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More Post-Texas Thoughts

4O9to8O6Nback

"I retire from podcasting"- @T. Beadles
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Dec 30, 2015
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-- How is Sark's press conference not on the interwebs anywhere yet? Cowards.


-- That was a bizarre first half. It could've got out of hand for us, but our offense had two ridiculously long and sustained drives, each of which involved converting 3rd & 20+ situations. Those two drives were 31 plays, 159 yards, 14 points and almost 13 minutes in possession.

Those drives kept our defense off the field when they were absolutely gashing us. Those drives also paved the way to Tech's defense only playing 63 snaps in an OT game. That allowed us to really keep a tight rotation -- only about 10-11 guys were major contributors. And our secondary essentially played the entire game.


-- In the first half, UT's runningbacks generated 177 yards on just 16 touches with 2 TDs. We only stopped them once in the half, and it was on a pretty bad decision by Hudson Card. The second half was an entirely different story. I count 55 total yards for UT's backs on 15 touches, and that includes a 40-yard TD run.

UT has some "real dudes" on offense, but not enough to jack with us. When Xavier Worthy went down with an injury, we could focus more attention on their running game, and they didn't have the WRs, OL, or QB to make us pay for that extra attention.

Jordan Whittington, who was getting loose in the first half, had 0 catches in the second half. And that's with Worthy out and UT's running game stymied. Whatever they were trying to do, we were stopping.

-- I didn't notice Dadrian Taylor much in the game, and that's a good thing. He was only thrown at once and didn't allow a reception. All of Tech's major contributors (except Tyree and Bradford) were credited with a missed tackle. Dadrian didn't miss any.


-- Muddy Waters played over half his snaps inside the box. We use him in so many ways. Rushing the passer. Stopping the run in short-yardage scenarios. Blowing up horizontal quick game stuff. Being the deepest DB on the field in pass coverage. If there's something a player can do on defense, Muddy does it. He was the highest graded PFF guy when you consider how many snaps he played v some of the DL that technically graded out higher.


-- My man Jayden York was in the game in some huge moments.


-- Did Loic get hurt? I didn't even notice that he only played 5 snaps. Wonder what's up with that.


-- PFF hates our OL but screw 'em. It shows that we allowed over 30 pressures, which is 20 more than last week and the same amount as the UH game. I bet my rewatch will confirm that our issues offensively aren't necessarily allowing pressures -- it's that millisecond extra we need to get a play off. Whether it's Donovan making a decision quicker, our WR getting open a half-second quicker, or the OL holding up just a little bit longer... we "got right" Saturday afternoon with our protections. I don't care what PFF says.


-- We threw a lot of short, underneath passes. Donovan's ADOT (how far the pass travels in the air per target) was the shortest of his young career. Throwing deep balls just may not be in the cards for this offense for a number of reasons personnel wise.

I will say that I got frustrated with Donovan's deep throw to Loic. Thought it was in the air way too long and should've been a big play. However, we did complete our first pass of the year v. an FBS team that was 20 or more yards downfield. It wasn't a great read or anything (UT had jumped offsides), but Trey Cleveland made a heck of a catch over two UT defenders.

-- Tech gained 148 yards on 38 carries, and it was yeoman's work. Wasn't easy. Wasn't pretty. Our RBs and QB had to truckstick people to fall for huge yards in 3rd/4th down situations. But our running game was effective enough on Saturday.

We even hit a couple explosive ones (including one to ice the game). I wonder the last time Tech did not allow more runs of 10+ yards against UT? I bet it's been a long, long time. Both teams had 4 on Saturday.


-- We force fed the ball to Myles Price. Almost 30% of Donovan's pass attempts were thrown his way, nearly all of them within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage. Kittley eased up the reads and throws for Donovan in this game. McGuire praised Kittley for "spreading UT out in early downs (with 5 wide stuff)".... which gave Donovan a "clearer picture."


-- About 80% of our passes were thrown to slot WRs, RBs, or TEs. It was a much, much higher ratio than what we've seen to date. It certainly seems like Kittley made some adjustments to help Donovan out this game and it worked. Donovan's going to keep getting better, too.


-- Tech is 3-1 (1-0). We have a winnable but very tough game next Saturday in Manhattan. My voice is shot. I'm still pumped about that one and, due to conference realignment, probably will be for a long, long time. Tech football is exorcising some serious demons these last 7 games or so. I would not want to play us. No sir.
 
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