I haven't put one of these up before, but I figured this game is as good as any to give you guys a look at what I noticed when I went through the drive-by-drive summary...
So the first thing that immediately jumped out at me is just how similar the chart looked to last week's vs. Miami. There's a trend and it isn't a good one. The offense completely sputters. I mean, visually, it is even worse than during the game. It's right there.
We flat out decide for whatever reason to stop moving the football--and it isn't because the offense doesn't have the capability to.
Let's look at the play-by-play of Wake's drives in the second half:
W 1-10 W15 WAKE FOREST drive start at 14:53.
W 1-10 W15 Skinner, R pass complete to Williams, Marsh for 5 yards to the WF20,
out-of-bounds (Reid,R.).
W 2-5 W20 Adams, J rush for 2 yards to the WF22 (Walls, L.;Jefferson,B.).
W 3-3 W22 Skinner, R pass incomplete to Brown, D (Edwards,M.).
W 4-3 W22 Popham, S punt 43 yards to the GT35, Tarrant,J. return 6 yards to the GT41
(Quarles, C).
--------------- 3 plays, 7 yards, TOP 01:33 ---------------
*On GT's next play, they scored on Dwyer's 59 yard TD.
W 1-10 W22 WAKE FOREST drive start at 13:01.
W 1-10 W22 Pendergrass, B rush for 3 yards to the WF25 (Morgan,D.;Jefferson,B.).
W 2-7 W25 Skinner, R pass complete to Williams, Marsh for 11 yards to the WF36, 1ST
DOWN WF, out-of-bounds.
Previous play is under review. Call on the field is completed pass.
Call on the field is confirmed.
W 1-10 W36 Skinner, R pass complete to Givens, C for 5 yards to the WF41 (Burnett,M.).
W 2-5 W41 Skinner, R sacked for loss of 6 yards to the WF35 (Morgan,D.).
W 3-11 W35 Skinner, R pass incomplete to Brown, D.
W 4-11 W35 Popham, S punt 48 yards to the GT17, Tarrant,J. return 22 yards to the GT39
(Ghee, B).
--------------- 5 plays, 13 yards, TOP 02:55 ---------------
W 1-10 W28 WAKE FOREST drive start at 07:14.
W 1-10 W28 WF ball on WF29.
W 1-10 W29 Skinner, R pass complete to Brown, D for 7 yards to the WF36 (Butler,M.).
W 2-3 W36 Harris, K rush for no gain to the WF36 (Jefferson,B.;Walls, L.).
W 3-3 W36 Skinner, R pass incomplete to Williams, Marsh.
W 4-3 W36 Popham, S punt 51 yards to the GT13, Tarrant,J. return 4 yards to the GT17
(Bechtel, G;Jones, J).
--------------- 3 plays, 7 yards, TOP 01:40 ---------------
W 1-10 W38 WAKE FOREST drive start at 14:55.
W 1-10 W38 Skinner, R pass complete to Skinner, R for loss of 2 yards to the WF36.
Previous pass was tipped by #28 R. Reid, caught by Skinner.
W 2-12 W36 Skinner, R pass complete to Williams, Marsh for 7 yards to the WF43
(Butler,M.;Burnett,M.).
W 3-5 W43 Skinner, R pass incomplete to Givens, C.
W 4-5 W43 Popham, S punt 57 yards to the GT0, touchback.
--------------- 3 plays, 5 yards, TOP 01:41 ---------------
*Tech scored on this next drive on a Nesbitt 12 yd run to put GT up 24-17
Blair,S. kickoff 66 yards to the WF4, Jackson, L return 22 yards to the
WF26 (Frierson,M.;Thomas,J.).
W 1-10 W26 WAKE FOREST drive start at 08:11.
W 1-10 W26 Pendergrass, B rush for 8 yards to the WF34 (Edwards,M.).
W 2-2 W34 Pendergrass, B rush for loss of 3 yards to the WF31 (Griffin,S.).
W 3-5 W31 Skinner, R pass complete to Givens, C for 13 yards to the WF44, 1ST DOWN
WF, out-of-bounds.
W 1-10 W44 Pendergrass, B rush for loss of 2 yards to the WF42
(Butler,M.;Jefferson,B.).
W 2-12 W42 Pendergrass, B rush for 8 yards to the 50 yardline (Tongo, O.).
W 3-4 W50 Skinner, R pass complete to Givens, C for 27 yards to the GT23, 1ST DOWN
WF, out-of-bounds (Reid,R.), PENALTY GT offside declined,
PENALTY GT personal foul (Tongo, O.) 12 yards to the GT11, 1ST DOWN
WF.
W 1-10 G11 1st and 10.
W 1-10 G11 Skinner, R pass complete to Brown, D for 11 yards to the GT0, 1ST DOWN
WF, TOUCHDOWN, clock 04:27.
--------------- 7 plays, 74 yards, TOP 03:44 ---------------
W 1-10 W41 WAKE FOREST drive start at 01:50.
W 1-10 W41 Skinner, R pass complete to Williams, Marsh for 8 yards to the WF49,
out-of-bounds (Griffin,S.).
W 2-2 W49 Skinner, R sacked for loss of 8 yards to the WF41 (Morgan,D.), PENALTY WF
intentional grounding (Skinner, R) 0 yards to the WF41.
W 3-10 W41 3rd and 10.
W 3-10 W41 Skinner, R pass complete to Williams, Marsh for 21 yards to the GT38, 1ST
DOWN WF, out-of-bounds (Butler,M.).
W 1-10 G38 Skinner, R pass incomplete to Parker, A.
W 2-10 G38 2nd and 10.
W 2-10 G38 Skinner, R rush for 3 yards to the GT35, out-of-bounds (Burnett,M.).
W 3-7 G35 Skinner, R sacked for loss of 5 yards to the GT40 (Morgan,D.).
W 4-12 G40 Timeout Georgia Tech, clock 01:07.
W 4-12 G40 Popham, S punt 37 yards to the GT3, downed.
--------------- 6 plays, 19 yards, TOP 00:52 ---------------
Then in OT:
W 1-10 G25 WAKE FOREST drive start at 15:00.
W 1-10 G25 Adams, J rush for 6 yards to the GT19 (Edwards,M.).
W 2-4 G19 Adams, J rush for loss of 4 yards to the GT23 (Walls, L.;Edwards,M.).
W 3-8 G23 Skinner, R rush for 6 yards to the GT17 (Burnett,M.;Jefferson,B.).
W 4-2 G17 Newman, J field goal attempt from 34 GOOD, clock 15:00.
Ok. So What jumps out at you? I'll start. Well Wake only held the ball for just over 8:30 outside of the TD drive. It's always good to give the ball right away to a high-powered offense rather than at least moving the ball and giving them less possessions.
I'm not the biggest TOP advocate in the world as I recognize that a team like Texas, who scores quickly a lot of the time, is still controlling the game by the score, which is even more important than controlling the football. But still, you can't hold the ball for a minute and punt it away to a team that scores 35 points a game!
Another thing that was right up in my face was the fact that we had TWO first downs outside of the touchdown drive in the entire second half. Are you kidding me? Did Georgia Tech's defense, giving up 25 points per game, suddenly become the second coming of the Steel Curtain? (Hint: the answer is no.)
So why just two first downs then, you ask? Playcalling.
Here's about how every sequence in the second half went (with slight variations). 1ST: Short 5-7 yards pass complete (or incomplete), 2ND: short run for 1-3 yards, 3RD: incomplete pass
Far too often, we kept trying to run the ball for no reason. It was obvious the short crossing patterns and out routes were getting us yards on a regular basis. But instead, on 2nd and short, we continued to try to run. Over and over again. Like we have all year.
It has not worked.
That leaves us in a 3rd down (sometimes on second down Riley would get sacked too, so I guess we didn't run it EVERY 2nd down) that is still manageable. But instead of going to the same 5 yard patterns that we gained yards on 1st down, we took a shot down field. Now I may be fuzzy on this, but I'm pretty sure this happened at least 3 or 4 times in the second half.
Please, someone explain why. I've watched every game this year and I can't give anyone an answer. It doesn't make sense to me, it doesn't make sense to a lot of other Wake Forest fans, and it definitely has been a big part of why we lost the last two games and more this season.
It's an easy excuse to blame bad luck, injuries, penalties and mental mistakes for a lot of the losses this season, but those things don't call the plays.