Pick results summary here. Part 3 of Bowl Season is still underway we will see those in my next post. YankeeJacket remains on top by a single pick and is being followed by 3 other pickers in 2nd place.
There was a 4 way tie in part 2 between @LeeNobody, wsecor77, aknartrebna, and GTSMURF. I am aware that there may have been a submission issue in part one as some people thought they had submitted but I had no record of it. If you feel this happened to you message me your score for the part 1 or 2 in the comments below and I will add them to the spreadsheet in red for tracking purposes, those will not be used for official scores though.
I’m not going to beat the point to death since most people on this site already have the same opinion. This was not how I wanted the season to end, and a lot of things need to be worked on if we expect to do well next season. Obviously, we need plenty of players in the transfer portal and we need to get an actual OC to know what offense we will be running. From a more general coaching standpoint Key has got to figure out clock management, it is costing us points repeatedly and that has been a problem since he took over. Defense seemed to improve at the end of the season as we saw more young players step in, but those young players need to better understand their assignments to avoid giving up easy yardage. Gideon seems to be improving his playcalling, but we will need to see a large jump in defensive performance next year if we are going to be competitive.
All of this is fixable under good coaching. It was still a good season, but there is a fine line between a good season and a great season. We had multiple chances to make this a great season and fell short in incredible frustrating ways at every opportunity. We’ll have the entire offseason to speculate on what Key can do moving forward and if next season will see GT stagnate, deteriorate, or improve.
Regarding the playoffs, despite not liking Miami they do look like a good choice to win it all. Indiana is the other front runner although I wouldn’t write off Ole Miss or Oregon. Ole Miss overcame quite a bunch of officiating nonsense to beat uga (how does uga consistently get the refs to miss penalties at the end of the game by the way?) and Oregon’s defense got 5 turnovers to beat Texas Tech. Miami and Indiana looked like the most balanced and dominant teams though so I think they have the slight edge. I am hoping for at least a few more good games before the end of the season. Let’s see what happens.
picks:
CFP Semifinal: #10 Miami Hurricanes (-3.5) v #6 Ole Miss Rebels
Logan: I don’t know if I am happy for Ole Miss or just thrilled to see the Dwags finally lose one of those games where officiating seemed to be on their side. Other than bad time management at the end of halves on the field goal tries (which is one of the time management things Key is good at ironically) Ole Miss played a very solid game and overcame some missed facemasks and offensive pass interference calls. Still I think it would be a tall order for the Rebels to upset Miami. The Ole Miss defense looked great during some drives but was toilet paper on others, so the Rebels will need to rely on their offense. That seems like a tale that GT fans are too familiar with. If Miami’s defense can limit Ole Miss to a few scores I think Carson Beck and the Miami run game can find a way to get this one done.
Logan’s pick: Miami
CFP Semifinal: #1 Indiana Hoosiers (-4.5) v #5 Oregon Ducks
Logan: So I get that Alabama isn’t necessarily the Alabama of old, but man that was a dominant performance by Indiana. I think Oregon has a chance in this one if they can keep the game low scoring, which their defense certainly seems capable of. If Indiana turns the ball over this could be a tough game, but I think the run game and the Heisman QB that Indiana has will be too tough for Oregon to overcome.
Logan’s pick: Indiana
