The Dogs finally proved they can win an ugly game in the 2020s. Will they have what it takes in Highland Park to knock an SMU team off its high horse? Here are three keys to starting 2-0 in year two for Coach Cumbie’s squad.

Film Room Advantage

From a “mistakes” standpoint, last Saturday wasn’t the ugliest game we’ve seen. Only five penalties for 47 yards? Hell, I’ll take that in week 11, let alone week 0! On top of that, the defense already proved that they can tighten up and correct mistakes within games. After allowing a 67 yard run on the third play from scrimmage, Scott Power’s defense went to work and only allowed 2.6 yards per play for the rest of the game.

I’ve got good news and bad news, so let’s start with the bad: SMU ain’t FIU. While the Panthers are expected to be an FBS bottom-dweller this season, Rhett Lashlee’s Mustangs are coming off a top ten offense that’s only looking to get better in year two.

The biggest advantage the Bulldogs have is that we’ve played an entire game of FBS football already, while SMU has just been in Fall Camp. BC and Beck did a nice job talking about that on this week’s BTB Radio - but I wanted to add an angle. We’ve got film - not of SMU - but of ourselves. Our guys will have the advantage of sitting in the film room, studying the game last week and going through the mental reps: “I missed my gap by a half yard, I could’ve sacked the QB!” “The OL actually opened up a nice hole, I just didn’t hit it at the right time”, “I should’ve have adjusted my shoulder pads during the play!” That sort of thing. My point is: If we study up on ourselves, we can make a TON of small improvements from game one to game two that SMU simply can’t make yet.

Who are you people?! SMU edition

Over at gtpdd, we like to do a bit where we’ll tweet out the meme of Patrick from Spongebob returning home to his rock, only to find a bunch of people he doesn’t know. We tweet this out frequently to illustrate our feelings as fans during the beginnings of the Transfer Portal Era.

If we were SMU fans, we’d probably be tweeting that picture every single day, all season long. The Mustangs brought in 25 transfer players this season, many of whom are expected to be major contributors, whether they’ve contributed at the FBS level or not. I’m not going to go into who we should be on the lookout for, because it doesn’t matter.

What might matter is that SMU is starting a relatively fresh QB with pretty much an entirely new WR room (losing Rashee Rice really hurts!), several new pieces on the OL, and new RBs. I mean really, the QB might be the least “fresh” of them all! Tech needs to do everything in their power to prevent these guys from establishing any chemistry in the first couple of drives. Bring pressure early, confuse them with different looks, I don’t know, play peekaboo or something out there. Just keep them from having a fast start - make these guys with no “tried and true” chemistry start to question each other.

Is Skip still here???

Like it or not, that was the refrain in section OO last Saturday night as we constantly sputtered inside “scoring territory” (inside the opponent’s 40 yard line).

Do y’all want to be sad? Check this out:

The first SEVEN times Tech entered the Panthers’ 40 yard line last week, here’s what we accomplished:

19 plays - EIGHT total yards - 9 points scored. We also missed two FGs, fumbled, and punted.

Thankfully on the 8th trip inside the 40, Jacob Fields took his first career carry 30 yards into the endzone. That makes our final “scoring territory” stats: 21 plays, 40 yards, 15 points.

Even with the 30 yard run, that’s a pathetic 1.9 yards per play. Across the entire game, we averaged 5.4 yards per play. I’m not the brightest X’s and O’s guy, but something tells me you shouldn’t stop trying to score when you... get into position to score.

Maybe it was first game over-thinking, maybe it was the fact that we were on RBs 4 through 7 and couldn’t really establish a running game… But we were able to move the ball from 100-40 yards, we just couldn’t move it any further than that.

To drive this point in even more: Five of Tech’s eight failed third down conversions in the game were on the plus side of FIU’s 40, with a 0% conversion rate. In fact, Tech did not pick up a single first down after reaching FIU’s 40 yard line!

If we want to keep up with an SMU offense that WILL put up points, we’ll have to find a way to let loose when we get close.

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Evan also writes for go tech pls dont die - check them out at gtpdd.dog and on Twitter at @gotechplsdntdie