'11 MS JUCO DB Izauea Lanier (Tennessee Commit)

Neal had his chances to impress. He didn't impress me, and he didn't take Poole's job. This is JMO, but numbers don't lie. Poole's going to be the starter, and people will have to deal with that until someone out-plays him. I don't see that being a freshman. I hope Lane surprises me.
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sjt - Where did I ever say Poole was the sole player to blame for last year's 6-7 record? I didn't. The talent across the board last year was average.
Throughout your whole post you label one of the few genuine bright spots from last fall "average". Getting well above average results on a "very average" team... says a guy is something better than "average".

I understand he had some nice games stat-wise, but in some of those games he had one big run and then did nothing else.
Which ones? Before you try... I have already answered this for someone else. They weren't right then either.

I'd much rather have a tailback that gets his 100 yards by moving the chains consistently compared to having one 79 yard run and then averages 1-2 ypc throughout the rest of the game.
How about a guy that breaks one for 59 yds vs the best D you played avg'd over 5 ypc on his other 13 carries? One of the things you guys pretty consistently ignore is that Poole only avg'd 15.7 carries per game.
I understand the Oline was nothing special. I do think it was better as the season went along but it was average.
Avg? I honestly don't think so. Those Fr were extremely talented... but they were Fr being compared to talented upper classmen historically for the Vols and throughout the SEC. The only upper classman was one of the worst starting OL's UT has ever had. He's a career scout team player during any other era in UT football. That OL was poor.

Why on earth would Dooley have actually said something publicly at the end of the season about Poole's vision and inability to find holes if he wasn't missing them rather consistently?

Do you have the quote? Was it about Poole individually or the RB's as a group?

I can't answer that question if it is about Poole as an individual unless he was just trying to challenge him even more.

When you have a QB that plays as poorly as Simms did, an OL that was as weak as it was, WR's that were completely ineffective on 3rd down until Jones returned... I am not sure why you would single out the one guy who produced for you and blame him for leaving yards on the field.
 
Actually it happened quite a bit the 2nd half of the year. poole lost carries to Neal. If Neal had stayed consistent or we had Lane last year Poole wouldnt have finished the year starting. He got worse as the year went on.

You can keep on saying it.... but it just ain't so. He didn't lose carries in the 2nd half. He actually had a few more with the exception of the UNC game. In those last six games, he went over 100 three times and had 99 once.

Neal's carries came at the expense of Oku, not Poole. DO had 42 carries on the season but only 15 over the last 6 games.

I will say it again. I hope Lane or Neal or Smith or Williams can beat Poole out. To me, that would mean UT has a pretty good backfield. My argument has always been with those who ignore the statistical facts and dismiss a guy as pedestrian, average, or even subpar who performed the way he did last fall.
 
You can keep on saying it.... but it just ain't so. He didn't lose carries in the 2nd half. He actually had a few more with the exception of the UNC game. In those last six games, he went over 100 three times and had 99 once.

Neal's carries came at the expense of Oku, not Poole. DO had 42 carries on the season but only 15 over the last 6 games.

I will say it again. I hope Lane or Neal or Smith or Williams can beat Poole out. To me, that would mean UT has a pretty good backfield. My argument has always been with those who ignore the statistical facts and dismiss a guy as pedestrian, average, or even subpar who performed the way he did last fall.

I don't think Poole will lose his starting job. He was very solid running behind a very young Oline while the defense could key on him as we had no passing game for the 1st half of the season. He still went over 1000 yards. While I see a couple of the freshman getting carries, I think Poole will be the starting tailback ALL season(unless injured).
 
So what's your argument if you think his numbers aren't good? I'd love to hear it.
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Here, let me jump in and beat him to the punch. Something like, "He misses holes", "dances around", "only puts up numbers against weaker defenses". That last one is my favorite that you see all the time on here, when that couldn't be further from the truth.
 
So what's your argument if you think his numbers aren't good? I'd love to hear it.
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His numbers were fine for a runningback with an average skill set. My argument has always been that if we had had a rb that was on par with our usual talent level that those numbers would have been better and we could have been a more balanced team offensively. Now that we have lane in and neal is a year in the system you'll see poole get less pt.
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Here, let me jump in and beat him to the punch. Something like, "He misses holes", "dances around", "only puts up numbers against weaker defenses". That last one is my favorite that you see all the time on here, when that couldn't be further from the truth.

He does dance around and his vision is below average. This is not something you can argue with stats. I can't believe that others would even argue against that.
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Good thing we don't have texas or fla's rosters then. I'd hate to pull in top classes and still have average players :crazy:

I'd take their rosters anyday over Tennessee's. You'd have to be completely insane not to.

Nobody said they have average players. They were average as a team last year for various reasons like inexperience, injuries, coaching instability, etc... But look at their success over the last 5-6 years and then look at Tennessee's. There is no comparison. Having an average season for UF and Texas is NOT the norm. It is a blip on the radar. The norm for them is winning SEC titles and Big XII titles. For Tennessee average seasons have become the norm.

If you can't see that then you have serious Orange Tint issues.
 
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Oh i definitely agree that there is a huge gap between Texas/Fla and UT players, but i was simply making the point that if someone were going strictly off last seasons records, they may not see such a gap. Record is only one factor to determining the skill level of the players, not the only one
 
I'd take their rosters anyday over Tennessee's. You'd have to be completely insane not to.

Nobody said they have average players. They were average as a team last year for various reasons like inexperience, injuries, coaching instability, etc... But look at their success over the last 5-6 years and then look at Tennessee's. There is no comparison. Having an average season for UF and Texas is NOT the norm. It is a blip on the radar. The norm for them is winning SEC titles and Big XII titles. For Tennessee average seasons have become the norm.

If you can't see that then you have serious Orange Tint issues.

Coach Dooley is making strides tho. You cant call our QB,WR,OL,and DB tallent average. I'd also say our RB tallent is above average. He's still got some work to do but IMO he's getting us to where we want to be.
 
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