Things happen

#26
#26
CJH is a really good coach, but he has to own the results. I’m sure if you asked him, he’d be just as critical. Like he said yesterday, they can’t practice/play like that and beat FU. Ultimately, the record is his. That’s why he makes the big bucks.
 
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#27
#27
UTFranklinVol said:
yeah, the same crowd that likes to say "well what was your prediction before the season began". before anyone knew how good Aguilar was and how bad some of the SEC teams are.
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How bad are the SEC teams you are referring to? The bottom 6 teams in the conference are Kentucky, Florida, Mississippi State, Auburn, South Carolina and Arkansas.
Kentucky lost by 7 to Ole Miss, took Texas to OT and outplayed them throughout the game, won at Auburn and shellacked Florida.
Florida beat Texas and took Georgia and Ole Miss to the wire.
Mississippi State beat Arizona State(who is tied for 3rd in the Big 12), blew a 17 point 4th quarter lead against Texas and had chances to beat us and win in the swamp.
Auburn took Oklahoma, Georgia, A&M, Missouri and Vandy to the wire with chances to win each of those games.
South Carolina just blew a 27 point halftime lead over A&M and blew a chance to beat Alabama.
Arkansas has lost singe digit games @Ole Miss, Memphis, @tennessee, A&M, Mississippi State and @lsu and had chances to win several of those games.
When SEC teams play each other, someone has to lose. I would argue that even the worst teams in our conference are at least decent teams.
 
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#28
#28
Vol in Buckeye Land said:
Is only losing to top 10 teams while not beating a single ranked team the standard for Tennessee football in your mind?
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I'll preface this by saying I am not at all pleased or even satisfied that we have lost the three games we have lost. However, I have seen this "standard" referenced several times. What would you say is the "Standard for Tennessee football"? When was this standard established? I have been watching Tennessee football for 45 years. I have only seen us go undefeated one time and it took quite a bit of good fortune for it to happen that season.
 
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#29
#29
Sarms58 said:
Maybe we need to dig up the season prediction thread and see what the majority of the picks were…I’m thinking I was picking between 8-4 and 10-2 but I’ve slept since then…
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I'm not even sure if I gave a prediction. I do recall saying that, with our schedule, we could win 9 games with a chance at 10 even even we weren't a great team.
 
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#30
#30
deatojl said:
How bad are the SEC teams you are referring to? The bottom 6 teams in the conference are Kentucky, Florida, Mississippi State, Auburn, South Carolina and Arkansas.
Kentucky lost by 7 to Ole Miss, took Texas to OT and outplayed them throughout the game, won at Auburn and shellacked Florida.
Florida beat Texas and took Georgia and Ole Miss to the wire.
Mississippi State beat Arizona State(who is tied for 3rd in the Big 12), blew a 17 point 4th quarter lead against Texas and had chances to beat us and win in the swamp.
Auburn took Oklahoma, Georgia, A&M, Missouri and Vandy to the wire with chances to win each of those games.
South Carolina just blew a 27 point halftime lead over A&M and blew a chance to beat Alabama.
Arkansas has lost singe digit games @Ole Miss, Memphis, @tennessee, A&M, Mississippi State and @lsu and had chances to win several of those games.
When SEC teams play each other, someone has to lose. I would argue that even the worst teams in our conference are at least decent teams.
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Arkansas lost to Memphis. South Carolina barely beat Virginia Tech. Getting up for a big game here or there doesn’t make you a good team. Those teams are bad.
 
#31
#31
Vol in Buckeye Land said:
Is only losing to top 10 teams while not beating a single ranked team the standard for Tennessee football in your mind?
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No but I was addressing his point, that 9-3 despite being what most people here predicted for UT is now an awful record bc the SEC is full of "bad" teams.

Yet we will be 9-3 without losing to ANY SEC bad teams, so it's kind of wrong
 
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#32
#32
West Vol said:
None, but I also don’t really think we lost any great teams either. I think SEC is really lacking in elite teams this year. Really sucks, because looking back on the early Heupel years I would have predicted 2025 to be a year we peak and it couldn’t have come at a better time for us to win the conference.
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Georgia, Bama are two of the best teams in the country, and I think we lost to Oklahoma who is a top 10 team that we are comparable too.

So no one this year in CFB is "elite" but they are great teams...We aren't losing to UK and Vandy type teams
 
#33
#33
West Vol said:
Arkansas lost to Memphis. South Carolina barely beat Virginia Tech. Getting up for a big game here or there doesn’t make you a good team. Those teams are bad.
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compared to who? They are top 50 type teams at least with talent...

I agree by SEC standards they are bad, but would be bowl teams in any lesser conference...

But again the point of my response was that UT has been in alignment with the preseason predictions so far
 
#34
#34
Rickyvol77 said:
Georgia, Bama are two of the best teams in the country, and I think we lost to Oklahoma who is a top 10 team that we are comparable too.

So no one this year in CFB is "elite" but they are great teams...We aren't losing to UK and Vandy type teams
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We’ll see. They are certainly regarded as two of the best. I think any of those UGA teams from the past few years beats them like a drum. Our 2022 team more than likely handles them, too.

They certainly aren’t garbage, but having seen them play all three of those teams are very far from something we’d call a sure loss like UGA in 2023.
 
#35
#35
Rickyvol77 said:
compared to who? They are top 50 type teams at least with talent...

I agree by SEC standards they are bad, but would be bowl teams in any lesser conference...

But again the point of my response was that UT has been in alignment with the preseason predictions so far
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Compared to anyone that has any aspiration for being halfway decent. If we are arguing about the merits of being slightly better than teams that fired their coaches or are about to, then we aren’t on the right track. Those teams are bad. Yeah maybe they’d have snuck into a crappy bowl with an ACC schedule, but they are still awful.
 
#36
#36
Rickyvol77 said:
compared to who? They are top 50 type teams at least with talent...

I agree by SEC standards they are bad, but would be bowl teams in any lesser conference...

But again the point of my response was that UT has been in alignment with the preseason predictions so far
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So if Penn State rallies, makes a bowl game, and UT ends up getting drilled by them, no big deal because they were preseason #3, right?
 
#37
#37
West Vol said:
We’ll see. They are certainly regarded as two of the best. I think any of those UGA teams from the past few years beats them like a drum. Our 2022 team more than likely handles them, too.

They certainly aren’t garbage, but having seen them play all three of those teams are very far from something we’d call a sure loss like UGA in 2023.
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ok? and?

I think that 1998 or 2001 Tennessee would win the national title this season easily, but so what?

Elite is a year to year thing....There are about 15-18 P4 teams all with the same type of teams that "could" win a playoff game if the breaks fall that way

the SEC this season has Texas A&M, UGA, Bama, Texas, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, and Tennessee all at about the same level but with varying degrees of Scheduling difficulties, then Mizzou/Vandy/LSU levels then everyone else (Fla, UK, Auburn, Arky, MSU, SC) lumped together as a possible win or loss but playing people close.

The only difference between possibly Texas A&M and Tennessee is we played Oklahoma, Bama, and UGA and they played 7 of the bottom 8 teams in the conference....who REALLY knows?

In the superconferences moving forward, these unbalanced schedules are only gonna be worse...see Ohio St and Indiana in the big Ten vs say Oregon or Maryland's schedules
 
#38
#38
deatojl said:
I'll preface this by saying I am not at all pleased or even satisfied that we have lost the three games we have lost. However, I have seen this "standard" referenced several times. What would you say is the "Standard for Tennessee football"? When was this standard established? I have been watching Tennessee football for 45 years. I have only seen us go undefeated one time and it took quite a bit of good fortune for it to happen that season.
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The standard is competing for conference championships on a fairly regular basis, beating our rivals not named Bama more often than they beat us and beating Bama about or nearly as often as they beat us (before the dark ages of the 2010s, we led the series against UF and UGA and were within ten or so of Bama). Historically we are one of the top tier programs in the league; this year we're about even with Mizzou.
 
#39
#39
West Vol said:
Compared to anyone that has any aspiration for being halfway decent. If we are arguing about the merits of being slightly better than teams that fired their coaches or are about to, then we aren’t on the right track. Those teams are bad. Yeah maybe they’d have snuck into a crappy bowl with an ACC schedule, but they are still awful.
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so if we are predicted to be 9-3 preseason at best, (lose to UGA, Bama, and split Okla or Fla) and we then lose our QB and several defensive starters but play above our heads to almost upset UGA, but lose those exact games, and then rally to go 9-3 and beat a good Big Ten team in a bowl, the season is a failure? or on the "wrong track"?
 
#40
#40
West Vol said:
So if Penn State rallies, makes a bowl game, and UT ends up getting drilled by them, no big deal because they were preseason #3, right?
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Penn St will likely make a bowl but they aren't playing UT, we will be in a good bowl..

And no but Penn St didn't live up to their ranking and prediction while UT still likely will
 
#41
#41
West Vol said:
Arkansas lost to Memphis. South Carolina barely beat Virginia Tech. Getting up for a big game here or there doesn’t make you a good team. Those teams are bad.
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I didn't say they were good teams. I said I would argue they are at least decent. Legitimately bad teams don't stay within a score of three top 20 teams with two of them being top 5ish like Arkansas has or have two top 10 teams on the ropes only to blow it like S. Carolina or beat one of the top teams in another P4 conference and have opportunities to beat two top 20 SEC teams. That's not occasionally getting up for a big game. That shows an ability to play with good teams and just not being quite good enough to close the deal.
 
#42
#42
Vol in Buckeye Land said:
The standard is competing for conference championships on a fairly regular basis, beating our rivals not named Bama more often than they beat us and beating Bama about or nearly as often as they beat us (before the dark ages of the 2010s, we led the series against UF and UGA and were within ten or so of Bama). Historically we are one of the top tier programs in the league; this year we're about even with Mizzou.
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I agree that competing for SEC titles is a goal; Little different in a 16 soon to be 20-24 team conference though...it's not the same sport as before where beat Florida and win the SEC means you are in the title game.

And Heupel is beating our rivals regularly except for UGA which has been the best program in the country the past 5-6 years.

We will have beaten Florida 3 times out of 4 years and split with Bama too next year...that's heading in the right direction...

Mizzou is a paper tiger due to schedule, same as Vandy...we will likely end up tying for 3rd in the SEC
 
#43
#43
Rickyvol77 said:
so if we are predicted to be 9-3 preseason at best, (lose to UGA, Bama, and split Okla or Fla) and we then lose our QB and several defensive starters but play above our heads to almost upset UGA, but lose those exact games, and then rally to go 9-3 and beat a good Big Ten team in a bowl, the season is a failure? or on the "wrong track"?
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I don’t know why you put so much weight on preseason predictions. They are clearly awful as evidenced by Penn State and Texas. Expectations evolve and data from months ago isn’t really relevant. My expectation is to beat Florida. Now, had Aguilar broken is leg yesterday, I wouldn’t necessarily hold Heupel’s feet to the fire for losing that game. 9-3 preseason expectations were predicated on a disaster of a QB situation, which turned out to be not just overblown, but pretty much the opposite of reality. Expectations had Nico stayed would have been a lot higher, but I think it’s not crazy to think we’d have had at least one more loss this season with him.
 
#44
#44
Vol in Buckeye Land said:
The standard is competing for conference championships on a fairly regular basis, beating our rivals not named Bama more often than they beat us and beating Bama about or nearly as often as they beat us (before the dark ages of the 2010s, we led the series against UF and UGA and were within ten or so of Bama). Historically we are one of the top tier programs in the league; this year we're about even with Mizzou.
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So, pretty close to what we have been under Heupel? We have split the last four games with Bama, split the last four with Florida, went 4-0 against Vandy and 5-0 against Kentucky. The only rival we have not performed well against is Georgia. In 2022, we finished 2nd in the SEC. We didn't play in the CG only because the 1st place team was in the same division. We finished 3rd in the SEC last season and had a playoff appearance. If we win our last two games this season, there is a good chance we will finish 6th in the conference, which isn't too bad out of 16 teams in an "off" year.
 
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#45
#45
Rickyvol77 said:
so if we are predicted to be 9-3 preseason at best, (lose to UGA, Bama, and split Okla or Fla) and we then lose our QB and several defensive starters but play above our heads to almost upset UGA, but lose those exact games, and then rally to go 9-3 and beat a good Big Ten team in a bowl, the season is a failure? or on the "wrong track"?
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Yes. We are not playing anywhere close to elite football right now and that should be the goal in year 5. Significant changes would need to come for it to be a possibility in year 6.
 
#48
#48
West Vol said:
Yes. We are not playing anywhere close to elite football right now and that should be the goal in year 5. Significant changes would need to come for it to be a possibility in year 6.
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If we had beaten UGA by hitting that FG but lost to Bama and Oklahoma but made the playoffs would we have been "elite" in your mind?
 
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