Ga Tech Week, Volume 7 (No More National Title Talk edition) ...

Where was this game lost for Virginia Tech? How did the Hokies go from national title contenders to Coastal Division chasers?

If only there were one problem to point to in Georgia Tech’s 28-23 win over Virginia Tech.

The Hokies started three drives on the Yellow Jackets’ side of the field – and drove into that territory a fourth time – that resulted in ZERO points. After GT went up 14-3, Dyrell Roberts returned the kickoff 58 yards to the Jackets’ 26. A few plays later, the Hokies failed on fourth-and-1.

Sure, the offense finally woke up, piling up 195 yards and 21 points over the final 23 minutes of the game. RB Ryan Williams and QB Tyrod Taylor were brilliant at the end. (Taylor was 5 of 5 for 69 yards and a touchdown and rushed four times for 36 yards – including an electric 22-yard scramble for a score – in the final 7:19 of the game.)

But it was too late. VT was already playing from too far behind.

And why? Because the Hokies’ defense couldn’t prevent the one thing coordinator Bud Foster harped on all week: the big play.

Georgia Tech gained 16 yards combined on its first 19 plays. Then the Bugs completed a 51-yard pass to set up a touchdown just before halftime. Every one of their four touchdowns were set up by a big play. A 31-yard run by QB Josh Nesbitt set up the TD to make it 14-3 GT. A 33-yard run by RB Jonathan Dwyer helped make it 21-10. Then Nesbitt finished the Hokies with a 39-yard TD run.

You’ll be interested to read SS Dorian Porch’s analysis of a halftime adjustment Georgia Tech made to its blocking scheme, one he claims the Hokies hadn’t seen at all on film.

I’m inclined to believe him, considering the Jackets had 88 total yards in the first half and more than 270 RUSHING yards in the second half. And how about this quote about the Hokies from GT coach Paul Johnson:

“They played totally opposite of how they played us last year. They played us like a lot of other people have. ... They played exactly the same way the whole game on defense.”

I’ll hang up now and let the Hokies answer ...

QB TYROD TAYLOR

ON NOT FINISHING DRIVES THAT GOT INTO GT TERRITORY: “In those situations, in these types of games, we have to score. When you get down in the red zone or the 30, you have to score. You can’t give the other team the ball back. Especially when you go for it on fourth down. You have to convert that.”

ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THOSE DRIVES AND THE ONES LATE WHERE THEY MARCHED AND SCORED: “Missed assignments. We didn’t execute well on those drives. That’s kind of what hurt us.”

ON PLAYING FROM BEHIND: “We had more big plays. They came a little too late in this game.”

ON THE NATIONAL TITLE TALK OFF THE TABLE AND HOW THEY MOVE FORWARD: “Stay focused in practice, think about North Carolina, get this game past you. Think about the game that’s current; don’t think too far ahead.”

ON WHETHER HE HAD LET HIMSELF THINK ABOUT THE NATIONAL TITLE: “I can speak for the team on this: I don’t think we were thinking ahead. We just didn’t go out there and execute well. They made more big plays than we did.”

ON THE OFFENSE EXPLODING LATE, BUT TOO LITTLE TOO LATE: “If we could take it all back, I’m pretty sure we would’ve changed the tempo (earlier).”

SS DORIAN PORCH

ON GEORGIA TECH’S SECOND-HALF ADJUSTMENTS: “Just the way they blocked the rover and whip position. We were supposed come play quarterback. At a certain point in the game, we thought it would be easier for us to get out to the pitch and let the free safety take the quarterback. Well, the guy we were on, he was coming up and blocking the free safety, so the quarterback was getting free. From my position, I’m running all the way from the other side of the field as they’re running away from me. It’s hard to get over there, and to be conscious of the reverse and the pass. Trying to play everything at once, it was a little bit too much for us.”

ON CLARIFYING GT’S ADJUSTMENT: “They just changed their blocking scheme. It wasn’t the same thing we prepared for all week. We tried to make an adjustment and it worked for a little bit, then they switched again on us. It was kind of going back and forth, kind of like a chess match, and they won it.”

ON WHETHER THAT CHANGE HAPPENED AFTER HALFTIME: “Yeah, I think they got to go in and decide that it would be better than them. We were talking: We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing. And we came out and it was just different.”

ON BUD FOSTER ADJUSTING BACK: “He definitely did. The thing they did, the guy they were motioning made us stay honest on the back side. That caused us to leave an extra guy over there. So it was just kind of like they had an extra guy every time. They motioned one guy from the other side of the field. That was the guy that was getting the ball usually, or the quarterback would keep it. If they run the reverse, you’ve got to be honest and play your position. You can’t just take off running over there or they were going to run the reverse. So it was just like they were getting an extra guy over there ... getting a guy on the safety, and that was making it tough for Kam to get to the quarterback.”

ON WHETHER THAT BLOCKING SCHEME WAS SOMETHING THEY HAD SEEN AT ALL ON FILM: “Not really, no. It was definitely a great scheme.”

ON GIVING UP THE BIG PLAYS, FOUR OF 30 YARDS OR MORE: “Just they way they were blocking it, it was tough to get to. Sometimes it’s not as easy as it looks to beat a guy that’s trying to block you, coming full speed at you, and make a play on the ball carrier. You’ve just got to give them credit.”

ON HOW MUCH BETTER GT IS RUNNING PAUL JOHNSON’S OFFENSE IN YEAR 2: “It hit us in spots we weren’t expecting. It’s not that we weren’t prepared for it. All week, we ran great to the ball, had guys fitting in, hitting it. Just when they changed the scheme, it threw a curve ball at us. They definitely ran it a lot more confident, knowing what they were doing and how to hit us.”

RB RYAN WILLIAMS

ON THE OFFENSE STRUGGLING EARLY, SURGING LATE: “We can’t come out in fourth quarters and try to run the scoreboard up. It’s not going to work. We can’t do that against good teams like that. We have to come out from start to finish. That’s what really killed us. We’ve had our times where we come out in the fourth quarter and win the game, or we try to win the game in the fourth quarter. We can’t do that anymore. We have to come out from the first quarter to the fourth quarter and play with the same intensity through the whole game.”

ON WHAT HIS ILLNESS WAS THIS WEEK: “I don’t know what I had, but they were treating me like I had the flu. I had it all. I was drugged up, IV-ed up. I had it all.”

ON WHETHER IT AFFECTED HIM IN THE GAME: “Yeah. My stomach was real weak and I didn’t feel as strong as I normally do, but I was still able to perform and help the team get some points on the board. It wasn’t enough.”

ON WHAT NOW, WITH THE NATIONAL TITLE OUT OF THE QUESTION: “UNC. Isn’t that the next game? UNC. We can’t think no further than that. I think that’s a problem with a lot of people; They look at the bigger picture before they take care of the smaller picture. We have to work and get ourselves prepared to play UNC. We can’t skip. We can’t skip to the end of the season. Before the season, there were so many talks about the national championship. Then we lost. Then we got ourselves back into the rankings. We took another (loss). We have to be prepared to take every week, week by week, and play our A-game. We can’t play our A-game in the fourth quarter. That’s what killed us.”

ON WHETHER ANYTHING ABOUT THE GT GAME SURPRISED HIM: “No. I knew they were going to do that. I knew they were going to run the ball down our throats. And I feel bad as an offensive player, all the times we stopped them early in the game and we weren’t able to capitalize on any of those. It killed us.”

ON THE OFFENSE PERFORMING BIG AT THE END AND WHETHER THAT ENCOURAGES HIM: “No. Because we didn’t come out with the win. Everyone knows we’re capable of putting points up on the board almost any time we run a series, but if we don’t execute or we don’t come out with the same intensity ... we can’t come out waiting for the fourth quarter to try to get intense and try to move the ball down the field.”

ON WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE IN THE EARLY DRIVES AND THE LATE ONES: “I have no idea. I have no idea. I really don’t. We’ve just got to play our A-game from the first quarter to the fourth.”

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