Our Post Game Reactions
Evan: Immediately after the game, my thoughts were, “Oh damn, I’m really hungry. I guess my nerves covered that up during the game.” But seriously, this game was a capsule of mediocrity for the most part. Tech’s defense was outstanding in the first half. USA couldn’t do anything to move the ball, mostly because Jaylon Ferguson was setting up a tea party in their backfield. In the second half, the Jaguars came out with the misdirection look, and I don’t think Tech was very prepared for that. Defensively, we went back to basics to try to stop this new play style, and we sort of did, but not as well as we had in the first half.
The passing offense was an abomination. J’Mar looked rattled all night. We had receivers open on plays that weren’t getting found, receivers that weren’t open on plays that also weren’t getting found. J’Mar needs to play better. I still believe that he can. After all, Higgins’ first start in 2016 was against a far inferior defense and he threw several picks in that game, too. The rushing offense was a different story. Dancy is the real deal, and Tucker looked very good as well. Can’t wait to see this develop further in the season.
The Special Teams don’t even deserve to be talked about. At least they didn’t give up two onside kicks? At least we only had one 20 yard punt? Yikes. Get this fixed pls, Skip.
Josh: Boy. That was not great and I am now very nervous about the rest of the season.
Nathan: I’m not feeling as doom-and-gloom as most Tech fans. Yeah, J’Mar wasn’t good (and I know that’s an understatement), but South Alabama was the best secondary Tech will face outside of an SEC stadium [citation needed]. The defense looked every bit as good as it did last year when it could catch its breath.
Did Tech Die?
Evan: I’ll just repost my tweet for this one:
Josh: Tech did not die, although it seemed like we were staring down the barrel of a loaded gun there for a second.
Nathan: Nope. Tech was favored by seven and won by four. Yeah, it’s not what we were hoping for, but we still get to do that goofy Jameis Winston “W” dance.
Player of the Game
Evan: Cornerback Island. Seriously, Amik Robertson and L’Jarius Sneed are very good. I don’t know the exact stats on how much each was thrown at on Saturday, but it wasn’t a lot. Several times throughout the game, Amik was covering USA’s best offensive player (Jamarius Way). But he wasn’t just covering him. He was imploring the QB to throw it to Way. Once before a third down, Amik spent the pre-snap yelling to the QB and gesturing to Way, trying to get him to throw it. And it’s not just that these two don’t get thrown at a lot, it’s that when the QB does decide to throw it their way, they make plays. Sneed had one pass break-up and Amik had a pick (and would’ve had another if Way hadn’t interfered with him).
Josh: Dancy without a doubt. He looked fantastic out there and had the stats to back it up.
Nathan: Jaylon Ferguson. He didn’t have the most Bulldog tackles. He only registered half a sack. But his presence was definitely felt by the Jaguar o-line.
Tech Record Predictor
Using MasseyRatings, here are the odds for the rest of the season:
Contest Recap
The gtpdd Contest started off in mid-season form. In our first installment of 2018, we had 39 unique entrants, our most ever! We had scores ranging from a lowly 5 points all the way up to 20 points (!!) this week. Our big winner is Odizzy, who will be receiving a unique gtpdd Contest sticker for his heroics. As always, you can see how you did and how you fare over at the Standings page. Here’s a quick overview of the questions and answers from this week (for a more detailed look and to see how you fared individually, go to the google spreadsheet for week 1):
Questions 1 & 2: Who will win, and by how much?
All 39 entrants picked Tech to win, and although they tried not to win, we all got it right!
As for question two, most people thought that Tech would win by more than 4 points. Only one person had the foresight to get it exactly right: Taylor Y. Contest participants scored an average of 1.2 points on this one, and the average margin of victory predicted was 15.8 points in favor of Tech.
Question 3: Which team will score first in the second quarter?
The correct answer was Tech. Jaqwis Dancy scored on a run at 13:18 remaining in the 2nd. 29 people got this one right and picked up 2 points.
Question 4: How many yards will J’Mar account for in the game?
J’Mar accounted for 217 yards in the game (pls J’Mar pls). We had three players score full points (for coming within 10 yards of J’Mar’s actual total): Odizzy (220), Wild Card (222), colton (215).
Question 5: How many incompletions will all QBs throw combined?
Quarterbacks in the game went 30 for 52, meaning that they threw 22 incompletions. No one hit that exact number, but several players got full points for being close enough: Contest Czar (hey that’s me!), Justin Brazzel, Seeker, Phillip J Robertson, Dom Brown, Germdawg, and Daniel Adams.
Question 6: Will Tech outgain USA by more than 100 yards?
This one was a multiple choice question. The bottom line is that Tech outgunned USA 440 to 308 in the game, so if you chose “Tech will outgain USA by 100+ yards,” you were right! Good news, 82% of you did!
Bonus: Take the jersey number of each Bulldog that scores in the game and multiply it by the number of points he scores. Now add all of those numbers together and convert the sum to Morse Code. Are there more dots or dashes in the number?
If you’re new to the contest, you were probably like…. “okay wtf???” at this question. My goal with these is to come up with absolutely ludicrous ways to use statistics. It’ll always be a multiple choice question that you’re probably better off not thinking about too much. But anyway, here’s this week’s answer:
- Dancy (#23) was responsible for 12 points: 12×23=276
- Holly (#41) was responsible for 6 points: 6×41=246
- Hardy (#6) was responsible for 6 points: 6×6=36
- Hale (#34) was responsible for 6 points: 6×34=204
- Total of jersey x points math: 762
- In morse code, 762 is –… -…. ..—
- 9 dots, 6 dashes.