Georgia Tech Postgame
First I have to say it was really great to get back up to Clemson to see another football game. I was actually excited about football this weekend for the first time in a loooooong time. Nothing beats gameday at Clemson, just nothing.
As for the game itself, well what can I say, Paul Johnson is a great coach. I never in a million years would have predicted, even with Bowden as our head coach going into the year, that Paul Johnson would have the Tech nerds miles ahead of us in only his first year of coaching in the ACC. The score didn't really show it at the end of the game, but unfortunately, such was the case this past saturday. Tech had a short field all day, usually about 50 yards, while they absolutely shut down our rushing attack and stopped our passing enough to hold us from winning the game. The score would have been much more lopsided if Tech's QB was 100% healthy, but he was obviously still shaken up from his previous injury.
Either way, it was a good showing for Dabo Swinney. He had the team fired up and our defense did a great job in the first half against the triple option. We held Georgia Tech to their lowest rushing total of the year (I'm ignoring the Gardner-Webb game, don't know what the stats were there.) Our offense got off to a shaky start and Dabo disappointed me a little bit in running a couple of trick plays early in situations where all we needed to do was keep dinking and dunking our way down the field. Unlike Bowden, he seemed to learn from these mistakes quickly and we didn't see another one after the intercepted WR pass. Our team actually got better as the game progressed and we were arguably one holding call away from a great comeback. Our offense in the second half had some spark and it looked like they were actually coming together as an effective unit. Additionally, it was nice to see us throw the ball downfield to setup the screen pass, which I think we only ran twice.
I give Dabo an A- for this game given the shape of the team he inherited. There were some things that could have been done a little bit better, especially with Korn at the beginning of the game: less trick plays, more bootlegs. We should have seen a Michael Vick / Warrick Dunn style scheme with Willy Korn and James Davis where Korn takes the snap and steps to Davis, either faking the handoff and bootlegging out to the weak side or giving the ball to Davis, making the defense guess every time. We saw that maybe twice in Korn's short stint at QB and it was pretty effective.
Dabo's a good coach in my estimation, and I still say that we'd be in great shape with Foster as the head man/DC and Dabo as the OC. Dabo's got two weeks to get this team rested, recovered, and reeducated for the Boston College game and I think he's going to make tremendous progress. Clemson will beat BC.
As for the game itself, well what can I say, Paul Johnson is a great coach. I never in a million years would have predicted, even with Bowden as our head coach going into the year, that Paul Johnson would have the Tech nerds miles ahead of us in only his first year of coaching in the ACC. The score didn't really show it at the end of the game, but unfortunately, such was the case this past saturday. Tech had a short field all day, usually about 50 yards, while they absolutely shut down our rushing attack and stopped our passing enough to hold us from winning the game. The score would have been much more lopsided if Tech's QB was 100% healthy, but he was obviously still shaken up from his previous injury.
Either way, it was a good showing for Dabo Swinney. He had the team fired up and our defense did a great job in the first half against the triple option. We held Georgia Tech to their lowest rushing total of the year (I'm ignoring the Gardner-Webb game, don't know what the stats were there.) Our offense got off to a shaky start and Dabo disappointed me a little bit in running a couple of trick plays early in situations where all we needed to do was keep dinking and dunking our way down the field. Unlike Bowden, he seemed to learn from these mistakes quickly and we didn't see another one after the intercepted WR pass. Our team actually got better as the game progressed and we were arguably one holding call away from a great comeback. Our offense in the second half had some spark and it looked like they were actually coming together as an effective unit. Additionally, it was nice to see us throw the ball downfield to setup the screen pass, which I think we only ran twice.
I give Dabo an A- for this game given the shape of the team he inherited. There were some things that could have been done a little bit better, especially with Korn at the beginning of the game: less trick plays, more bootlegs. We should have seen a Michael Vick / Warrick Dunn style scheme with Willy Korn and James Davis where Korn takes the snap and steps to Davis, either faking the handoff and bootlegging out to the weak side or giving the ball to Davis, making the defense guess every time. We saw that maybe twice in Korn's short stint at QB and it was pretty effective.
Dabo's a good coach in my estimation, and I still say that we'd be in great shape with Foster as the head man/DC and Dabo as the OC. Dabo's got two weeks to get this team rested, recovered, and reeducated for the Boston College game and I think he's going to make tremendous progress. Clemson will beat BC.
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