Stats - Garrett #4 total offense

[The PonyGrad]

Garret Gilbert #4 in total offense
Jeremy Johnson #9T in receptions, Darius Joseph #11
and #17 and #36 in receiving yards
Mike Loftus #26 punting avg yards
Cedric Lancaster #34 in punt returns

SMU #9 in passing offense
#29 total offense
#1T in turnovers allowed
#7 in rushing D (edit: and #8 in yards allowed per attempt)
#34 in net punting

[malonish]

Nice. Let's start building on the takeaways. That will be a critical stat like last year.

[The PonyGrad]

Biggest differences from the last season
Offensive yards, Passing #9 vs. #62
Pass efficiency, #68 vs. #115
Total O, #29 vs. #90
Sacks #9T vs. #70
However scoring went from #53 to #72

Scoring D from 54 to #98

Turnovers from #10 to #47T (tied with many teams)

Same problem areas:
Pass D #109
Sacks allowed #105T vs. 97

[PonySnob]

How about passing yards allowed by a walk-on freshman QB? In the end stats are meaningless if you don't score more than the other team...........

[The PonyGrad]

Clearly the lack of scoring vs. yardage is a glaring concern from looking at the statistics. The question is whether the causes for that are readily fixable.

One note is that we had a TD taken away by a blown call. On the other hand, there are offensive line issues that need to be corrected to be more consistent in the red zone, IMHO.

Securing turnovers for better field position is another. Tech left a lot of balls on the ground and we recovered none of those and there were a few int opportunities that also resulted in nothing. I think experience will help with that.

[jimhagle]

Stats mean nothing if you don't score TDs. This so called high scoring offense and we have so few passing TDs-ridiculous. And could we please put a running back in once in blue moon who can run with a burst for a change.

[Charleston Pony]

anyone looking at the stats from this game would have a hard time picking the winner. stats can really be misleading

[The PonyGrad]

One game is one game but we had much better offensive production (except points) than our average last year by far. I see this as a good sign as we try to fix other issues. We have been asking where is the offense, well, there it is.

[The PonyGrad]

Here is a stat for you: our average starting field position was inside our own 26.

And consider this - 3 plays that make the difference:
blown holding call by refs 7 pts
missed FG, 3pts
stopped on the 1 yard line at this end of the game 7 pts.

Three simple plays and we win the game. It was not that big a difference.
Just sayin.

[The PonyGrad]

bump, in case anyone missed this.

[ponyte]

If GG contiuned this through the season, it would only be Heisman like numbers. Not that that means anything.

[Higher Authority]

I would suggest that Tech's defense was one of the better ones we'll see this year. It's not great, but not bad. If nothing else, it's at least in the top half of what we'll see.

If GG throws for 388 yards every week, he'll finish the regular season with 4,656 passing yards, which would beat the school record (3,828 by Kyle Padron in 2010) by more than 800 yards.

If that happens, I'd hazard a guess he finds the end zone more than a few times (refs can't pull them all back on phantom calls, can they?) and I promise there would then be a 13th game.

I know, 1 stat doesn't mean everything, but it was a solid first game in the new offense.

[malonish]

You're being rational on ponyfans. Get that stuff outta here!

[pelcowboys]

At the end of the day, this team has to score touchdowns. We can't get inside the 25, 20, 10, 5, etc., and come away with a field goal (or a missed field goal), and expect to win. Field goals can win games when your defense is able to hold the opponent to less than 14 points. I don't see our defense forcing enough 3 and outs, turnovers, etc to put up those kind of stats this year. We must get the ball into the end zone to win.

Also, Montana St. runs a zone-read offense that put up 388 yards and 39 points by halftime last week. I'm not saying they're gonna come onto The Hilltop and beat us, but let's make sure we heed the examples set by Oregon St, Kansas St, UConn, USF, Iowa St, and San Diego St last week. Get the ball into the end zone, and do it early. The longer these underdogs are allowed to hang around...