FSU vs Georgia Tech 2024: The Dublin Disaster

hello everyone and welcome back to 305 insights where today we're discussing what can be dubbed by many people as the Dublin disaster FSU goes overseas in Ireland to face off against the George Tech Yellow Jackets and come back home with an 0 onone record as they fall 24 to 21 not only an 0 And1 record but 0 And1 in the conference as well but we'll see how that plays out later in the season so we'll try and find some good to take out of this game however there's going to be a lot of I don't want to say negativity but in reviewing this game we're going to have to get serious about a multitude of things and to me I want to start off with the most concerning part about this game was the play of the defensive line as you heard in the previous podcast we have hyped up this defensive line to to no end pundits around the country as well as insiders surrounding the program have said this is going to be the best defensive line under Mike norell Pete theel even did a video preview before the game on college game day on ESPN about how they expect this team and this defensive line to be the most talented one in the nation and we got one tackle from Patrick pton one tackle from Joshua farmer two tackles from derell Jackson and two tackles from Marvin Jones Jr those are your big four this is a team that they were going up against that ran the ball 36 times they only passed 16 times and as a team we had three tackles for losses one by shahim Brown our safety one by DJ Lundy a linebacker half of one by Blake Nicholson another linebacker and one of the backups on the defensive line Daniel Lions one had it was Joshua former had the one hurry that this defense came up with no sacks one pass deflection by Kevin nolles it it was just a team that got pushed around and for all the information that was put out there about how this is going to be the deepest most physical team in terms of the trenches that Mike noral had at Forest State and they were blown off the line off the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball we're going to be extra harsh on the defensive line however the offensive line will not Escape criticism as well a lot of This falls on the individuals themselves The Players obviously cuz they're the ones out on the field the one who's also going to get criticism for me is Adam Fuller the defensive coordinator now I think I've made my stance on Fuller known throughout the years of this podcast I don't think he is a top tier defensive coordinator in college football I do think he has benefited from the outstanding talent that has come through this program on a variety of levels I mean just in this game alone you see how important linebacker play is and the fact that we don't have a Kalin Doos or a Tatum bethon to clean things up reared its ugly head today the fact that you didn't have a guy like Fabian love it who was strong against the run or brayen Fisk up the middle as well eating things up you have to put your players in a position to succeed and the fact that this was a team that only threw the ball 16 times throughout the game and you consistently played a nickel defense it's just you can't just sit there and constant constantly play 425 and just have a bunch of cornerbacks and safeties and whatnot on the field when this team that you're facing is averaging 5.3 yards a carry Jamal Haynes their main running back average 6.8 hannes King had 54 rushing yards he only averaged 3.6 but he did his job Chad Alexander at 7 for 41 Eric Singleton had 1 for 10 Malik Rutherford 1 for n and Zack pyron one for one backup kiwi who just did a kiwi di for get the touchdown where are the adjustments where are the adjustments Adam Fuller you cannot just lean on the fact that oh we have a very talented defensive line they'll get the job done if you don't see them getting the job done there needs to be help put these players in a position to succeed and also remove players who are put on the field and they look like a gaping hole on the defense and one of those people I'm talking about is Omar gram the linebacker notice how I haven't said he recorded a tackle out of the three linebackers DJ Lundy had seven tackles Cam Riley had seven Blake Nicholson had two Justin CER had one you have not heard Omar Graham's name because he didn't record a tackle and he was on the field a lot and you know what he was targeted a lot in the sense that Georgia Tech when they realized he was on the field they would mix things up they would change the play call and the confusion on the defensive side led to certain things happening I believe they ran that screenplay to Malik Rutherford and Omar Graham was the one who missed his assignment if this team is going up against someone who goes well against the Run obviously you're going to play DJ Lundy he did not have the greatest game but again Adam Fuller needs to take more I don't want to say responsibility because obviously he's a defensive coordinator and he knows what he needs to do to get the job done however between the lack of adjustment in the play calling because his bread and butter last year and the year prior as well was this was a second half team this is a team that shut down the offenses of the opposing opposing teams in the second half now gred he only allowed three touchdowns but you scored with about a little over six minutes left in the fourth quarter and you never got the ball back Georgia Tech messed up the snap on a third and seven or second and seven and made it third and 18 I believe almost pushing them out of field goal range virtually like making it a tough one all you had to do is hold them to a sensible like seven yard gain or something along those lines of just you know just making it a stop obviously if you got a sack that'd be even better but you let them gain I believe it was 12 yards because it was fourth and they let him gain a huge chunk play and the fact of the matter is let me see if I can look it up real quick yeah so it was third and 17 and they let him complete a simple screen pass to Singleton for 12 yards that allowed for a more realistic 44 yard field goal attempt let's say you only let them gain seven yards and make it fourth and 10 that's a 50 yard field goal puts it allows you to put some pressure on this kid missed a field goal earlier 44 yards isn't easy but it's also again a 50 yard 50 yard plus that's that's more difficult to make for a kid who's never taken a field goal in the fourth quarter to tie or take the lead in a game this defense did create two fumbles one of them was on that third and 17 play there was another one that they created as well and they did not capitalize on that opportunity just an overall disappointing is the kindest word I can use right now for how this defense specifically the defensive line played what was viewed as a major strength coming in this season will need to show a lot against Boston College as silly as that sounds but remember this is a team that gave them fits last year because they have a dual threat quarterback who is more prone to running than Haynes King was in the sense that I believe he had a thousand rushing yards last year and again this is this is one of those teams that could be slightly improved because you have Bill O'Brien as your head coach but again you had Thomas castanos who threw for a little under 2300 yards but also had 957 rushing yards and 11 TDS we will see again you have a severe or significant you could put sever too Town advantage against Boston College how will they handle this loss Mike norell has been a great head coach in terms of what we call the response towards adversity let's see what happens in this coming week where they play a Labor Day you got that extra few days to prepare and see how it plays out now let's switch over to the offensive side Alex a Alex Atkins was not coaching today that offensive coordinator due to the mishaps that occurred off the field with recruiting and I don't know what happened today in the sense of I know there was you know the the condition in terms of it was a little wet and whatnot that's no excuse I mean you play in Florida you're going to run into those situations it's not like you haven't practiced that how conservative this game was called was nothing short of astonishing it came out big on the first drive with a touchdown and you had I believe it was 40 yards no you had 58 yards in the first drive of rushing and then you finished for the rest of the day with 40 additional rushing yards that's pretty crazy considering again we thought one of the strengths of this team would be the veteran leadership of that offensive line Darius Washington Richie Leonard Marie Smith Keandre Jones Jeremiah buyers well over 150 starts between the two oh I'm sorry between all of those guys they could not establish the run after the first drive and again the lack of adjustments was frustrating it was mindboggling Georgia Tech and their coaching staff picked up on the fact that they were calling a conservative game plan they were stacking it in the box and they still thought hey let's run the ball wasn't the smartest idea 193 passing yards on the day 98 rushing yards total just it's a lot of concerning stats that it was just wasn't enough big plays there's a few attempts like when DJ Miss jakai Douglas deep threw it a little bit short that that would have obviously made a difference in how the defense could have resp expected the running game cuz that's what you going in the season that's what we talked about you need a DJ to play in a sense of to not turn the ball over but also hit the Deep shots to keep the defense honest that's why this team was built this way on offense we talked about it you don't have the Johnny Wilson you don't have the Keon Coleman you want speed on this team that's why you have Malik Benson as your number one that's why you had Jaylen Brown coming in as the transfer from LSU and you didn't see a lot of it they didn't create that separation which was the concern going into the season Shai Douglas had four cashes for 55 yards s Malik banson four for 39 then you had two running backs and Roy do Williams and Lawrence toi with both three receptions then finally you get to KRON porier one for 15 Kyle Morlock one of 12 Jaylen brown two of 11 Jaylen Lucas a running back 105 so you had when Ben and who you expected to be in the top of the reception list yeah jakai Douglas after that you have four catches from your other wide receivers and tight ends that's not going to cut it especially when your Russian game is 31 carries for 98 yards with a long of 28 that 28 was a touchdown run by Lawrence toi 3.2 yards a carry Lawrence toi again had that 20 yard rushing touchdown he finished with eight carries for 32 yards on paper that sounds good you have four yards a carry and a touchdown 28 of those came on one play so the other seven carries he managed to muster four yards royell Williams they transfer from Alabama had 12 for 38 with a touchdown jayen Lucas two of 13 Kazo Holmes two for8 DJ had six of seven and Cam Davis had one carry so there goes a game for Cam Davis you only have a few more left to play him you don't want to burn the red shirt but snuck won't carry for him DJ overall finished 19 of 27 for 193 yards there were some insane stat where I believe in the first half they averaged Point negative .1 yards throwing the ball in the sense that it was dumping a lot in the back field they were not passing the line of scrimmage in terms of the ball flight the pass itself was not passing the line of scrimmage ah it's just it's just insane how conservative this game was and it's it's it's not something that you can the fully point to and be like oh this is DJ's fault oh this is this it's just too many Miss blocks too many missed tackles I believe the total that PFF gave out was 11 that might change that might that might be a conservative number is 11 Miss tackles so I just it's just mindboggling Georgia Tech is a solid team but the way they looked it made it look like they were the ones that came into the game with the narrative that FSU had in the sense of what we're talking about in the trenches it's just not what you would expect from this team from this coaching staff I mean you're going to have to run the table just to earn a shot at the ACC Championship and a birth in college football playoffs Georgia Tech was a seven- six team last year and they have an over under four and a half total wins coming into the game now Vegas could have underestimated Georgia Tech however I do believe they have one of the tougher schedules in the country and there goes your you know going in the season you thought okay FSC would have trouble with Miami Clemson and Notre Dame those would be your three toughest games he had a sneaker pick or sleeper pick when it came to facing SMU would they have enough depth by the time they played FSU but it's just how do you let DJ go I believe it was six of eight in the last Drive of the game that they had for 82 yards and then for the rest of the game you just basically let them do nothing for the rest of the game he basically was what he takes six of eight away so you're looking at 13 of 19 for basically 112 yards give or take so yards 110 yards 111 H how does he look so poised in converting two fourth down conversions and you don't let him do that throughout the game where's the trust in him I know there was a lot of times where he missed certain plays by like a second but you can't just bail on bail out on him after that it's just again this coaching staff is building the right culture here however there's always concerning things that happen throughout games where you just let the talent wi out W rather than actually executing and defining the plays properly Fu averaged 9.6 yards per carry on its opening drive and somehow finish with 3.2 yards per carry as an average for the game again 58 yards in that first drive rushing 40 yards after that where is the adjustments so well we'll see how the season develops I do have confidence in Mark Dell and certain members of the staff to write the ship but if not we're going to have more serious discussions about the pitfalls of this step I think I made it clear how I feel about Adam Fuller you've seen the weaknesses with the linebacking core might need to have start having that serious discussion not just for you know bleeps and Giggles about Randy Shannon but between his recruiting lack of prowess and the fact that that you have Ernie Sims an FSU Legend at linebacker being an analyst The Replacements right there there's a lot of things I need to change on this coaching staff in the sense of you have a lot of guys carrying water above their weight and other guys who need to step up because it seems like this team bought in on their own hype and didn't go out there and execute so not only am I looking forward to how the coaching staff responds but how the players respond as well where is the veteran leadership going to come from you had you know the linebackers last year in bethon and Doos you had adverse Braden Fisk Fabian love it he had those guys on defense on offense you clearly had Jordan Travis and ke Coleman more importantly Travis as the Catalyst and the guy who's been in the system for the longest who's going to step up this year is it GNA be Shaheen Brown is it gonna be DJ Lundy on defense is it gonna be Patrick pton it's got to be one of these internal guys that been there for the while been in the system for a while there are certain guys need to step up on each level of the field I have no doubt that shahim brown is being very vocal throughout this whole week of what they expect he's one of the leaders on this team can DJ step up and Lead that linebacker in core can Patrick pyton step up in that leadership role or is it going to be Joshua farmer I don't know most people need to step up on offense you can't depend entirely on the new guys we talked about in the previous podcast the wide receivers keton porier Darren Williamson which one of these guys are going to step up do spawn the big physical wide receivers can they create separations as opposed to the speedsters that were starting in jakai Douglas Jaylen Brown and Malik Benson we'll see where it goes from here vocal leadership leadership is needed on both sides of the ball from the players the coaching staff has shown in the past their ability to handle adversity let's see where it goes from here the revenge tour cannot be over before Labor Day how will this team step up we'll find out next week on 305 insights but again a long one folks but thanks for listening thanks for stopping by you know what to do follow like subscribe do all that stuff YouTube Spotify Apple podcast you'll find us there thanks for listening me right about this loss we'll see if we do a a preview I don't necessarily like doing previews I like doing reviews but we're still going to put out our predictions for or reviews SL predictions for each conference the ACC one might need some editing now but yeah that's what to expect throughout the week and then man college football starts officially I know week zero but we're going to lead off next week with that UF game it's it's going to be a fun week despite all the negativity I just spoke about but anyways look out for all that stuff look out for that content coming out and just once again thank you for listening and we'll catch you next time here on 305 insights