The one question mark (Kaaya) turned into an exclamation point.
There were a heck of a lot more question marks than that. Our interior defensive linemen are not special. Not close to special. That figured to regulate the team and be particularly troublesome against certain opponents. It did and it was.
There's great upside in running straight ahead and relentless in college football. We are not capable of denying all of those teams, particularly on the road. Nebraska ran smack at us on their home field just like Wisconsin ran smack at Nebraska on their home field. If we're using Wisconsin's success in that game as proof that Nebraska was fraudulent and mediocre, it's beyond laughable to ignore the identical characteristics of our game at Lincoln and assign everything to coaching and failure to adjust.
We have lost every game as assigned underdog and won every game as assigned favorite. For all the whining, there's quite a bit of clarity given that reality. True freshman quarterbacks rarely start, especially at power programs. When that power program faces lots of strenuous road games early in the season, success in them is not likely. Did we fail to adjust, or was our true freshman quarterback simply an underdog to match second half points on the road against teams that outmanned us in the trenches, or at home against the defending Heisman Trophy winner.
Actually I shouldn't say Georgia Tech outmans us in the trenches. They have a very skilled guard, and some active types who have improved as the season progressed. We outman Georgia Tech. That loss is the annoying failure of the season. But the triple option when guided by a quarterback of Justin Thomas' level allows a program to outplay its talent level. That has always been the case and always will be the case, even if very, very few teams use that offense anymore, after it fell out of favor and fewer young coaches even know how to teach it.
BTW, is Georgia Tech really the reference point we want, for any type of offensive or defensive scheme? How Georgia Tech goes, so goes the nation. They define college football. It reads absurd but somehow the goofs who dismiss the triple option as high school football or worse have no problem using Georgia Tech's results as their guideline. They are silent now but once that team inevitably falls off they'll spit out the familiar themes again. My theme is that anybody running that offense is a favorite to cover the spread more often than not, particularly in the right matchups, so I applaud that team.
IMO, three aspects stand out from this Canes season:
1) From the outset it was obvious that we are fielding far fewer stiffs than recent seasons. Terrific sign, and figures to continue along the same lines. For all the top guys we've had everybody prefers to ignore the plodders who were not Canes caliber, like the 1-year transfers we've been forced to pursue and actually play
2) Brad Kaaya, obviously. Fantastic ability to choose exactly the proper arc and pace for the evolving requirements of the play. That is extremely rare, at his age or any age. Makes the proper read much more often than not. Prioritizes downfield instead of scared tendency to throw weak check downs, which are not much better than 3rd down screens. Yeah, he needs to significantly improve his sense of urgency, recognition of play clock realities and situational needs along those lines, like whether or not to rush an extra play at the end of a quarter that is winding down. I'm not going to give him a pass and conclude those facets will automatically fall in line with the rest of his game. We'll see. As I've posted, Coley should give him occasional calls that are designed to be snapped early on the play clock
3) Defensive yards per play. That category is a stalwart, hinting at direction. Florida State upon Fisher's promotion dropped its number substantially, and retained the trend. That was ominous. In our case in 2014 the stat improved early even though our schedule was hardly cupcake. Despite all the calls for 500+ yards the yards per play number indicated we had reached another level in terms of smarts and intensity. I still think we are somewhat of a fragile 4.6 but if I'd been told we'd have those digits with 3 games remaining I wouldn't have stopped grinning three months ago. Low yards per play allowed is a first step toward high preseason ranking, and high preseason ranking is the next step toward legitimacy.
