Recruiting Forum Football Talk XXXVI

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#6,801
#6,801
OGbabyaviVol said:
I don't think that's the case. There have been numerous examples over the years where the more talented team got punched in the mouth over and over, and quit. We had the opportunity to quit multiple times, but didn't.
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It's definitely great for a coach to have that, and in this case, it led to results. It will be interesting to see what effect player buy in has over the course of this season, and how it will affect Currie's assessment of the program.
 
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#6,802
#6,802
BigZiti09 said:
What we run on defense vs Georgia tech is totally different from what we will throw at Florida. We weren't hiding anything in that game. The defensive gameplan just sucked.
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That's what I was driving at, I should have boiled it down.

We came out prepared for uppercuts and haymakers...so they changed and just jabbed us to death. We didn't/couldn't (I actually believe its a combo of the two) adjust.

Hopefully, that was a one off screw up. Looking forward to things being different at 330 tomorrow.
 
#6,803
#6,803
Darth_Shiveman said:
I think his contract was actually 3 years.


And I'm not of the opinion that he "forgot how to run a defense," but I'm kinda starting to think that maybe the case might be any of the following:

1. Perhaps Brent Pry (his former Co-DC and PSU's current DC) deserved a LOT more credit for those Shoop defenses than he got credit for.

2. Shoop hasn't been as solely focused on running a defense since he got to Knoxville. Whether it's his desire to get a HC job, his contract dispute with PSU, or perhaps some personal issues we don't know about, maybe he's just not as dialed in as he was at VU/PSU.

3. He just doesn't have the same kind of cohesion with staff as he had at PSU/Vandy.


4. (This one is at least partly a factor, IMO, no matter how you slice it) Butch's offense is less compatible with Shoop's defense than Franklin's was. Franklin will slow down games a lot more than Butch and it allowed Shoop's defenders more time to get/stay fresh and/or allowed Shoop more time in the booth to get dialed in making adjustments.


5. Maybe some of the years he was coaching his units just had good luck that helped them look better than they were. In 2013 Vandy got to play UGA when they were down to just a white backup running back and JJ green and virtually no receivers, UF with their worst QB situation of the last 5 years maybe (and that's saying something), and UT with a freshman Dobbs that weighed 190 lbs soaking wet and hadn't developed much as a passer yet. The good offenses they played (Mizzou, aTm, and Ole Miss) scored 51,56, and 39 points against them. In 2014 the only two teams worth much of a damn that PSU played were OSU and MSU, and they both scored 31+ points.




Or of course maybe it's bits and pieces of a a number of these things. I haven't given up on him yet and I think he has a chance to put together a solid unit this year still. But idk if I think he ever was or will be an elite DC anymore.
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You make some really good observations, although I agree with you that it's irresponsible to assume one or all of these are true with absolute certainty.

I do remember when we got Shoop, that while the majority of Penn State fans were crapping themselves, there were a level-headed few that talked about Pry, a long-time position coach under Shoop.

Your most striking point to me, was the difference in offensive tempo between Butch and Franklin. Penn State is now starting to speed up, as they did over last year when they found playmakers in Saquon Barkley and Trace McSorley. Before the emergence of those two, Penn State did have a bit of a slower gameplay, and that's when Shoop was at his best. Last year, they "dipped" to a respectable 37th total defense nationally.

With that comes my plea to corral expectations of this defense. Our tempo may not be as quick this year as it was with Dobbs at QB, but it'll still be quickly paced. Maybe it wasn't fair to assume we would be fielding top-10 defenses when we don't control the clock as much on average. That said, obviously 95th overall doesn't cut it.

We don't have a whole lot to go off of with these first two games, but the Florida game is definitely a show-me game for this defense. I noticed Franks had some pretty clean drop-backs against an excellent Michigan DL, and that's something that we simply cannot allow. As I was watching UF/Michigan, I thought Mac was dumb to take Franks out even though he was struggling to find a rhythm; he had still made some positive things happen earlier in the game. Watching Dormady a couple days later and seeing Butch leave him in was pretty heartening for me, and it shows me that Butch has a pretty good pulse on this offense.

Back to Shoop, though. I agree with everyone here-- we'll know way more about how successful we'll be with him here after this game. I hope to see some penetration and well timed blitzes, with hopefully a little less Justin Martin, no offense to the kid.
 
#6,804
#6,804
Kingston Vol said:
Very possible and I don't dismiss it at all. It's also possible they just had way more talent and eventually it kicked in.
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UT had more talent, and I am sure that helped with the comeback, but there was more to it than that. There is still the mental aspect of the game, and when it was 28-14 mid-4th qtr mentally weak teams, or teams that don't pay attention to what their coach is preaching to them on the sidelines, will not be able to tell themselves that they are going to win this game. Same thing after they scored to pull within 28-21. GT immediately looks like they are going to score again to put the game away, but a defender finds away to strip the ball and you saw all the defenders flying to the ball. Those guys still were fighting for the team and their coach. I was watching SEC Now after the game and Gene Chizik made a comment about it. First he said you can't judge the defense based on playing GT, because he knows (after 2 seasons with UNC) how difficult to prepare for that offense even if you have seen it before, but much less when you have players who have never seen the triple option. But the main thing he said was that despite all of their problems through 3 qtrs., the team found away to win that game, and he said that was huge for the team going forward because they know they can fight through adversity.
 
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#6,805
#6,805
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#6,806
#6,806
Kingston Vol said:
Very possible and I don't dismiss it at all. It's also possible they just had way more talent and eventually it kicked in.
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It's literally never happened in 5 years, so I don't understand why this is being suggested now. Actually, I do know why- it's trying to criticize something that Butch is very good at (i.e. motivating players).
 
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#6,807
#6,807
OGbabyaviVol said:
Appreciate your thoughts. I didn't know all of that info, as I don't keep up with them any...just saw the stats. Has he been a DC at other places, and how successful was he?
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I'm not really sure. I know he started as a DL coach. He spent 8 years as a UM asst., starting as a DL coach and associate HC, but not sure what role he had when he left UM. I remember from his bio when Butch hired him that he left UM to accept the HC position at his alm a mater, Ball St., and got them ranked in the Top 25, which got him hired by San Diego St. as their HC (I think, that was the school), and had great success there, which was why UM hired him as HC. He started off successfully there, and recruited pretty well, so I don't know what went wrong for him.
 
#6,808
#6,808
VolGee4 said:
It's literally never happened in 5 years, so I don't understand why this is being suggested now. Actually, I do know why- it's trying to criticize something that Butch is very good at (i.e. motivating players).
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I don't disagree. But to play Devil's Advocate - why do they come out so flat to start games?
 
#6,813
#6,813
Kingston Vol said:
I don't disagree. But to play Devil's Advocate - why do they come out so flat to start games?
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Sometimes the opponent has something to do that. We started fast in 2015 and lost a few games. These are 18-22 year olds. But half the battle in college is motivation and how guys respond when they get punched in the mouth.
 
#6,814
#6,814
I hope Scott dink and dunks that defense to death with his play calling. Give us long sustained drives that wears their defense down. Get Dormady some confidence early with some easy safe passes. Ride the legs of Kelly, CFA, and Chandler.
 
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#6,816
#6,816
SouthKnoxVOL said:
I hope Scott dink and dunks that defense to death with his play calling. Give us long sustained drives that wears their defense down. Get Dormady some confidence early with some easy safe passes. Ride the legs of Kelly, CFA, and Chandler.
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Fwded to Butch's email.
 
#6,817
#6,817
Chuckie said:
We can all pick any portion of UT football history to support any narrative we choose. But, if you are willing to deal strictly in facts:

If I keyed everything into Excel correctly, through the 2016 season our all-time record was 829-375-53 for a winning percentage of .681. If you apply that record to a 13 game season, then our history would indicate that Tennessee's expectation, on average, should be to go 8.6 - 3.9 - 0.5 each year. Obviously, I realize that there are no tie games anymore. Using the winning percentage formula, which awards 0.5 wins for a tie game, then you could say that our expectation should be a record of 8.85 - 4.15 each year.

We all would like to win 10 games a year, and I don't think that is an unrealistic expectation for some years. But if you're going to talk about the realm of what is realistic vs. unrealistic, 9-4 is right about what our history suggests we should expect. Butch does need to win 10 or more at some point, but to use our history to suggest that he's underachieving is erroneous.
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ce1ac795c4c5654754acccb9bd1dceb2.jpg
 
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#6,819
#6,819
Chuckie said:
We can all pick any portion of UT football history to support any narrative we choose. But, if you are willing to deal strictly in facts:

If I keyed everything into Excel correctly, through the 2016 season our all-time record was 829-375-53 for a winning percentage of .681. If you apply that record to a 13 game season, then our history would indicate that Tennessee's expectation, on average, should be to go 8.6 - 3.9 - 0.5 each year. Obviously, I realize that there are no tie games anymore. Using the winning percentage formula, which awards 0.5 wins for a tie game, then you could say that our expectation should be a record of 8.85 - 4.15 each year.

We all would like to win 10 games a year, and I don't think that is an unrealistic expectation for some years. But if you're going to talk about the realm of what is realistic vs. unrealistic, 9-4 is right about what our history suggests we should expect. Butch does need to win 10 or more at some point, but to use our history to suggest that he's underachieving is erroneous.
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Wait, ties are calculated as half wins? That's ridiculous. They should be removed from the denominator. I don't know if that has a positive or negative effect on the winning percentage, but I don't like the methodology.

But Alabama's winning percentage would equate to 9.3 wins over a 13 game season. I'm not saying that that's not a statistically significant improvement over ours, but at the end of the day, it would average out to a 9-4 record as well. I wonder if there are as many posts on their boards looking to denigrate their place in history. No, wait, they just gave themselves another national championship. Maybe we should concede one of ours in response.
 
#6,820
#6,820
Houston Kress and co. are absolutely salivating over the idea of us losing in the Swamp this weekend. Doing everything they can to paint this as an easy, EASY win that only a bumbling, incompetent fool of a coach could mess up.
 
#6,822
#6,822
Aesius said:
Houston Kress and co. are absolutely salivating over the idea of us losing in the Swamp this weekend. Doing everything they can to paint this as an easy, EASY win that only a bumbling, incompetent fool of a coach could mess up.
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They are hedging their bets. If TN wins big: "See, we told you so.". Tennessee loses: "See, we told you Butch sucks".
 
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#6,823
#6,823
McGeesPub said:
Wait, ties are calculated as half wins? That's ridiculous. They should be removed from the denominator. I don't know if that has a positive or negative effect on the winning percentage, but I don't like the methodology.
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If you take ties out of the equation, our all-time win percentage is .689, and a 13-game season would yield an expectation of 8.95 - 4.05...effectively 9-4. Where have I seen those numbers before?
 
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#6,825
#6,825
InVOLuntary said:
They are hedging their bets. If TN wins big: "See, we told you so.". Tennessee loses: "See, we told you Butch sucks".
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Yep. They "win" either way. And if we beat Florida, Butch will get no credit for it whatsoever because it's "the worst Florida team in my lifetime."
 
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