Post Game Reactions
Evan: There it is! That’s the offensive performance we’ve been waiting on! Tech put up 275 yards on the ground and another 290 through the air. The defense left a lot to be desired for 3 quarters, but when it mattered, they got stops. I like to think we had a little bit to do with that:
After I tweeted that from our account, the defense did some stuff: two punts, an INT, and a garbage time TD drive that didn’t end up mattering thanks to Amik’s onside kick return TD.
Josh: Well uh, that was certainly closer than I wanted it to be. The defense was the most frustrating thing to watch Friday night and that’s something I didn’t expect after the last two games. It just seemed like every time we started to pull away, the defense let FIU back into the game with a big play given up.
Nathan: I’m not saying Tech was lucky to win this game, but it definitely helped. If the goal line stop went the other way, this could have been a completely different ballgame.
Daniel S: This game was chippy but I think was largely in part to the refs deciding to let us play it out and not call too many penalties. The offense looked phenomenal for the most part, especially in the run game. The biggest concern for me moving forward is the defense. I have said it before, I’ll say it again: the bend but don’t break mentality only works if you don’t break.
Did Tech Die?
Evan: Noooope. Tech is alive and kicking!
Daniel A: Tech did not, and fortunately for South Florida’s ecosystem, panthers were removed from the critically endangered list in 2008. Everyone wins.
Josh: Tech is very much alive.
Nathan: No, but I may have if Tech hadn’t recovered that onside kick
Daniel S: *Looks at Charts* NAH
Player of the Game
Evan: Since I’m the one that puts this document together every week, I get the liberty of picking my player of the game first. I’m going with Bailey Hale, who went 5 for 5 on field goals and 4 for 4 on PATs. The dude put up 19 points by himself! That’s more than any other player in the game, even though we had an RB score three touchdowns. Dang.
Josh: Since Evan already mentioned Bailey Hale (*insert MJ shrug gif here*) I’m going to give it to Justin Henderson. The young man had a great day on the ground and gave Tech some much needed big plays and averaged 9.4 yards per carry!
Nathan: The hand of James Jackson. Sure, Jackson played a good game. But I want to specifically shout-out his hand for forcing that goal line fumble.
Daniel S: This man is on here every week but, Connor Taylor is so much fun to watch.
Record Predictor
Contest Recap
This week we had 46 players return to take on the challenge of predicting Tech’s matchup with FIU. As a group, we did a lot better on Friday night. The average score was 13.8, way up from the last two weeks where we struggled to put up double digit scores.
This week’s winner was ALMOST me for the first time (that’s right, I write the damn questions and I’ve never even won a week)… but Caleb Basinger beat me out by one point, finishing with 21. What on earth is in the Basinger family’s Wheaties in the morning? They’ve dominated the contest so far, winning three out of four contests! They’re also numbers 1 thru 3 in the contest!
Here’s your current top ten:
- 1) Brian Basinger (63)
- 2) Carson Basinger, Caleb Basinger (59)
- 4) Chase P, Taylor Young (57)
- 6) Dawgbytes (56)
- 7) Jake Altman (54)
- 8) SteveyTI (53)
- 9) VADawg (52)
- 10) Colby Ashley, Joey Smith, Ghenghis Khan-test (50)
As a reminder, I’ll be dropping the lowest score from everyone’s contest thus far before the bowl game (which Tech should be reaching?) so that everyone will know where they stand going in to the final week.
As always, hit up the Standings Page to check your scores and see where you stand. Please let me know ASAP if you notice anything wrong with the scoring!
Questions 1&2: Who wins, and by how much?
Answer: Tech won, by 12!
Results: Everyone picked Tech to win. Only 5 people picked Tech to win by either 11 or 13, but no one picked 12 outright. Overall, three players didn’t score points. One because they picked Tech to win by one point, and two because they picked Tech to win by 28 and 31, respectively.
Question 3: What will the jersey number of the first player to score be?
Answer: Bailey Hale kicked a field goal to start things off, and his jersey number is 9.
Results: 80% of you said “A Number Lower than 50” and earned two points here.
Question 4: How many receiving yards will all non-Wide Receivers have in the game?
Answer: Tech’s Jaqwis Dancy caught 23 yards worth of passes, and FIU’s Jones and Maxwell added 43 yards worth. That’s a total of 66.
Results: 7 players got full points by guessing between 61 and 71 yards here. 38 players got close enough to at least pick up some points.
Question 5: Predict the average yards per punt for Tech in the game.
Answer: Brady Farlow punted for an average of 37.5 yards per punt in the game.
Results: If you had just gone with what Nathan and I said on the gtpdd Podcast, (38 yards) you would have scored five points on this one. Josh was a little off, so if you listened to him you scored two points. Sorry Josh. As it stands, five players got within a half a yard and scored full points. Two players: #19 MachoManOhYeah and #18 Brent Newton, got it exactly right at 37.5!
Question 6: True or False
- A Tech RB will break one longer than 20 yards TRUE
- Tech QBs will have a higher completion rate than FIU’s FALSE
- There will be no missed kicks in the game FALSE
- No one born in Louisiana will score a Touchdown FALSE
Results: So, in order: Henderson had a 29 yarder for a TD, J’Mar ended the night at 27/41, while Morgan ended the night at 29/41 (shoutout to them for not making me do math), FIU’s kicker shanked one, and all the players that scored were born in…. Florida (except for Amik, who’s from Thibodaux! So the answer was FALSE) 84% got 6a right, 11% got 6b right, 72% got 6c right, and 89% got 6d right. Only one player, #27 maxhatter, got them all!
Bonus: Bronze statues.
Answer: FIU’s statue would be more complete.
Results: So for this one, there were two prongs, but basically only one prong mattered in the end. First, each offense needed to earn enough bronze in the first half to build a complete statue of their QB. James Morgan weighs 213 lbs, and J’Mar Smith weighs 218 lbs. So each team needed to have at least that many yards to be able to make a complete statue in the second half. They did, as Tech had 241 yards and FIU had 247.
Now comes the second prong, opponent’s time of possession. Tech completely dominated the ToP in the second half, holding on to the ball for three drives longer than 4 minutes, including one that went for 7:10. FIU, on the other hand, only held the ball for 9:41 TOTAL in the second half. So this one didn’t even end up close, as FIU’s offense had much more time (1214 seconds) to work on their statue. In the end, FIU’s statue would be 56% done, while Tech’s would only be 26% done.