Those guys also had plays designed to get them the ball in space. We don't do that. We send everyone vertical and rarely scheme the middle of the field and honestly that is where Nico does his best.Jereimiah Smith & Egbuka are the type of receivers needed at Tennessee. They ruled the field Saturday. Of course, their QB have enough time to get the ball to them.
Also, for some reason, our WRs can't stay healthy. Think our WR talent is reflective of their general recruiting ranking, and for sure, we need to figure out adjustments to scheme, as teams w/ top level DBs seem to have figured us out...think need more mis-direction/motion, and OSU put on a clinic on the WR motion, play in the flats...we got nothing like that in our playbook.
Brazzle was open. In the end zone. Unobstructed momentum changing TD off the shoulder pads. We need guys that can actually catch the ball. And I hope Nico improves more this off-season than he did over hte season. Which was realtively flat improvement-wise. Won't ever really know until we get a respectable receiver corp.
Apparently he couldn't get open saturday either. Think I heard his name once for being on the field, but never actually saw him, or if he was even targeted. I've heard all this talk about him, so why did he never get teh promotion. As many balls as Nimrod and Brazzles left on the ground all year, I would have had Matthews on regular rotation by game 3 if he's all that. Geez, look at that freshamn at Bama, or OSU and sveral other places. Those guys are 100 legit. I'm all for what the coaches see and know. I'm not one and this ain't baseball or I would exercise knowledge of play and coaching. But...I'm still on the fence on Nico. Statistically, he has been on a flat plane all year and has not progressed at all. And I'm not sure about these cool cat guys. At some point a leader has to voice up and lead.
We need to transform was upperclassman up to best man up.
Bryce Underwood, but after I posted that I edited it because even with Underwood Michigan is going to be a heavy run offense.
Since the end of 2022, Tennessee's offense has morphed into a place where WRs don't get opportunities to make plays. We didn't attempt any downfield passes against Ohio and I'll have to rewatch to confirm, but I don't think our WRs had a favorable matchup the whole game. By that I mean matched up against a LB. Jeremiah Smith found himself in that position multiple times and padded his stats as a result. Why don't our WRs ever get a chance to run away from LBs in open space? Our offensive coaches choked.
Don't see the reason for optimism for next season. We likely lose our entire IOL. Mays will be the biggest loss, but it'll be hard to adequately replace Spraggins. We don't have a OT that we can depend on. Our current WR's haven't shown the ability to consistently get open against good competition. We lose most of the two deep DL (Simmons, Eason, Thomas, Norman-Lott, Bailey, Pierce and probably Josephs). And, we lose the best RB in the SEC. After the butt-whipping Sat. night, how in the wide world of sports does anyone see us being a playoff contender in '25?
