DiderotsGhost
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Time for DG's weekly TL;DR post!
THE BIG PICTURE
3-0. Never complain too much about seeing a goose egg in the loss column.
Three good opponents. Most P5 teams have already played 1 or 2 cupcake games. We've played none. All three teams we've played went to bowl games last season and all three teams are likely better this season. Hence, even if we haven't played a single top 25 team yet, we've yet to have an "easy week" where we can just throw in the 2nd and 3rd stringers and expect to win easily.
We've played good, not great. There's a lot of gravitation towards the extremes here at VN. Either we're "the best" or "the worst", but right now, I think we're playing like a top 25 team, but not anywhere close to a "playoff contender" or a top 10 team. That said, it's still early in the season.
OFFENSE + DEFENSE
Offense has struggled. No way to sugarcoat it. Our offense has really struggled. The O-line has improved but still struggling too frequently. Dobbs has been too inconsistent in the passing game. We haven't had a dominant performance yet and even our 45 point game versus Virginia Tech was heavily reliant upon the defense making big plays.
Red zone efficiency good. Our offense seems to play excellent in the red zone, but much less so on the rest of the field. We've had surprisingly few FG attempts primarily because of our offense is generally able to score touchdowns on a short field. So that's one thing we're doing right.
More creative playcalling? I've grown tired with all the people constantly insulting our Offensive Coordinator, Mike DeBord. That said, it still seems like we've been running a fairly predictable offense in the first three games. It made sense in the 2nd Half against VT (nursing a 2 TD lead, with the defense playing well), but we needed more versus App State and Ohio. Is DeBord holding out for the "brutal stretch", or are simply incapable of doing anything that isn't obvious? I'm not going to insult DeBord, but I would like to see some more creativity in the offense, as we seem to struggle moving the ball too often.
Too many mistakes. We mostly avoided the "mistake bug" during the VT game, but it came back during the Ohio game. 5 fumbles? Fortunately, we're probably the #1 team in all of college football right now when it comes to fumble recovery, but we can't make these types of mistakes against Florida, UGa, Bama, and A&M and expect to win.
Defense has played well. Our defense has had its lapses in all three games, but it's rebounded from mistakes in every single game and played very well during the 2nd half of every game. Overall, I'm happy with the D. We held three teams that will likely score a ton of points this season to 13, 24, and 19. We can do better, but we're on the right track.
Not a lot of sacks ... so what? I've heard it mentioned that we don't have a lot of sacks and this suggests that our D-line isn't performing up to expectations. I'm not sure that I fully agree. Context is critical. App State has a run-heavy offense. VT prefers to run and has one of the nation's best running QBs. The only team we've played with a pass-heavy offense also has a very good "dual threat" QB who was able to run away from immense pressure multiple times. I think we've been getting pressure in a lot of situations, even if it doesn't show in the sack stats. (Also, keep in mind that we've created some turnovers that would've been "sacks" if they had not been turnovers.) Sacks will become more important IMO against Florida and Georgia.
Pass defense has been very good. Give credit where credit is due: our pass defense has been very good. We held Greg Wyndham to 23-46, and an average of 5.0 yards per pass. App State only threw for 108 yards in an overtime game, averaging only 4 yards per pass. We struggled with VT's Jerod Evans in the 1st Quarter, but seemed to find a way to contain him after that. Micah Abernathy has emerged as one of the better Safeties in the SEC; which makes losing Randolph and McNeill from last season hurt much less. Our young DBs seem to be ahead of schedule. Overall, I think our pass D has been excellent.
Losing key players will hurt. If you asked me in the preaseson to name the 4 players on our team we could least afford to lose, I would have said, in this order: (1) Jalen Hurd, (2) Jalen Reeves-Maybin, (3) Darrin Kirkland Jr, and (4) Cam Sutton. This isn't a knock on many of our other great players (Dobbs, Barnett, Vareen, Josh Malone, etc). It's simply a realization that we have great depth at a lot of positions (such as QB and D-line) and not at others (such as LB). Sounds like JRM will be back, fortunately, but it's doubtful that we get DK Jr back before the end of our "brutal stretch" (possible we get him back towards the end of it though), and Sutton is probably out for the season. Those are big losses.
We can be elite. Even if we've struggled, we still have the potential for an elite squad. We need improvement on the O-line, in the passing game, and with our WRs. If our offense can start to hum like it did at the end of last season, though, I think we'll be an elite team. We need to play better defense early on, as well, and we need guys to step up for injured starters, but just feels like we're closer on D than we are on offense.
RATINGS, THE SEC EAST, AND TEAM AWARDS
Sagarin Rating = #16. Sagarin factors in strength of schedule and close games better than the human pollsters. This year, Sagarin has us lower than the human polls (the reverse situation from last year). We're 3-0, but we've not really played like a top 10 or even top 15 team. Florida is currently #18 in Sagarin, which suggests that Sagarin views Florida-Tennessee as a very even matchup. Georgia, on the other hand, is way down at #50, and Sagarin would appear to view us as about 6 point favorites on the road based on current information. Texas A&M is #6 and Alabama is #2 (behind Ohio State) in Sagarin.
SEC East pecking order. It's true we haven't played to our potential, but frankly, no one in the SEC East has come close. If I were to rank the SEC East teams based on performance thus far, I'd have to go with:
(1) Florida
(2) Tennessee
(3) Georgia
(4) South Carolina
(5) Missouri
(6) Vanderbilt
(7) Kentucky
Florida. Florida has looked impressive at times, but Florida also played two cupcakes and a Kentucky team that may be the worst in the SEC. The defense looks good, but it's just difficult to evaluate Florida relative to our Vols when every team we've played is better than every team Florida has played. Nevertheless, I'd say that Florida has played "slightly better" than us thus far, but this should be a fairly even match-up.
Georgia. Biggest quality win in the SEC East (@ North Carolina), but they nearly lost to a terrible I-AA team (Nicholls State), which makes our struggles against App State seem small in comparison. Also barely beat a struggling Missouri team, which managed to put up 27 points against them. Right now, I'd give us an edge over Georgia, but we still need to play better to beat them in Athens.
SEC West > SEC East. Unfortunately, this appears more true this year than ever. Alabama and Texas A&M have both been very impressive thus far. Auburn looks better than expected with close losses to Clemson and A&M. Sure, Ole Miss is 1-2, but the losses were to Alabama and Florida State. And Arkansas has one of the best OOC wins of the season for the SEC (vs TCU).
How Do We Finish? Right now, I see a 9-3 season as most likely. I'm hoping for more, but I certainly don't think we've played anywhere near as well as Alabama or Texas A&M. We've got a shot versus Florida and Georgia, but I'd consider us no more than "slight favorites" in those two games.
Improvement. While I've been a bit disappointed in our performances thus far, we've only played 3 weeks of the season and we still have a lot of time to improve. We were a totally different team at the end of 2015 than we were at the beginning. Let's hope for a similar improvement in 2016. At least we're closing out games this year and we're not carrying any baggage (i.e. losses) moving forward. If we play to our potential, I do think winning the SEC East and a 10-2 type season are still possible, but it's going to take significant improvement on our part.
Power T Awards. My "Power T" awards for the first three games go to:
(1) Josh Malone,
(2) Jalen Hurd,
(3) Micah Abernathy, and
(4) Shy Tuttle,
Shy has seen limited action, but that fumble recovery against VT was one of the best plays I can remember for UT football in the past few years. Micah Abernathy has exceeded all expectations. Hurd is always solid. Josh Malone has really stepped up as a top WR for this team.
Let's beat the Gators! It's been a long time.
GO BIG ORANGE!
THE BIG PICTURE
3-0. Never complain too much about seeing a goose egg in the loss column.
Three good opponents. Most P5 teams have already played 1 or 2 cupcake games. We've played none. All three teams we've played went to bowl games last season and all three teams are likely better this season. Hence, even if we haven't played a single top 25 team yet, we've yet to have an "easy week" where we can just throw in the 2nd and 3rd stringers and expect to win easily.
We've played good, not great. There's a lot of gravitation towards the extremes here at VN. Either we're "the best" or "the worst", but right now, I think we're playing like a top 25 team, but not anywhere close to a "playoff contender" or a top 10 team. That said, it's still early in the season.
OFFENSE + DEFENSE
Offense has struggled. No way to sugarcoat it. Our offense has really struggled. The O-line has improved but still struggling too frequently. Dobbs has been too inconsistent in the passing game. We haven't had a dominant performance yet and even our 45 point game versus Virginia Tech was heavily reliant upon the defense making big plays.
Red zone efficiency good. Our offense seems to play excellent in the red zone, but much less so on the rest of the field. We've had surprisingly few FG attempts primarily because of our offense is generally able to score touchdowns on a short field. So that's one thing we're doing right.
More creative playcalling? I've grown tired with all the people constantly insulting our Offensive Coordinator, Mike DeBord. That said, it still seems like we've been running a fairly predictable offense in the first three games. It made sense in the 2nd Half against VT (nursing a 2 TD lead, with the defense playing well), but we needed more versus App State and Ohio. Is DeBord holding out for the "brutal stretch", or are simply incapable of doing anything that isn't obvious? I'm not going to insult DeBord, but I would like to see some more creativity in the offense, as we seem to struggle moving the ball too often.
Too many mistakes. We mostly avoided the "mistake bug" during the VT game, but it came back during the Ohio game. 5 fumbles? Fortunately, we're probably the #1 team in all of college football right now when it comes to fumble recovery, but we can't make these types of mistakes against Florida, UGa, Bama, and A&M and expect to win.
Defense has played well. Our defense has had its lapses in all three games, but it's rebounded from mistakes in every single game and played very well during the 2nd half of every game. Overall, I'm happy with the D. We held three teams that will likely score a ton of points this season to 13, 24, and 19. We can do better, but we're on the right track.
Not a lot of sacks ... so what? I've heard it mentioned that we don't have a lot of sacks and this suggests that our D-line isn't performing up to expectations. I'm not sure that I fully agree. Context is critical. App State has a run-heavy offense. VT prefers to run and has one of the nation's best running QBs. The only team we've played with a pass-heavy offense also has a very good "dual threat" QB who was able to run away from immense pressure multiple times. I think we've been getting pressure in a lot of situations, even if it doesn't show in the sack stats. (Also, keep in mind that we've created some turnovers that would've been "sacks" if they had not been turnovers.) Sacks will become more important IMO against Florida and Georgia.
Pass defense has been very good. Give credit where credit is due: our pass defense has been very good. We held Greg Wyndham to 23-46, and an average of 5.0 yards per pass. App State only threw for 108 yards in an overtime game, averaging only 4 yards per pass. We struggled with VT's Jerod Evans in the 1st Quarter, but seemed to find a way to contain him after that. Micah Abernathy has emerged as one of the better Safeties in the SEC; which makes losing Randolph and McNeill from last season hurt much less. Our young DBs seem to be ahead of schedule. Overall, I think our pass D has been excellent.
Losing key players will hurt. If you asked me in the preaseson to name the 4 players on our team we could least afford to lose, I would have said, in this order: (1) Jalen Hurd, (2) Jalen Reeves-Maybin, (3) Darrin Kirkland Jr, and (4) Cam Sutton. This isn't a knock on many of our other great players (Dobbs, Barnett, Vareen, Josh Malone, etc). It's simply a realization that we have great depth at a lot of positions (such as QB and D-line) and not at others (such as LB). Sounds like JRM will be back, fortunately, but it's doubtful that we get DK Jr back before the end of our "brutal stretch" (possible we get him back towards the end of it though), and Sutton is probably out for the season. Those are big losses.
We can be elite. Even if we've struggled, we still have the potential for an elite squad. We need improvement on the O-line, in the passing game, and with our WRs. If our offense can start to hum like it did at the end of last season, though, I think we'll be an elite team. We need to play better defense early on, as well, and we need guys to step up for injured starters, but just feels like we're closer on D than we are on offense.
RATINGS, THE SEC EAST, AND TEAM AWARDS
Sagarin Rating = #16. Sagarin factors in strength of schedule and close games better than the human pollsters. This year, Sagarin has us lower than the human polls (the reverse situation from last year). We're 3-0, but we've not really played like a top 10 or even top 15 team. Florida is currently #18 in Sagarin, which suggests that Sagarin views Florida-Tennessee as a very even matchup. Georgia, on the other hand, is way down at #50, and Sagarin would appear to view us as about 6 point favorites on the road based on current information. Texas A&M is #6 and Alabama is #2 (behind Ohio State) in Sagarin.
SEC East pecking order. It's true we haven't played to our potential, but frankly, no one in the SEC East has come close. If I were to rank the SEC East teams based on performance thus far, I'd have to go with:
(1) Florida
(2) Tennessee
(3) Georgia
(4) South Carolina
(5) Missouri
(6) Vanderbilt
(7) Kentucky
Florida. Florida has looked impressive at times, but Florida also played two cupcakes and a Kentucky team that may be the worst in the SEC. The defense looks good, but it's just difficult to evaluate Florida relative to our Vols when every team we've played is better than every team Florida has played. Nevertheless, I'd say that Florida has played "slightly better" than us thus far, but this should be a fairly even match-up.
Georgia. Biggest quality win in the SEC East (@ North Carolina), but they nearly lost to a terrible I-AA team (Nicholls State), which makes our struggles against App State seem small in comparison. Also barely beat a struggling Missouri team, which managed to put up 27 points against them. Right now, I'd give us an edge over Georgia, but we still need to play better to beat them in Athens.
SEC West > SEC East. Unfortunately, this appears more true this year than ever. Alabama and Texas A&M have both been very impressive thus far. Auburn looks better than expected with close losses to Clemson and A&M. Sure, Ole Miss is 1-2, but the losses were to Alabama and Florida State. And Arkansas has one of the best OOC wins of the season for the SEC (vs TCU).
How Do We Finish? Right now, I see a 9-3 season as most likely. I'm hoping for more, but I certainly don't think we've played anywhere near as well as Alabama or Texas A&M. We've got a shot versus Florida and Georgia, but I'd consider us no more than "slight favorites" in those two games.
Improvement. While I've been a bit disappointed in our performances thus far, we've only played 3 weeks of the season and we still have a lot of time to improve. We were a totally different team at the end of 2015 than we were at the beginning. Let's hope for a similar improvement in 2016. At least we're closing out games this year and we're not carrying any baggage (i.e. losses) moving forward. If we play to our potential, I do think winning the SEC East and a 10-2 type season are still possible, but it's going to take significant improvement on our part.
Power T Awards. My "Power T" awards for the first three games go to:
(1) Josh Malone,
(2) Jalen Hurd,
(3) Micah Abernathy, and
(4) Shy Tuttle,
Shy has seen limited action, but that fumble recovery against VT was one of the best plays I can remember for UT football in the past few years. Micah Abernathy has exceeded all expectations. Hurd is always solid. Josh Malone has really stepped up as a top WR for this team.
Let's beat the Gators! It's been a long time.
GO BIG ORANGE!
