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Post-Game Reaction (For Rational People Only)

Can someone explain to me what happened to Key'Shawn Smith?

He flashed legit deep speed last year, but he's been invisible so far.
 
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FL Cane said:
Obviously, not happy about this loss. This is a game we should've won, and our mistakes did us in. Right now, I'm more frustrated than anything else. Some thoughts on tonight and for the weeks ahead.
  • We have a solid defense. Kevin Steele did a great job tonight, and our defense has really taken a step forward compared to last year. We had our mistakes and some missed tackles here and there, but all around, this was a solid defensive performance. Our DL looked good, and our secondary did what it needed to. For the first time in a while, at no point did our defense put us in a position to lose this game. In fact, they put us in a position to win it multiple times.

    • Football is a game of luck in some ways, especially on TO's. A&M got every bounce tonight, and we didn't get any. That won't always be the case, and we need to generate TO's. You can't win a game like this without them.

  • Our WR room has major problems. This will need to be an area of focus for our next few classes. Wayyyyyyy too many drops tonight. Brashard should've had that last catch to convert, and he missed some other ones today. Losing Restrepo was a huge loss for this team and game, and we need him back ASAP. Until then, someone needs to step up.

  • OL played the best it has in a very long time. We got the run going, and TVD didn't go down once tonight.

  • We underutilized our TE's. Mallory didn't look bad today, and Arroyo had a nice catch early in the 2nd.

  • We have a solid RB group. If Chaney and Citizen were in the rotation, this would be one of the top RB groups in the country. However, Parish made a massive mistake by dropping that pass early in the game. Had he got it, we would've been 1st and goal inside the ten.

  • TVD wasn't what we needed him to be to win this game. He was better in the second half, but it's evident that he's not on the same page as his WRs, and doesn't trust them. He needs to be better and learn from this experience.

  • Hot take here - for some - but I didn't have an issue with what Gattis schemed up most of the night. We didn't have an issue moving the ball, but our RZ offense has to improve. The play calling inside the 20 is on him, but our personnel severely limits us. Either way, he needs to do better. The opportunities were there, and our guys did not execute. Multiple dropped passes and blown plays that would've gone for big yardage or even a TD.

    • On this point, dont y'all remember how we constantly went 3 and out with Lashlee? The 21-second drives? The same running plays and bad OL over and over again? He was a good OC here, and TVD did well in his system but let's not rewrite history. How Gattis ends up is TBD, but we didn't lose because of his play calling. We lost because we did not execute.

  • Mario would've been hailed as a clock management genius had we won. His clock management wasn't the reason we lost tonight. It was all about execution, and our guys needed to follow through.

  • Going back to our Orange Bowl loss in 2017, we've lost these types of games by a combined score of 177-91 since then. I'm not a moral victories guy - and today's game is nothing but an L we could've avoided - but for the first time in a long time, we were actually in this type of game for 4Qs. That's an improvement.

    • On this, our boys didn't panic tonight. In years past, we would've had 100 yds of penalties, be dancing on the sidelines, and be down 28+.

  • We absolutely blew this game. Tyrique's muffed punt was a dagger we couldn't recover from. In the future, with better personnel, we will. We don't have that team yet, though.
We get a tune-up game next week, and after that, a bye before our conference schedule starts. Getting over the UNC hump will set the tone for conference play. Am I happy with what we did tonight? Absolutely not. We blew what should've been a nice win. However, you'd have to be blind not to see some major strides from last year. Defense is miles better, we actually had a competent game plan, and we didn't get outcoached. For us to get better, we have to execute. No way around it. Our boys lost today. For once, it's not entirely because of coaching.

Overall, I believe this is a team that'll go 9-3/10-2. Nobody other than Clemson has a defense like the one we played tonight, and I still have faith in TVD to figure things out. Also, remember that this isn't going to be a short process. Imho, we're (at best) 2-3 years away from making a real push. Until then, our boys must keep their heads down, buy into the process, and start building for the future. Getting to the ACC Championship is the goal for the immediate future. Long-term, I'm not worried. For once, I could see the progress and not be left hopeless by a loss like this.
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Great post!

Just a couple tidbits I thought I would add.

A&M did not turn the ball over and were excellent in the punt game pinning us deep all night. This was a methodical game and we had to dink and dunk based off the coverage A&M played with inside the 20's. Once we got in the red zone, they loaded the box and stopped our run. This is where my biggest issue is with this game because we needed to attempt some throws to the end zone with one on one opportunities when they did that.

As for the rest of the season, this will not be the norm. We will create turnovers and have shorter fields to work with.

The biggest thing Gattis needs to do going forward is to implement a faster tempo and pace at certain times of the game to give Van Dyke a chance to go on a heater. We are the type of team that will benefit tremendously if we are playing with a lead.
 
MiamiVice7 said:
As I try to look at the positives and take the long view, only thing I can’t stop thinking about is what if A&M sucks?

Sure, they had a great crowd/atmosphere. But what if they’re just not a good football team? Then instead of encouraging, this becomes pretty depressing.
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I thought Miami handled the environment very well. That was impressive. Not a lot of penalties on us, etc.

I tend to agree with you on your A&M assessment. I don’t think they are very good on offense. They basically beat us with 2 players on offense handling the ball or being targeted. Their defense is legit though.

We will see what happens next year against them here at HR.
 
This will likely not be popular, but we WTF is up with Borregales, blew the UVA game LY and crapped the bed last night, I've got no trust in the kid at this point.
 
Cribby said:
That’s my point , I’ve been the one guy telling people to pump the brakes on this team. I said we had some front line talent but no depth. We were a minimum of two classes away. I also said this offense is a dramatic change and kids are having issues with it. Imo TVD wasn’t comfortable in it. All this was said the last month. I just know putting guys in tight bunches or playing inside the hashes hurts getting wr’s open. There’s a reason teams that lack talent use air raid concepts, it counteracts the lack of talent by using space. Space with receiver alignments and space with wider splits for the OL. We did nothing last night to help those guys. If you know TVD is a good Rpo guy and more comfortable in a true spread why not mix that into your scheme? That’s what great coaches do. I wasn’t expecting a lot going into last night offensively but I came away disgusted.
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Do you think last night game helped with WR recruits? We did throw 41 times and showed we will throw the ball..and even the announcers would acknowledge that we were missing gamebreakers at WR. I know it was posted some wr recruits were at the game like Jean and Hakeem Williams. They could not of walked out that game and said 8&4 passing offense was a much better system than ours. Do you think we helped get an advantage over them in recruiting. It seemed like a lot to sell to a WR recruit.
 
Canesince02 said:
I don’t get why people keep talking about clock management he used the two timeouts we had at the right time. We got the ball back with 1:25 left. I think Mario did a great job late game.

What we lack is agility on the outside all of our receivers are stiff af. They may be fast straight line but change of direction is poor. Redding runs flat footed and slow footed. X the only receiver worth a ****. Brinson could be but he is soft.

We played hard but we don’t have Miami caliber weapons outside which was the theme in camp.
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The time management I'm talking about is playing like you're 2 scores ahead and running the play clock down to 10 with about 8 minutes left in the game. We were down 2 scores.
 
MiamiVice7 said:
As I try to look at the positives and take the long view, only thing I can’t stop thinking about is what if A&M sucks?

Sure, they had a great crowd/atmosphere. But what if they’re just not a good football team? Then instead of encouraging, this becomes pretty depressing.
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Lucky we don’t play Appelation State!
 
blushrts said:
The time management I'm talking about is playing like you're 2 scores ahead and running the play clock down to 10 with about 8 minutes left in the game. We were down 2 scores.
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Yeah overall I don’t think game management was too bad. But when we ran the play clock down to 4 seconds with game clock running on the last (or second to last) punt late in crunch time, I was like bruh.
 
blushrts said:
The time management I'm talking about is playing like you're 2 scores ahead and running the play clock down to 10 with about 8 minutes left in the game. We were down 2 scores.
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That and when we had to punt and pin them deep, they didn’t snap the ball until 5 seconds left in the play clock with a running game clock. We neeeded to save every second.
 
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MiamiVice7 said:
As I try to look at the positives and take the long view, only thing I can’t stop thinking about is what if A&M sucks?

Sure, they had a great crowd/atmosphere. But what if they’re just not a good football team? Then instead of encouraging, this becomes pretty depressing.
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I've been thinking this as well, and there's a good chance they do in fact suck
 
Disappointed with the loss no doubt because we had every opportunity to win. App St caught ATM looking ahead; knew they’d give us **** especially in College Station.

Think our players needed to see firsthand how slim the margin for error is when you want to win big games. Can’t have muffed punts. Period. And you’ve got to make big catches.

Overall, I was impressed with the tenacity of the team. They showed toughness and honestly that’s the biggest thing I wanted to see.

Good points to build off to complete the remainder of the season. 10-2 and I’m happy but good with 9-3.

Just need to show progress this year to setup 2023.
 
QuattroCane said:
This will likely not be popular, but we WTF is up with Borregales, blew the UVA game LY and crapped the bed last night, I've got no trust in the kid at this point.
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I don't either. I'm tempted to not try any FG over 40 yards (maybe even 35) and just go for it on 4th in those situations.
 
Someone stated in the game discussion that we looked liked we belonged on both lines that was most encouraging to me, the last few times we played these teams loaded with 4 and 5 star linemen it's not even a contest and got pushed around early, Clemson 2020 and lsu 2018, giving up 10 sacks to uf in 2019
 
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Why are we not using our TEs more? This group should have the most targets with the lack of WRs talent.
 
MiamiVice7 said:
As I try to look at the positives and take the long view, only thing I can’t stop thinking about is what if A&M sucks?

Sure, they had a great crowd/atmosphere. But what if they’re just not a good football team? Then instead of encouraging, this becomes pretty depressing.
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They do suck which makes this all so frustrating. They will lose 3-4 more games. You just hope they will be able to take advantage of lesser talented teams in the red zone.
 
Canesince02 said:
I don’t get why people keep talking about clock management he used the two timeouts we had at the right time. We got the ball back with 1:25 left. I think Mario did a great job late game.

What we lack is agility on the outside all of our receivers are stiff af. They may be fast straight line but change of direction is poor. Redding runs flat footed and slow footed. X the only receiver worth a ****. Brinson could be but he is soft.

We played hard but we don’t have Miami caliber weapons outside which was the theme in camp.
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We snapped the ball with less than 5 seconds to go down by 11. That is shortening the game when down by two scores….foolish.
 
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