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Sunday afternoon thoughts - Georgia Tech - msqueri - 09-27-2026

1. We needed that. Morale among players and fans (and donors?) was low coming off back-to-back blowouts. There needs to be progress or else we will remain mired in the death spiral. Any program needs some wins if it has any hope of keeping the faith. As bad as we've been, we've somehow managed to win seven of the last ten home games. Hopefully this is healing some scar tissue and building some habits of community among the faithful. Beating Georgia Tech was assisted by Stanford being far healthier than Georgia Tech in terms of key player availability, the late kickoff and attendant customary second half doldrums for the visitors, and Georgia Tech's joke of a line holding all over the place (key calls against both teams....wish refs could have seen clear that this wasn't 49ers vs. Falcons and not called the game so tightly). But a win is a win and we deserved this one. Are we an improved team? Too soon to tell. Sagarin (#78) and SP+ (#102) view it more like repeating last year's modest improvement from the subterranean baseline. Our scoreboard outcomes a third of the way in are consistent with the rest of this era. The offense and defense look like 90-100 kind of units nationally, though offense is hopefully trending up with the shot in the arm from Nico Brown and Prongos. The hope that this is actual bona fide progress rests in the coaching staff progressing on a learning curve, health being better the remainder than the first third (uncertain but plausible), and some underlying fundamentals being better than the scoreboard has shown.

2. That last point could go either way. I'm not sold we're better than we've looked. We may be though. The yards per play margin on the season so far is looking like it might be a leading indicator of fundamental underlying improvement in our quality (right now over a half yard per play better margin than last year, which itself was our most competitive team of the 5+ year era). As of now, yesterday's scoreboard was befitting the #55 team, which is our best performance of the year and would have been third or fourth last year. If this is the start of a post-Brown and Prongos return upswing, the team may be improved. If this was a relative high point, no bueno. Within the specific structure of yesterday's game, the basic story was neither defense being capable of stopping the opponent but Stanford clearly being more dominant. Second half sleepiness probably contributed, but it's what happened. We scored 3.4 points per drive, elite offense kind of scoring against a sub-par defense (similar to Cal but possibly the worst we face going forward outside of Elon). We looked more like Tennessee than Colorado. It was our biggest points per drive scoring explosion against a power team in over half a decade, going back to the 2021 USC game. Even if one quibbles that the double overtime Colorado game should count since one drive was three plays to end a half, that's remarkable to be in that conversation considering 2026 Georgia Tech's defense may or may not be as bad as those USC and Colorado defenses and considering that we were bad in the red zone last night and still scored so much. We got to the 29 and got no points, the 7 and got 3 points, the 13 and no points, and the 6 and 3 points....and still had one of our most scoring at will games of the decade. That's something to build on. We gave up 2.7 points per drive, quite a lot to give up to a thoroughly mediocre offense. That that's the least we've given up against the last four power opponents going back to last year's finale is a testament to how much the defense is reeling. These guys are really struggling to stop people.

3. The defensive struggles have to fall squarely on Richard. There is no way this collection of players should produce such a permissive environment. The seven years removed from playcalling/mostly out of football the last three years coordinator is not covering himself in glory. We looked better with Andy Thompson calling the shots. I can't say the scheme looks coherent in terms of what we're trying to accomplish or that the players look like they embody the ruthless and relentless mantra we heard ad nauseum. Richard has a lot to prove the rest of the way. In this game, 6.07 yards per play allowed against the #85 yards per play offense is sorry. We were significantly closer to Mercer's level of defense than to Colorado or Tennessee. Thankfully, the offense uncorked 6.60 yards per play, our most in the last 11 games (going back to the San Jose State shootout), 0.17 off what ranked Tennessee mustered, and massively more than Colorado and Mercer. The offense made optimism about its future look reasonable.

4. The main thing that shined, of course, was the passing game. It was even more sparkling statistically, aside from total yards, than last year's Virginia and San Jose State passing extravaganzas. You have to go back almost exactly four years to the 2022 Washington game for passing efficiency against an FBS opponent like last night. This was an awesome performance by QB, receivers, and pass protection. There is an element of enemy gets a vote that needs to be acknowledged, as Georgia Tech's secondary is decimated. Nonetheless, we more than doubled up Tennessee's passing output with four more yards per attempt and more than 40 more passer rating points (and Tennessee did a lot better than Colorado). This was a majestic passing game. We really tried to establish the run, with 37 carries 14-15 more than in either of our other ACC games. It was not very effective, a yard less per carry than we averaged against Miami or Duke. That's pretty remarkable considering we only gave up one sack compared to four against Duke. The run game's inefficacy was especially pathetic in light of a bad Yellow Jacket run defense that gave up about a yard and a half per carry more to Colorado, over four yards more per carry to Tennessee, and nearly two yards more per carry to Mercer. This game reinforced that Stanford has a miserable run game. That said, we did attempt rushes 37 times total and one has to think that commitment played into play action working so well. No complaints about what Pritchard is dialing up. The woes are due to point of attack run blocking by the line and tight ends. On defense, it's hard to get past giving up five yards per carry for the second game in a row, the worst anybody has done against this Rambling Wreck run game, which had half of its primary 1-2 punch out with injury. We made the third string guy look like a star. For all our talk about run defense, we are now 104th in yards per carry allowed and 125th in PFF run defense grade, highly correlated with being 127th in PFF tackling grade. The run defense has fallen apart under Richard. We defended the pass worse than Tennessee and better than Colorado, which is surprisingly respectable since those are good and sub-par but not terrible pass defenses respectively.

RE: Sunday afternoon thoughts - Georgia Tech - msqueri - 09-27-2026

5. If Pritchard told the team to empty the tank and put it all out there, his decisions backed up the mentality with his aggressive approach to fourth downs and confidence in the team. The first drive one was defensible just because of field position; we got bailed out by the roughing the passer. The second one was analytics-supported, though avoiding a 46 yard field goal seems like another vote of little confidence in Kenney; this one failed with a frustrating (in light of run game struggles) run up the gut. The fourth down Warren converted to Brown on 4th and 5 was a very strong analytical decision in light of a would-be 52 yard kick down 10 with the second half kickoff coming. Fourth and 1 from the 26 is one that old conventional wisdom would have said kick and analytics definitely say go; the good decision was wiped out by Blackburn's penalty. But then we went for it on 4th and 11, on paper straight-up riverboat gambling but perhaps Kenney can't be trusted to try a 53 yarder. To me that one depends on if Kenney is a shell of his peak self. That said, the fact we went to the riverboat gambling well twice on these 4th and long situations and connected deep, this time to Onovughe, suggests there may have been something in scouting that gave us confidence. I was proud of Pritchard for following this up with the conservative decision to kick from the 7 rather than recklessly chase the points on 4th and goal from the 7 (and in general have no complaints about the times he did kick or punt). Finally, the 4th and 10 from the 33 thrillingly ended up with the long touchdown to Brown, but that was batshit crazy. Do we laud Pritchard for big cajones that got the win or lament that at times the coach operated like a 12 year old playing Madden (hat tip @akhockey7)? Ultimately, coaches get judged by wins and Pritchard being more aggressive than analytical worked this time. A case can be made Pritchard won this game with the call on the touchdown to Brown.

6. Connecting on both the touchdown to Brown and the long conversion to Onovughe happened because Warren was feeling himself. The grounding to end the half was maddening and in the first half I felt his receivers made him look better than his throws (though that's only fair considering all their drops the first three games), but that feels like nitpicking on a great day, especially when it came to connecting deep and keeping it clean generally (he had two turnover worthy plays but I am not going to complain about a QB 29th of 151 QBs nationally in turnover worthy play percentage). Warren's career game in conventional stats was #21 of 129 QBs nationally in Total QBR this week. That rating is in the ballpark with his marquee Michigan games (Alabama, Oregon, Michigan State), and we asked him to do more. It's the best Stanford QB performance since McKee. On the season, Warren is #52 in the nation; for context, our best of this era has been 2021 McKee at #47 and our 2026 transfer portal pipedreams included #20 Pribula, #84 Mendoza, #88 Joseph, #94 Lagway, and #121 Eget. Warren is a godsend. I would also say he's a great reflection of Pritchard and Lindgren's bona fide QB mentoring chops. It's possible some of the guys we swung and missed on would have played better at Stanford than at the better football programs they're currently representing.

7. Warren succeeding goes hand in hand with good receivers who didn't drop the ball this week. It was thrilling to finally see our top receivers, High and Brown, in action together. They're going to be tough covers for a lot of teams. The passing game should be fun this year. The running game can only do so much behind a line still struggling to run block but I have to say the distance between Ford and Irvin is less than I thought it would be. Ford has been a bit of a disappointment and Irvin a pleasant surprise. I think it remains appropriate for Ford to get more work, but as we saw in this game a healthy dose of Irvin is good for the team. Also shoutout to Onovughe's contributions, another guy I haven't thought much of as a weapon. [Moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: High (4), Nico Brown (4), Irvin (4), Ford (3), Onovughe (2), Robinson, Hall, Joseph] On the line, PFF assessed House, Prongos, and Brown as having good games, House borderline great in a platoon with Williams. Pale was a disaster. It strikes me as one of our best line performances of the era. This will be an interesting Roster Arrows segment.

8. The overall defensive tackling and cohesion (some would say effort, harder for me to judge) remain very disappointing. My exercise of counting positive box score plays was bleak, with three guys dominating the tally. The linebackers Galvan and Rose had six such plays each, with Galvan all over the place and Rose in the backfield three times. After a bit of a false start on their year due to Galvan's injury and Rose being exposed as a coverage liability and also missing more tackles than we'd like, I feel pretty good that they will settle in as the heart and soul of the defense. That is especially needed now that arguably the best player on the defense this season as well as the one with the worst depth behind him, Nicholson, went out on his shield making the key interception yesterday. The corners are going to be a liability this year, making front seven performances all the more crucial. The third guy who showed up numerous times in the box score was Staples, who had a sack for a turnover on downs, a crunch time hurry, and the pressure that led to Mendoza's calamitous grounding, making him the defensive guy who most contributed to us hanging on at the end. The guy for whom it's harder to show up in the box score given his role but is another top candidate for heart of the defense/most crucial non-Warren player is BMO. I'm a fan of that player. There are several players whose years have been problematic. Yesterday Davis seemed to especially jump off the screen as struggling. The upside I see for the defense is Kaminski hopefully rounding into form coming back, like our receivers have on offense after injury return acclimation games, and giving us a few credible non-interior guys along with Tafiti and Staples.

9. Special teams felt incidental in this offense and penalty determined game. Kenney made his chip shots from 29 and 24, but the main story with him was the coaching embracing aggression and betting on the passing game over the foot of his kicker. Flintoft had net punts of 42 to the 30 (not good enough in that crunch time situation) and 51 to the 36 (much better job of giving us breathing room in crunch time). Chris Davis had a return to the 23, the usual slight headwind we typically get from that team. There were coverage tackles by Kuo, Tate, Eckhardt, Jernegan, Harmon, and Randle, the one produced by the latter two probably the only above and beyond play of the game on special teams.

10. Game balls: Davis Warren, Jahsiah Galvan, Emmet Kenney, Brian Bratton

11. We go into Wake Forest with a chance to change the narrative of the season. On paper it looks like a steep uphill climb given the respectable opponent, travel, and brutal 9am kickoff. We could steal this though, and Wake coming off the big high of the upset at Louisville paints this one with trap game potential. In all likelihood, this is a loss and not an especially close one. Deviating from that script is the kind of thing this team can do to show it's actually making progress. Right now we look squarely like a four win team. With eight games left there's a lot of time to show we're better than that and are making progress more quickly than has been apparent. Here's to hoping.

RE: Sunday afternoon thoughts - Georgia Tech - Spiny_Norman - 09-27-2026

(2 hours ago)msqueri Wrote:  11. We go into Wake Forest with a chance to change the narrative of the season. On paper it looks like a steep uphill climb given the respectable opponent, travel, and brutal 9am kickoff. We could steal this though, and Wake coming off the big high of the upset at Louisville paints this one with trap game potential. In all likelihood, this is a loss and not an especially close one. Deviating from that script is the kind of thing this team can do to show it's actually making progress. Right now we look squarely like a four win team. With eight games left there's a lot of time to show we're better than that and are making progress more quickly than has been apparent. Here's to hoping.

Wake looks like a bad matchup for the defense. They have a WR Carlos Hernandez who is 5th in the country in receiving yards per game. His numbers are comparable to Malachi Toney. And their QB Gio Lopez has thrown for 8 TDs vs. 1 interception in 4 games. Even tougher if Nicholson is out.

RE: Sunday afternoon thoughts - Georgia Tech - KartyFan - 09-27-2026

Matt, what source/analysis do you use to determine whether going for it on 4th down is analytically sound, tossup, or riverboat gambling? Not disagreeing, interested to know.