DiderotsGhost
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That's the most fun I've had watching a Tennessee game in a long time! I knew we had a shot against Kentucky if we played well, but never dreamed we'd win by 3 possessions! Here are my takeaways.
Offense
Helton. I've said it all year, but Helton is a great OC. He's been wrongly criticized as our O-line struggles have greatly limited what he can do, but he's shown his worth versus Auburn, South Carolina, and Kentucky. He's easily our best OC since Cheney and he may end up being our best since Cutcliffe before all is said and done.
O-line's best performance. I don't know what happened, but this is easily the best our O-line has looked all year long. The game is a lot easier with a functional O-line. They weren't elite by any stretch of the imagination, but they did a reasonably good job protecting JG and we got a "push" in the run game for the first time all season! At the beginning of the season, I said if our O-line can go from an "F" to merely a "C", we could see a huge improvement on offense. I think we might've finally saw what that looked like.
Chandler + Jordan. Both Chandler and Jordan played their "A" game. I've said a million times, but they are two of the most underrated backs in the SEC. For most this season, they've had to create yards all on their own. They still did a lot of that yesterday, but they at least got a little more help this time around.
Jordan Murphy. Two huge plays from Murphy!
CFA. You know ... I think defenses might be starting to catching onto the fact that if CFA is in the game, it's an end-around.
Callaway. Big-time catch from him. Seeing him catch that ball right before the half and then hearing "Rocky Top" blazing afterwards is the most pumped I've been all season. Felt like the Golden Age of the 90's.
DWA. He's emerging as a major threat at TE.
JG. First time all season I don't remember the 'JG haters' coming out. Ironically, I thought this was a "B" game for JG. He made some great throws, including the Hail Mary to Callaway and a few notable passes to DWA. JG was good for about 90% of the game, but two awful throws that should've been picked off, as well as a couple more mistakes, and I thought this wasn't really his best game. But thankfully, the rest of the offense stepped up big-time and we got lucky with no INTs. That said, JG deserves huge kudos for leading this team and setting the record for most passes without an interception. He's been underrated all season.
Shoop. Am the only one who didn't realize Bob Shoop's son was a walk-on WR for us? I saw him on the sideline celebrating after a big play.
Defense
An "A" Game. This was a masterful performance by this defense. They held a Kentucky team, averaging about 200 rushing yards per game, to a mere 77 yards. Albeit, that includes sacks, but even ignoring sacks, Benny Snell was held to 81 yards. We forced Kentucky to throw, which is exactly what we wanted.
3 Turnovers. Woot!
Darrell Taylor. Going into the season, I said Darrell Taylor was our best defensive player. He's looked like it for most of the season. Unfortunately, he disappeared during that South Carolina game with only 1 tackle. He made up for it today. That's one of the most dominating defensive performances in UT history: 7 tackles, 4 sacks, and he created a turnover. Wow! We had a lot of guys that played well, but Taylor is the MVP for my money.
Shy Tuttle. Huge FG block and a few more key plays. Sad we're losing him after this season. I feel like we could take a huge leap forward if we could him and Phillips for one more year, but alas. Hope an NFL team realizes his value.
Kyle Phillips. IMO he's the most improved player on the defense this year. This has been a breakout season for him. Another great game. I think he may have worked himself onto an NFL roster.
Daniel Bituli. Guy is a beast. He creates havoc everywhere. 8 tackles, including 3 for loss.
Wtf? Kudos to Marquill Osborn on 2 great INTs, but wtf was he thinking with that lateral? I've never seen anything like that. That's a move you might pull if you're down a TD or two; not when you're up 17. You have to have awareness.
Big Picture
Complete game. This was the closest thing we've had to a complete game on both sides of the ball. Not quite there yet, as I thought we had some big mistakes on offense still, but very very close.
Steady Improvement. We've seen consistent improvement throughout the season. Albeit, we've had some ups and downs on the way there (South Carolina with the defense, Charlotte with the offense), but we look much better now than we did back in September.
Bowl game. "Every time I think we're out, they pull us right back in!" Make no mistake, it's still a tough road, but winning 1 out of the last 2 versus Mizzou and Vandy seems much more reasonable.
Mizzou. Don't underestimate Mizzou. That is a Senior laden team that is playing it's best football right now. They would've won that Kentucky game if the refs hadn't stole it from them (awful awful DPI call on a play with offensive pass interference). We had a great game against Kentucky, but Mizzou is bringing their "A" game and we're going to have to play another one at the level we did this week. If we revert back to our South Carolina defense or Charlotte offense, we'll have a very difficult time winning.
Mizzou #20 in Sagarin. More on Mizzou, but worth noting that Mizzou is now rated #20 in Sagarin while Kentucky is #38, South Carolina is #35, and Auburn is #19. So according to Sagarin, Mizzou is better than both Kentucky and SC, and about the same as Auburn.
Year #2. Feeling better about the future after this game, but I'd still say "don't get too crazy about next season." Our offense should improve, as we lose very few key players, but we lose our top 4 D-linemen. We're already thin at DL, so that's going to be a huge hit. I just hope to see continued improvement and want to see Pruitt bring in another great recruiting class. Good news is that, barring injuries, I think we should improve at almost every position other than D-line.
First Year Coaches
Caveats. You can't judge coaches based solely on 1st year results, as they are often misleading. That said, I think Pruitt has looked like one of the better 1st year coaches thus far.
Dan Mullen. Mullen gets an "A" from me. Not unexpected. I've long thought he was one of the best coaches in college football and he's turned Florida around quickly. Feleipe Franks looks like a different player this year. They've had some setbacks, but for a 1st year coach, he's been outstanding.
Scott Frost. In spite of the ugly 3-7 record, I think Frost has been very good. Keep in mind that Frost had to start a walk-on QB for several games and was left a pretty thin roster. He started 0-6 and is now 3-1 in his last four. He was very close to being 4-0 in that stretch with a win over Top 10 Ohio State. Would've been an amazing upset.
Jimbo Fisher. He's looked pretty good in his first season at A&M. Some close losses to Clemson and Auburn.
Chad Morris. Tough to evaluate him. Arkansas is awful this year, but you can't necessarily blame him. I also think they are trying to pull off a very tough transition, as Morris' offense is almost the exact opposite of Bret Bielema's.
Matt Luke. Underrated as a coach, but he has an impossible job right now. He's a sacrificial lamb, but he's done a good job in spite of that.
Willie Taggart. He's looked awful. I know it's Year #1, but Florida State should not be 4-6 right now. And it's not merely that they are 4-6, but that they've looked completely terrible getting there. Their biggest win is Wake Forest and decent chance they finish 4-8. It took Taggart till Year 4 at USF, so we'll see if they improve in the upcoming seasons, but early results are pretty bad admittedly.
Chip Kelly. Remember when everyone thought Kelly was the best coaching candidate available? I 100% disagreed with that assessment and viewed Kelly more like RichRod, who had a spectacular 4-year run at West Virginia but was never able to come close to replicating it. Chip Kelly sucked in the NFL. He was good the first year and then NFL defenses figured his offense out. He's been bad this year at UCLA. He's 2-8. And that's not even what would worry me if I were a UCLA fan. It's one thing to struggle in Year 1 while inheriting a weak roster; it's quite another to be in the heart of the Los Angeles recruiting market and have the #79th ranked recruiting class! Teams currently ranked above UCLA include: Toledo, Illinois, Rutgers, Louisiana, North Texas, Temple, and Western Michigan. Yikes! Imagine being at UCLA and not being able to out-recruit Western Michigan!
Kevin Sumlin. 5-5 at Arizona this season is a bit of a disappointment given the talent they have. Though, as I've said, 1st years are often aberrations for coaches, so we'll see how he does the next few seasons.
Herm Edwards. Herm has probably outperformed expectations this year, but I see him as the classic ex-NFL guy who 'immediately improves results, but gets worse over the long-term.' First year performance can easily be improved with good play-calling (and Herm has that), but building a program over the long-term is a totally different task. Herm's #51 ranked recruiting class probably isn't going to do it. The good news, however, is that he's out-recruiting Chip Kelly!
Pruitt versus the Rest. Pruitt comes out looking pretty good versus this group. Two top 25 wins is impressive. 5-5 isn't spectacular, but the mess he was left, particularly on the O-line has handicapped us to a great extent. I think he's assembled a good staff and he's looking better as a game-day coach now than he did at the beginning of the season. Now, the question that remains is can he recruit at a top level? Overall, I think he's been one of the more impressive 1st year coaches.
That's all I got for this week.
GBO!
Offense
Helton. I've said it all year, but Helton is a great OC. He's been wrongly criticized as our O-line struggles have greatly limited what he can do, but he's shown his worth versus Auburn, South Carolina, and Kentucky. He's easily our best OC since Cheney and he may end up being our best since Cutcliffe before all is said and done.
O-line's best performance. I don't know what happened, but this is easily the best our O-line has looked all year long. The game is a lot easier with a functional O-line. They weren't elite by any stretch of the imagination, but they did a reasonably good job protecting JG and we got a "push" in the run game for the first time all season! At the beginning of the season, I said if our O-line can go from an "F" to merely a "C", we could see a huge improvement on offense. I think we might've finally saw what that looked like.
Chandler + Jordan. Both Chandler and Jordan played their "A" game. I've said a million times, but they are two of the most underrated backs in the SEC. For most this season, they've had to create yards all on their own. They still did a lot of that yesterday, but they at least got a little more help this time around.
Jordan Murphy. Two huge plays from Murphy!
CFA. You know ... I think defenses might be starting to catching onto the fact that if CFA is in the game, it's an end-around.
Callaway. Big-time catch from him. Seeing him catch that ball right before the half and then hearing "Rocky Top" blazing afterwards is the most pumped I've been all season. Felt like the Golden Age of the 90's.
DWA. He's emerging as a major threat at TE.
JG. First time all season I don't remember the 'JG haters' coming out. Ironically, I thought this was a "B" game for JG. He made some great throws, including the Hail Mary to Callaway and a few notable passes to DWA. JG was good for about 90% of the game, but two awful throws that should've been picked off, as well as a couple more mistakes, and I thought this wasn't really his best game. But thankfully, the rest of the offense stepped up big-time and we got lucky with no INTs. That said, JG deserves huge kudos for leading this team and setting the record for most passes without an interception. He's been underrated all season.
Shoop. Am the only one who didn't realize Bob Shoop's son was a walk-on WR for us? I saw him on the sideline celebrating after a big play.
Defense
An "A" Game. This was a masterful performance by this defense. They held a Kentucky team, averaging about 200 rushing yards per game, to a mere 77 yards. Albeit, that includes sacks, but even ignoring sacks, Benny Snell was held to 81 yards. We forced Kentucky to throw, which is exactly what we wanted.
3 Turnovers. Woot!
Darrell Taylor. Going into the season, I said Darrell Taylor was our best defensive player. He's looked like it for most of the season. Unfortunately, he disappeared during that South Carolina game with only 1 tackle. He made up for it today. That's one of the most dominating defensive performances in UT history: 7 tackles, 4 sacks, and he created a turnover. Wow! We had a lot of guys that played well, but Taylor is the MVP for my money.
Shy Tuttle. Huge FG block and a few more key plays. Sad we're losing him after this season. I feel like we could take a huge leap forward if we could him and Phillips for one more year, but alas. Hope an NFL team realizes his value.
Kyle Phillips. IMO he's the most improved player on the defense this year. This has been a breakout season for him. Another great game. I think he may have worked himself onto an NFL roster.
Daniel Bituli. Guy is a beast. He creates havoc everywhere. 8 tackles, including 3 for loss.
Wtf? Kudos to Marquill Osborn on 2 great INTs, but wtf was he thinking with that lateral? I've never seen anything like that. That's a move you might pull if you're down a TD or two; not when you're up 17. You have to have awareness.
Big Picture
Complete game. This was the closest thing we've had to a complete game on both sides of the ball. Not quite there yet, as I thought we had some big mistakes on offense still, but very very close.
Steady Improvement. We've seen consistent improvement throughout the season. Albeit, we've had some ups and downs on the way there (South Carolina with the defense, Charlotte with the offense), but we look much better now than we did back in September.
Bowl game. "Every time I think we're out, they pull us right back in!" Make no mistake, it's still a tough road, but winning 1 out of the last 2 versus Mizzou and Vandy seems much more reasonable.
Mizzou. Don't underestimate Mizzou. That is a Senior laden team that is playing it's best football right now. They would've won that Kentucky game if the refs hadn't stole it from them (awful awful DPI call on a play with offensive pass interference). We had a great game against Kentucky, but Mizzou is bringing their "A" game and we're going to have to play another one at the level we did this week. If we revert back to our South Carolina defense or Charlotte offense, we'll have a very difficult time winning.
Mizzou #20 in Sagarin. More on Mizzou, but worth noting that Mizzou is now rated #20 in Sagarin while Kentucky is #38, South Carolina is #35, and Auburn is #19. So according to Sagarin, Mizzou is better than both Kentucky and SC, and about the same as Auburn.
Year #2. Feeling better about the future after this game, but I'd still say "don't get too crazy about next season." Our offense should improve, as we lose very few key players, but we lose our top 4 D-linemen. We're already thin at DL, so that's going to be a huge hit. I just hope to see continued improvement and want to see Pruitt bring in another great recruiting class. Good news is that, barring injuries, I think we should improve at almost every position other than D-line.
First Year Coaches
Caveats. You can't judge coaches based solely on 1st year results, as they are often misleading. That said, I think Pruitt has looked like one of the better 1st year coaches thus far.
Dan Mullen. Mullen gets an "A" from me. Not unexpected. I've long thought he was one of the best coaches in college football and he's turned Florida around quickly. Feleipe Franks looks like a different player this year. They've had some setbacks, but for a 1st year coach, he's been outstanding.
Scott Frost. In spite of the ugly 3-7 record, I think Frost has been very good. Keep in mind that Frost had to start a walk-on QB for several games and was left a pretty thin roster. He started 0-6 and is now 3-1 in his last four. He was very close to being 4-0 in that stretch with a win over Top 10 Ohio State. Would've been an amazing upset.
Jimbo Fisher. He's looked pretty good in his first season at A&M. Some close losses to Clemson and Auburn.
Chad Morris. Tough to evaluate him. Arkansas is awful this year, but you can't necessarily blame him. I also think they are trying to pull off a very tough transition, as Morris' offense is almost the exact opposite of Bret Bielema's.
Matt Luke. Underrated as a coach, but he has an impossible job right now. He's a sacrificial lamb, but he's done a good job in spite of that.
Willie Taggart. He's looked awful. I know it's Year #1, but Florida State should not be 4-6 right now. And it's not merely that they are 4-6, but that they've looked completely terrible getting there. Their biggest win is Wake Forest and decent chance they finish 4-8. It took Taggart till Year 4 at USF, so we'll see if they improve in the upcoming seasons, but early results are pretty bad admittedly.
Chip Kelly. Remember when everyone thought Kelly was the best coaching candidate available? I 100% disagreed with that assessment and viewed Kelly more like RichRod, who had a spectacular 4-year run at West Virginia but was never able to come close to replicating it. Chip Kelly sucked in the NFL. He was good the first year and then NFL defenses figured his offense out. He's been bad this year at UCLA. He's 2-8. And that's not even what would worry me if I were a UCLA fan. It's one thing to struggle in Year 1 while inheriting a weak roster; it's quite another to be in the heart of the Los Angeles recruiting market and have the #79th ranked recruiting class! Teams currently ranked above UCLA include: Toledo, Illinois, Rutgers, Louisiana, North Texas, Temple, and Western Michigan. Yikes! Imagine being at UCLA and not being able to out-recruit Western Michigan!
Kevin Sumlin. 5-5 at Arizona this season is a bit of a disappointment given the talent they have. Though, as I've said, 1st years are often aberrations for coaches, so we'll see how he does the next few seasons.
Herm Edwards. Herm has probably outperformed expectations this year, but I see him as the classic ex-NFL guy who 'immediately improves results, but gets worse over the long-term.' First year performance can easily be improved with good play-calling (and Herm has that), but building a program over the long-term is a totally different task. Herm's #51 ranked recruiting class probably isn't going to do it. The good news, however, is that he's out-recruiting Chip Kelly!
Pruitt versus the Rest. Pruitt comes out looking pretty good versus this group. Two top 25 wins is impressive. 5-5 isn't spectacular, but the mess he was left, particularly on the O-line has handicapped us to a great extent. I think he's assembled a good staff and he's looking better as a game-day coach now than he did at the beginning of the season. Now, the question that remains is can he recruit at a top level? Overall, I think he's been one of the more impressive 1st year coaches.
That's all I got for this week.
GBO!
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