The OL is terrible and Kaaya is constantly under pressure.I thought he had a concussion on the very first play of the game.He hit his head hard on the ground.Then,he got hit so hard it knocked out a molar!Kaaya kept on playing.Guy is tough but not very mobile.That 4th down td pass was not an easy throw.Play calling is very predictable-we run on 1st down way too much.The OL gets very little push on running plays.TE and RB have to stay in to block and can't be used in the pass game because the OL keeps getting beat over and over.Dropped passes are still a problem.Defense looked good but coverage was way too soft on their WR as it has been all year.Seems like we play zone constantly behind our pressure.This was not Kaaya's fault.Would you rather have Rosier or Testaverde out there? He did throw the INT in the end zone but the real back breakers were the senseless holding penalty on Waltons long TD run and the targeting foul.Those killed us.
I thought he was concussed as well and didn't think he was even going to get up at first. Definitely not the best way to start the game. I am still trying to figure out how anyone saw that as targeting or even a "grey area." 100% shoulder to the chest.
No qb is perfect. Kaaya made one bad mistake in the end zone, but I suspect his head was still ringing after getting hit so hard he lost a tooth. Ok, he loses points for that. Did he go into a shell after the INT? Nope. When we needed him to step up and make a big time throw to tie the game, he did it.
We started off knowing the OL was going to be our weakness and in the end, the special teams squad let's someone leak through and block the kick. We get the XP, and we're playing in overtime thanks to Kaaya. If we were a good team overall, we wouldn't have fired our coach last year.
Grades:
QB: B-
RB: D
WR: C-
TE: D-
OL: F
DL: B
LB: B-
CB/S: B
ST: D+ (running into kicker, then the blocked XP, only positive was Berrios return)
Coaching: C+ (really hard to grade because I'm not sure what Richt could have done much differently in terms of playcalling given that OL can't block and WRs dropped passes)