll hear all the yapping about how Miami is shutting down the option. When we were missing block after block. Big ones, blocks that would have put 6 on the board. I give Miami all the credit for playing a great game, but you can't help them by letting them set up camp in your backfield. Anyone else wondering where Lucas Cox was? Blocking is something he seems to do very well. Marcus Wright sure can lay some blocks.

Passing game you ask? Well, those deep bombs looked nice. But I can only think of two times BayBay was actually open when thrown to. When it was late in the game and we're down by a few TDs on 3rd and 19 you could see that Nesbitt was just putting the ball up and letting Thomas try to go grab it. So not much to say here. I would like to see the ball spread around more. Nesbitt has a habit of focusing on throwing only to BayBay only. Jackson is out there as are our BBs and ABs.

O-line? Once again, blocking. Some of our plays require a little time to develop. The o-line has to give Nesbitt and company the time make the reads and execute the plays. What I saw last night was a submarine with a screen door. I think I have to say now that these smaller linesmen are not going to work against big Div1 defensive lines. Am I wrong?

Field position was in our favor almost all night long. How many times did we start at the 40? With a short field like that why are we not putting major points up?

They've Figured Out the Option
I'm starting to see why Coach Johnson get's so irritated with this statement. We come out on Thursday night and smack them around running for over 400 yards on National TV and the media doesn't say, "look at how great Tech is playing" they say "look at how bad Miami's defense is playing." But when we come out and can't execute no one says "look at how bad Tech's offense is playing" it's always how wonderful Miami's defense is. Which somehow always means anytime we have a bad game and don't execute the offense then some how the opposing team "has figured out the option." Now once again, Miami played great. But people, the option is no different that any other offense. You still have to block, read and execute. If you don't, you can't move the ball and score points. How come I never hear a TV commentator say "they've figured out that pro-style offense?" Enough already.

Injuries
It seems like Dwyer will be ok. I don't have any details but Johnson didn't seem too worried about his shoulder in the post game press conference.

Cooper Taylor was pulled late in the game for heart palpitations. Hope he's ok.

If you go back and watch the play where Roddy lands on his head, all you can do is thank the good Lord above he wasn't seriously hurt. You want to take a positive from this game. There is a big one. Also, I've never been one to call out players on this blog. These are kids and I don't think it's right, but I will say this hit on Roddy shows how important blocking can be. Someone whiffed a block and Roddy paid for it.

Sylvester? He got hit pretty good on that kick off return I say concussion probable.

Heard Brad Sellers hurt his wrist but continued to play? Hope he's ok.

I don't expect to see Hall any time soon. Hope it's not major.

We Needed to Lose?
For some reason I've been feeling like after watching the JaxSt and Clemson game that this team needed to lose. Not just lose, but get embarrassed. Sometimes it's a game of heartbreak and sometimes you need games like this to grow. A wake up call of sorts. My hope is this game acts as a spring board to light a fire under this team for the rest of the season. Guess we'll see.