Recruiting Forum Football Talk [RIP 9.3.2019]

[vol2002]

A rare quality article by Rucker. Good thoughts

Rucker: Vols' loss at Georgia a mixture of progress, pain

Well done. I think Vols fans would do well to chuck out their (aging) memories of Tennessee football as an elite top 10 program nationally, and just embrace the program as it is today (at best a middle of the road SEC team) and try and enjoy the ride with Pruitt. No idea where the ride is headed and there no guarantees we will ever win another SEC championship. But I think more competent and competitive football is ahead for this team and program under Pruitt and company.

 

[vol2002]

I’m a serious fan of about 7 years or so but followed em as a kid..

I’ve never felt this good about a loss. I take em hard too.

There’s hope

UGA 2013 was the best I felt about a loss. I feel ok about this one - definitely saw improvement. Still got a long ways to go and honestly I don’t expect us to ever match Georgia man for man. We simply don’t / can’t recruit consistently at their level. But we should be able to get them every few years if we play sound disciplined football.

 

[volfanCLT]

Biggest encouragement/takeaway from yesterday.

Pass rush came alive a little bit. Blocking as a whole was improved. Still not close to where it needs to be but I see growth there.

Saw signs of buy in from the players. Very encouraging sign.

 

[Bassmaster_Vol]

Well done. I think Vols fans would do well to chuck out their (aging) memories of Tennessee football as an elite top 10 program nationally, and just embrace the program as it is today (at best a middle of the road SEC team) and try and enjoy the ride with Pruitt. No idea where the ride is headed and there no guarantees we will ever win another SEC championship. But I think more competent and competitive football is ahead for this team and program under Pruitt and company.

We will be good again as rucker says in the article. Just don’t know when that will be.

 

[Chief Vol 13]

I wanted to hire franklin after Dooley but i don’t think he’s that great of a coach. He almost got fire a couple years ago. Interesting to see him going forward with Moorhead.

I think he's a really good coach. Has built arguably a top 5 or 6 program up there. Great recruiter as well.

 

[Bms4880]

Uk is good but I’m not gonna say we lose to them till we do, let’s see how they are in a few more weeks and we get them after uga, so maybe they’ll be beat up

I'm not buying the Kentucky hype just yet. They've done this before over the past few years.

2014:
Started 5-1
Finished 0-6

2015:
Started 4-1
Finished 1-6

2016:
Fairly even throughout the year.

2017:
Started 5-1
Finished 2-5

Maybe they turned the corner this year. Otherwise, it appears Stoops does just enough to get an extension, and then takes the second half of the year off.

 

[SugarCC]

Yep, UK is playing experienced guys, and I'm not dismissing that. But UT has talent, too, even though our guys don't always play like it. While the Vols are at a disadvantage against teams like UGA, Auburn and Bama, they should be able to compete four qtrs with teams like UK, Vandy, Mizzou and SCAR. Those aren't auto-wins for the other teams. If the Vols stop beating themselves, they can beat other teams.

I'm also not discounting UK's grit and determination. UK players are on a mission and their want-to is an advantage unless the Vols can match it. Want-to hasn't been our strong suit-- but that can change. To me, a welcome sign of progress would be the determination to defend our house against weaker, equal or even slightly better opponents. Not allowing any more historic beatdowns would be another.

Dead on.

We have talent in places, but no depth. Look at DL: Tuttle, Phillips, A. Johnson, Gooden (only depth guy we really have)...they can play with anybody; but, no one is behind them. Add that to the O not doing anything, and that's why they wore down yesterday. They played their tails off.

But, yeah, I totally agree with all you said.

 

[InVOLuntary]

Well done. I think Vols fans would do well to chuck out their (aging) memories of Tennessee football as an elite top 10 program nationally, and just embrace the program as it is today (at best a middle of the road SEC team) and try and enjoy the ride with Pruitt. No idea where the ride is headed and there no guarantees we will ever win another SEC championship. But I think more competent and competitive football is ahead for this team and program under Pruitt and company.

They need to charge middle of the road ticket prices. A middle of the road SEC Tennessee can't sustain a 102,000 seat stadium.

 

[volfanCLT]

We are gonna have a nasty defense in short order. That’s got me fired up.

 

[Chief Vol 13]

Yeah and our coach is t Derek Dooley or butch jones. I will never concede a loss to uk. They suck and always will as far as I’m concerned. I live up here with all their inbred whitetrash fans and between them and Louisville, they all can suck my ****. F***kentucky!!!!

Kentucky is a better football team than Tennessee, and has been for two years now. Let's face reality here.

 

[Kingston Vol]

I think Kentucky has a good team, don’t get me wrong, but that’s still likely to be a 8 or 9 win team. Stoops has been there 6 years. He’s getting graded on the Kentucky curve - and that makes sense to a certain extent - but let’s stop comparing that to what Pruitt or Mullen or others should be able to do.

 

[volfanCLT]

Wouldn’t be surprised to see Kentucky lose this weekend.

Think this is their 8-4 type season they have once a decade.

 

[jordan4vols]

I will say that I have commented on how small our team looks over the past few years going up against the likes of Alabama and Georgia etc. Yesterday while still smaller overall it wasn’t as noticeably different. Depth of course will take time but Pruitts philosophy to get bigger and hopefully consistency with Fitz will help us as much as the new players being brought in next year as the current roster will have had another year in weight room.

 

[tbones0711]

LMAO at you people making excuses for Tiger and diddling all over him... he's a punk who had the world in the palm of his hand and made bad choices and has to live with them. He's been trying to come back for years. He was a phenomenal golfer, one of a kind, but not anymore. Show me another golfer who accomplished that much, with that much power, who went that far off the cliff...

You have no idea what lower back fusion surgery entails. Any human,similiar to Peyton's neck surgery, who can come back from that and succeed is to be admired regardless of past character flaws. Quit judging people O Holy Righteous One!

 

[volfanCLT]

Not sure if brought up already but thought Sapp played well yesterday. Good to see him bounce back

 

[Chief Vol 13]

I don't agree with Jimbo putting his hands on,the kid, but I love the kids attitude and response

I do. Pruitt basically did the same with Johnson a couple weeks back. Sometimes you got to man handle a dude to get his attention.

 

[mr.checkerboards]

I do. Pruitt basically did the same with Johnson a couple weeks back. Sometimes you got to man handle a dude to get his attention.

Getting in their face is one thing but putting your hands on a kid is another

 

[volinbama256]

Not sure if brought up already but thought Sapp played well yesterday. Good to see him bounce back

Yep, he did... definitely will need his experience down the stretch.

 

[Chief Vol 13]

Well done. I think Vols fans would do well to chuck out their (aging) memories of Tennessee football as an elite top 10 program nationally, and just embrace the program as it is today (at best a middle of the road SEC team) and try and enjoy the ride with Pruitt. No idea where the ride is headed and there no guarantees we will ever win another SEC championship. But I think more competent and competitive football is ahead for this team and program under Pruitt and company.

Ah this program can win championships. There are about six programs in this league who are capable of winning national/conference titles. Tennessee is one of them. But due to the fact that we've been so bad for a decade, we can no longer say that UT is a top ten all time program. I can name at least 10 other programs who have a stronger tradition.

 

[volfanCLT]

CP for 6

 

[volfanCLT]

I’d put Tennessee at a top 12ish all time program. That’s including the last 15 years of suck.

Personal preferences will vary

 

[InVOLuntary]

I think Kentucky has a good team, don’t get me wrong, but that’s still likely to be a 8 or 9 win team. Stoops has been there 6 years. He’s getting graded on the Kentucky curve - and that makes sense to a certain extent - but let’s stop comparing that to what Pruitt or Mullen or others should be able to do.

Stoops has done a great job,..... for KY. his results should be down years for Tennessee, not what we strive for. Obviously, I wish we were as good as KY is this year because of how bad we are. In year six of Pruitt's stint, we better be better than KY is this year. I do believe that KY is the second best team in the east. But is that really saying anything?

 

[tbones0711]

I like the fight this team came out with and kept through the entire game, even after the debacle in Knox last week...

We have some young talent that needs to continue to be really coached up and watched and they will be special players the next 3yrs for us.

Fair needs to work with our younger DB's (Thompson) on where they need to be on third down. 3-4 times they played way too soft and didn't know where the first down marker was. If they played just a little tighter, they would have kept them from the easy dink and dunk at the marker by the sidelines. This can easily be fixed with game tape.

At this point, all we can do is hope our O line improves a little each week and stays healthy. We all know by now what we have to work with, and it is barely serviceable. You would think Helton would get this by now after game 5.

JG tries his best each play and has heart, but he is just always going to be an average QB who struggles to go through progressions and stares down his primary, almost just waiting for them to come out of their route. Again, Helton should see this by now and adjust the offense accordingly.

Plays in open space worked for us against the #2 team in the country. We can now see just give some of our athletes a little space to work with/maneuver, and they can make some guys miss and get some yards. Helton, I'm looking at you.

For goodness sakes, we have absolutely nothing to lose at this point, PLEASE run even a simple offense that is not predictable. In 2018, even with the talent we have, we can throw on first, run a TE out on 2nd, RRO on third, etc... whatever, just mix it up...just don't let them stack the box or we are toast.

We stay healthy, QUIT MAKING SO MANY BACKBREAKING MISTAKES during the games, keep everyone dialed in and BOUGHT in, continue to improve and change up the offense, and we may just win 5. If we clean things up and catch someone sleeping or God forbid a play or two go OUR WAY, maybe we sneak 6.

Defense is on track, but tackling and DB placement must improve.

Helton MUST ADAPT, and NOW, or he will be this team's Achilles heel.

I'm not even counting the second part of the 4th quarter from an evaluation standpoint because our D was so tired from being out there all day with little depth, it just didn't matter.

Well written but lengthy post. I want to comment about our DB's especially corner-backs and in this case #28. I've seen others in the past make what I consider a mistake in technique and that's giving up the easy inside route. On a given down, but especially 3rd and 5-7, I'd line up inside the receiver and play him tight ,even bumping him at LOS. No way would I let him just go freely into the middle of the field untouched and getting a critical step on me. It's just too easy to impede his progress toward the middle prior to the ball being thrown and not get called for it. Why in the world JP doesn't teach this I'll never fiqure. Spurrier done this frequently because he saw on film how UT defenders played it and took advantage of it. The play yesterday was a crossing route about 5-6 yds beyod LOS and by middle of the cross the receiver had 3-4 yds. separation on Buchanan. We need to quit giving that up.

 

[GoBigOrangeVols]

Impressed with the D yesterday and the fight from the offense in the second half. Still a long way to go. If we improve again over the bye week and play clean against Auburn we can make that game competitive too. 6-6 is still out there. Going to have to stay healthy and continue to improve though.

 

[Chief Vol 13]

I’d put Tennessee at a top 12ish all time program. That’s including the last 15 years of suck.

Personal preferences will vary

A decade can make a lot of difference. In the early 2000's, I'm sure many considered Tennessee be on cusp of being considered a top 5 all time program. Really frustrating to think that because we've been so bad for so long now, that UT isn't even considered to be in the top ten anymore.