DiderotsGhost
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Finally, a win! I live in Atlanta, so any time Tennessee wins and Georgia loses on the same day, that's a great day! It also makes watching the rest of the games on Saturday so much more enjoyable when the Vols win.
I’ve felt like we’ve improved every game this season, but it’s been difficult to tell with our schedule. Before this week, Miss State was a top 25 team in Sagarin, so this is a big quality win IMO. Albeit, we’ve got several more like this one coming up.
Here are my takeaways
O-line
Zero penalties. Huge improvement from prior weeks. Penalties have been the biggest issue for the O-line this season, but they had 0 vs Miss State. Makes life for the offense much easier.
Best performance of the year. I said in a post this week that our O-line can potentially be elite in 2020 or 2021. This is evidence of that. Wanya Morris and Darnell Wright are both the “real deal”. Two of the best true Freshman OL in the nation right now and they will anchor that line for a few years. It’s been a long time since I remember our O-line winning the LOS like this against a P5 team, but feels nice.
The Run Game
3 to 1 run ratio. We ran the ball 44 times and only passed 14 times. While our stats weren’t spectacular, still impressive that we were able to run when everyone in the stadium knew we were going to run.
3.5 ypc. We averaged 3.5 ypc when you strip out the QB numbers. That’s respectable when you consider the 3 to 1 run ratio.
No big runs. The most disappointing thing was that we didn’t have many big runs. The longest run by one of our RBs was 15 yards. Still, this does reaffirm just how good we were picking up 3-4 yard chunks on a regular basis.
Quarterbacks
Maurer thus far. The good news is that Maurer is able to move us down the field better than any QB on the roster. The bad news is that Maurer turns the ball over way too often. On the season, he’s completed a dismal 46% of his passes, he averaged a respectable 7.6 ypa, and has 4 INTs (an INT for every 12 throws). That stats aren’t great, but the team does look more in sync with him out there.
Maurer vs Miss State. He was 4 for 7 for 61 yards and 2 INTs. The most impressive part of his stat line was 3 carries for 41 yards. It’s tough to evaluate his performance, because 2 INTs in a single half is very bad, but I don’t know that JG could have gotten us down the field to begin with. Maurer shows a lot of potential, but makes a lot of Freshman mistakes.
Maurer’s future. The most encouraging thing to me about Maurer is that he’s rapidly improved over the course of the season. He looks much better now than he did in the spring game or versus Chattanooga. In spite of the fans excitement around him, he’s not been very good thus far. But I do think his flaws can be fixed with more experience. We saw his potential in the 1st half of that Georgia game. He needs to more consistently play like that.
Dobbs as a Freshman. I’ve said this numerous times, but Maurer does remind me a bit of Dobbs as a Freshman. People tend to forgot just how poorly Dobbs played as a Freshman, because they were so enchanted by his running ability, but Dobbs was a bad QB as a Freshman; he threw 6 INTs and only 2 TDs. It wasn’t till he was a Sophomore that the game slowed down for him and he started making better decisions. I'm hoping Maurer goes through a similar progression and we continue to see the good, while he improves upon a lot of the big mistakes.
JG. JG actually had his best performance of the year. I thought he played very well, albeit, we didn’t ask him to do much. He went 6 for 7 for 106 yards, 1 TD, and 0 INTs. He made a few beautiful passes. Reminds me why he’s such a frustrating player. I almost wonder if JG just plays better as a backup, without all the stress on him. That said, it’s a lot easier to throw the ball when you’re running the ball 3 out of 4 plays, so I don’t want to read too much into this performance.
Happy to see. I’m very happy to see both JG and Maurer have each others’ back. They’ve both tried to help each other and have been very supportive of the other. Nice to see that we have a real team. Both of these guys are class acts and I’m happy to have them representing Tennessee.
Next week. With Maurer in concussion protocol, it seems like JG should be the starter next week versus Bama, which is fine. Let Maurer get a week of rest, and bring him back for South Carolina. Very unlikely that we were ever going to beat Bama this season.
Defense
Best D-line performance of the year. We won at both lines of scrimmage yesterday, which was impressive. I was very encouraged seeing our DL consistently push the Miss State OL backwards.
3 INTs. Miss State passed the ball a mere 21 times. They completed 11 of those passes, and we intercepted 3 of them. That’s pretty amazing. For every 3.75 passes they caught, we caught one of theirs! The pass D was excellent.
Kylin Hill. We’ve all seen the stat line: 11 carries for 13 yards. That is very impressive.
Pruitt shuts down 1-dimensional attacks. Remember that Kentucky game last year? That was another 1-dimensional offense. Kentucky has one of the best running attacks in the nation, but the passing game was weak. Pruitt shut them down. Definitely a recurring theme that you better bring a balanced offense if you plan to beat Pruitt’s D.
Biggest issue. The QB runs were by far our biggest issue this game. Shrader ran for 62 yards on 13 carries; probably even better than that when you strip out any sacks. Stevens ran 8 times for 26 yards. In total, the QBs ran 88 yards out of Miss State’s 121 yards.
Great game plan. While some people think Pruitt went to the run-heavy offense due to JG being in the game, I also think that Pruitt saw we were winning at both lines of scrimmage, and saw an opportunity to shorten the game. Our biggest weakness on D right now is depth. We get worn down by the end of games. So Pruitt wanted to run the ball, run down the clock, and give our D as much rest as possible. It worked.
Shortening the game. Further on that note, I had the SC vs Georgia game on in the background while I was watching the Tennessee game. At one point in the 3rd Quarter, I noticed that the game clock in our game was 8 minutes lower than the clock in the Georgia game. They started at the same time. That’s how effective we were at shortening the game.
Overall. Great effort by the defense. And great plan by the coaches to keep the D rested so they could continue to perform at a high level. The defense and the O-line were definitely the MVPs of the game.
Miss State Message Boards
Fan delusion. I always think our fans are delusional until I see other SEC fanbases. I checked out the Miss State forums last night. They are in full “FIRE MOORHEAD” mode. One poster who wrote the case for firing him called Miss State a top 6 or 7 job nationally. LOL. It’s not even a top 7 job in the SEC! It’s probably the 11th or 12th best job in the SEC and one of the toughest jobs in the nation.
Dan Mullen’s shadow. Tough to say how Moorhead will fare at Miss State. People dramatically underestimate how good of a coach Dan Mullen was to do so well at MSU. I don’t think Miss State is going to find another Dan Mullen for a long time.
Moorhead. Before going to Miss State, Moorhead was one of the best OCs in the nation and he also did one of the greatest rebuilding jobs ever at Fordham. I think he was a good hire by Miss State, but we’ll see how things turn out. I don’t think the Miss State fans are giving him a fair shake right now. They think they are a top 10 program when they aren’t. They are a sub-500 program historically.
Looking Forward
Vanderbilt. Vandy looks bad! I’m reluctant to say this, because somehow we continue to lose to them lately, but this team seems to have taken a huge step backwards since Kyle Shurmur graduated. They lost 34-10 to UNLV! Our terrible Ga State loss looks respectable in comparison. UNLV is 2-4 and their only other win is against an FCS school. This is a very bad team that could be 2-9 when we play them.
South Carolina. Impressive victory over Georgia on Saturday. However, they have now lost both their 1st and 2nd string QBs. It doesn’t necessarily sound like a serious injury to Hilinski so he might be back when we play them. Regardless, SC is going to be one of our most difficult and important games on the rest of the schedule. A win against South Carolina would be a big statement right now.
Mizzou. I hate to be a pessimist, but I don’t see us beating Mizzou. They have a legitimate shot at winning the SEC East this year. Kelly Bryant is probably the 2nd best QB in the East (behind Fromm). And that program does a great job building up the lines. If I weren’t for a fluke loss to Wyoming in the first week, they’d be ranked in the top 10 right now. The game is also in Columbia, which makes that South Carolina game that much more important.
Kentucky. This is a team I still haven’t figured out. They practically had Florida beat before blowing that game. They got stomped by Miss State and South Carolina. They narrowly beat Arkansas. While we play in Lexington and that’s a big disadvantage, this will be a very winnable game.
UAB. No one wants to hear this, but UAB is actually pretty good. They are 5-1. They are going to come into Neyland expecting to win. They also get an extra week to prep for us and you better believe they are going to bring everything they have. We are the better team, but it’s not going to be an easy win. The coaches better bring their “A” game for game prep.
Bowl game hopes. I feel like we'll finish the season 5-7, but we do have an outside shot at a bowl game, but we basically need to beat SCe, Kentucky, Vandy, and UAB. Going 4 for 4 will be tough.
Miscellany
Pruitt 2-0 vs Rotating SEC West Opponent. While it's not the hugest deal in the world, this is an interesting weird fact. Pruitt is now 2-0 against our rotating SEC West divisional opponent. Butch Jones was 0-5. Derek Dooley was 1-4. Ultimately, overall SEC wins are more important, but it's interesting that Pruitt has seemed to have the number for our non-Bama SEC West opponents.
I'm very busy next weekend doing some work for my business, and might not see the whole Bama game, which is probably just as well. I'll check my phone and if we're still in it in the 2nd half, then stream it if we are actually somehow in it!
That's it for now!
GBO!
I’ve felt like we’ve improved every game this season, but it’s been difficult to tell with our schedule. Before this week, Miss State was a top 25 team in Sagarin, so this is a big quality win IMO. Albeit, we’ve got several more like this one coming up.
Here are my takeaways
O-line
Zero penalties. Huge improvement from prior weeks. Penalties have been the biggest issue for the O-line this season, but they had 0 vs Miss State. Makes life for the offense much easier.
Best performance of the year. I said in a post this week that our O-line can potentially be elite in 2020 or 2021. This is evidence of that. Wanya Morris and Darnell Wright are both the “real deal”. Two of the best true Freshman OL in the nation right now and they will anchor that line for a few years. It’s been a long time since I remember our O-line winning the LOS like this against a P5 team, but feels nice.
The Run Game
3 to 1 run ratio. We ran the ball 44 times and only passed 14 times. While our stats weren’t spectacular, still impressive that we were able to run when everyone in the stadium knew we were going to run.
3.5 ypc. We averaged 3.5 ypc when you strip out the QB numbers. That’s respectable when you consider the 3 to 1 run ratio.
No big runs. The most disappointing thing was that we didn’t have many big runs. The longest run by one of our RBs was 15 yards. Still, this does reaffirm just how good we were picking up 3-4 yard chunks on a regular basis.
Quarterbacks
Maurer thus far. The good news is that Maurer is able to move us down the field better than any QB on the roster. The bad news is that Maurer turns the ball over way too often. On the season, he’s completed a dismal 46% of his passes, he averaged a respectable 7.6 ypa, and has 4 INTs (an INT for every 12 throws). That stats aren’t great, but the team does look more in sync with him out there.
Maurer vs Miss State. He was 4 for 7 for 61 yards and 2 INTs. The most impressive part of his stat line was 3 carries for 41 yards. It’s tough to evaluate his performance, because 2 INTs in a single half is very bad, but I don’t know that JG could have gotten us down the field to begin with. Maurer shows a lot of potential, but makes a lot of Freshman mistakes.
Maurer’s future. The most encouraging thing to me about Maurer is that he’s rapidly improved over the course of the season. He looks much better now than he did in the spring game or versus Chattanooga. In spite of the fans excitement around him, he’s not been very good thus far. But I do think his flaws can be fixed with more experience. We saw his potential in the 1st half of that Georgia game. He needs to more consistently play like that.
Dobbs as a Freshman. I’ve said this numerous times, but Maurer does remind me a bit of Dobbs as a Freshman. People tend to forgot just how poorly Dobbs played as a Freshman, because they were so enchanted by his running ability, but Dobbs was a bad QB as a Freshman; he threw 6 INTs and only 2 TDs. It wasn’t till he was a Sophomore that the game slowed down for him and he started making better decisions. I'm hoping Maurer goes through a similar progression and we continue to see the good, while he improves upon a lot of the big mistakes.
JG. JG actually had his best performance of the year. I thought he played very well, albeit, we didn’t ask him to do much. He went 6 for 7 for 106 yards, 1 TD, and 0 INTs. He made a few beautiful passes. Reminds me why he’s such a frustrating player. I almost wonder if JG just plays better as a backup, without all the stress on him. That said, it’s a lot easier to throw the ball when you’re running the ball 3 out of 4 plays, so I don’t want to read too much into this performance.
Happy to see. I’m very happy to see both JG and Maurer have each others’ back. They’ve both tried to help each other and have been very supportive of the other. Nice to see that we have a real team. Both of these guys are class acts and I’m happy to have them representing Tennessee.
Next week. With Maurer in concussion protocol, it seems like JG should be the starter next week versus Bama, which is fine. Let Maurer get a week of rest, and bring him back for South Carolina. Very unlikely that we were ever going to beat Bama this season.
Defense
Best D-line performance of the year. We won at both lines of scrimmage yesterday, which was impressive. I was very encouraged seeing our DL consistently push the Miss State OL backwards.
3 INTs. Miss State passed the ball a mere 21 times. They completed 11 of those passes, and we intercepted 3 of them. That’s pretty amazing. For every 3.75 passes they caught, we caught one of theirs! The pass D was excellent.
Kylin Hill. We’ve all seen the stat line: 11 carries for 13 yards. That is very impressive.
Pruitt shuts down 1-dimensional attacks. Remember that Kentucky game last year? That was another 1-dimensional offense. Kentucky has one of the best running attacks in the nation, but the passing game was weak. Pruitt shut them down. Definitely a recurring theme that you better bring a balanced offense if you plan to beat Pruitt’s D.
Biggest issue. The QB runs were by far our biggest issue this game. Shrader ran for 62 yards on 13 carries; probably even better than that when you strip out any sacks. Stevens ran 8 times for 26 yards. In total, the QBs ran 88 yards out of Miss State’s 121 yards.
Great game plan. While some people think Pruitt went to the run-heavy offense due to JG being in the game, I also think that Pruitt saw we were winning at both lines of scrimmage, and saw an opportunity to shorten the game. Our biggest weakness on D right now is depth. We get worn down by the end of games. So Pruitt wanted to run the ball, run down the clock, and give our D as much rest as possible. It worked.
Shortening the game. Further on that note, I had the SC vs Georgia game on in the background while I was watching the Tennessee game. At one point in the 3rd Quarter, I noticed that the game clock in our game was 8 minutes lower than the clock in the Georgia game. They started at the same time. That’s how effective we were at shortening the game.
Overall. Great effort by the defense. And great plan by the coaches to keep the D rested so they could continue to perform at a high level. The defense and the O-line were definitely the MVPs of the game.
Miss State Message Boards
Fan delusion. I always think our fans are delusional until I see other SEC fanbases. I checked out the Miss State forums last night. They are in full “FIRE MOORHEAD” mode. One poster who wrote the case for firing him called Miss State a top 6 or 7 job nationally. LOL. It’s not even a top 7 job in the SEC! It’s probably the 11th or 12th best job in the SEC and one of the toughest jobs in the nation.
Dan Mullen’s shadow. Tough to say how Moorhead will fare at Miss State. People dramatically underestimate how good of a coach Dan Mullen was to do so well at MSU. I don’t think Miss State is going to find another Dan Mullen for a long time.
Moorhead. Before going to Miss State, Moorhead was one of the best OCs in the nation and he also did one of the greatest rebuilding jobs ever at Fordham. I think he was a good hire by Miss State, but we’ll see how things turn out. I don’t think the Miss State fans are giving him a fair shake right now. They think they are a top 10 program when they aren’t. They are a sub-500 program historically.
Looking Forward
Vanderbilt. Vandy looks bad! I’m reluctant to say this, because somehow we continue to lose to them lately, but this team seems to have taken a huge step backwards since Kyle Shurmur graduated. They lost 34-10 to UNLV! Our terrible Ga State loss looks respectable in comparison. UNLV is 2-4 and their only other win is against an FCS school. This is a very bad team that could be 2-9 when we play them.
South Carolina. Impressive victory over Georgia on Saturday. However, they have now lost both their 1st and 2nd string QBs. It doesn’t necessarily sound like a serious injury to Hilinski so he might be back when we play them. Regardless, SC is going to be one of our most difficult and important games on the rest of the schedule. A win against South Carolina would be a big statement right now.
Mizzou. I hate to be a pessimist, but I don’t see us beating Mizzou. They have a legitimate shot at winning the SEC East this year. Kelly Bryant is probably the 2nd best QB in the East (behind Fromm). And that program does a great job building up the lines. If I weren’t for a fluke loss to Wyoming in the first week, they’d be ranked in the top 10 right now. The game is also in Columbia, which makes that South Carolina game that much more important.
Kentucky. This is a team I still haven’t figured out. They practically had Florida beat before blowing that game. They got stomped by Miss State and South Carolina. They narrowly beat Arkansas. While we play in Lexington and that’s a big disadvantage, this will be a very winnable game.
UAB. No one wants to hear this, but UAB is actually pretty good. They are 5-1. They are going to come into Neyland expecting to win. They also get an extra week to prep for us and you better believe they are going to bring everything they have. We are the better team, but it’s not going to be an easy win. The coaches better bring their “A” game for game prep.
Bowl game hopes. I feel like we'll finish the season 5-7, but we do have an outside shot at a bowl game, but we basically need to beat SCe, Kentucky, Vandy, and UAB. Going 4 for 4 will be tough.
Miscellany
Pruitt 2-0 vs Rotating SEC West Opponent. While it's not the hugest deal in the world, this is an interesting weird fact. Pruitt is now 2-0 against our rotating SEC West divisional opponent. Butch Jones was 0-5. Derek Dooley was 1-4. Ultimately, overall SEC wins are more important, but it's interesting that Pruitt has seemed to have the number for our non-Bama SEC West opponents.
I'm very busy next weekend doing some work for my business, and might not see the whole Bama game, which is probably just as well. I'll check my phone and if we're still in it in the 2nd half, then stream it if we are actually somehow in it!
That's it for now!
GBO!
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