DiderotsGhost
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This one was brutal. I didn't sleep well the night before. An hour before the game, I thought to myself "I'll watch the game and then go to bed early." I couldn't sleep till 2 am I was so upset. It's very painful to be a Tennessee Vols fan.
I wasn't nearly as optimistic as most others before the season (I was predicting 6-7 wins) and I'm not nearly as pessimistic as most others now. Some of the issues I thought people were overlooking came out big-time in this game. There were, believe it or not, also some big positives that were difficult to see with everything bad happening.
Given that there's been nothing but gloom-and-doom for the past 2 days, I'll start with the good.
The Good
Jauan Jennings. Dude played with heart and fire. He exemplifies everything it means to be a Tennessee Vol. JG didn't always make the best throws on Saturday, but Jennings nabbed 7 passes for 108 yards. Some people still don't think JJ is an NFL player; I disagree. He has a work ethic like few others and wants to win every game. I love Jauan! There are even times I wonder if he should be playing QB.
DWA. DWA also had a sold game, grabbing 3 passes for 79 yards. He's an NFL talent for sure. We need to get him the ball as much as possible.
Eric Gray. Gray is a true Freshman who played his first collegiate game on Saturday. He ran the ball 7 times for 29 yards, but even more impressively, he caught 6 passes for 51 yards. Like Alvin Kamara, Gray is a legit threat as a runner or as a receiver.
Henry To'oto'o. Another true Freshman who had a good game, albeit with some mistakes. Our defense sucked out there, but it certainly wasn't because of To'oto'o. He led the team in tackles.
Jeremy Banks. Banks got limited playing time, but I thought he did quite well for an RB converted to LB. He played with fire. I can see why the coaches love him. Get him out on the field as much as possible. Let him make some mistakes, but I think he's going to be very good in another year or two.
Brent Cimaglia. Dude absolutely nailed every single kick and that 48 yarder was no chip shot.
Young players with promise. We had a lot of younger players with promising performances, so while there are issues, it does at least feel like Pruitt is bringing in the right players.
That's it for the good. More than most people realize, but also not nearly enough.
The Jekyll / Hyde
Ty Chandler. Chandler is the best RB on our team and he showed it on Saturday, but he also had a lot of big mental mistakes. While some are blaming that fumble on JG, I'd put it more on the coaching staff first and Chandler second. Chandler also had another fumble. That said, he had some big plays, as well, and averaged 8.0 yards per carry; by far the best on the team.
Marquez Callaway. 3 catches for 46 yards. A good kick return, but he also fumbled the ball at a key point; he did get the recovery, though. Both Chandler and Callaway are among the best players on the team, but they both had a share of unusual blunders, too. Let's hope this was just opening game errors and we don't see much more of that the rest of the season.
The OK
30 Points. This is a truly shocking stat, but this is tied for our 2nd best offensive performance in the past 2 seasons. Keep in mind that the only "better" performance was against a greatly outmatched FCS team (ETSU). Our offense was VERY VERY BAD the last two seasons. We had one of the worst offenses in the P5. Everyone thinks we're going to go from the worst offense to suddenly jacking up 50 points. In reality, the offense played much better than it did last season. In comparison, we only scored 24 points against UTEP and 14 against Charlotte last year. So yes, while some people are going to be angry at me for pointing it out, the offense wasn't great but it actually played better than it did most of last season.
JG. Make no mistake about it; JG had a bad game. But it was not nearly as bad as the naysayers would have you believe. He was 26 for 40 with 311 yards. He did not look crisp and overthrew a few passes. He had a bad fumble and a bad interception. He's not Peyton Manning or Josh Dobbs. Yet, he's still better than most other SEC Quarterbacks. Bo Nix (Auburn), who is being celebrated for a game-winning touchdown, actually played terrible in that game versus Oregon; the difference: Auburn has an elite defense, a strong O-line, and a great running game. JG didn't have a great outing, but he played well enough to win if the defense did its job. If JG switched places with Bo Nix, people would be talking about how Bo Nix was the worst quarterback in the SEC right now, and how JG won the game versus Oregon.
JG's Scrambles. I have JG with 7 runs for 19 yards. He made a few decent plays with his feet, which we haven't seen much of. His stat line, however, is distorted a bit by the sacks and pressure.
The Bad
The O-line. We shouldn't have been expecting miracles. We had the worst O-line of all P5 teams last year. While we have some very talented Freshmen, O-line is not the position you want to be starting Freshmen. We saw Wanya Morris make several mental mistakes. He'll be a great player one day, but right now, he's struggling. Overall, I thought the O-line was average to bad most of the night. They were OK in pass protection most of the time, but really bad in run blocking still.
O-line shuffling. We've seen this constant O-line shuffling from Pruitt for 2 years now and it never seems to work out. It makes me wonder if this is part of the source on confusion on O-line. Just as an example Jahmir Johnson was at LT and Wanya Morris was at LG, even though we hadn't seen that much in practice. Morris whiffed on a few blocks and I'm wondering if switching over to LG confused him. At some point, we need to pick a starting 5 and stop constantly shuffling everyone around; it's clearly not working.
3 sacks for -29 yards. These were a few major O-line lapses.
31 rushes for 93 yards. This stat is skewed a little bit by sacks on JG, but it's still quite pathetic. Get rid of the sacks and it's 28 rushes for 122 yards for 4.4 yards per carry. Against Alabama or Georgia, that might be reasonable. Against Georgia State's weak defense, that is awful. Frankly, we should be averaging 7+ yards per carry against a defense this weak.
Tim Jordan. Look, I realize that the O-line is the biggest issue with our run game, but Jordan's production has not been very good. 7 runs for 16 yards for 2.3 yards per carry. Yikes! You can't win games when your #1 RB is averaging 2.3 ypc.
The Coaches for Making Tim Jordan RB1. Why did the coaches get so obsessed with running Tim Jordan? Both Ty Chandler and Eric Gray are more dynamic playmakers, yet we gave Tim Jordan the most carries? (Technically tied with Gray, but still.) Look I don't think Jordan is a bad player, but he's more of a short yardage guy. They keep handing to him like he's our workhorse back. We need to be giving Chandler and Gray the ball more and stick with Jordan when we need to get a few yards.
Jim Chaney's Playcalling. I still think Chaney is one of the best in the biz, but this was an awful game for him. The playcalling was bad. Talk about execution all you want, but that lateral to Chandler was just a bad playcall. What the hell was up with the one drive where we were moving the ball and then Chaney inexplicably decided to run down the middle 3 straight times, before even more inexplicably deciding to go for it on 4th and 3? Chaney had a bad game and that's all there was to it. Let's hope he gets a better sense of what he has after this one and we see better playcalling in Week 2and beyond.
JG's fumble. I thought JG's fumble was his worst play of the game. While I think JG gets way too much blame here for our losses, he needs to have better awareness of his surroundings. He took way too long to fire that throw off and paid the price.
The Very Bad
213 to 93. Georgia State's rushing yards versus our own. You can't win games when your opponent is outrushing you nearly 2.5 to 1.
The D-line. I warned people all off-season that the D-line was going to be a major problem, but it was even worse than I expected. In a nutshell, we (a) lack top-level talent with upper classmen and (b) lack depth. The stat I've seen this offseason is that Alabama and Georgia have 14 D-linemen and we have 9. We lost our 4 best DL from last seasons as well (including Shy Tuttle and Kyle Phillips). No one should have expected this D-line to be world beaters, but this was very bad. They looked exhausted from the 2nd quarter onward.
Giving up on plays. This is what pisses me off more than anything else. it's one thing that young players are making mental mistakes. It's one thing that some players are showing some rust in the 1st game of the season. It's quite another to see guys just give up on plays. I don't care if we lack the horses up front to compete; I want to see them running full speed and playing like their lives depend on it.
Conditioning. I've played sports most of my life and I know there is nothing that simulates "in-game conditions." It doesn't matter how well you prepare, you're never prepared till you start playing. That said, our defensive players were wearing down as early as the 2nd quarter. They've got to be in better shape than that.
Pruitt / Ansley's Gameplan. I don't expect the defense to be this bad when we have both Pruitt and Ansley on staff. It seemed like they were totally unprepared for what Georgia State threw at them.
Ryan Leaf's Broadcasting Debut. Like seriously .. the entire broadcast was just an endless series of "Peyton Manning and me" anecdotes. Dude we get it ... you know Peyton Manning. You don't have to remind us every 3 minutes.
Why It's Not the End of the World
Louisiana-Monroe vs Bama 2007. This loss is very comparable to Bama losing to Louisiana-Monroe in Saban's first season. Same conference; similar quality team. While Georgia State was 2-10 last year, they are better than that this year. They have a good coach. It's an embarrassing loss for sure, but this isn't like losing a middling FCS team. It's not even as bad as the 1996 Memphis loss (that as a very bad team), 2008 Wyoming loss, or 2011 Kentucky loss. It's bad, but every program has their share of games like this.
1st Games are Weird. There's a big laundry list of "shocking" week 1 upsets from the past. This would be a scarier loss if it took place in Week 5. In Week 1, coaches often have no up-to-date film of their opponent. It sounds like Georgia State totally changed everything from last season and we had no idea what was coming. Part of the problem is that lower-level opponents treat these games like their Super Bowls while the blue-bloods consider these warm-up games. We got caught underestimating our opponent. Let's hope it doesn't happen again this year.
Most of the SEC Played Bad. While it's tough to take much delight in the misfortune of others when you lose to Georgia State, I do think it's worth pointing out that many of our SEC opponents had a bad Week 1. Mizzou lost to Wyoming, which will probably end up looking as bad as the Georgia State loss by the end of the season. South Carolina lost to a pretty bad UNC squad (and I say that as a UNC alum). Arkansas almost loss to Portland State; comparatively speaking Georgia State would probably beat Portland State by 4 TDs. Ole Miss got beat by Memphis; Memphis is a good G5 team, but Ole Miss looked pathetic in that game. Florida looked bad. Miss State looked bad.
Final Thoughts
Fire. I expect a fire to be lit under our players a$#es for the next few weeks, if not the entire rest of the season. If they aren't motivated after this loss, then it's hopeless. I expect them to come out and play with fire against BYU and give Florida its toughest game of the year.
Response. This loss will not define the season. It's how our players respond to this loss that will. If they play with passion and determination the rest of the season and get to a bowl game, it can still be a successful season. If they give up because they hit adversity, that's going to say a lot about this coaching staff.
I'm still a fan. I might be wearing a paper bag over my head, but my Tennessee football fandom will never waver! I'm rooting for our team whether we're 14-0 and playing in the national title game or we're 0-7 and the laughing stock of college football.
Don't write off Pruitt. I'm not happy with Pruitt after this game or the Vandy game last year, but it's tough not to notice that the new players he's brought in were some of the best players on this team on Saturday. To'oto'o may end up being the best LB in the entire 2019 class. Banks looked great as a converted LB at times. Grey was awesome. Most of the people playing with "little effort" were recruited by Butch Jones. That said, I expect this team to turn things around. If Pruitt goes 3-9, he's going to start 2020 off on the hot seat. If he turns this team around and makes a bowl game, then we can talk about the progress on the field.
Expectations were unrealistic. We should never lose to Georgia State, but these 8-9 win exceptions were always unrealistic given the issues on both lines. Every year people buy into the hype. If this team makes a bowl game, it's a victory. We're bringing in better players. 6-7 wins this year and then a big jump in Year 3 are realistic. The 9 win predictions were delusional.
We need Bituli back badly. I didn't expect Ignont and Reid to be as good as Bituli, but the difference is night and day. Bituli needs to be back on that field. He is the emotional leader of the defense. Ignont and Reid did not play well. Bituli is arguably the best player on that defense. Who knows if this game would've turned out differently with him there, but I certainly think we'd seen more passion.
The trenches. The ugly truth of the matter is that until we have top-notch players and depth on the O- and D-line, we're not going to be a good team. People can blame the QB all they want, but the line of scrimmage is key. We got beat at the LOS against Georgia State on both sides of the ball and that's embarrassing. Pruitt has recruited a lot of blue-chip guys on the OL, but it'll take awhile. The D-line worries me more; we really need more blue-chip guys there.
That's it for now.
GBO!
I wasn't nearly as optimistic as most others before the season (I was predicting 6-7 wins) and I'm not nearly as pessimistic as most others now. Some of the issues I thought people were overlooking came out big-time in this game. There were, believe it or not, also some big positives that were difficult to see with everything bad happening.
Given that there's been nothing but gloom-and-doom for the past 2 days, I'll start with the good.
The Good
Jauan Jennings. Dude played with heart and fire. He exemplifies everything it means to be a Tennessee Vol. JG didn't always make the best throws on Saturday, but Jennings nabbed 7 passes for 108 yards. Some people still don't think JJ is an NFL player; I disagree. He has a work ethic like few others and wants to win every game. I love Jauan! There are even times I wonder if he should be playing QB.
DWA. DWA also had a sold game, grabbing 3 passes for 79 yards. He's an NFL talent for sure. We need to get him the ball as much as possible.
Eric Gray. Gray is a true Freshman who played his first collegiate game on Saturday. He ran the ball 7 times for 29 yards, but even more impressively, he caught 6 passes for 51 yards. Like Alvin Kamara, Gray is a legit threat as a runner or as a receiver.
Henry To'oto'o. Another true Freshman who had a good game, albeit with some mistakes. Our defense sucked out there, but it certainly wasn't because of To'oto'o. He led the team in tackles.
Jeremy Banks. Banks got limited playing time, but I thought he did quite well for an RB converted to LB. He played with fire. I can see why the coaches love him. Get him out on the field as much as possible. Let him make some mistakes, but I think he's going to be very good in another year or two.
Brent Cimaglia. Dude absolutely nailed every single kick and that 48 yarder was no chip shot.
Young players with promise. We had a lot of younger players with promising performances, so while there are issues, it does at least feel like Pruitt is bringing in the right players.
That's it for the good. More than most people realize, but also not nearly enough.
The Jekyll / Hyde
Ty Chandler. Chandler is the best RB on our team and he showed it on Saturday, but he also had a lot of big mental mistakes. While some are blaming that fumble on JG, I'd put it more on the coaching staff first and Chandler second. Chandler also had another fumble. That said, he had some big plays, as well, and averaged 8.0 yards per carry; by far the best on the team.
Marquez Callaway. 3 catches for 46 yards. A good kick return, but he also fumbled the ball at a key point; he did get the recovery, though. Both Chandler and Callaway are among the best players on the team, but they both had a share of unusual blunders, too. Let's hope this was just opening game errors and we don't see much more of that the rest of the season.
The OK
30 Points. This is a truly shocking stat, but this is tied for our 2nd best offensive performance in the past 2 seasons. Keep in mind that the only "better" performance was against a greatly outmatched FCS team (ETSU). Our offense was VERY VERY BAD the last two seasons. We had one of the worst offenses in the P5. Everyone thinks we're going to go from the worst offense to suddenly jacking up 50 points. In reality, the offense played much better than it did last season. In comparison, we only scored 24 points against UTEP and 14 against Charlotte last year. So yes, while some people are going to be angry at me for pointing it out, the offense wasn't great but it actually played better than it did most of last season.
JG. Make no mistake about it; JG had a bad game. But it was not nearly as bad as the naysayers would have you believe. He was 26 for 40 with 311 yards. He did not look crisp and overthrew a few passes. He had a bad fumble and a bad interception. He's not Peyton Manning or Josh Dobbs. Yet, he's still better than most other SEC Quarterbacks. Bo Nix (Auburn), who is being celebrated for a game-winning touchdown, actually played terrible in that game versus Oregon; the difference: Auburn has an elite defense, a strong O-line, and a great running game. JG didn't have a great outing, but he played well enough to win if the defense did its job. If JG switched places with Bo Nix, people would be talking about how Bo Nix was the worst quarterback in the SEC right now, and how JG won the game versus Oregon.
JG's Scrambles. I have JG with 7 runs for 19 yards. He made a few decent plays with his feet, which we haven't seen much of. His stat line, however, is distorted a bit by the sacks and pressure.
The Bad
The O-line. We shouldn't have been expecting miracles. We had the worst O-line of all P5 teams last year. While we have some very talented Freshmen, O-line is not the position you want to be starting Freshmen. We saw Wanya Morris make several mental mistakes. He'll be a great player one day, but right now, he's struggling. Overall, I thought the O-line was average to bad most of the night. They were OK in pass protection most of the time, but really bad in run blocking still.
O-line shuffling. We've seen this constant O-line shuffling from Pruitt for 2 years now and it never seems to work out. It makes me wonder if this is part of the source on confusion on O-line. Just as an example Jahmir Johnson was at LT and Wanya Morris was at LG, even though we hadn't seen that much in practice. Morris whiffed on a few blocks and I'm wondering if switching over to LG confused him. At some point, we need to pick a starting 5 and stop constantly shuffling everyone around; it's clearly not working.
3 sacks for -29 yards. These were a few major O-line lapses.
31 rushes for 93 yards. This stat is skewed a little bit by sacks on JG, but it's still quite pathetic. Get rid of the sacks and it's 28 rushes for 122 yards for 4.4 yards per carry. Against Alabama or Georgia, that might be reasonable. Against Georgia State's weak defense, that is awful. Frankly, we should be averaging 7+ yards per carry against a defense this weak.
Tim Jordan. Look, I realize that the O-line is the biggest issue with our run game, but Jordan's production has not been very good. 7 runs for 16 yards for 2.3 yards per carry. Yikes! You can't win games when your #1 RB is averaging 2.3 ypc.
The Coaches for Making Tim Jordan RB1. Why did the coaches get so obsessed with running Tim Jordan? Both Ty Chandler and Eric Gray are more dynamic playmakers, yet we gave Tim Jordan the most carries? (Technically tied with Gray, but still.) Look I don't think Jordan is a bad player, but he's more of a short yardage guy. They keep handing to him like he's our workhorse back. We need to be giving Chandler and Gray the ball more and stick with Jordan when we need to get a few yards.
Jim Chaney's Playcalling. I still think Chaney is one of the best in the biz, but this was an awful game for him. The playcalling was bad. Talk about execution all you want, but that lateral to Chandler was just a bad playcall. What the hell was up with the one drive where we were moving the ball and then Chaney inexplicably decided to run down the middle 3 straight times, before even more inexplicably deciding to go for it on 4th and 3? Chaney had a bad game and that's all there was to it. Let's hope he gets a better sense of what he has after this one and we see better playcalling in Week 2and beyond.
JG's fumble. I thought JG's fumble was his worst play of the game. While I think JG gets way too much blame here for our losses, he needs to have better awareness of his surroundings. He took way too long to fire that throw off and paid the price.
The Very Bad
213 to 93. Georgia State's rushing yards versus our own. You can't win games when your opponent is outrushing you nearly 2.5 to 1.
The D-line. I warned people all off-season that the D-line was going to be a major problem, but it was even worse than I expected. In a nutshell, we (a) lack top-level talent with upper classmen and (b) lack depth. The stat I've seen this offseason is that Alabama and Georgia have 14 D-linemen and we have 9. We lost our 4 best DL from last seasons as well (including Shy Tuttle and Kyle Phillips). No one should have expected this D-line to be world beaters, but this was very bad. They looked exhausted from the 2nd quarter onward.
Giving up on plays. This is what pisses me off more than anything else. it's one thing that young players are making mental mistakes. It's one thing that some players are showing some rust in the 1st game of the season. It's quite another to see guys just give up on plays. I don't care if we lack the horses up front to compete; I want to see them running full speed and playing like their lives depend on it.
Conditioning. I've played sports most of my life and I know there is nothing that simulates "in-game conditions." It doesn't matter how well you prepare, you're never prepared till you start playing. That said, our defensive players were wearing down as early as the 2nd quarter. They've got to be in better shape than that.
Pruitt / Ansley's Gameplan. I don't expect the defense to be this bad when we have both Pruitt and Ansley on staff. It seemed like they were totally unprepared for what Georgia State threw at them.
Ryan Leaf's Broadcasting Debut. Like seriously .. the entire broadcast was just an endless series of "Peyton Manning and me" anecdotes. Dude we get it ... you know Peyton Manning. You don't have to remind us every 3 minutes.
Why It's Not the End of the World
Louisiana-Monroe vs Bama 2007. This loss is very comparable to Bama losing to Louisiana-Monroe in Saban's first season. Same conference; similar quality team. While Georgia State was 2-10 last year, they are better than that this year. They have a good coach. It's an embarrassing loss for sure, but this isn't like losing a middling FCS team. It's not even as bad as the 1996 Memphis loss (that as a very bad team), 2008 Wyoming loss, or 2011 Kentucky loss. It's bad, but every program has their share of games like this.
1st Games are Weird. There's a big laundry list of "shocking" week 1 upsets from the past. This would be a scarier loss if it took place in Week 5. In Week 1, coaches often have no up-to-date film of their opponent. It sounds like Georgia State totally changed everything from last season and we had no idea what was coming. Part of the problem is that lower-level opponents treat these games like their Super Bowls while the blue-bloods consider these warm-up games. We got caught underestimating our opponent. Let's hope it doesn't happen again this year.
Most of the SEC Played Bad. While it's tough to take much delight in the misfortune of others when you lose to Georgia State, I do think it's worth pointing out that many of our SEC opponents had a bad Week 1. Mizzou lost to Wyoming, which will probably end up looking as bad as the Georgia State loss by the end of the season. South Carolina lost to a pretty bad UNC squad (and I say that as a UNC alum). Arkansas almost loss to Portland State; comparatively speaking Georgia State would probably beat Portland State by 4 TDs. Ole Miss got beat by Memphis; Memphis is a good G5 team, but Ole Miss looked pathetic in that game. Florida looked bad. Miss State looked bad.
Final Thoughts
Fire. I expect a fire to be lit under our players a$#es for the next few weeks, if not the entire rest of the season. If they aren't motivated after this loss, then it's hopeless. I expect them to come out and play with fire against BYU and give Florida its toughest game of the year.
Response. This loss will not define the season. It's how our players respond to this loss that will. If they play with passion and determination the rest of the season and get to a bowl game, it can still be a successful season. If they give up because they hit adversity, that's going to say a lot about this coaching staff.
I'm still a fan. I might be wearing a paper bag over my head, but my Tennessee football fandom will never waver! I'm rooting for our team whether we're 14-0 and playing in the national title game or we're 0-7 and the laughing stock of college football.
Don't write off Pruitt. I'm not happy with Pruitt after this game or the Vandy game last year, but it's tough not to notice that the new players he's brought in were some of the best players on this team on Saturday. To'oto'o may end up being the best LB in the entire 2019 class. Banks looked great as a converted LB at times. Grey was awesome. Most of the people playing with "little effort" were recruited by Butch Jones. That said, I expect this team to turn things around. If Pruitt goes 3-9, he's going to start 2020 off on the hot seat. If he turns this team around and makes a bowl game, then we can talk about the progress on the field.
Expectations were unrealistic. We should never lose to Georgia State, but these 8-9 win exceptions were always unrealistic given the issues on both lines. Every year people buy into the hype. If this team makes a bowl game, it's a victory. We're bringing in better players. 6-7 wins this year and then a big jump in Year 3 are realistic. The 9 win predictions were delusional.
We need Bituli back badly. I didn't expect Ignont and Reid to be as good as Bituli, but the difference is night and day. Bituli needs to be back on that field. He is the emotional leader of the defense. Ignont and Reid did not play well. Bituli is arguably the best player on that defense. Who knows if this game would've turned out differently with him there, but I certainly think we'd seen more passion.
The trenches. The ugly truth of the matter is that until we have top-notch players and depth on the O- and D-line, we're not going to be a good team. People can blame the QB all they want, but the line of scrimmage is key. We got beat at the LOS against Georgia State on both sides of the ball and that's embarrassing. Pruitt has recruited a lot of blue-chip guys on the OL, but it'll take awhile. The D-line worries me more; we really need more blue-chip guys there.
That's it for now.
GBO!
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