• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

GT Game Thread

Rafi said:
I think he looks best in the slow mesh and worst in the standard drop back situation. On the standard drop back he bounces around and seems to have no idea what to do, so he holds the ball too long and gets sacked or the pass gets batted down. On the slow mesh his feet are stable and he can pull and throw the deep ball that isn't going to get batted down.
Click to expand...
Agreed, thought he looked most comfortable in the mesh. And we haven't run it much this season.

His best pocket throw was probably the TD to Morin after the mesh point against ODU.

Problem with the mesh is it gets more difficult against better teams. Since we haven't seen it much already, I doubt it gets a lot of play against Clemson.
 
Yeah the mesh actually looked pretty good and the line held their own there.

We just have to cut down on the turnovers, however that gets done is fine with me.
 
Somebody said it well - we don't need Mitch (or whomever plays QB) to win games for us, we just need him to not lose games. If can just play like he did against Vandy, we would have beat GT and should have good chances against VT, State, Pitt, and Cuse. Maybe we should schedule more SEC teams.
 
cookoutdeac said:
No, PH is trying to spin this the other way around and say that because (5th year QB) Kern looked bad 6 months ago, that doesn't matter now.

The evidence shows

Mitch good in spring game -> bad in real games

but somehow he still wants to believe

Kern bad in spring game -> better that Mitch in real games

It's really hoping against hope to defy the odds against overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and we're not talking about some young QB who has a much steeper learning curve here either, it's a guy who has been in the program even longer than Mitch
Click to expand...
i think it works both ways

i don't think what happens in the spring game has much to do with what happens in the regular season
 
CreamyGoodness said:
FWIW, I've heard rave reviews surrounding Kern, from people who matter.
Click to expand...
Not being shitty, but we also heard rave reviews about Mitch from people who matter. Hard to evaluate someone in practice drills. Who knows...maybe Kern has it, but we won't know until the lights come on.
 
PhDeac said:
But Mitch wasn't that good in the spring game either.

Look, it's fine to think one way about our QB situation in April. But it's silly to rely on that take after what we've seen in four live games against real competition.

cookout, you seem to be saying, "Yes Griffis has played poorly and cost us the Tech game, but the backup wasn't good in a scrimmage in April, so we're stuck with Griffis." I disagree with that take.
Click to expand...
Mitch had over 300 yards and 3 TDs in the spring game at least 🤷‍♂️

and I'll just correct that to "the backup wasn't good in scrimmage in april and also still hasn't impressed the coaches despite having seniority over griffis and being in his 5th year*", so we're stuck with Griffis
 
TheAbster said:
I think what many of us are saying is "can it really hurt to give Kern a try?" We have a known in Griffis' first four games and no one knows the unknown other than a scrimmage game from 6 months ago. So what if Kern doesn't look great against Clemson? I think we all have a very good idea how Griffis will look. I don't think anyone on here is claiming Kern to be the savior of this program or the next Riley Skinner. Many of us would by happy if a QB threw to our own players.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's fine, it's not unreasonable to just want to start taking wild shots as a fan and hope they pay off vs just accepting the :poop: we've seen so far.

The only reason it could "hurt" is that Kern is very likely going to be the same or worse, and some of are us probably more in the camp of "ok Griffis has taken some licks and knows what he needs to fix so lets see if he can do that and become a competent game manager/cut out the TOs" vs wanting to start the whole process over again w/ an older QB who has looked worse than him up to now in what we've seen of him, but I do think we're at a point where Clawson will feel like he can fairly pull him.. he earned himself more time against ODU by leading the comeback, and he honestly almost did it again with GT, just threw a very very dumb ball, and now I'd guess he's on as short a leash as possible. But I'll trust the coaching staff to make that decision when it's right and try to squeeze whatever juice we can get from our QB lemons this season 🙏.
 
to be clear I think Kern is really a unknown unknown unless you believe a spring game means anything
 
Kory said:
to be clear I think Kern is really a unknown unknown unless you believe a spring game means anything
Click to expand...
it means something if you're shit in it, imo

it also means something if this is your 5th year in the program, i'd probably have a little more hope about a young QB showing rapid devlopment over that time frame
 
cookoutdeac said:
Yeah, that's fine, it's not unreasonable to just want to start taking wild shots as a fan and hope they pay off vs just accepting the :poop: we've seen so far.

The only reason it could "hurt" is that Kern is very likely going to be the same or worse, and some of are us probably more in the camp of "ok Griffis has taken some licks and knows what he needs to fix so lets see if he can do that and become a competent game manager/cut out the TOs" vs wanting to start the whole process over again w/ an older QB who has looked worse than him up to now in what we've seen of him, but I do think we're at a point where Clawson will feel like he can fairly pull him.. he earned himself more time against ODU by leading the comeback, and he honestly almost did it again with GT, just threw a very very dumb ball, and now I'd guess he's on as short a leash as possible. But I'll trust the coaching staff to make that decision when it's right and try to squeeze whatever juice we can get from our QB lemons this season 🙏.
Click to expand...

I agree with much of this but I wouldn't exactly call starting QB2 over QB1, who has completely shit the bed, "wild shots". And based upon Clawson's comments, I think he's considering the same "wild shot" approach.
Don't teams have backup QBs for this purpose and for injury?

But, I also totally get your point and 100% agree. Kern could possibly suck even more than Griffis. Entirely possible. But I'm willing to see the empirical data, in a real game situation, to prove that out. Unless something changes, this season is a write-off anyway.
 
What's surprising to me about Mitch's play so far is just his overall awareness, since my takeaway from practice/pre-season commentary was that Kern had the better arm but Mitch ran the offense better and had a decent enough arm.

His pocket presence has been awful, which I'm sure most people recognize. But he's run dozens of mesh plays where he made what looked like terrible reads - just handing it to the RB straight into a pile or ditching the handoff before really reading the situation and just locking onto one receiver or taking a sack. Our backs have done an excellent job waiting and bouncing outside for some big runs, but once we get the running game going a bit we're supposed to see those single coverage short hitters where he pulls it back and takes advantage. I don't know that I've seen that a single time - it's hard not to assume his size is a key problem because it looks like he's just not able to see anything that's happening down field.

The game should be slowing down for him, but it doesn't seem to be. You can say "oh if only he throws it away and we go to OT and win against GATech yada yada" - but the ODU comeback also featured a horrid pass (or two) directly to ODU that they dropped, unbelievably, to allow the comeback. I have zero doubt Clawson's goal is to win football games, so I trust whatever route he takes. You'd think something will have to change though if we're to salvage this season. Whether that's Kern or treating Mitch like Grobe treated Skinner in his first couple of games, who knows.
 
TheAbster said:
I see Les is sticking to his guns that Griffis was just fantastic in fall camp and we're not seeing the same version. How much longer is this campaign of "nothing to see here" going to last?
Are we seriously going to change an entire offense because the QB can't manage the current one? That sounds like an act of desperation to me.
Click to expand...
I mean, we’re the same school whose fanbase acts like players were committing murder on Dino’s watch and he had to go because of “culture” problems. When most of the fanbase willingly buys and repeats the company line every time, they start to believe the narrative that Mitch isn't as bad as we all clearly see that he is.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top