Recruiting Forum Football Talk XXXVI

[McGeesPub]

Brooooo ... Depth is still a massive issue in year 5. That isn't elite recruiting.

The attrition from the 2014 class has really hurt that IMO. Along with questionable player development and recruiting that took a step back in 2016 (not including 2017 for depth purposes), we aren't as deep as I thought.

It shouldn't take 10 years to build a deep football team.

 

[jave36]

Prob more talent, but no true DTs. Plus, we were dealing with the prima Donna at SC. Just so many factors involved. Should we have won? Yes. I still don't think those 2 games are on same level on Dooley and UK game.

I disagree. One or the other wouldn't have been, but both together in the same season were as bad or worse than the Dooley UK loss. Especially considering the east title was on the line. Dooley vs UK nothing was on the line, it was a meaningless game.

And you can't cite injuries against USC, offense lost us that game. And no, Hurd didn't single handedly lose the game with a bad attitude.

Butch has done enough positive things, so those losses shouldn't have gotten him fired, but they were definitely as bad as Dooley's UK loss.

 

[Smokey123]

How many good teams do we beat playing like that upfront in both sides of the ball?

I expected and wanted to see domination.
Game plan has nothing to do with whupping ass up front. That is a for sure place Where we dominate vs the Indiana states of the world

Didn't play that bad upfront on defense. ISU averaged 3.2 YPC, we didn't blitz at all. Was it great? No, was it good? Eh. Was it bad? No. ISU couldn't run between the tackles when they tried.

 

[Smokey123]

Through watching the first couple drives... Bituli, WOW. Already has 3 tackles and have been in on nearly every play. Darrell Taylor got caught up going for the QB on those jet sweeps a couple times. Jumper has gotten the edge multiple times but then can't get off the block.

 

[vol2002]

I'm very serious. Position by position, even with injuries, we had more physical talent then those two teams combined.
Is that an incorrect assessment?

People forget with Vandy in particular that we had just played two straight weeks of 80 or more snaps against Kentucky and Missouri. They also forget we were beating Vandy until the bottom fell out in the fourth quarter. That was a completely gassed defense.

I don't think injuries and exhaustion is an excuse. It's just an irrefutable reality of life in a world with an 85 scholarship limit, etc.

That's a game if we could have played it 10 times we would have won 7 with our talent, even if gassed, but the breaks didn't go our way (Dobbs fumble). Such is life.

 

[Smokey123]

Call me crazy but after watching the game replay on TV I'm actually excited about this defense. Would've liked to see some turnovers and some of the young guys get in there earlier but I liked what I saw coming off a short week playing a "meh" opponent.

I'm watching the first half now and charting the stats for it. I'll give my opinion when I'm done

 

[vol2002]

I'm watching the first half now and charting the stats for it. I'll give my opinion when I'm done

It's much better when you watch it a second time, and especially when you consider they were on short rest against an opponent they didn't care about playing. People on this board have lost their minds.

 

[Lovesomebigorange]

I think player development and lack of getting real game experience reps (i.e yesterday) is more to blame for depth issues than recruiting. Thig should have been gone 2 years ago.

 

[Tennessee Golfer]

How many good teams do we beat playing like that upfront in both sides of the ball?

I expected and wanted to see domination.
Game plan has nothing to do with whupping ass up front. That is a for sure place Where we dominate vs the Indiana states of the world

We couldn't whup ass on defense because they took our line out of the equation with those unbalanced lines and sweeps. All their positive rushes were on the edges.

When they did drop back to pass (very rarely) we got good push and batted balls down.

 

[volinbama256]

A bunch more injuries is one of the things that happened. I am not defending and justifying that Butch is an elite gameday coach or anything. He certainly has a lot of room to improve. However, we could do a whole lot worse. Do I want to be mediocre? Absolutely not! I keep hoping to see Butch growing as a head coach and doing some things better, because I am not sure I want to risk going down that path of hiring another coach and risking making a bad decision, that ends up leaving us in the dumps again.

Two things that I think Butch is elite at currently… Recruiting and motivation. He may fall short in a lot of areas, but those young men absolutely play their hearts out for him. Make fun of him all you want about some of his quirky game day decisions, but him being an elite motivator is a fact.

I understand where you are coming from---

I will say though, motivation may be elite, but recruiting is about a B right now... yes, he has gotten several elite prospects coming out of high school and some of them have/are panning out... but to me, and I think a lot of folks, the definition of an elite recruiter is someone who can recruit a balanced high profile class in more than one cycle... we can all see the lack of depth we have currently at D line, LB, and a couple of other places, and part of being an elite recruiter is recognizing the talent you are pulling... we have several players that have come in highly ranked, but are still not quite living up to the hype... lack of development, maybe, recruiting services often times miss, but it seems over the past two years, it is taking longer for that elite talent to develop.

 

[Smokey123]

I think player development and lack of getting real game experience reps (i.e yesterday) is more to blame for depth issues than recruiting. Thig should have been gone 2 years ago.

2 years ago when we had good LB play? Makes sense I guess

 

[orangefreak21]

If we lose to Vandy any year, I'm still complaining. No matter what.

Well of course..


I mean we complain ab ANY loss.. but im specifically talking about Florida and Georgia sweep. Never mentioned Vandy.

 

[orangefreak21]

Why? These aren't the days of spurrier' gstors or Even early Richt's dawgs. Beat Bama and LSU and show us something. Stop getting out coached in big games. beating Mac & Kirby ehhhhh.

Bc it hasn't been done since 1992(!), regardless of who is on either sideline.

 

[AF_VOL]

I went to Navarre Beach(between Destin and Pensacola) a little bit ago. Waves are up and it's windy, we definitely got lucky with this one, hopefully everyone further East is staying safe.

 

[Smokey123]

Hmmmm

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[VolGee4]

I disagree. One or the other wouldn't have been, but both together in the same season were as bad or worse than the Dooley UK loss. Especially considering the east title was on the line. Dooley vs UK nothing was on the line, it was a meaningless game.

And you can't cite injuries against USC, offense lost us that game. And no, Hurd didn't single handedly lose the game with a bad attitude.

Butch has done enough positive things, so those losses shouldn't have gotten him fired, but they were definitely as bad as Dooley's UK loss.

Kamara was out against USC. I can't compare it to Dooley's UK loss when you had players admit that they didn't care about a bowl game. If you are a competitive person, it's light years different. It's so easy to say that now, but Dooley's UK loss was truly a low point in our program's history.

 

[Chief Vol 13]

How many good teams do we beat playing like that upfront in both sides of the ball?

I expected and wanted to see domination.
Game plan has nothing to do with whupping ass up front. That is a for sure place Where we dominate vs the Indiana states of the world

You're right on. People see 42-7 and stop there. Against Indiana State, Tennessee should be completely overwhelming them physically in the trenches. That didn't happen and it's concerning. It's early, but through two games they just don't look physically tough enough to win more than 7 or 8 games. 7 or 8 games in year 5 at Tennessee is not good enough.

 

[WallyBalls]

It is funny on one hand because most of the posters that are in a big hurry to have Butch fired will be the ones complaining that we won't go after a big name guy if we actually did fire Butch. They are in such a big hurry to get rid of a decent coach that could be a good to great coach but they forget that UT traditionally won't go after a big name coach and will whine incessantly if we don't even though they knew we wouldn't.

I think that makes sense but I think the last one qualifies as a run on sentence.

Makes a lot of sense actually. It's a ridiculous cycle so many people are all too ready to jump right back into. (By even saying that I'll be labeled as a jelly spined loser who only enables "mediocrity")

I'll now return the thread to our regularly scheduled e-peen measuring contest so we can finally determine who hated Jones the earliest.

 

[VolGee4]

People forget with Vandy in particular that we had just played two straight weeks of 80 or more snaps against Kentucky and Missouri. They also forget we were beating Vandy until the bottom fell out in the fourth quarter. That was a completely gassed defense.

I don't think injuries and exhaustion is an excuse. It's just an irrefutable reality of life in a world with an 85 scholarship limit, etc.

That's a game if we could have played it 10 times we would have won 7 with our talent, even if gassed, but the breaks didn't go our way (Dobbs fumble). Such is life.

Gaulden's dropped pick six, 1st and goal up 7 and only get a FG, give up 3rd and 10, Dobbs fumble, missed FG. All except Gaulden's play happened in 4th quarter.

 

[The Breakerboy]

How many good teams do we beat playing like that upfront in both sides of the ball?

I expected and wanted to see domination.
Game plan has nothing to do with whupping ass up front. That is a for sure place Where we dominate vs the Indiana states of the world

We haven't dominated up front on offense since the first half of the Oklahoma game two years ago. We physically did whatever the hell we felt like doing. We have much more talent up front and at RB right now. Idk what others expect but the head man said Tennessee would be competing for the natty. He doesn't even seem to be trying to win the division now. There's a lot of talking but the team doesn't play hard like it should.

 

[Chief Vol 13]

Through watching the first couple drives... Bituli, WOW. Already has 3 tackles and have been in on nearly every play. Darrell Taylor got caught up going for the QB on those jet sweeps a couple times. Jumper has gotten the edge multiple times but then can't get off the block.

If Bituli doesn't start over Jumper at Mike backer this Saturday it's insanity.

 

[WallyBalls]

You're right on. People see 42-7 and stop there. Against Indiana State, Tennessee should be completely overwhelming them physically in the trenches. That didn't happen and it's concerning. It's early, but through two games they just don't look physically tough enough to win more than 7 or 8 games. 7 or 8 games in year 5 at Tennessee is not good enough.

By the same token, aren't you just seeing Indiana State and "stopping there"?

 

[vol2002]

You're right on. People see 42-7 and stop there. Against Indiana State, Tennessee should be completely overwhelming them physically in the trenches. That didn't happen and it's concerning. It's early, but through two games they just don't look physically tough enough to win more than 7 or 8 games. 7 or 8 games in year 5 at Tennessee is not good enough.

I think most here had this as an 8 win team before the season started given everything we lost and our inexperience. Somehow that seemed reasonable last Sunday night to many people on the board.

Now that we are 2-0 headed into Florida week, I guess 8 wins ain't good enough.

 

[The Breakerboy]

You're right on. People see 42-7 and stop there. Against Indiana State, Tennessee should be completely overwhelming them physically in the trenches. That didn't happen and it's concerning. It's early, but through two games they just don't look physically tough enough to win more than 7 or 8 games. 7 or 8 games in year 5 at Tennessee is not good enough.

We punted early from a bad check into a running play on 3rd and 4-5. Us punting against a name your score team is hilarious. The second half we started off like garbage on offense turning the all over and all. Should've dropped 70 on that team. And it shouldn't have been hard. WR screens would've went for TDs Saturday.

 

[Chief Vol 13]

By the same token, aren't you just seeing Indiana State and "stopping there"?

Yes? It's Indiana State man. They're a glorified high school team. Not sure what you're saying.