In no particular odor...
*Who will step up at WR?
Michael Summers had a nice TD catch in the opener. I liked what I saw with YAC from Ricky Jeune on his one grab. I think with his size, he has the top potential to be that next stud which JT5 can rely on. Tech didn't have to throw the ball much and may not have to against Tulane either. Having said that, I feel really confident when I see JT5 dropping back - especially given his abilities to see the field and tuck it and go like the 1st TD against ASU - similar to how I did when Shawn Jones or Joe Hamilton did. Will Brad Stewart get a target or two this week and make a play?
*Matthew Jordan's playing time at QB
To me, I think with Byerly's injury and likely out for this game (and potentially more), getting a good lead early like last week and getting JT5 rested on the bench while giving Jordan lots of game snaps will be important for CPJ's and CBC's evaluations and especially for Jordan. I'm working on three assumptions here... 1) Byerly is indeed going to be out; 2) Campbell will stay on the scout team and his redshirt will not be affected; and 3) Swilling will remain the 3rd string mop-up guy.
Side note, so much is made that CPJ has "only a few plays and runs them over and over". While there is some truth in that, we have seen multiple times new packages implemented never seen before in the past. A case can be made to keep things vanilla in a game like this (which I think will be the case as our base stuff should be good enough and I think CPJ will want to assure we can run the base stuff best before we worry about anything else). Another case can be made to open up a few trick plays to get the ND/Duke/UNC D-Coordinators to have to think about some other things during film prep. I doubt we do anything beyond the norm in this game - and for that matter may not the rest of the season as long as our bread and butter is tasting really good week to week.
*Pressure the QB
I liked the pressure the interior of the D-Line created last week, but think it can be much much better. The ASU QB was mobile and avoided a lot of potential sacks, but he was running for his life on almost every play. Now it is time to do it against better competition. Notre Dame on the horizon has a bunch of future NFL guys along their O-Line so we've got to improve each week.
*Continue to press the WR's
I like what Roof has moved to since the UNC game last year and I think the aggressive style of coverage is partly (mostly?) to thank for the increase in INT's and forced TO's. I doubt I'm alone in hating that scheme of giving WR's 8-10 yards off the LOS. Get up in their grills and at minimum make the opposing WR's fight for their routes while disrupting them from the snap. When you have solid defenders across the board who are experienced and understand everyone else's roles, it is easier to take more chances.
*AJ Gray
I don't normally single out one specific guy, but I keep watching this young man to see what he might do next. Somewhat quietly in the blowout against ASU, it was not played up much that he had a nice open field tackle on KO coverage (CPJ made mention of his prowess to help us with that during preseason), recovered a fumble and had an INT on a silly fake PAT by ASU. If he had less traffic in his way, that potentially could have been returned for 2 points. The official box score from the game at rr.com does NOT credit Gray with an INT on that play.
*Who will step up at WR?
Michael Summers had a nice TD catch in the opener. I liked what I saw with YAC from Ricky Jeune on his one grab. I think with his size, he has the top potential to be that next stud which JT5 can rely on. Tech didn't have to throw the ball much and may not have to against Tulane either. Having said that, I feel really confident when I see JT5 dropping back - especially given his abilities to see the field and tuck it and go like the 1st TD against ASU - similar to how I did when Shawn Jones or Joe Hamilton did. Will Brad Stewart get a target or two this week and make a play?
*Matthew Jordan's playing time at QB
To me, I think with Byerly's injury and likely out for this game (and potentially more), getting a good lead early like last week and getting JT5 rested on the bench while giving Jordan lots of game snaps will be important for CPJ's and CBC's evaluations and especially for Jordan. I'm working on three assumptions here... 1) Byerly is indeed going to be out; 2) Campbell will stay on the scout team and his redshirt will not be affected; and 3) Swilling will remain the 3rd string mop-up guy.
Side note, so much is made that CPJ has "only a few plays and runs them over and over". While there is some truth in that, we have seen multiple times new packages implemented never seen before in the past. A case can be made to keep things vanilla in a game like this (which I think will be the case as our base stuff should be good enough and I think CPJ will want to assure we can run the base stuff best before we worry about anything else). Another case can be made to open up a few trick plays to get the ND/Duke/UNC D-Coordinators to have to think about some other things during film prep. I doubt we do anything beyond the norm in this game - and for that matter may not the rest of the season as long as our bread and butter is tasting really good week to week.
*Pressure the QB
I liked the pressure the interior of the D-Line created last week, but think it can be much much better. The ASU QB was mobile and avoided a lot of potential sacks, but he was running for his life on almost every play. Now it is time to do it against better competition. Notre Dame on the horizon has a bunch of future NFL guys along their O-Line so we've got to improve each week.
*Continue to press the WR's
I like what Roof has moved to since the UNC game last year and I think the aggressive style of coverage is partly (mostly?) to thank for the increase in INT's and forced TO's. I doubt I'm alone in hating that scheme of giving WR's 8-10 yards off the LOS. Get up in their grills and at minimum make the opposing WR's fight for their routes while disrupting them from the snap. When you have solid defenders across the board who are experienced and understand everyone else's roles, it is easier to take more chances.
*AJ Gray
I don't normally single out one specific guy, but I keep watching this young man to see what he might do next. Somewhat quietly in the blowout against ASU, it was not played up much that he had a nice open field tackle on KO coverage (CPJ made mention of his prowess to help us with that during preseason), recovered a fumble and had an INT on a silly fake PAT by ASU. If he had less traffic in his way, that potentially could have been returned for 2 points. The official box score from the game at rr.com does NOT credit Gray with an INT on that play.
