Strictly talent wise, where do we stand now?

#51
#51
We are no where near where we need to be compared to Bama & UGA.

You could easily see the talent disadvantage in those games last year.
 
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#52
#52
Speaking about talent I am interested to see how Shrout develops.

Just watching Shrout workout in the summer his footwork already seems faster than what I have seen from JG and Will McBride.

Also, you can hear the snap of the ball in the receivers hands when he throws, this tells me he has some velocity.

It also seems he can make accurate throws on the run.

Again, I know he is a Freshman and his High School stats weren't super impressive, and I am not expecting him to start. I am just saying I think he has potential a lot of it.
 
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#53
#53
VolFreakJosh said:
We are no where near where we need to be compared to Bama & UGA.

You could easily see the talent disadvantage in those games last year.
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Correct. And at this point that's all that really matters as they are the best the SEC has to offer. If the Vols can match up with them they can handle any other team on their schedule.
 
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#55
#55
0 wins and 8 losses last season pretty much tells us we have the worst talent in the SEC unfortunately.

That's on the field reality and it really sucks.

If I were Coach Pruitt I would still be the DC at alaBubba waiting on a better and easier opportunity to come along.

This is a total rebuild from the ground up and to get great starters plus great depth I seriously expect it to take 4 to 5 years to be able to compete for a SEC Championship.

I have to admire and respect the courage of Pruitt and all our coaches for being willing to take on such a huge challenge of rebuilding our footVol Team back to a top 10 Team again.

VFL...GBO!!!
 
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#56
#56
VFL-82-JP said:
I'd love to see an update from DAJ on this question. He does good statistical analysis of recruiting classes.

The only thing I'd like to see added would be consideration of lost talent (a #5 recruiting class may not remain the 5th best after two years of above-normal attrition).

It's a lot of work, so I understand DAJ's reluctance to add that burden to his efforts. But his resulting argument that "all teams have attrition, it's not a major factor" does not ring true to me.

I'd love to see where we stack up in talent with our current rosters. I think perhaps we would not be in the top third of the SEC, perhaps somewhere around center of mass.
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In the years since I started doing those evaluations and loudly complaining that college football was ready for a tidal change the way baseball changed under Billy Bean, it miraculously happened. Though many haven’t noticed as they still hang their hat on evaluations from guys named Booger, and similar.

There is at least one major recruiting service who is now building, ranking and publishing attrition adjusted rosters using the type of base analysis I’ve advocated. As I’ve always said, attrition doesn’t really shuffle things much on a micro scale (that is, adjusting UT for attrition against UTs attrition adjusted schedule doesn’t tend to be worth the effort) but on a macro scale (all teams adjusted) things do move around some.

In other words, I’ve just stopped caring about these analysis. 1) it’s a lot of work to argue with knuckleheads who prefer feels over actual data and don’t understand probability vs certainty, and 2) it really did sort of kill my enjoyment of college football. The majesty was in the uncertainty, not in knowing how more than 2/3 of the games would turn out based on nothing more than national signing day. That, and clearly seeing how UT, my beloved Alma Mater, is consistently under-performing in these analysis in ways that make us stand out, regardless of coach, sucked much of the fun out of it for me. In the past two seasons I don’t think I’ve watched a full football game and only listen to UT games on the radio.

I check in here now and again. I did so religiously during the coaching search, and loved the Gruden insanity. It was like being an explorer who found some isolated cargo cult who had been cut off from civilization since WW2. It was amazing how the same few people who had been involved in Gruden 1 were allowed to create Gruden 2. I digress.

Hope all is well. Go Vols!
 
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#57
#57
Heh, thanks for dropping in to say hi, and provide comment, DAJ. You're a good dude.

About in-depth analysis ruining the game of football for you to an extent, I understand entirely. Lots of things are actually more fun when you don't fully understand them, and far less fun when you do. Sorry it soured you on the game, but I get it.

As for the Gruden community, I adore them. Was one of the great joys of my time at VN.com to find them, hidden in plain sight, a sub-culture all their own. Helped a lot that so many of them are really good people, and that they are, on average, kinder and more thoughtful than the average interwebz fanatic.

Anyway, thanks again for dropping by. Wish you great good fortune.
 
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#58
#58
Well if you are who your record says you are then the Vols are the 14th most talented team in the SEC. As I tend to agree that the only metric that matters is score board then we be dead last. There's no place to go but up from here boys..
 
#59
#59
Titan&Volfan4life said:
0 wins and 8 losses last season pretty much tells us we have the worst talent in the SEC unfortunately.

That's on the field reality and it really sucks.

If I were Coach Pruitt I would still be the DC at alaBubba waiting on a better and easier opportunity to come along.

This is a total rebuild from the ground up and to get great starters plus great depth I seriously expect it to take 4 to 5 years to be able to compete for a SEC Championship.

I have to admire and respect the courage of Pruitt and all our coaches for being willing to take on such a huge challenge of rebuilding our footVol Team back to a top 10 Team again.

VFL...GBO!!!
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Negative. UT didn't win 4 games because it had 4 game talent. If that was the case everyone would be pointing to poor evaluation and recruiting as for why Jones got run. Instead we witnessed poor development, poor schemes, poor in game decisions and adjustments and a poorly managed locker room that split during the circus. That doesn't mean UT has championship talent, but its not 4 win talent either.

To the second bold. He got a chance to coach at a place that gives you everything you need to be a top 10 team, that can win its division and be good enough to win its conference. Most coaches moving up are not gonna land easy jobs at places they can win right away. More often than not they are replacing failure and a lot of work ahead. Its not admirable that he accepted the opportunity, no different than Jones jumping at a payday. It will be if he figures out a way to fix it.
 
#60
#60
VFL-82-JP said:
Heh, thanks for dropping in to say hi, and provide comment, DAJ. You're a good dude.

About in-depth analysis ruining the game of football for you to an extent, I understand entirely. Lots of things are actually more fun when you don't fully understand them, and far less fun when you do. Sorry it soured you on the game, but I get it.

As for the Gruden community, I adore them. Was one of the great joys of my time at VN.com to find them, hidden in plain sight, a sub-culture all their own. Helped a lot that so many of them are really good people, and that they are, on average, kinder and more thoughtful than the average interwebz fanatic.

Anyway, thanks again for dropping by. Wish you great good fortune.
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I’ve only soured on football as a whole, not UT specifically. I’m still here, flying the banner, crossing my fingers, doing my pre game rituals as before. I still get the butterflies when they run through the T. I’m just not spending all my spare time collating data on 120+ teams and arguing about the meaning on here.

I have no doubt there were many great people wrapped up in Grudenmania. It was just a fascinating case study of how affirmation is so intoxicating that it will trump information. Most importantly, perhaps, are the lengths to which the group went to isolate themselves from any opposing view, going so far as appealing to Freak to essentially make that thread a reality free zone. Example: We let a person who, because they knew something about a country club in Chattanooga, create an entire narrative that was followed intimately by many. Just as before, we created our own news as the media started reporting on rumors created in those very threads. It was amazing in its own way.

While I appreciate the well wishes, and certainly return them, Im not going anywhere. Come football season I’ll be much more active, just not doing a great deal of predictive analysis.
 
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#65
#65
Honestly I think we have pretty good overall talent, not great but still above average. Our teams problem last year were from almost no real leaders and no “game breakers” or true difference makers, aka stars.
That is a horrible combination as normally the leaders would keep the stars in check and the stars would be the players that would help the solid roster look a bit better by commanding more attention and letting the others find the holes in the O or D. Our problem is that we have a roster full of players that never learned how to be leaders and they are all about equally talented so the other team was able to just focus on doing what they do best and not have to worry about containing a handful of players.

The reason teams like Bama, Uga, OSU and Clem are what they are is because they all have solid rosters but they also have 2-3 players on each side of the ball you HAVE to account for or they could ruin your day, and with the attention being directed to them it allows the others to expose the holes created by the adjustments and exploit them easily.
 
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#66
#66
There's no way we are/were last in the league in terms of talent. Last 4yrs in recruiting say we are no worse than middle of the pack. Coaching was the Achilles heal. No Dobbs around to cover up for coaching deficiencies. Aside from having a first time HBC,this staff's coaching resume/pedigree is head and shoulders above their predecessors. Unlike NFL, I think on field performance is is about 70 percent coaching/scheme and 30 percent talent. Particularly when looking at Conference games. I think we have talent to win 7-8 games. But coaching could mean we only win 5-6 this year.
 
#67
#67
Glocker_Alum_2005 said:
There's no way we are/were last in the league in terms of talent. Last 4yrs in recruiting say we are no worse than middle of the pack. Coaching was the Achilles heal. No Dobbs around to cover up for coaching deficiencies. Aside from having a first time HBC,this staff's coaching resume/pedigree is head and shoulders above their predecessors. Unlike NFL, I think on field performance is is about 70 percent coaching/scheme and 30 percent talent. Particularly when looking at Conference games. I think we have talent to win 7-8 games. But coaching could mean we only win 5-6 this year.
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I think talent plays much more than 30 % of winning. I think talent would rate it closer to 50-60 % in winning games. If not, up and coming Mid major coaches would be winning a lot more games against the P5's. In addition, Alabama would not be winning everything. On the other hand, Georgia should have won more games because they have always had superior talent.

I also believe that better talent at certain positions, such as OL and DL are more important than talent at WR and S .However, bad talent at any position will cost you ball games.
 
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#68
#68
Pump Guy said:
attachment.php


Same talent went 0 - 8 in the SEC last year
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[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g[/youtube]


p.s. Just realized, there's a verse in that song that includes Davy Crockett, Alabama, and Peyton (well, Peyton Place anyway). Coincidence? I think not.
 
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#71
#71
Average star ranking of rosters in SEC runs from 3.93 for Bama to 2.97 for Vandy, with a median of about 3.3 (same number of teams above as below), and UT at 3.57 which is almost halfway between the median and the top and a #4 ranking out of 14 teams.

So how to explain how badly we sucked last year?

If Einstein was still around he might come up with something like this:

E = M * C^2

where

E is an Energy Indicator and a measure of how well a Team plays relative to its star ranking;

M = the "mass" of the roster (i.e. its star ranking);

and

C = the Coaching Factor which can be a negative or a positive approaching infinity either way.

I would submit that, by virtue of the coaching change, the Vols are moving from Negative to Positive territory.
 
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#72
#72
Pump Guy said:
View attachment 155695

Same talent went 0 - 8 in the SEC last year
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Minus a few who decided to try the draft, plus one maybe who missed a lot due to injury, minus one maybe due to illness who may be best player on team, plus one doubtful who missd a lot due to injury. About the same. Some think it's extremely loaded and waiting for the new coach to blossom.
 
#74
#74
VOLINVONORE said:
I think talent plays much more than 30 % of winning. I think talent would rate it closer to 50-60 % in winning games. If not, up and coming Mid major coaches would be winning a lot more games against the P5's. In addition, Alabama would not be winning everything. On the other hand, Georgia should have won more games because they have always had superior talent.

I also believe that better talent at certain positions, such as OL and DL are more important than talent at WR and S .However, bad talent at any position will cost you ball games.
Click to expand...

Talent predicts about 10% more than you’re giving it credit for. Essentially, all other factors including coaching, venue, weather, alignment of the stars, or any other factor, account for about 30% of the variability.
 
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#75
#75
Bottom half. Ole Miss and Kentucky might be lower for sure. Maybe VU, Ark and Mizzou
 
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