Tennessee projected top 10 defense in 2020 (ahead of Bama)

#1
HooahVol

HooahVol

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#1
24/7 has us at #7 on their projecting the top 10 defenses in the nation for 2020: Projecting college football's Top 10 defenses in 2020

Here is their synopsis of UT:

Vols coach Jeremy Pruitt should be excited for what's ahead for Tennessee during his third season, especially considering this program's momentum coming off the bowl win over Indiana and six straight victories overall to close out an 8-5 campaign.
"Tennessee made a big jump on defense last season in going from 67th to 24th nationally in yards per play allowed, and the Vols should be able to continue the trend in their second season with bright young coordinator Derrick Ansley in 2020," GoVols247 analyst Patrick Brown says. "There are big names to replace at edge rusher (Darrell Taylor), linebacker (Daniel Bituli) and safety (Nigel Warrior), but Tennessee returns every contributor on the defensive line, plus will get likely starter Emmit Gooden back from injury.
"Henry To’o To’o is an emerging star at linebacker and the secondary headlined by Bryce Thompson looks strong with experience at cornerback and up-and-coming talent at safety. Tennessee likely always will be solid with Ansley and Jeremy Pruitt involved, and if some holes are plugged and playmakers emerge the Vols will keep trending upward."
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and, yes, as I stated in the title, Bama is #8 on this list. I wonder how Saban likes the view from behind?
 
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#2
#2
Pre-season rankings are fun... but not often extremely accurate.

I think the D will be very good. I think it is Pruitt's design to go defense first in rebuilding the program. How good?.... We will see.

I think he would also like to be a dominant running team. The OL IMO is there. I'm not certain the RB quality is.

I think a guy like Hurd would have stomped out big yardage behind last year's OL.
 
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#4
#4
giphy.gif
 
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#6
#6
I'm expecting top 25

I'm hoping for top 15

I'm dreaming of top 10

Coach Pruitt has talent (star rating wise) comparable to the top-10 D's he fielded at AL,GA, & FSU. By comparable our present talent would still probably rate 4th out of those.

Even with Talent being comparable we're still allot younger team and are probably gonna be playing more 1st & 2nd year players in the 2-deep than Pruitt had to rely on at his aforementioned stops.
 
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#7
#7
sjt18 said:
Pre-season rankings are fun... but not often extremely accurate.

I think the D will be very good. I think it is Pruitt's design to go defense first in rebuilding the program. How good?.... We will see.

I think he would also like to be a dominant running team. The OL IMO is there. I'm not certain the RB quality is.

I think a guy like Hurd would have stomped out big yardage behind last year's OL.
Click to expand...
You don't think Eric grey is a future superstar? I think he is an Alvin kamara in the making
 
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#8
#8
Well Bama's defense was not great last year so the #8 ranking makes some sense. But I need to see results on the field before I'll believe our D is better. It's one thing to try and project talent 7 months ahead of the season, its another to see how player perform on opening day. I'm glad to see expectations are real high though. but I'm waiting on a Tennessee team that actually meets expectations.
 
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#9
#9
So now we are doing preseason rankings for units? Preseason rankings are getting out of hand. With that said, I’ll take a seventh ranked every day and twice on Sundays. Offense is fun to watch but having a stifling defense that teams hate playing against is more fun for me
 
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#11
#11
VOLnFLA said:
You don't think Eric grey is a future superstar? I think he is an Alvin kamara in the making
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He needs to play about 15-20 lbs heavier than he was last year without losing burst or quickness. He had some long runs vs Vandy and some "moments". But for most of the season he was much, much too easy to tackle.

He has potential but needs more power. Kamara wasn't known as a power back but could run through arm tackles.
 
#14
#14
sjt18 said:
Pre-season rankings are fun... but not often extremely accurate.

I think the D will be very good. I think it is Pruitt's design to go defense first in rebuilding the program. How good?.... We will see.

I think he would also like to be a dominant running team. The OL IMO is there. I'm not certain the RB quality is.

I think a guy like Hurd would have stomped out big yardage behind last year's OL.
Click to expand...
Eric Gray says hi.
 
#17
#17
Hmm.

This is the 2nd article I've seen 247 create that was similar to a post I started originally here.

We finished statistically top 25 total defense by seasons end in 2019. Cumulative all games.

But just from the Bama game on- we were more like a top 15 defense. Maybe top 10.
 
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#19
#19
CaliVol2009 said:
Eric Gray says hi.
Click to expand...
Gray isn't an elite back... at least not yet. He had a couple of good games against bad D's. Overall, he was too easy to tackle. He has to be able to run through tackles and play bigger without sacrificing speed and quickness. He showed some potential... but so did Chandler.
 
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#20
#20
I am a big fan of Pruitt and Ansley’s scheming on that side of the ball, some of the blitzes they drew up last year were genius. That being said, I’m less optimistic than most about next years defense. It should be good, but we’re losing our leading tackler (when his absence was a big reason Georgia State ran all over us), our leading pash rusher (with no proven SEC caliber pass rushers to replace him) and our leader in interceptions. We may even lose one of our best D lineman depending on how Middleton’s situation works out. Also had some coaching shakeups. We should still have a great d line, as well as several really good players on the 2nd and 3rd levels of the defense, but I think it might take a minute to find good replacements for those three guys I mentioned first, so the defense may not be as stout as expected, especially early in the year
 
#22
#22
sjt18 said:
Gray isn't an elite back... at least not yet. He had a couple of good games against bad D's. Overall, he was too easy to tackle. He has to be able to run through tackles and play bigger without sacrificing speed and quickness. He showed some potential... but so did Chandler.
Click to expand...

Ehh..idk

Chandler was banged up this year, but Regardless Gray showed much better running ability.

Chandler has been decent. He's averaging over 5 yards a carry for a his career. Lack of consistent passing attack hasn't been easy to overcome.

Gray absolutely has a chance to be special.
 
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#23
#23
Hurd had an entitled ego in hs. CJP knows how to handle elite players. Saban's "special" friend had never been exposed to top rated players nor to their care and handling.
 
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#24
#24
tnutater said:
Hurd had an entitled ego in hs. CJP knows how to handle elite players. Saban's "special" friend had never been exposed to top rated players nor to their care and handling.
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I wonder if his special friend has worn holes in the knees to his pants yet? I find it a special slap in the face that he went to work at a bama of all places to be a coffee boy.
 
#25
#25
LittleVol said:
Ehh..idk

Chandler was banged up this year, but Regardless Gray showed much better running ability.

Chandler has been decent. He's averaging over 5 yards a carry for a his career. Lack of consistent passing attack hasn't been easy to overcome.

Gray absolutely has a chance to be special.
Click to expand...
He may have that chance but he has to be able to play bigger and not go down so easily. He had decent numbers vs BYU but then wasn't a factor until the last two games against a couple of non-athletic D's. Take the Vandy game with those two big runs out and he averaged 3.86 ypc.

He didn't show better running ability. He can't disappear for 9 games and be special.

I hope he develops into a great back. He wasn't one this past year and will have to develop a lot to become one.
 
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