Recruiting Football Talk VII

#132,027
#132,027
GoodTimeVol said:
Their collective desperately needs better lawyers to draw up a contract to prevent that from happening again…
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Fair enough, but unlike our deal with Nico, they probably drew the deal up in the spirit of NCAA rules, with no quid pro quo built in. I bet the NCAA lawyers would have put a gold star on top of the contract if they read it.
 
#132,028
#132,028
GoBigOrange86 said:


The suits in the SEC and Big 10 will not stop ruining college athletics.
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Not only do I completely disagree with Izzo, but I go in the other direction. I think all conference regular season champs AND all conference tourney champs should get auto bid.

And they should get right into the field of 64. Let the last 8 at large as duke it out in Dayton for play in games.
 
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#132,029
#132,029
Dadof2volfans said:
So the narrative is, Alabama can not afford to pay NIL so they outsource it to other schools. Those punks are always thinking outside the box. Lol
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That punk stole from the Iowa folks...period. This is pure 🦬💩 and it is something that needs to get fixed. I don't wish bad things on players just because they play for teams I hate, but things like this..I hope that piece if 💩 pays hard for what he did.

He is a thief.
 
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#132,032
#132,032
vol4eva said:
We have a first team All American and the Sec DoY.
We made the Sweet 16 last year without either. Why is an Elite 8 , at minimum, too much to ask for this team?
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Answer..now that you mentioned the couple of plusses...now do all the minuses..especially and specifically on offense.

Our usual culprits for getting bounced are these...It doesn't matter how much effort your defense pours out against a team on a hot shooting streak...especially when your dependable shooters/scorers(of which we have exactly ONE) have an off game.

We are not a dominant team..we can win it all or get bounced in the round of 32...because of those plusses AND minuses.
 
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#132,034
#132,034
rikberry31 said:
In basketball smaller schools and conferences are relevant because there's only five on the court and realistically maybe 10 on a team that play. A team can have a couple of good players and compete. Compare that to football where 11 on offense, 11 on defense, 20 others that get playing time, and special teams. They all have to be covered.

We are going to see David vs. Goliath upsets in basketball. We would never see a St. Peter's level team even compete with against a P5 in football, the local hospitals would be over run.
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I hope someday we have a truly loaded offensive team to take to the Dance that still plays with Rick Barnes defensive effort...then people can justifiably gripe about missing a just expectation.
 
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#132,039
#132,039
VolsnCards5 said:
Not only do I completely disagree with Izzo, but I go in the other direction. I think all conference regular season champs AND all conference tourney champs should get auto bid.

And they should get right into the field of 64. Let the last 8 at large as duke it out in Dayton for play in games.
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^^^^^THIStenor-5.gif
*Stick your mid major/ P5 bubble teams in the play in games and make them 13 seeds or lower. Reward the conference champions.
 
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#132,040
#132,040
VolsnCards5 said:
Not only do I completely disagree with Izzo, but I go in the other direction. I think all conference regular season champs AND all conference tourney champs should get auto bid.

And they should get right into the field of 64. Let the last 8 at large as duke it out in Dayton for play in games.
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Never happen, more bids wil be added by 2026..

To much money to be made, just as Football playoff will expand to more and more..
 
#132,043
#132,043
ChattaTNVol said:
It’s infuriating –

Statistically, if you suffer a negative yardage play on offense there is an 84% probability that drive is DEAD and you will have to punt. Penalties, TFLs, and sacks are the second most potent drive killers, only behind turnovers.

The games I often care about the most are the games we lose. I was impressed with the A&M win last year. It took all three phases of the game to come out ahead. Anyway, I’ve been mostly studying the 4 games we lost plus the bowl game as that suggests where we came up short and how we may be moving forward.

View attachment 628280

The Florida game we beat ourselves. It was Spraggins killing two drives, Lane killing two drives, Crawford killing a drive, and Castles killing a drive.

Historically, Napier is a ball control fanatic. I think for two years running now his games have featured the fewest drives among SEC teams. Generally, you’re only going to get 10 possessions in a game with Napier. It doesn’t really much matter who the opponent is – that’s Napier’s style of football.

When the offensive line basically kills half of your total possession opportunities in a game you have to ask yourself, what’s going on? Are they scared? Are they not well coached? Are they not paying attention? Do they even freaking care?

The same thing happened in the bowl game. On the drives where we punted we had negative yardage plays. On the drives where we scored we didn’t have any negative yardage plays. It’s really pretty simple. What is almost impossible is overcoming negative yardage plays.

I think maybe sometimes we beat our chests when we blow out teams that we have a significant advantage over because we’re bigger, faster, and stronger, but unless you’re Kentucky you measure yourself based on your performance against the big six of the SEC. At least that’s the way it’s been in the 60 or so years since I became a fan.

Anyway, what I’m bitching about are the false starts. It hurts us most against the big boys. I understand there’s a number of causes behind false starts, mostly (and obviously) having to do with the snap count. On the road the guys have to deal with crowd noise. There’s the QB shifting protections or mixing up the cadence so the defense can’t easily time up the snap. There’s thinking about your assignment, reading the defense, and figuring how you’re going to get leverage on your guy for the upcoming play.

This and more is all happening in maybe 10 seconds or less. They say sometimes it’s easy to get distracted, like thinking about what you did wrong on that last play or wondering if Crawford is going to puke again, any number of things could pop into your head. There could be movement on the defensive side of the ball that distracts you because some of that movement could change your assignment on the play.

I think playing offensive line they say generally requires a minimum of three years development. Many times we may think that’s so the guys can get bigger, faster, stronger, but it might also mean that they need to do their drills, work on technique, form, and leverage, and practice their plays so they can do it, essentially, instinctual. Going against inferior competition may allow you to dominate, almost like back in high school, but when you go up against peer competition, well, that’s when you find out what you’re made of.

It is widely accepted that the measure of returning experience on the offensive line is on average across all FBS teams the single most weighted metric for projecting improvement or regression of an offense from year to year. Experience is the best teacher and relative to some of the better opponents on our schedule we’re fortunate this year to have quite a bit returning on our offensive line.

I also think it’s likely we will have more power and athleticism on the line this year and that is what we need desperately if we are going to impose our will on even elite defenses when we get into the redzone.

My speculative lineup is LT Heard, LG Umarov, OC Mays, RG Spraggins, RT Campbell, but we’ll probably get Davis, Lampley, or Karic at LG, or maybe not.

Eric Cain said in his report on practice #2 that Umarov was running at LG with the twos. 247 had Umarov as a 94 rating and their evaluation had him as a prototypical left tackle so I see him similar to Kirby moving Ratledge from OT to OG. It may be risky with two 19 year olds manning the left side of our line but these two aren’t your typical 19 year old offensive line recruits. 247 reassigned Sham to its IOL rankings and he was #4 in the country in 2023. Lance was the #3 OT in the country in 2023.

I understand there’s a lot that goes into a coach’s decision on which players to put out on the field. It may not be simply a question of who may be able to help you the most; there’s likely some consideration on who may hurt you the least, so it’s probably a bit more complicated from their perspective vs from a fan’s perspective. jmo.

One thing I noticed in one of the early practice videos was Lance Heard coaching Gage Ginther in one of their drills. That was for me a big highlight because my sense is that it shows a measure of buy-in to the team, meaning Lance is a Tennessee Volunteer. jmo.

I think since the new staff took over they have demonstrated a high level of development for the offensive line group even though in some cases there wasn’t a lot to work with. I think it takes at least a couple years to get established relationship-wise on the recruiting trail and based on the recent and ongoing recruiting this staff is doing, and their demonstrated ability at development, we’re being set up to only get better in the near future with this position group and that will only make our offense that much more formidable. jmo.
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You should get paid for this stuff, if you aren't already. Not only are your posts always extremely knowledgeable, they're also very readable and easy to follow (for someone like me that has trouble staying on task while reading things). Kudos, my man. And thank you.
 
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#132,046
#132,046
KptVFL said:
Man..... That brings back some memories! Haven't seen those since the early 90s. Didn't realize they still made them.
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Introduced to them while stationed at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque. Went to the Air Force vs UNM game with Bioenvironmental Engineering dudes and was plied with the lil green bottles. They’re great for establishing a baseline buzz and then I can chase them with any libation.
 
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#132,047
#132,047
vol4eva said:
Love Rick Barnes but the Regular Season Rick persona will either be shed or cemented with this tournament. He’s got the players for a Final 4 run, it’s time to get it done. Tired of the excuses
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Once he retires, I'm betting we go ~10 years before we get back remotely close to what he's doing now.

I'll refer to that as the "vol4eva" era of UT basketball

lol
 
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