I'll get this posted now. The 2018 GT football team... not the mysterious, genius, pure as driven snow "triple option".. no the 2018 GT football team is not good. They just aren't. They have wins over Alcorn State, Bowling Green- that fired their coach mid season, and winless in the ACC, dumpster-fire Louisville. That's it, that's the list. They aren't close to being ranked, don't have any star/lock all ACC players, and will struggle mightily to make a bowl game. Those are facts. Their defense is ranked 51st in the country- not 5th, 51st. Squarely mediocre. Their passing efficiency is last in the ACC. Yes they run for an absurd amount of yards, but they don't beat good teams with it this year. Facts. Not a good football team, period. So if VT loses at home tonight, fine- hey we are a young team, playing a backup QB, and had some attrition- fine. But that's who we lost to... we didn't lose to an ACC contender, or a "sleeper" or a top 25 team, or even most likely a bowl team. We lost to a shitty GT team with zero good wins on the year at home. Bottom line. Not saying we will lose, not saying we don't have a chance to have a good season after the game- not saying ANY of that. Not denying we are young, not denying this is perhaps a rebuilding year. Just saying that in terms of GT 2018... they suck- triple option or not- they stink and will be lucky to win 5 games.
Just so it's not playing the result after tonight....
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So you're banking on us losing strictly so that you will feel justified in your own selfish point
I've gotten to the point where I'm not just hoping for a win for the win's sake, but so that we don't have another reckoning over the future of the entire program because of a loss that lasts until the next win.
Honestly if that happens again I should just log off. This was all supposed to be about fun.
Considering TKP has a strong representation of older fans, it still baffles me how losses still make so many people go nuclear.
We (VT) have a chunk of alum and fans that have only known moderate to just-shy-of-national-championship success (Disclaimer: I'm in that category). We believe we should be continually in the hunt for a national championship. We also saw that empty trophy case that Weaver and Beamer put together to hold our national championship trophy as a promise, not something to hope for.
When you combine those factors together I think its easy to see how and why we still go nuts over a loss or even a game that was too close.
Even that fanbase is used to falling short, hence the lack of trophy in said case.
Some of us are more stubborn... I'm hitting my 20 year fan anniversary, and I'm still not entirely conditioned for it. My only measure of success is I'm only mad the next day after the game... two days max... used to take me 6.
Haha, this. I've gotten to be the same exact way. It used to take a week for me to get over it; now I can pretty much come to terms and move on with life in about a day or two. It's been a long, slow, process but I'm getting there.
As we chanted my freshman year in the MVs whenever we got told we couldn't do "X" anymore...
2-8-1!
2-8-1!
Because they're inexcusable and embarrassing. Notre Dame I understand. GT shouldn't happen. Certainly not 3 years in a row. My brothers a junior and he's never seen us beat them. ODU? Now we're a joke
Come next year, redshirt seniors will be the only guys on the roster to have beaten GT.
* before the game.
If VT wins it, everyone on the team will have beaten them.
-- glass half full
Heady play
Stugotz of the day, for sure.
Nope.. I'm pointing out that GT is shitty THIS YEAR. They will struggle to get to 5 wins. I hope we beat them more than any team left on the schedule because it's hard to recruit when you consistently lose to bad/mediocre teams.
Yeah almost every team we've played this year is bad except ND and maybe Duke. Nobody felt the need to make a pregame thread about how bad they were and how we should be them or else.
We haven't lost inexplicably to any other team twice in a row. Fuente hasn't figured out how to beat GT yet. This is be the year we do considering they are so bad.
I dunno, I felt like last year's loss was pretty explicable, what with the absolute clusterfuck of a situation with the team getting stranded on the way back from Miami, basically robbing us of a day and a half of prep time for GT.
i accidentally left out the word "should"
although i did say repeatedly that i had little confidence in this team
I'll connect the dots for you. If we lose, we lost to a shitty team. Wait, it's now the morning after, so it's not a matter of "if". We lost to a shitty team.
Tailgating has started early I see...
Win or lose, we will have a result tonight.
No matter where you go, there you are.
via GIPHY
♪ Win or lose, we'll greet you with a glad returning ♪
If we wake up tomorrow with another win, we'll know that we didn't lose.
Guys, I'm sorry, I'm have a great week. The only possible negative karma right now is us losing tonight. I can't stand losing to Prof Chinballs, but I see it coming. Companies love hiring Hokies, and I'll prove that all day, every day.
I can vouch for your last sentence. I always heard it from professors and didn't believe it (I hired on full-time with the same company I interned with) until I started job-searching over the summer. A degree from Virginia Tech, especially in engineering, shoots your resume to the top of the list. I'll always be a proud Hokie, regardless how much our football team frustrates me.
I mean, we lost to ODU. No matter how bad GT is, we've already lost to a worse team.
Yeah I was going to say you can put ODU in this block of text and make it sound way worse and we already lost to them.
Regardless of their record, this is a terrible matchup (the scheme, not the personnel) for our inexperienced defense. The Vegas line (VT -3) reflects that.
They used to give Clemson trouble. Then Clemson recruited kids that could get off blocks since they play every year. Now Clemson laughs at them
That's a great point. Georgia used to have trouble with them too, but since their recruiting has gone into the stratosphere recently...not so much.
I said this on another thread (actually before he got the #25), but I think this could be a breakout game for Dax. They're going to use him a lot and his lateral quickness and ability to get off blocks reminds of Xavier back in the hay day.
Damn that's some high praise.
I'm eating crow right now.
One 4-star does not a defense make.
*does not make a defense? Agreed, but that's not what I implied.
The force is weak with this one it is
Hell Duke held them to 14. But after the first drive of the 3rd quarter it looks like GT may score 60 on this defense.
Until recruiting improves or we have a squad full of seniors this it what vt football looks like.
Haha Duke didn't hold them to shit GT had ball security issues 3 drives in a row. There is one way to completely shut an option team down and that's to make them play from behind. Our defense was horrendous and a large part of the reason we lost, the comparison to the Duke game is not a good one.
They had ball security issues because mostly because Duke got penetration, shut down the middle, and made them pitch no?
One of the fumbles was definitely on a kickoff return where Duke had a make it take it and scored on essentially (if not actually) back to back offensive plays
yeah, but there were 6 fumbles
I just read this but had the same thoughts when watching the game! The defensive scheme minimized the big plays but really played to GTs strength by allowing them to run up the middle with more blockers than defenders at the point of attack. Why not increase the chances for more turnovers (like other teams have done) and force them to the outside (more pitches with a Fr QB)? This would also play more to our strength being a smaller more athletic defense instead of the mauling we saw that game.
I like putting high expectations on 18 to 22 year olds too. /s
High expectations? You think our players expect to lose to bad teams? Or is their own expectation to win the acc? So winning home games now is high expectations for VT footbAll? Wow
Well I think you've taken what I said well out of context and I'll not try to explain.
It's all good. Go Hokies!
The "these are just kids" defense every time somebody is afraid to actually criticize the team is so annoying.
Criticism when they don't play well is not automatically some out of line personal attack. They can handle it.
"these are just kids" only comes out when we're talking about their play on the field... But the second we talk about someone becoming academically ineligible, all that talk gets thrown out the door.
Beating GT is high expectations now lol. Ok.
In the coastal division this year, yes!
I was feeling hype at the beginning of your post, then it became a roller coaster of emotion....it started out positive, then got negative, then positive, and kind of ended flat.
This is the best waffling gif I could find....
The fact that he's on his back being smothered with butter and syrup is my prediction that we will have a sweet result tonight, just in time for b'day #32
I think Koma or Joe mentioned this, but it's a great point: I think GT is in our heads. Just about every year, Duke beats them and have have not had defenses as good as ours on average. This year is a little different personnel-wise, but I just don't think you need a top-10 defense to take them down. We've got to get it right between our ears first. That said, I think we turn a new a new leaf tonight.
I still can't wrap my brain around the play-calling in the final few drives of last years game. It was a pick 6 that got us back into that game, and it was the cutesy shit on offense that cost us an opportunity to win.
I agree with the mental aspect, it starts with the coaching staff on this one.
If this game comes down to the wire and we line up on 4th and inches in shotgun I'm going to die of a heart attack before the ball is even snapped.
Bruh just said "I'm not saying we'll lose, but if we do it will be to a bad team and we should feel bad" yeah no shit buddy
Half the conversation on this site or any forum is in "no shit" territory. This isn't exceptional.
Lol. Just one more fucking reason we better win. God I hate GT week....
Let's make this thread the official game thread. It's only fitting that a DC post bashing GT's offense should be the place where we discuss everything happening during the GT game.
I'm surprised we made it until Thursday to hear from him about it.... again.
The TKP crowd has actually become fairly tamed in the past 2 weeks. dc continues with his good take posts (which is normal) but has remained calmly level headed AND even more surprisingly I've seen at least 2 good takes from Jack Crow which is 2 more good takes than he's ever had. I haven't seen a bad food take from french in months (thank you fishing season).
I'm proud of TKP.
Hopefully you won't have to reevaluate your sentiments in about 12 hours.
Well here we are...somehow still seems more calm than after the ND loss
That was the first great extinction of the fair weather fans and hot takers. This is a second smaller extinction.
Sounds like I need to start misbehaving. VTGM, you're on notice.
I was hoping for/expecting this gif. But that will do.
You're not that cool.
via GIPHY
Win or lose, we'll greet you with a glad returning,
You're the pride of V.P.I.
That's all I'll say. Always proud of this team.
Poll question:
Just like GT's passing game, I ponder whether or not the OP is efficient or inefficient.
The OP was:
A. Efficient
B. Inefficient
C. I'm just here to vote so AhChuckIt will give me a turkey leg for participating.
C?
You can cause more outrage over a VT loss if you make a post condemning the team before it happens.
via GIPHY
I agree with just about all of this. However, this is what GT always is. We should win, but the damn triple option can suck the life out of any team that has a few breaks go the wrong way. This year, we should be able to control those breaks, but I have said that before..... I hate GT.
Maybe we will win, maybe we won't, as you so boldly stated. Either way, it takes a pretty miserable outlook to make a post like this. Lighten up, this is supposed to be fun.
But it's not. I wasn't looking forward to this game, for the first time I can ever remember. I always look forward to games.
... What is the point of this post? You came in here, saying GT is really bad and only beats bad teams, and then continue to imply that we're going to lose anyway.
Never mind, I think I got it, you're paving the way to continue your diatribe about how Bud is past his prime and can't defend the triple option. I guess if you're going to rant about GT, this is the week to do it...
Can I offer you a fun fact to make this worth your time?
The only players to win in a Georgia Tech jersey on a Thursday night in a VT-GT game are named Sean Glennon, Tyrod Taylor, Kam Chancellor, and Brandon Flowers.
Glennon's attempt at drawing in a Nike swoosh was hilarious. That whole situation was pure gold. I doubt you could even get away with that now.
I imagine that was a once in a lifetime kinda thing. Idk if it's ever happened before that, but I can almost guarantee you it won't ever again, at least at this level of football. Hilarious at the time, hilarious to this day.
To this day I have yet to see anything in college football as ridiculous as wearing another team's uniforms with poorly blacked out sharpie and a backwards, poorly made Nike symbol.
What I like about this 2018 team is that they know they're young, and they know they are going to make mistakes and give up plays. But they don't want to, and they aren't hanging their heads and getting deflated by it. They continue to play and make plays throughout the full 60 minutes.
Even as bad as GT is this year, we will need that attitude to win. Because GT is going to get some points. We all know they are a 4-down team inside the 50 yd line. The young D has to find a way to put pressure on GT, instead of being on their heels and trying to absorb the slow bleed of 4 and 5 yard gains all the way down the field. Have to win on 1st down to have a chance at forcing a punt. Young D has to trust reads and get downhill, because if they wait and react even with a good tackle it is a 5 yard gain against GT.
I think the Hokies win Big!! I also think that if the running game struggles, we may see more of QP this game, and possibly as early as the 1st half to get him some rhythm and to make GT go into the locker with more to think about.
If we do lose this game, you're right, it is because we are a young 2018 football team, and yes it will be a bad loss to a bad team. I remember being so pumped for Thursday night games in Lane because we all knew the other team didn't have a chance and that it was going to be complete rout and our fans were going to be relentlessly loud. I said in 2012/13 that if we don't hurry and win the ACC again, that our students and players and staff will forget what it feels like and forget what it takes. Winning that first ACC title again is tougher than ever now, because it has been so many years since we last did it.
I have no feelings either way on this game. This team has been wildly unpredictable this year. I'm hoping our young defense can play assignment-sound football tonight and keep the option in check. Plug up the middle and stop the dive, lay the wood to the QB on the keeper, and force them to the sidelines.
I will however be very upset if our offense once again cannot get anything going and keeps this a tight ballgame. A close game with GT and a few missed tackles/assignments by the D and they can pull off the win. Something has to finally break through on offense. We absolutely should be able to take advantage of their defense and put the game away, taking their offense out of its normal gameplan.
Why do I get the feeling that this is a warning shot to TKP that dc already has a few posts queued up to come in blazing after tonight's game.
I have to work tomorrow and as such will be in no state (read sober) to deal with that deluge of fuckery. Let's win one for mental health!!!
A lot of lack of looking at actually games here. GT beat Clemson in 2014 that really wasn't that long ago. Then in 2016 they beat UGA. Among those wins are wins against most of the rest of ACC sprinkled in. That's not to say GT is some power programs but to claim UGA and Clemson "no longer lose to them" ignores reality.
And ignores the fact that GT is the definition of a gimmicky offense. They play a really weird style that's successful because it bucks the trends of current recruiting and styles being played. They're gonna pull upsets occasionally. I hope to christ we dont lose to them but I never know what to expect against GT
Based on that timeline, I would say that Clemson no longer loses to GT. 2014 was the end of the FSU era of ACC dominance and 2015 was the beginning of Clemson's stranglehold. Clemson at this point "doesn't lose to GT anymore."
4 years ago is a whole recruiting cycle. UGA in 16 was 5-7. Both UGA and Clemson have made a CFB playoff since losing to GT. They beat completely different teams.
Interesting thing you mention here.
Teams who attract elite talent actually burn through players quicker. They utilize redshirts far less often; Urban Meyer didn't even use them in Florida. Their players tend to fall off the depth chart and either sit or transfer quicker. And they tend to have players go early in the draft.
Meanwhile, the rest of us have to manage player development to compete. Frank Beamer redshirted more of his players than not; he regularly had players on scholarship for six seasons.
I'd argue the Justin Thomas-led Yellow Jackets were a more similar looking team from 2014-2016.
Clemson & UGA were probably a bit more different. (When I checked the leading skill players, Gallman led in rushing and Michel/Chubb were the RBs, but the leading passers/receivers were different).
Reading your post was an absolute waste of time.
If your going to have such a piss poor attitude before the game, take it somewhere else.
nm
Then shouldn't commenting on the post be an even bigger waste of your time?
Not when you want condescending attention
we're going to win and Fuente is known for breaking losing streaks....he wants (and I want) to get this money off our back
ALERT: NCAA VIOLATION
Would not be hard to make a very similar post but change every reference of GT in your typed monologue to VT. Both teams are young, inexperienced, and have had numerous growing pains already.
I have bad news for you. VT is not a good team this year either and ODU is a far worse loss than any loss that GT has. In fact, there's an argument to be made that every single team in the ACC outside of Clemson is not good. The thing is that it's really, really easy for fans to blur the line between "not good" and "sucks." I don't think GT is a great team either but they are probably about the same as they were last year, when we lost to them with a lot of experience and talent on defense. Anyway, it should come as no surprise if we lose to them because we're not a very good football team either.
OT: Have you considered adding ole Willie to your Hall of Douches tag line?
I'm not sure Willie's comments were enough to cross the necessary threshold. Unfortunately we rarely play FSU, which dulls the opportunities for hatred. Bobby Petrino and Brian Kelly seem to be garbage humans but haven't done anything egregious against VT and we haven't even played Louisville as an ACC opponent (how is that possible?). I'd say Larry Fedora might be a candidate who draws enough ire on a consistent basis to make the list.
That's fair. You should add at least a human a season or whenever the opportunity presents itself and we can track it:
Jeff Jagodzinski (2007-2008), Paul Johnson (2008-present), Pat Narduzzi (1966-forever)
So you're saying if we lose to GT we will have miserably underperformed?
GT's offense is ranked 21 in the S&P+, our D is ranked 67. On the other hand GT's defense is ranked 104 and our O is ranked 39. I fully expect the defense to give up some points and I won't be completely shocked if they have a really bad game. Lots of guys on D seeing the triple option for the first time.
But our offense should absolutely be able to put up points. If we lose in a high scoring shoot out, I'll be fine. But if we lose in a low scoring game or get blown out, I'll be pissed. This GT D is bad, and outside of JJ, our O looks to be very healthy. No reason we shouldn't be able to easily put up points tonight.
I don't have much confidence in this team. They only reason people are even confident at all is because we managed to pull a miraculous drive out of our asses to beat UNC. If we just mess up once on that drive we are looking a group of people just hoping to make a bowl game. That last drive of the game doesn't change the fact that we were god awful against UNC for 90% of the game. If we continue with that we are in for a very sad night. I really hope that Foster has imprinted a gameplan that is easy to execute for this defense. I still think we can win this game but it is about 50/50 for me. I expect to lose three of the last five game honestly. Hopefully we get this win.
Very savvy. 👍
So, when we win, can we come back and downvote all this negative bullshit? Deal?
(I can't believe we are even entertaining this thread. Here I am, doing it myself🤦♂️)
LET'S GO
I'm with you. I wish I had kept my /s to myself in comments above.
So if we lose, that's bad?
Engaging in full meltdown mode before the game has even started has to be a new thing here at TKP.
Seems sorta prescient now. DC has a really good eye for the game. Whether or not you like posts like this.
I'm a fan of DC's posts. When he's not antagonizing and instigating, he actually offers pretty good insight, and a lot can be learned from him.
so 60% of the time it works every time?
Precisely.
How does this post have 31 legs?
Good call on making this thread early tonight. This game has been an absolute joke.
I do not understand the lack of players in the box
GT is a bad team. Watching them trounce us last night did nothing to change my mind about that. They weren't forced to dig into their playbook and pull out riskier plays (I saw, what, maybe 3 pitches and one was fumbled). We are a worse team.
That said, if Savoy doesn't muff that punt and we keep our momentum and put in another TD, we're leading 28-14 with little time on the clock before the half and GT has to change their gameplan. A defensive stop against GT early is worth 3 stops at the end of the game because of how they have to change their play calling and we dicked it up hardcore.
I hate losing. I hate having to wait 9 days to play again. I hate that I don't think I can get hopeful about pulling out a win because BC looked good before Dillon went down and now he's back.
Fun fact, at a recent show (yeah, they are still playing 'music'), one of the guys of Insane Clown Posse (yeah, they are still playing 'music' too, much to my surprise), tried, and failed hilariously to dropkick Fred Durst in the back of the head.
May the spirit of the late 90s and early 00s live on forever.
don't have any star/lock all ACC players
Neither do we.
Their defense is ranked 51st in the country- not 5th, 51st. Squarely mediocre
Our defense is ranked much worse, around 100th. If anything, they should be more upset about losing to us than we should've been losing to them.