Vols finish 7-5–how do you grade Huepel’s first season?

#52
#52
CINCYVOL said:
you lost me at “lagging in recruiting”. I guess with NCAA investigation, going 3-7, and being hired late in the cycle didn’t play into anything.
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LSU has fired their coach mid-season and is currently ranked 12th.

Missouri got drilled by Heupel and company and is ranked 14th.

South Carolina fired their coach last season and is 21st.

Rutgers with Greg Schiano is 26th .

TN currently sits at 30. It shouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to expect TN to finish above Rutgers in recruiting no matter the off field issues.

UT isn't the only team in the country dealing with losing records and coaching changes. The NCAA hasn't finished their investigation so they aren't being docked scholarships or visits yet.

Still time to finish strong and hit the portal but they have work to do.
 
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#53
#53
B...we should have beat Pitt imo...Ole Miss was a toss up because they are legit good...and probably better than us...Pitt is good too but think we are better...The UK win on the road was a good one...but honestly I think that team was overhyped all year
 
#54
#54
I think a B. I would bump to a B+ if not for the three blowouts. But that was probably too much of me to expect this year given our roster issues.

All in all a good first year so far that has surpassed my expectations.
 
#58
#58
If we play Florida today I am convinced that we would win. We were never going to win against Alabama and Georgia this year unfortunately - even though we had some bright spots against both teams. Pitt and Ole Miss could have been wins, but things did not go our way. Our next two games are definitely winnable. 7-5 during the regular season is a solid accomplishment for this first year staff. If things went differently during the Pitt and Ole Miss games we are looking at a 9 win season. However you are what your record says you are. B+ for me.
 
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#59
#59
I mean honestly with this roster if you told me we would be 7-5 at start of the year? I think he’s a contender for SEC coach of year, won’t win it but he’s in the running. Pruitt left not only a depleted roster but the culture left?
 
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#60
#60
I mean, let's not get out over the skis here..let's hope the team focuses on the next two games, one at a time...
 
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#61
#61
B- Until we get a set of plays with the QB under the center for third and fourth and 1, I can’t give an A. We have missed 5 first downs on third or fourth down and 1 by lining up our QB 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage. We don’t have that kind of strength on our line. Even if we did, why make 1 yard, 6 yards as a gift.
 
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#63
#63
I was ready for 5-7 or 6-6 at best. Get a bowl win to finish 8-5 and I will give a sold A. Lose the bowl game and still B.

This season is definitely graded on a curve with all that transpired before he was hired. The bar will be raised going forward.
 
#66
#66
Feel a B is a well deserved grade. He has done a lot of good things, and those good things have brought positive conversation points about our team back to Knoxville. Tackling, discipline, heart and drive, and offensive numbers are a few of his better accomplishments as a coach.

However, he did have Milton starting. That's a big blemish, especially since it cost us the Pitt and Florida games (because Hooker wasn't quite ready nor gelling with the 1s). I felt anything less than 6 wins was a bad season given our talent and schedule. He could be sitting at 7 already had his team finished games better.

Heup also hasn't shown me the moments when he can break from his system and play the game as it is unfolding, i.e. frequent shotgun snaps on 3rd/4th and short instead of a traditional going under center. He's had several questionable 4th down calls too.

The absence of screens or other designed plays against a rushing front (see the Georgia game) also suggests he's married to his system and not willing to adjust for what the other team is giving you.

A lot of points have been left out on the field by going for it on fourth down frequently rather than kicking field goals. If memory serves this occurred in the Pitt game, Florida game, Ole Miss game, and Georgia game.

He hasn't closed out the "could've won" games: Pitt, Ole Miss, maybe even Florida or Bama (yes talent, depth, exhaustion - I get it). But Heup hasn't managed his personnel well, i.e. put together long drives to rest the D. He doesn't have the team focused and/ or locked in toward the end of games to finish them out without penalties, turn overs, and other failures to execute on crucial plays.

Lastly, he is still adjusting and learning how to win in the SEC. The Georgia loss I think really exposed his naivete for how difficult it is to win against top tier talent every week during conference play.

That B can drop too. We still have two games left and recruiting is a concern with the early signing period only a month away.
 
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#67
#67
We are better today than we were on day one, by a lot. At no point have I watched a game and thought Heupel was getting out coached/schemed. We won two road games, as underdogs, in SEC play. That's never easy. We are arguably the 2nd place team in the East after being 5th/6th at best at the end of last season, with a much worse roster than we had last season. Player development has been immediate and impactful. Hooker and Tillman being prime examples. We've had several guys on defense show development too. We lost badly to Florida, Georgia and Alabama once again. All have a pretty big talent advantage. But we were in those games 3 quarters vs Alabama and Florida before things went south. We are the only team to score more than 13 vs Georgia this year. We had 150 more yards than they allow on average. Guys were schemed open multiple times against them but we just slightly missed on a few big plays. To me, we are in solid A territory.
 
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#68
#68
Give him a B. I wasn’t expecting anything better than 6-6 or 5-7 so he will exceed that if we beat South Alabama and Vandy. Would be a A though if he had of beat Ole Miss and Pitt
 
#69
#69
VolArmy74 said:
We are better today than we were on day one, by a lot. At no point have I watched a game and thought Heupel was getting out coached/schemed. We won two road games, as underdogs, in SEC play. That's never easy. We are arguably the 2nd place team in the East after being 5th/6th at best at the end of last season, with a much worse roster than we had last season. Player development has been immediate and impactful. Hooker and Tillman being prime examples. We've had several guys on defense show development too. We lost badly to Florida, Georgia and Alabama once again. All have a pretty big talent advantage. But we were in those games 3 quarters vs Alabama and Florida before things went south. We are the only team to score more than 13 vs Georgia this year. We had 150 more yards than they allow on average. Guys were schemed open multiple times against them but we just slightly missed on a few big plays. To me, we are in solid A territory.
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You didn’t think he was outcoached against Pitt and Ole Miss?
 
#71
#71
St. JohnVolCactus said:
Feel a B is a well deserved grade. He has done a lot of good things, and those good things have brought positive conversation points about our team back to Knoxville. Tackling, discipline, heart and drive, and offensive numbers are a few of his better accomplishments as a coach.

However, he did have Milton starting. That's a big blemish, especially since it cost us the Pitt and Florida games (because Hooker wasn't quite ready nor gelling with the 1s). I felt anything less than 6 wins was a bad season given our talent and schedule. He could be sitting at 7 already had his team finished games better.

Heup also hasn't shown me the moments when he can break from his system and play the game as it is unfolding, i.e. frequent shotgun snaps on 3rd/4th and short instead of a traditional going under center. He's had several questionable 4th down calls too.

The absence of screens or other designed plays against a rushing front (see the Georgia game) also suggests he's married to his system and not willing to adjust for what the other team is giving you.

A lot of points have been left out on the field by going for it on fourth down frequently rather than kicking field goals. If memory serves this occurred in the Pitt game, Florida game, Ole Miss game, and Georgia game.

He hasn't closed out the "could've won" games: Pitt, Ole Miss, maybe even Florida or Bama (yes talent, depth, exhaustion - I get it). But Heup hasn't managed his personnel well, i.e. put together long drives to rest the D. He doesn't have the team focused and/ or locked in toward the end of games to finish them out without penalties, turn overs, and other failures to execute on crucial plays.

Lastly, he is still adjusting and learning how to win in the SEC. The Georgia loss I think really exposed his naivete for how difficult it is to win against top tier talent every week during conference play.

That B can drop too. We still have two games left and recruiting is a concern with the early signing period only a month away.
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I've known several successful coaches at different levels of football from high school to SEC level. They don't adjust their offense as a rule because they have faith that their offense works if the players execute it properly. Heupel isn't going to change what they practice and what has worked for him at every stop for 15 years. He's especially not going to change because his offense has worked great this season here. We've played 2 of the top 5 defenses in NCAA football in Georgia and Alabama (2 and 5) and are averaging 36.1 ppg still, 15 ppg better than a year ago. We may be averaging close to 40 a game after South Alabama and Vandy, if things go well. Our performance vs Georgia knocked them from the #1 total defense spot. It knocked their 3rd down defense down from 1st in the SEC to 4th. The offense works.

The kicking field goals does nothing to help you win the games where he passed them up and went for 1st downs in pursuit of touchdowns. At best, it just makes the score slightly closer.

His offense isn't designed to put long drives together to burn clock, it's designed to score early and score often. He does have a 4 minute offense but it doesn't work as well as his fast offense. The defense can rest by stopping 3rd and longs. In several games where the other team was scoring, it was happening from drive one. It wasn't the offenses fault that Kentucky marched up and down the field in the 1st and 2nd quarter.

You last sentence just seems like some nonsense. He's likely to finish 4-4 in the league, with two road wins in the league. Actually that's pretty great based on where the program stood the day he stepped on campus less than a year ago.
 
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#72
#72
House of Neyland said:
You didn’t think he was outcoached against Pitt and Ole Miss?
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No, I'll go to my grave believing we outscored Ole Miss and the officials stole the game by taking a td off the board for absolutely no reason that exists in the football rule book, in a game we lost by 5. Outside of that, Ole Miss has a great quarterback and is in the second year in their system with Kiffin. They were favored for a reason. Yet we played them toe to toe, frankly, better than toe to toe since on the field we out scored them but in the alternate reality of a ref's mind, we didn't.

Pitt is a solid team with a very very good 6th year senior quarterback and a long tenured coach. Heupel's schemes/plays were set up well and with better execution from Milton on a few overthrows and Hyatt dropping a td that hit him squarely in the hands, we outscore Pitt and it's probably a blowout.
 
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#74
#74
If we win out, solid "A," given the circumstances. I really thought 4-8/5-7 was likely. Now, we're getting decent coverage on ESPN/SECN, and no doubt recruits are taking note of the offense.
 
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