The Good
Great D by the Yellow Jackets. A great example of individuals working as a team to stop the ACC's (formerly) second-best passing attack. Duke QB Thaddeus Lewis had little time all game to work under the heavy GT pressure.
The GT offense put on a show in the second half yesterday as well. 24 points (shoulda been 31 if they had called R.B.'s TD a catch) scored. Clearly CPJ made some adjustments in the locker room, and they paid off well.
Also, we were most likely one fumble and one missed TD call away from putting up 41 points. Not bad at all.
The Not-so-good
Shaw and Dwyer fumbled the exchange on a simple dive play midway through the first quarter on the Yellow Jacket's first drive. This may have not been such a big deal had it not been at the Blue Devils' 8-yard line. We can't pass up opportunities like that against the remaining teams in our schedule and expect to win.
If my memory serves me correctly, we had two false starts on 4th down tries yesterday. Penalties are never a good thing, but are especially killer on 4th down attempts.
Offensively, the first half was pretty much a nightmare. Three points and a costly fumble in the first quarter. Granted we had the lead, but with this offense 3-0 at half is underachieving.
Maybe this is nitpicking, but it appears we're still having a few problems on special teams. We can't get the punt return game going at all, though that may be a product of good punting and punt coverage by Duke.
Airing it out, the flip side
Duke came in the better passing team, and we came in 114th (out of 119) in the nation in passing ypg (~95). However when the final whistle blew, we had more passing yards (230) than rushing yards (224). Goes to show you that if you place too much effort on stopping the run, we can beat you through the air. Great game plan by CPJ.
QB Controversy?
True freshman Jaybo Shaw played very well in yesterday's win, building on a great performance two weeks earlier against Miss. State. Jaybo turned the ball over less than Nesbitt (granted, he's also played less). So does this now mean that Shaw is CPJ's man at QB? I don't think so. Nesbitt's still the better QB in terms of pure talent. There is a lot to be said for the way Jaybo has executed our offense, but it's not like he's played road games against Oklahoma and LSU. Nebsitt has that road experience and is great at making plays when the original play breaks down. I just hope his hamstring will continue to get better this week and that he will be able to get some quality snaps in against Gardner-Webb in preparation for Clemson in two weeks.
Player of the Game
Gotta go to B-Back Jonathan Dwyer. Had a career-high in rushing yards (159) and had a few big runs despite Duke's aggressive play at the LOS. More importantly, his running set up all the pass plays to Thomas (career-high 230 yds on 9 receptions, including an 88-yard TD) and set up all the toss sweeps to Roddy Jones (though they weren't as successful as some may have liked; he had 26 yds on 10 carries). He continues to be the workhorse for this offense and does a great job at running north and south. Honestly, why is this guy not getting more Heisman consideration?
Game ball goes to...
...the Georgia Tech defense. Lost in all the talk about the installment and resultant success of Paul Johnson's offense is the effective play of the defense. They came out with a chip on their shoulder after allowing 406 yards (although only 7 points) against Miss. State two weeks early. Duke had a measly 132 yards of total offense to go along with nine first down (to put in perspective--about two first downs per quarter). We also forced eight punts and gave up only 2.7 yards per play on defense. They say defense wins championships, and while this was only a regular season game, we sure did display some championship-caliber defense.
Credit where Credit is due
Give the Duke defense some credit. They came in hearing all week about how GT was gonna run over them and were able to force more negative plays than I've seen all year against our offense. They didn't miss many tackles and shut down the inside run (for the most part) after a few big runs up the middle early on.
Key Stat
How bout this: the Jackets had the ball for 38 minutes and 46 seconds yesterday (resulting in a 21:14 TOP for Duke). Teams not named Missouri will usually have trouble getting into any kind of offensive rhythm if they only have the ball for about 5 minutes a quarter
Prediction Results & Analysis
So I thought this would be much more of a shootout than it was, and I clearly underestimated our defense. Congrats to our guys for proving me wrong, and you can bet that I won't underestimate our D like that again.
Looking Ahead
Next Saturday the Bulldogs from Div. 1-AA Gardner-Webb come to the Flats for a 3:30 kickoff. In all likelihood, this should be a warmup game for the Jackets in preparation for the road game at Clemson on the 18th. The only chance the Bulldogs have of keeping this close is for us to be looking ahead to Clemson, which I don't think CPJ would allow. Don't be surprised if we hang 50+ on GW.
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