AJC > Sports > Tech > Blog > Archives > 2008 > August > 29
Friday, August 29, 2008
Jacksonville State Impressions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Its a little past midnight and I just rolled into the driveway and snuck into my basement without waking up my wife. We’re supposed to hit the road first thing in the morning, for a weekend trip to Savannah, but I wanted to get a few things down in the blog while they were still fresh in my head. I’m going to brain dump a bit, so bear with me…
It felt great to be back on campus for a tailgate. Its funny how easily I can fall back into “guy mode” and talk trash with the various characters who have made up our tailgate the last several years. While eating fried chicken and sipping off the keg several of us suddenly looked around and smiled. Someone commented, “Man this feels good, I’d forgetten how much I missed it.” Everyone agreed and then went back to talking more trash and drinking more beer. Good times.
Once we got down to the stadium I thought the crowd was pretty good for a Thursday night tuneup game without alot of hype beyond checking out the new coach.
Speaking of the coach….that’s what we have now folks…a COACH. The team came out and looked focused and motivated and crisp. The staff was constantly working with the players constructively in alot of situations and when someone made a bonehead penalty or a mental lapse, they got chewed a new one. On at least two occasions Coach Johnson was personally reaming a guy who made a late hit or a personal foul. I think we’ll see better mental preparation and less stupid penalties than we have seen in past and that is a GOOD thing.
The offense started a little slow but then hit its stride. We ran inside, we ran outside, we pitched the ball, and we threw it down field. Its hard to argue with 41 points built on 484 yards of total offense. The guys on the radio said we had 8 plays that went for over 20 yards. This is an offense you must pay attention to. If you look away you might miss a big play…they can happen at any time.
We only threw the ball 15 times, completing 8 of them. But then we averaged about 17 yards per completion? Yeah…17 yards per completion. And it could have been more except for a few narrow misses to receivers who were open and running loose.
There were rushes of 37, 49, 34, 43, and 22 yards…all by different guys. 8 players got rushing yards and 4 of them scored TDs. My personal favorite was a beautiful 49 yard option pitch to Roddy Jones. He took the pitch got a few blocks and was gone.
Overall…considering this was our first live action with the new offensive scheme, I was very pleased.
Defensively we looked pretty good as well. Perriloux is a great individual talent and he made some great individual plays today to get yardage in a few situations. He made some good throws as well. You know a guy like that is going to make plays.
Morgan Burnett snagged a couple of INTs and the defensive line was able to generate enough mayhem and distraction to limit Perriloux’s opportunities and hold the Gamecocks to a total of 258 yards and 14 points that were derived from a muffed kickoff return and a late “trash” TD against backup defense.
It was kind of nice to have a defense that played smart and disciplined and wasn’t a frenetic blitz fest like we’ve seen in the past. All in all this defense isn’t as flashy and athletic as some of Tenuta’s have been in the past but you get the feeling that its very fundamentally sound and capable to getting the job done and carrying the load in the next few games while the offense comes around and gets on track.
In closing, before I pack it in for the night…I only have two real concerns right now.
1) The kicking game is lack lustre with both missed field goals and a missed extra point.
2) Can the offensive line get the job done in short yardage situations?
We can’t leave points on the field against BC and VT coming up. We have to convert those field goals. And we’re going to be facing defensive lines in our next two games that are going to be tougher to move around. The OL has some work to do.
All in all though…a great night. The team has a ton of film to study now and they know they can execute at full speed. Boston College is going to be tough and Virginia Tech tougher yet again.
I’ll check back in after Labor Day. By then we should have a little more info about Boston College and what we’ll be facing next weekend.
Go Jackets!
THWG!
