Post Game Reactions
Evan: Look. We didn’t know if Texas was going to be the actual #10 team in the nation. We weren’t sure how they’d look with only 8 returning starters combined. We found out on Saturday that whatever Texas is this year, it’s a lot better than Tech. They played like a top ten team, and we did not. It wasn’t a very competitive game, and that’s a bummer. But there were still some positives to take away from the shellacking. Tech’s offense, although it failed to score, moved the ball at least moderately successfully against a good defense. Although many may disagree, I thought J’Mar looked good outside of a couple times Texas pass rushers were in his face. He did show some escapability early in the game, too. There were also a lot of negatives: the running game has GOT to be better when we start getting into conference play. The pass rush was basically nonexistent even though Texas had three brand spanking new Offensive Linemen. Bailey Hale…..??? So while I’m not happy about the game or Tech’s performance, I’m not feeling bad about my prediction that Tech will go 9-3 this season.
Nathan: So that sucked. We can talk about all the positives in a bit, but that really sucked. It felt like 2014 at Oklahoma all over again, but this time we I actually expected to be able to compete. But also, just like in 2014, I’ll take a curb-stomping opening loss in exchange for another chance to play in the C-USA Championship.
Josh: That was awful. To me, there was almost nothing good to take away from that game outside of two things: 1) Texas is a great football team and 2) Texas is the best team we’ll play all year. Regardless, I was not impressed by how Tech played at all. A whole lot of things concern me, but nothing is more apparent than the lack of a run game. Either we couldn’t get our offensive line to create holes and keep them open, or the backs themselves aren’t what they need to be. Yes, J’Mar put up decent stats, but none of that really matters when we aren’t finishing drives and making the clutch throws when we need them. That being said, he was fine, but I want better decisions from him as the season progresses. Defensively… yikes. The defensive line just let them run at will and could not get to Ehlinger at all (also due to him being a great QB). The secondary played okay, but there were a lot of times when a Texas receiver would be open with no Tech player within 5 yards of him. That needs to get fixed quickly. And don’t even get me started on the kicking game. Just go for it on 4th if we’re in FG range.
Daniel S: While that was incredibly hard to watch, there is no reason to panic. The only way we had a shot to begin with was based on our hopes that Texas would not actually be a top 10 team. As it turns out we were wrong and Texas is in fact deserving of their placement at the moment. From the beginning of the game it never felt like Tech was truly in it as we were just being dominated in every aspect of the game. Overall I would say that the biggest bright spot was through the air and on screen plays. At times we were moving the ball pretty well, even though we were not coming away with any points. The run game just couldn’t get going at any point leaving us to rely heavily on J’Mar. Defensively we seemed to take a bend but don’t break mentality, but more often than not we did both of those things. Special teams leave me the most worried. All in all I knew deep down that we would lose this game, but on the bright side we at least have a baseline for what we need to do going forward.
Did Tech Die?
Evan: Yep. At no point in this game did I feel like Tech was truly “in” it. By the middle of the second quarter, I was already in “well let’s just see how they handle this” mode, not in “pls tech don’t die” mode.
Nathan: *shakes magic eight ball* “Signs point to yes”
Josh: Tech was dead on arrival.
Daniel S: You can’t die if you were never alive.
Player of the Game
Evan: I’m giving the honor to Sophomore wideout Griffin Hebert. Coming into the season, I was so pumped to see Hardy, Malik Stanley, and Isaiah Graham in action. Those three had a pretty okay night, but I was more impressed with Tech’s other receivers. Smoke Harris and Cee Jay Powell both had great nights, too. But I’m giving it to Hebert because he really impressed me with his 5 catches for 50 yards and a touchdown in his first meaningful game action.
Nathan: Connor Taylor. The senior linebacker played 12 games for the Bulldogs last year, and recorded 0 sacks and 0 forced fumbles all season. He had one of each Saturday night. In a game with a lot of bad defense, Connor Taylor was a bright spot in a sea of mediocrity.
Josh: James Jackson. 8 solo tackles is good and what he needs to be doing.
Daniel S: On the Texas side of the ball Sam Ehlinger proved that he is in fact THAT GOOD. For Tech I will give some love to CJ Powell. He had 6 receptions for 56 years and a long of 19.
Tech Record Predictor
Contest Recap
The gtpdd Contest is back! This week, we had 58 players, which I believe is a contest record. Keep coming back, y’all!
On average, players scored 11 points this week, with the median score being…. also 11. Since we don’t have much to talk about in terms of trends, let’s jump right in.
The big winner this week was Carson, who scored 22 points. Yeeeeeeeeep. Twenty two points. Wow! He got points on every single question, and his worst showing was when he only got three of the five possible points on the RB yards per carry question.
Here’s the top 10 after week one:
- #1 Carson (22)
- #2 Brian Basinger (18)
- #3 SteveyTI (17)
- #4 Chase P, Joseph Armoney, Taylor Young (16)
- #7 MachoManOhYeah, DawgBytes, Caleb Basinger, Cameron Dodd, Joey Smith (15)
If you’re not in the top 10 now, up your game! For now, let’s review the questions. Also, be sure to listen to the gtpdd Podcast, where we’ll preview one of the questions for next week against Grambling.
As usual, head over to the Standings Page to see where you’re ranked and how you did in week one.
Questions 1&2: Who wins, how much?
Answer: Texas, by 31. For those new here, you have to get within a certain range to score points on this question. AND you have to get the winner right in question 1 to score points on question 2. (Sorry two players that said Tech would win by 35 and 38, respectively, no points for you!).
Results: 30 of the 58 players said Texas would win, picking up two points each. Despite that, only 4 of those 30 were pessimistic enough about Tech’s chances to score points on #2. One player got the answer exactly right: #1 Carson, so he picked up 5 points.
Question 3: What will happen on the first offensive play of the second half?
Answer: J’Mar Smith completed a 12 yard pass to Cee Jay Powell on the first play of the third quarter.
Results: Only 31% of players thought the second half would open with a pass play. Those who did picked up two points.
Question 4: Predict the average Yards Per Carry of all Tech RBs in the game.
Answer: Tech’s Running Backs (Tucker, Dancy, Henderson, and Marcus) recorded 62 yards on 19 carries, for a total YPC of 3.3.
Results: This question was a point-scorer. Only 9 of the 58 players failed to score any points. And 8 of those 9 clearly didn’t read the question… Shoutout to the player that answered “124” on an average yards per carry question. Anyway, 18 players (!!!) got 5 points by being within 0.5 yards of the correct answer. Funnily enough, none of those 18 players got it right on the nose, though. 22 more got 4 points for being within a yard. I may have to recalibrate the scale for average yards questions.
Question 5: How many incompletions will all players combine to throw in the game?
Answer: J’Mar threw 17, Westin Elliott added 2, Ehlinger threw 10, and Longhorn backup Thompson threw 2. That’s a total of 31.
Results: On the gtpdd Podcast, we discussed how 25 would probably be the smart bet (as J’Mar and Ehlinger combined averaged 25 last year). The fact that the Dogs couldn’t do anything on the ground last night certainly added a couple to J’Mar’s total. Six players got within three and picked up five points. #1 Carson got it exactly right. I’m pretty sure he’s a time traveller. Shouldn’t you be using your time traveling powers for something more important than this?
Question 6: Which of the following will be true?
Answer:
- Louisiana Tech will score first FALSE
- At any point in the game, Tech will have a 40% or higher chance to win FALSE
- No player on either team will rush for 100 yards or more TRUE
- Texas will miss a kick TRUE
Results: To pick up 4 points on this, you had to check the boxes on only the last two choices. Only three players did that: #4 Taylor Young, #7 Joey Smith, and Edward Cossett. (Side note: these are really hard for me to grade out so I’m probably gonna change the format on next week’s contest a little bit.)
Bonus: Will J’Mar or Ehlinger be in the “Alright, alright, alright” zone (middle third) of all QBs in the nation after Saturday’s action is complete?
Answer: Sam Ehlinger posted a QBR of 90.7, good for 18th in the country. J’Mar, on the other hand, finished with a QBR of 60.9, good for 44th in the country. After Saturday’s action was complete, there were 124 QBs with enough stats to qualify for ESPN’s rankings. That means that the top third cut off with QB #42. J’Mar was #44, so he’s the second best QB in the “Alright, alright, alright” zone.
Results: 56!!!!!!!!!!!!!! players said that either J’Mar or Sam would be in the middle third. Damn. If J’Mar had completed a couple more throws (particularly the wide open throw to Powell in the end zone…) he probably would’ve been in the top third. But he wasn’t, so 56 players got two points.