Breaking down Middle Tennessee's Loss to Purdue

by BirdGT on Sep 6, 2011 12:00 PM EDT in Georgia Tech Football

We play Middle Tennessee on Saturday so I figured we could breakdown the playcalling and playmakers of Middle Tennessee in their close loss to the Purdue Boilermakers. First, let's compare the 2010 to 2011's season opener in terms of new personnel. The most obvious change is the departure of Dwight Dasher, one of MTSU's most prolific offenders in school history. The Blue Raiders started Logan Kilgore against the Boilermakers. Kilgore started 3 games in 2010 for the Blue Raiders but was eventually re-benched when Dwight came back from suspension.

The Raiders offense averaged 31 passing attempts per game in 2010 and threw the ball on 43% of their playcalls. On Saturday, the Raiders threw the ball 45 times, which was 57% of the playcalls. The Raiders return three of their top five 2010 pass catchers and those three veterans led the way for the Raiders against Purdue's pass defense accounting for 211 receiving yards on 15 catches.

Tavarres Jefferson and Malcolm Beyah are the two names we need to know in their receiving corps and it looks like Beyah is getting a consistent number of plays called his direction while Jefferson appears to be the big play guy. They must have some third down plays designed to use Beyah as a lure to break Jefferson open.

The rushing game wasn't terribly prolific against the Boilermakers. They barely cracked a hundred yards but this isn't terribly surprising considering the Raiders haven't had a true runningback break 1,000 yards in a season since 2002's stellar MTSU stud Dwone Hicks. In fact, the Blue Raiders didn't run one time on third down as their average third down attempt against the Boilermakers was a 3rd and 8. Speaking of play-calling, the Raiders only had two plays in the red zone and both were rushes.

I think Tech fans should look for more of what we saw last season in Atlanta against the Blue Raiders. Except this season we'll be in front of 31,000 screaming Blue Raider fans and the opposing offense will be a little more focused as their starting QB had an entire year plus an offseason to fester over his benching in 2010.

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"prolific offenders"

Is that akin to “alleged perpetrator”?

by DressHerInWhiteAndGold on Sep 6, 2011 12:35 PM EDT via mobile reply actions

Almost

It’s actually Miami’s status with the NCAA…

#zing

by GT_Jason on Sep 6, 2011 2:32 PM EDT up reply actions 2 recs

You guys.

by Atlanta's original team on Sep 6, 2011 3:42 PM EDT up reply actions

couldn't think of a good term

I remember last year someone got mad at me for saying Kansas’ QB and wide receivers were partners in crime…

I write stuff From the Rumble Seat.

by BirdGT on Sep 6, 2011 9:06 PM EDT up reply actions

WARNING, TRAP GAME APPROACHING

Should I hold off writing about why this is a trap game until after we crunch all of the hard numbers?

by Atlanta's original team on Sep 6, 2011 3:43 PM EDT reply actions

Possibly

I think there are still things that need to be worked on, especially on special teams, and I don’t think CPJ is going to let them forget about Kansas. They still need to work on the running game as well. There’s just more to the offense and defense in general that we didn’t see against WCU that I think they will be working on to lose focus on what should be another win.

Then again, those are the same things said before every trap game loss… haha!

"You could spend the next fifteen seconds of your life watching a man and a tiger scream together, or you could be an idiot."
Fact.

by Jesse28 on Sep 6, 2011 8:06 PM EDT up reply actions

Just like our game, the Purduw-MTSU game does not tell us much.

Purdue is still a bottom feeder in the Big Ten, so hanging with them is nothing to brag about. Actually, I wish MTSU had won. Our guys may not take this game as seriously as they should, and it’s on the road. We need to hit MTSU early with a couple of scores to take away their enthusiasm. I do not want this one to be close in the 4th quarter.

Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?

by orientalnc on Sep 7, 2011 7:45 AM EDT up reply actions