FollowTheLeader
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Random notes –
30 for 30 –
Over the last three seasons (21, 22, & 23) if our football team scores less than 30 points in a game our record is 1 – 9, the lone win being A&M in 2023.
If our football team gives up 30 or more points to our opponent our record is 3 – 9, the three wins being at Kentucky in ’21, Florida in ’22, and Alabama in ’22.
When we score 30 or more points in a game our record is 26 – 3, the losses were Pitt and Purdue in ’21, and at SC in ‘22.
When our team has held our opponents to less than 30 points per game our record is 24 – 2, the losses being at Georgia in ’22 and at Florida in ’23.
Billy Napier –
I often listen to other coaches in a sort of intelligence gathering exercise but some are really difficult for me to listen to and perhaps other than Beamer no one moreso than Napier. The Florida fans at Gatorchatter call him Slingblade. It is a very fitting name if you were to ask me. Anyway, I figured out how to listen to him so that it’s less painful. On YouTube you can adjust the playback speed up to twice the normal speed. It works. It actually makes him sound a bit more intelligent and I only have to listen half as long. I’m being serious.
Speaking of Napier, I did a comparison of our offensive 2-deep personnel for this year. The general practice is in competitive games your team is really only made up of around 40 players. I looked at all of our games from last year using individual snap count data from PFF, game-by-game, to see how many players played and for competitive games that held up. We only played 36 against Florida, 15 on offense and 21 on defense. There were 8 games last year where we played 46 or fewer players, including Austin Peay (lol).
Anyway, I took our projected top 20 offensive players for this year and compared them to Napier’s top 20 offensive players. I used the 247 rating to make the comparison so it would be apples to apples. I got their projected depth chart from multiple sources in Gator nation. I think he’s in trouble. Big trouble. There is no comparison. His offensive talent this year doesn’t appear to be SEC quality, at least not according to 247. I haven’t done the defense yet but most of his talent is on that side of the ball. He brought in Austin Armstrong to run his defense last year and they were all excited but in the end his defense regressed further. I noted last year that their defense was talented but young. They ended up doing a lot worse than I thought they would. jmo.
In any event I don’t see Florida’s offense improving this year but their defense maybe has a shot. I know on offense they’re probably going to go with the short passing game, first, because Mertz doesn’t have a history of deep throws (last of all passers in the SEC last year, not just starting QBs, for Average Depth of Throw) and second, because Tim Banks is giving it to him. Mertz completed 85% of his passes in the first half against us last year and only threw 4 passes total in the second half. If Napier can build a lead, which he did, he’s then going to try to run out the clock, which he also did. Napier is the playcaller and I think he may have Bank’s number. Maybe Banks will change it up a bit this year. One can hope. jmo.
Speaking of Tim Banks –
I think the main criticism of our defense both inside and outside the fanbase is our pass defense. Last year against SEC offenses within the conference we ranked 10th in passing yards given up per game, 11th in passing yards per attempt, 10th in opponent’s passer rating, 12th in completion percentage allowed, 13th in passes broken up, 9th in interceptions gained, but we ranked 5th in fewest passing TDs allowed.
Last year in the offseason I noted we had improved in run defense, reducing rushing TDs allowed from 24 in ’21 to 15 in ’22. In ’21 we gave up 23 passing TDs and reduced that to 21 in ’22. Someone on here commented that we needed to reduce those passing TDs to 15 also. Well, in 2023 we further reduced rushing TDs, down to 13, and we did in fact reduce passing TDs allowed down to 15.
It’s hard to argue but whatever Tim Banks is doing it appears to mostly be working in the right direction. Maybe his hands were a bit tied by the talent available to him and he did the best he could with what he had. Maybe the only way to eke out more improvement was to change the talent on the field, hence the mass exodus of the veteran secondary guys.
As an aside, Austin Price recently said in one of their talk-a-thons that if Boo Carter ever gets on the field for the defense this year he’s not coming off. TIFWIW.
I don’t particularly like Tim Banks and I was actually silently rooting for InVol when he was trying to fire the guy. I just don’t much care for his personality and I think that’s going to make it even more difficult for him to land a head coaching gig, which I think is the mission Danny White has for us. Banks is supposed to be our contribution to increasing the ranks of minority head coaches in college football.
When it was reported that he was being interviewed by MTSU (twice is what I heard) I checked out their message board and while it wasn’t quite the same as Shiano Sunday it was definitely at least like the Titans drafting Will Levis. MTSU fans probably follow Vol football more than say fans at Akron or somewhere. Anyway, at the time I thought if I could’ve spared the money I would have called up MTSU and told them I’d pay his salary if they would hire him.
Another bitch I have with Banks is I think recruiting at the Safety position is worse than at linebacker. We got Arion Carter at LB and Boo Carter at DB, both Tennessee kids, and I don’t think we needed Banks to get either one of them. He was reputationally a good recruiter when he came here but I haven’t yet seen anything to suggest that he’s lived up to that billing.
Here’s the thing. No I don’t like him but there’s no way anyone can convince me he hasn’t done a pretty good job on the field based on what he had to work with when he arrived. Maybe with the infusion of youth, speed, and athleticism things change. Maybe the talent continues to increase. I’m sort of a better the devil you know than the one you don’t know. jmo.
Joey Halzle –
In his OC debut Joey Halzle’s offense managed 24.4 points per game in SEC competition, 11th best in the conference, ahead of Arkansas (20.0), Vanderbilt (16.9), and Mississippi State (12.6). All three of those bottom dwellers will have new offensive coordinators this year. Hey Joey, I mean if you’re reading this. lol.
Both us and Vanderbilt played 4 teams that finished the season last year ranked in the AP top 25. We each managed only 18.0 points per game in those contests and for us 35 of those 72 points came in the bowl game against what ended up being the #4 scoring defense in the nation, and lest anyone wants to down play that defense, it should be remembered that they held the eventual national champion to 26 points in that matchup.
After the Florida game last year in the following Tuesday presser (pre UTSA) by Joey, Austin Price asked him basically if Nico could do anything better than Joe. That’s a hell of a question but that’s why Austin gets paid the big bucks. What the hell could Joey say? lol. I mean seriously I figure Joey might have wanted to ask Austin outside after the presser. Imagine Joey says well Nico does really pretty much everything better than Joe. lol.
For what it’s worth I think our offensive scoring recovers strongly this year. In fact I think with the exception of RB we could be better in every position group on the offense. Even in the RB room, with Sampson, Seldon, Keith, and Lewis, we will definitely be much more talented overall, at least on paper. jmo.
Offensive line –
Multiple reporters, including Price, in the early going for spring practice, have said that Umarov is competing to start this year at LG. I figure that’s what they’re hearing from inside the football complex. With Heard at LT, Mays at center (2,007 career snaps), Spraggins at RG (2,542 career snaps), and Campbell at RT (1,890 career snaps), we should see a lot of upside to line performance. jmo.
Wide receivers –
Joey said last week that for the receivers there are no guaranteed starting spots. He said the competition is intense. Last year we had seven scholarship guys in the room. This year we have ten and are a lot more talented. We should be good once we figure out who the top three are. I figure Squirrel is a guarantee but Thornton will be pushed and if Bru isn’t ready to go whoever lines up in his place won’t be someone who is only “serviceable”. jmo.
Both Matthews and Staley in interviews last week said their main focus right now is on development. Braylon said he was working on improving his efficiency coming out of his breaks. He’s generated some early buzz about his catching ability but there’s a technical process to running each route. Footwork is maybe the most critical part of route running. If you do it right you’ll almost always get separation. If you don’t do it right, you’ll almost never create separation. Footwork for receivers is actually fairly technical. It’s not hard but you do have to master it to be considered a good route runner. Footwork can be different for different routes. Footwork comes before eyes. You have to complete your break before turning your eyes toward the QB otherwise your body will be trying to go in different directions and you’ll be out of control. Similar to working on the juggs machine a receiver needs to practice his route running (footwork and eyes) until it becomes second nature. I think we may have an elite WR coach, definitely coveted, and by Kirby Smart no less. Of course Kirby may have been trying to hire him because he’s scared of him at Tennessee. jmo.
Tight ends –
I think that the combination of Staes and Ethan Davis elevates the talent in the group significantly above what we’ve had in Heupel’s first three years here. If the production is commensurate we’re better than good. jmo.
Asking for prayers? –
Lots of good content:
30 for 30 makes it clear that we gotta score more points than 30 and hold other teams to less than 30. College football has given offenses every opportunity to be able to score more points. That's exciting for fan bases and it's entertaining enough to sell lots of tickets based on offense. We struggled to score this past season and ranked #108 in red zone. We were being held to alot of field goals last season. I believe that will improve this season.
Banks has done a helleva job here and I'm not sure why that throws some of our fan base into fits of RAGE! I thought the point was to hire someone that had the courage to risk their career to turn around a dumpster fire of a defense and Banks has done that. He will get a head coaching job, but he can be selective. He has a track record of turning defenses around in the MAC, the ACC, the BIG 10 and now the SEC. And Tennessee will ZERO credit for contributing to putting a minority in head coaching position. Banks has EARNED his opportunity to get head coaching job. Tennessee has done nothing but encouraged the narrative that our defense was bad when every year, across the board, the defense has improved dramatically and you will be hard pressed to find another DC that has done what Banks has been able to do......PROVE ME WRONG....SHOW ME THE STATS.....NOT YOUR OPINION. This is the best defense that Heupel has had since he's been a head coach. By the numbers our National Rankings (reposted for another thread):
-defensive touchdowns. #1
-4th down defense #3
-tackles for loss. #4
-sacks. #8
-defensive mayhem #10
-yards per play. #17
-rush defense #19
-points per play #21
-scoring defense. #22
-stop rate #27
-total defense #32
-passes intercepted. #36
-3rd down defense. #42
-pass eff. defense. #54
-red zone defense #86
And before you jump straight to the red zone defensive stat, keep in mind, on offense, we were:
-red zone offense #86
-4th down offense #108
On Halzle.....he's done a tremendous job given the fact that he's starting his playcalling experience in the SEC. Though our offense took a small nose dive, we was able create a respectable offense. It's trial and error and sure, he made mistakes, but should have been expected as he transitions into a new role. Halzle will be fine. He's a bright young coach who's got some great players in the line up.
And I'm with you, call me crazy but I think we got the pieces in place to be really special this year. GBO!!
Just read 8 people were on the bridge with only 2 accounted for. 
