Saturday, September 15th
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Led by masterminds Paul Johnson and Al Groh, Georgia Tech's gimmicky offense and NFL-styled defense should no longer be new to college football fans. Both systems have taken root for the ACC Coastal team and have led to mixed results in recent years. In 2009, they won the conference championship (though it was later vacated due to being dirty cheating scumbags), only to follow it up with Johnson's only losing record at GT in 2010. Last year, the Jackets beat the hell out of Clemson, but lost in a big way to Miami - go figure. Basically, they run a "flexbone" option based on deception and persistence. Prepared teams are able to handle them, but others can fall behind quickly and seemingly never get the ball back.The Yellow Jackets return their most recent starting running-back-playing-quarterback, Tevin Washington, as well as A/B backs Orwin Smith and David Sims. However, not a single wideout with a catch last year returns, which would be a big issue if the Jackets ever attempted to throw the ball. Truly though, that is the issue, because when Johnson's teams have been forced to throw the ball, they've been horrid. While the flexbone is difficult to stop consistently, if you're able to, forcing Tech to throw usually leads to disastrous results for their offense. The outlook should look similar this year, barring a shakeup at QB, for which there is certainly potential. Some teams will be able to handle the option, but most won't do it well enough.
On defense, Al Groh's 3-4 scheme is entering its third year on the team. By this point, the players should be well versed in the system and the majority will have been recruited specifically for such. Does this mean it will work? Last year's defense was slightly better than the prior year's but it still wasn't very good. Rolling with 3 defensive linemen requires that they be strong and disruptive enough to not get thrown around by opposing OLines - and that hasn't been the case for the Jackets. The unique defensive scheme is good enough to usually win, but that's due largely to the successful offense.
Be sure to catch their season-opening game against the Hokies over Labor Day weekend, as it will probably play a large role in determining who wins the Coastal, as well as show us how much of a contender this year's Rambling Wreck is. Really, if they hold steady on offense and show a little improvement on defense, they should challenge for the ACC - but frankly, I never look at this team and see anything impressive. I think the option is getting more and more familiar to conference foes and their defensive coordinators. I think enough teams will shut it down enough times to keep the Jackets at 6-8 wins for the near future. Lord knows I'm not as down on the 3-4 as Kendall, but I do agree that it takes a monumental stroke of preparation, talent, and luck to pull off in college. That all being said, I'd be pretty surprised in the Hoos pulled it off down in Atlanta.
Early Prediction: Jackets 31 Hoos 21
Regarding the importance of the passing game, check GT's history with and without a dominant receiver.
ReplyDeleteWhen they have one (Thomas in 2008-09 and Hill 2011), they do very, very well. When Johnson isn't able to stretch out the defense, you see a lot of cover-1 and even some cover-0 without much risk. That killed GT in 2010 (along with having Groh at DC, of course) and, like you said, they don't have any receivers who caught a ball last year. Plus, they lost Peoples and Jones.
My prediction is that GT will struggle this year and will finish no better than 3rd in the Coastal.
Good stuff Pierce.
ReplyDeleteI'm not anti 3-4 defense, I just think that outside of the talent a team like Alabama can put on the field, what you;re really running is a 5-2 at the college level. That's what Al Groh ran at UVA, essentially. And with so many college teams running the spread, a 5-2 gets cut to pieces unless those two middle linebackers (and the safeties) are really good.
We never quite had that at UVA under Groh, and thus our defense was decent at times but never really won games for us on its own, like the defense of - say - Virginia Tech can do from time to time.
GT is no different than UVA, and the 3-4 will eventually fail there, too.
As for the flexbone... I like it a lot, but you're 100% correct that it's strictly a "play from ahead" offense. The Wreck would be better served by a defensive coordinator who ran an attacking scheme as opposed to the bend-don't-break D that Groh will give them.
This offensive and defensive pairing is not a good fit, and as such, the ceiling is low for GT, capping out at 8 or 9 wins.