Recruiting Forum Football Talk XXXI

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Something else I love about Volnation. Part of the people say he's to hands on and can't make adjustments. Then there was the group saying he turned it over to his team captains and it didn't work.

Which one is it? Was he to hands on or to hands off last year. I'm getting confused the more bull**** I read.
I think the argument was that he was too hands on micromanaging position coaches, coordinators, etc whilst (in hindsight) he was much too hands off with the S&C program and captains in 2016.

I kinda give him a pass on the latter since the perception from most beat writers and those following UT football spent all spring and offseason harping on how strong the leadership was from the captains, seniors, and upperclassmen leaders. But obviously some of those guys weren't as good at being leaders as we thought/expected, which was a surprise.

I think that's one lesson Butch is sure not to forget.
 
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Nice. Really hoping to see that move. He really struggled at S due to speed. He would instantly look better speed wise at LB. I don't know much about his physical toughness and ability to get off blocks. If he can do that you could have another JRM situation. Staff has to find a way to get Warrior out there at S and Abernathy is unlikely to be moved

You highlighted my worries about TK playing LB. he has the size and speed to be a JRM type LB, but his physicality has been hit or miss in his 3 years at Safety, so I worry about him playing closer to the LOS and being able to take on blockers.
 
QB: Guarantano/Dormady
RB: Kelly/Chandler
TE: Wolf/Wolf
WR: Malone/Callaway
WR: Jennings/Johnson
Slot: Perry/Williams
LT: Richmond/Smith
LG: Robertson/Boulware
C: Thomas/Jones
RG: Jones/Boulware
RT: Hall/Kendrick

DE: Kongbo/Phillips
DT: McKenzie/Johnson
DT: Vickers/Picou
DE: Taylor/Smith
MLB: Kirkland/Bituli
WLB: Sapp/Kelly
Nickel: Gaulden/Osborne
CB: Byrd/Buchanan
CB: Moseley/Martin
SS: Abernathy/Gray
FS: Warrior/Griffin

P: Daniel
K: Medley
KR: Berry/Byrd
PR: Callaway

Bring me some coaches and let's ride.

That is a VERY average SEC roster with no depth.
 
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Depth may be thin in places, but I like that starting 22. I'd bet 75% of the SEC would trade, straight up

75% seems high to me, but for the sake of the discussion, that puts us right around 4th or 5th in the SEC on starting SEC talent. Depth drops us off a bit - and Butch has proven there's a good chance we drop one or two we shouldn't - so that puts us right at 7-5, 8-4?
 
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75% seems high to me, but for the sake of the discussion, that puts us right around 4th or 5th in the SEC on starting SEC talent. Depth drops us off a bit - and Butch has proven there's a good chance we drop one or two we shouldn't - so that puts us right at 7-5, 8-4?

4th or 5th in the SEC puts us 1st or 2nd in talent in the East. 9 wins should be the bare minimum for Butch to keep his job. Florida's defensive talent is decreasing every year, and their recruiting has been extremely mediocre. UGA has a lot of talent coming in but they're going to be relying on a lot of freshman on the O-line and their D-line depth is still young/thin, but they're gonna be scary good in 2018 if their classes pan out. We're still more talented than every other team in the East and the schedule next year is more balanced.
 
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Little confused on Sab. A couple years ago, he seemed to be a credible poster on this board.

When did he go off the deep end?

You know the stereotype of the looser guy who lives in his mom's basement, surfs the Internet all day, everday...in like the creepiest way possible?

Yeah...that's Sab.
 
75% seems high to me, but for the sake of the discussion, that puts us right around 4th or 5th in the SEC on starting SEC talent. Depth drops us off a bit - and Butch has proven there's a good chance we drop one or two we shouldn't - so that puts us right at 7-5, 8-4?

I have it at 7-5 and hope to be pleasantly surprised. There's enough talent left to win 9-10, but Shoop has to somehow make the land of misfit toys turn into ninjas. I still believe he is one of the best DC's in the business, but he has his work cut out for him. The S&C guy is a major key to what happens as well.

If this class stays as it is to go with last year's we are looking at 7-8 wins average per season for the foreseeable future IMO. All of this is subject to the quality of coaching changes and any last minute quality recruits they can bring with them.
 
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I'm just of the opinion that culture problems just don't all magically go away in one year. Some of that stuff will still be around lingering.

Also, I don't see the talent on the roster that most of you do. QB play will probably be solid, but I think we'll regress from Dobbs' production. There's only one SEC RB on the roster. WR's are very good. TE has been hit or miss with the Wolves. OL has consistently struggled under Mahoney. (I understand a change may be made here but even that can backfire if there is too much change.) We have two proven DE's then a bunch of unknowns. DT is very top heavy. One rolled ankle there and we're in trouble. LB's are small for the SEC and were nonexistent for large stretches this season. And we all know the problems we've had in the secondary.

On top of all this - there are no clear cut difference makers coming in from this recruiting class besides Trey Smith. We need more than bodies. We need game changers. Alabama, LSU, Florida, etc. get 4 or 5 of those guys each year.
 
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QB: Guarantano/Dormady
RB: Kelly/Chandler
TE: Wolf/Wolf
WR: Malone/Callaway
WR: Jennings/Johnson
Slot: Perry/Williams
LT: Richmond/Smith
LG: Robertson/Boulware
C: Thomas/Jones
RG: Jones/Boulware
RT: Hall/Kendrick

DE: Kongbo/Phillips
DT: McKenzie/Johnson
DT: Vickers/Picou
DE: Taylor/Smith
MLB: Kirkland/Bituli
WLB: Sapp/Kelly
Nickel: Gaulden/Osborne
CB: Byrd/Buchanan
CB: Moseley/Martin
SS: Abernathy/Gray
FS: Warrior/Griffin

P: Daniel
K: Medley
KR: Berry/Byrd
PR: Callaway

Bring me some coaches and let's ride.

I wouldn't pencil Byrd in as a starting CB until he actually moves over. Also, I have a strong feeling Malone will jump pro.
 
I'm just of the opinion that culture problems just don't all magically go away in one year. Some of that stuff will still be around lingering.

Also, I don't see the talent on the roster that most of you do. QB play will probably be solid, but I think we'll regress from Dobbs' production. There's only one SEC RB on the roster. WR's are very good. TE has been hit or miss with the Wolves. OL has consistently struggled under Mahoney. (I understand a change may be made here but even that can backfire if there is too much change.) We have two proven DE's then a bunch of unknowns. DT is very top heavy. One rolled ankle there and we're in trouble. LB's are small for the SEC and were nonexistent for large stretches this season. And we all know the problems we've had in the secondary.

On top of all this - there are no clear cut difference makers coming in from this recruiting class besides Trey Smith. We need more than bodies. We need game changers. Alabama, LSU, Florida, etc. get 4 or 5 of those guys each year.

Is it too late to cancel next season?
 
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That is a VERY average SEC roster with no depth.

That's too harsh.

I wouldn't call it an elite roster, but there's more than enough talent there for a good coach to make a run at the east (assuming we avoid the injury plague).

No way that roster shouldn't be able to win 8 games. If Guarantano turns out to be as good as everybody thinks, it has the potential to be a really good team.


Will come down to defensive improvement, IMO. Shoop has had units with much less talent have top 25 seasons. But this year was all time bad, so who knows how they'll turn out.
 
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That's too harsh.

I wouldn't call it an elite roster, but there's more than enough talent there for a good coach to make a run at the east (assuming we avoid the injury plague).

No way that roster shouldn't be able to win 8 games. If Guarantano turns out to be as good as everybody thinks, it has the potential to be a really good team.


Will come down to defensive improvement, IMO. Shoop has had units with much less talent have top 25 seasons. But this year was all time bad, so who knows how they'll turn out.

It's really hard to say what it is without knowing what JG is and knowing if an offseason can fix our D scheme

I saw multiple times where we had guys on D make a play and then just be grossly out of position. Hard to understand really. If we keep giving up 700 yards to terrible offenses then we will Be lucky to get to 7-5

However if the D gets fixed to be a just average unit and JG is a player then 9 wins or so is definitely on the table
 
I'm just of the opinion that culture problems just don't all magically go away in one year. Some of that stuff will still be around lingering.

Also, I don't see the talent on the roster that most of you do. QB play will probably be solid, but I think we'll regress from Dobbs' production. There's only one SEC RB on the roster. WR's are very good. TE has been hit or miss with the Wolves. OL has consistently struggled under Mahoney. (I understand a change may be made here but even that can backfire if there is too much change.) We have two proven DE's then a bunch of unknowns. DT is very top heavy. One rolled ankle there and we're in trouble. LB's are small for the SEC and were nonexistent for large stretches this season. And we all know the problems we've had in the secondary.

On top of all this - there are no clear cut difference makers coming in from this recruiting class besides Trey Smith. We need more than bodies. We need game changers. Alabama, LSU, Florida, etc. get 4 or 5 of those guys each year.
Agree about DT, but if Bituli can develop and slide Kirkland over to OLB, I think we could be pleasantly surprised by OLB play next year. Bituli has size we need at MLB and Kirkland would benefit from playing outside and being able to use his athleticism a bit more.


Secondary and DT will be the biggest questions for the defense next year. Depth at DT doesn't look good, but if Byrd moves to CB we should have two potential big time playmakers in Byrd and Warrior on the backend. But we've gotta bring in a DB coach who can get more out of our guys on the back end. There is enough talent there to be solid, if not good. But the coaches this year didn't maximize the potential of a lot of the guys back there.


DT depth has been and will be troubling for the next season or two unless a few guys like Picou and/or Butcher take unexpectedly big steps forward or one of our freshman DTs comes in ready to play much earlier than expected.
 
One of two schools to.never have one less then 5 games in a season. If the DBS can't cover,new strength coach isn't hired, we continue to blitz every play and new position coaches aren't hired, we could be looking at that 4 win year. Major improvement needs to happen this off-season across the board players and coaches both. Hell the it administration needs to improve, an ad should've been hired yesterday. Just a ****ty situation at TENNESSEE right now
 
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It's really hard to say what it is without knowing what JG is and knowing if an offseason can fix our D scheme

I saw multiple times where we had guys on D make a play and then just be grossly out of position. Hard to understand really. If we keep giving up 700 yards to terrible offenses then we will Be lucky to get to 7-5

However if the D gets fixed to be a just average unit and JG is a player then 9 wins or so is definitely on the table

If JG turns out to be a player and the D gets fixed, 9 wins is basically a given. If our defense this year had played as good as the 2015 unit, then we're looking at 11-12 wins after bowl season instead of 9. If JG turns out to be a better natural passer than Dobbs, the offense shouldn't drop off too much.

But we don't know if JG will be ready yet and have no idea if this year was an aberration for Shoop or not. Those are the two big question marks. Personally, I'm going to assume that if Shoop gets to bring in a few guys of his choosing on D, he should be able to put out an average defense at least. Having basically the entire two deep be in their second year with him and having had experience should count for something.


But maybe Shoop just isn't nearly as good as we all thought he is. His right hand man at PSU was able to take over with little to no drop off for them this year. Maybe he was the brains behind the operation for Shoop all along.
 
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