Post Game Reactions
Evan: Although the score doesn’t show it, Saturday night’s win over the Jaguars was interesting for several reasons. First and foremost: J’Mar can look good. Sure it was against an inferior opponent. But he looked fantastic slinging the ball around against Southern. Secondly, Tech’s defense… needs some work. Again, the Jaguars are not the best opponent Tech will face. In fact, they should be the worst… well, never mind, maybe UTEP is the worst. But anyway, the defense seemed to have some trouble stopping the Jaguars. They allowed QB John Lampley to establish some rhythm and he ended up going 17/24 for 174 yards. For all the talk about our stud DBs, L’Jarius Sneed was taken advantage of a few times. All in all, the defense held Southern to under 300 yards, but I was hoping for/expecting even more dominance from this unit.
Nathan: A lot of people saw this game as a good chance for J’Mar to get back on track, and he definitely did. What has worried me is the lack of improvement in particular aspects of special teams. Bailey Hale scored every time he attempted a field goal or extra point, ɹǝʎp uɐʌɐp averaged ten yards more a punt, but it says something when a fair catch on a kickoff is probably the best return Tech has had all season long. Some of that is on the returners, but most of it is on the blocking.
Josh: So, Tech won big and J’Mar had a great stat line (even though I was talking trash about some of his throws). There were a few things that were notable: 1) We threw the ball a whole lot. The first drive was comprised entirely of passes outside of the 2 goal line runs to score. The final drive chart was 42-33 in favor of passing, but it felt like a whole lot more passing plays were called. 2) I am probably too critical of J’Mar. I felt like he was staring down his receivers on every passing down and throwing way too hard on short passes. Buuuuuuut this says otherwise:
3) Defense was weirdly shaky at some points. Yes, Ferg murdered a few men and Amik was p much shutting down any receiver he was on, but it felt like we kept getting beat on the weirdest plays in the secondary. It just feels like we should be much better against a team like Southern.
Did Tech Die?
Evan: The only thing that died Saturday night was the specter of “We want Westin!” coming from the crowd.
Nathan: Tech did not die, but judging by how loud Southern’s band came over the radio broadcast, Tech may now be deaf.
Daniel A: No, but Josh’s trashing of J’Mar’s throwing ability was deservedly roasted.
Josh: Tech did indeed, not die.
Player of the Game
Evan: I’m writing this first, so I’m going to go ahead and claim J’Mar. The dude was lights out. I love that Skip’s game plan was essentially: Let’s let J’Mar show what he can do. In the first half, Tech ran 32 pass plays and 12 run plays by my count. Coach Holtz really wanted to get J’Mar’s confidence boosted, and I think that really showed. That pass to Hardy was MONEY. Seriously. Watch this play and tell me J’Mar “doesn’t have it.”:
It's a bird!
It's a plane!
It's Hardy for 50! pic.twitter.com/Sp5jkq1Z8s— LA Tech Football 🏈 (@LATechFB) September 9, 2018
Nathan: What a perfect transition to my player of the game: Adrian Hardy. Hardy showed a lot of promise last year, but has really found his game in 2018. He was J’Mar’s favorite target Saturday night, with six receptions on eleven targets. Hardy led the Bulldogs receiving corps with 111 yards, a career high. His talent was put on display by this play that I believe I am showing you for the first time:
It's a bird!
It's a plane!
It's Hardy for 50! pic.twitter.com/Sp5jkq1Z8s— LA Tech Football 🏈 (@LATechFB) September 9, 2018
Daniel A: Jacqwiz Dancy didn’t carry the ball often (only 5 carries) but he made an impact with some big runs and two touchdowns.
Josh: Well, I mean, J’Mar obvi. Who else could prove me wrong in such a dominating fashion?
Tech Record Predictor
Contest Recap
The second week of the gtpdd Contest has come and gone. This week we had 38 players, including five newcomers. Week two saw three players tie for first with 17 points (invoking our first sticker-winner tiebreaker!). Hayden Hicks, Stevyti, and Mike were our big winners this week. Stay tuned to find out who the winner is! Or you could go straight to the Standings Page and skip all of this nonsense. As for the overall standings, the top four is starting to take shape after two weeks:
- JC (31 points)
- Hayden Hicks (30 points)
- Stevyti (29 points)
- Odizzy (29 points)
Questions 1 and 2: Who will win, by how much?
Of the 38 players to enter, only one didn’t pick Tech to win (and I know for a fact that one was a trolling answer). So 37 people got 2 points for picking Tech. On average, contest participants thought that Tech would win by 27 points. Only two players scored in the five point range for this one (for coming within 1 point of Tech’s actual margin of 37 points): Hayden Hicks and Dom Brown. Dom actually picked Tech to win by exactly 37, so kudos on that!
Question 3: What will happen on the opening kickoff of the second half?
Answer: Southern’s return man gained exactly 25 yards. So if you picked “A return of 25 yards or less,” you were correct!
Question 4: How many total tackles will Tech defensive linemen have in the game?
Answer: Tech’s D-linemen had 29 tackles in the game. Here’s a list of them: Bradford (7), Turner (4), Baker (4), Ydarraga (4), Ferguson (3), Davenport (3), Adeola (2), Garner (2). Only 12 people picked up any points here. It seems that most of us thought the defensive line would have a lower percentage of the total tackles in the game. No one got it right on the nose (29), but two people were within that magical “within 1” window: Germdawg and Mikey Spikey. Shouts out to them!
Question 5: What will the average punt be in the game?
Answer: The average punt on Saturday was 47.7 yards. Somehow, it seems Tech figured out how to punt between the USA and Southern games. 45% of players scored at least something on this question. Three players got really close to getting it exactly right: JC (47.8), TCain (46.7), and Logan J (47.8).
Question 6: True or False: Tech will score more points in one quarter than Southern scores in the entire game.
Answer: True. Tech scored 21 points in the opening quarter, and Southern only put up 17 in the game. 74% predicted this one correctly and picked up two points.
Bonus: If you were to add together the following, which number would be higher? Louisiana Tech’s 6 year graduation rate + Louisiana Tech’s CONVERTED 3rd down percentage in the game OR Southern University’s 6 year graduation rate + Southern’s FAILED 3rd down percentage in the game?
Answer: Okay. So this one could’ve actually been close. I was very proud of this question, but it didn’t turn out like I was hoping. So here’s how this shakes out: Tech’s 6 year graduation rate is 53.6%; Southern’s is 20%. Tech’s third down success rate was 61.5%; Southern’s third down failure rate was 53%. Add those up, and you get 115.1 for Tech and 73 for Southern. 74% got this one right. See, I had hoped that maybe Tech’s defense would hold Southern on third down a bit more, thus making this one more interesting. Oh well!
Tiebreaker: Predict the total offensive yards gained in the game.
So as previously mentioned, we had three players tie with 17 points. They all get their 17, but I’ve only got one sticker per week to mail out. So who gets it? Tech and Southern racked up 899 yards. Here’s what our three fearless champions predicted:
- Mike (who’s a newcomer!): 685
- Stevyti: 723
- Hayden Hicks: 777
So that settles it, Hayden is the winner of Week Two!
As you all know, Tech is now on bye week, so there won’t be a new Contest this week. Check next Wednesday at 11:00 AM for the LSU Contest!