DiderotsGhost
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Always hate to lose to the Gators, but this is the first game in a long while where I haven’t been angry watching it. The Gators are a good team; arguably good enough to make the playoffs if they didn’t have to beat Bama to get there. While we could've played better, this was not the blowout I anticipated and there were promising signs for the future.
Overview
Gameplan. Finally, we came up with a good gameplan. I’ve not been able to say that most of this year, however, as our gameplans against Alabama and Arkansas were terrible (why would you run a hurry-up ground-control offense against Bama’s scoring machine?). Execution was the problem; not the gameplan. We missed some good opportunities in the passing game and gave up some 3rd and longs we shouldn’t have, but I think the coaches finally came together as a cohesive unit and put up something that made sense.
Because the entire board is in ultra-negative state right now, I’m going to start out with the good and then work onto the problems.
Defense
By far our strongest suit yesterday.
Best D against Florida all year. We held Florida to fewer points than any other team this year. Florida has averaged 43 points per game; with a previous low of 34 against Kentucky. We held Florida to 31. Stop complaining about the D, folks. The D is not the problem. This isn’t 1980 or 1953; teams like Florida regularly put up 40+. We did a good, but not great job, containing them.
3rd downs. That said, D was still far from perfect. We still need to get better on 3rd downs. Way too many 3rd and long conversions. If the slant has been our Achilles’ Heel in the past, it was the screen pass on 3rd and long this week.
Pass rush. It’s showing notable signs of improvement, but still not anywhere close to where we want it to be. To beat Florida, I do think is a key; their WRs will murder you if you give them time to get open. Nothing DBs can do if you’re giving them 5 or 6 seconds to get open. You’ve got to get a pass rush going. We succeeded at times with this, but not nearly enough to win the game.
Young pass rushers. This is being overlooked right now, but most of our pass rushers are 1st and 2nd year players. It’s rare to have elite pass rushers that are that young. Remember, Darrell Taylor, who was a 2nd round NFL draft pick this year, didn’t really become a great pass rusher till his 4th and 5th seasons; he barely got to play his first 2 seasons. Have some patience with these guys; they're going to be good.
Tyler Baron. Got his 1st sack. Good for him! True Freshman.
Promising core. Given that we likely have the youngest D in the entire SEC and they’re still in the top-half if not top-quarter of the SEC, that’s a very positive sign. Sure, they have a way to go, but it’s pretty rare to have this many good young players. This D has the potential to be very good in 2021 and 2022. Just give it time.
Grade. I give the defense a “B” for this game.. This is one of the most prolific offenses in the country and we did more to stop it than any other team, but I felt like we could have held them down to 24 or even 17 points if we hadn’t screwed up on a few of those big 3rd down plays. Clean up a few mistakes and this could've been a great defensive performance. Holding Florida under 25 would've been huge!
Offense
Offense is a different story. We played much better this week than we have in previous weeks (particularly Arkansas, Auburn, Kentucky, and Bama), but we’re still a long way from where we need to be.
Florida’s defense. Florida’s D has averaged giving up 25 points per game this season. We scored 19 (albeit, would’ve been 21 without the failed 2-point conversion attempt and rare missed PAT). So overall, our offense did below-average against Florida’s D.
Better than it has been. While the offense performance leaves a lot to be desired, it was still probably one of our best performances this season. 0 turnovers. Effectively, 21 points against a good defense. We need more, but I think we beat Auburn, Kentucky, and Arkansas with this type of performance on offense.
O is better without JG. JG is a VFL, tough as nails, and I like the guy personally, but I hope he stays on the bench for the rest of the season. We can compare mistakes, accuracy, and the such between the QBs, but the offense just feels like it runs smoother with every other QB. Bailey did not play great, but he still looks better in his 1st start as a true Freshman than JG looks in his 5th year.
Bailey. He made quite a few mistakes, but nothing fatal. 0 turnovers. Most errors were communication related, which is something that will improve with experience. He had 2 overthrows on deep routes, as well, but we’ve seen him nail those throws in high school. Far from a perfect performance, but overall, a solid game for a true Freshman QB with no offseason, starting his first game. If he hit those 2 deep passes, we might've been looking at 24 - 35 points and may have even had a legit shot at winning.
Shrout. Played very well, albeit in garbage time. Tough to know what to think of his performance given the circumstances (Florida mostly playing prevent D), but the best he’s looked his entire career here.
O-line was bad. Huge disappointment yesterday. Gave up way too many sacks and QB pressures, did not get much of a push in the run game. Definitely did not make Bailey's job (or Chandler / Gray's) easy, and yet I thought Bailey played reasonably well in spite of this.
Chandler. Played terrible in 1st half, but thought he played the best he has in his career in the 2nd half.
Eric Gray. Florida’s D focused in on Gray, but he made an impact in the passing game with 7 receptions for 46 yards, and 1 TD, on top of 47 rushing yards
Other
Velus Jones, KR. Can we please just take the ball at the 25 on kickoffs? I see no evidence that Velus is ever going to bust through and hit a big return. He’s a decent KR, but he’s not Eric Berry. We’d be better off taking it at the 25 almost every time. Though, kudos for Velus on some big plays in the passing game, but I don't have a lot of faith in him as KR.
Terrible grounding call. I often have the sound down during the games, as I'm on my phone with my dad watching, but we both thought that was one of the worst intentional grounding calls ever on Bailey. Looked like he anticipated the receiver (Palmer?) was going to cut the other direction and didn't. Bailey wasn't under much pressure on the play so there was no reason to ground the ball. Just felt like a ticky-tack / bad call by the refs. WR cut the other way; it was miscommunication; not grounding.
Big Picture
Will Friend. I’m always cautious to call for changes and I think too many fans think the moment something goes bad, we need to fire someone. That said, what’s the case for keeping Will Friend at this point? Outside of QB, where JG has played like dogs#$% most of the season, the O-line has been the biggest disappointment. I’m not necessarily calling for a change, but we have elite talent at OL, but we’re not playing at an elite level. It’s not all bad; we’ve had games where the OL dominated and we lost due to other issues (see Kentucky and Auburn), but this was just a bad performance versus Florida. And let’s not forget, Will Friend was not a Chaney hire anyway.
Tosh Lupoi. I’m hoping Pruitt can also bring in Tosh Lupoi as the DL coach next season. That’d be a top-notch hire and he was sort of Pruitt’s “right-hand man” at Alabama.
FAHR PRUITT!!! I’m definitely NOT jumping on that bandwagon yet. The D is very young and shows a ton of promise for the future. Offense has been bad, but I’m hopeful that either Bailey and / or Salter (our class of 2021 QB) can improve things next year. A few other issues such as hiring a new DL coach and maybe changing OL coach, but I don’t think burning down everything is the solution right now. We’ll see where we are after 2021. Besides, Fulmer is not pulling the trigger this year regardless, so get over it.
Dan Mullen. Mullen was 9-15 in the SEC after his first 3 seasons. Pruitt is 9-15. Doesn’t mean Pruitt is Mullen, but it does mean there are reasons to give him another year and see how things go. Pruitt didn’t exactly start out with a loaded cupboard.
That’s all, folks! Hopefully, we don’t embarrass ourselves against a completely awful Vandy team next week, and then we’ll see what we can do against A&M. I'll still be here rooting for my Vols every week no matter how bad it gets!
As always ...
GBO!
Overview
Gameplan. Finally, we came up with a good gameplan. I’ve not been able to say that most of this year, however, as our gameplans against Alabama and Arkansas were terrible (why would you run a hurry-up ground-control offense against Bama’s scoring machine?). Execution was the problem; not the gameplan. We missed some good opportunities in the passing game and gave up some 3rd and longs we shouldn’t have, but I think the coaches finally came together as a cohesive unit and put up something that made sense.
Because the entire board is in ultra-negative state right now, I’m going to start out with the good and then work onto the problems.
Defense
By far our strongest suit yesterday.
Best D against Florida all year. We held Florida to fewer points than any other team this year. Florida has averaged 43 points per game; with a previous low of 34 against Kentucky. We held Florida to 31. Stop complaining about the D, folks. The D is not the problem. This isn’t 1980 or 1953; teams like Florida regularly put up 40+. We did a good, but not great job, containing them.
3rd downs. That said, D was still far from perfect. We still need to get better on 3rd downs. Way too many 3rd and long conversions. If the slant has been our Achilles’ Heel in the past, it was the screen pass on 3rd and long this week.
Pass rush. It’s showing notable signs of improvement, but still not anywhere close to where we want it to be. To beat Florida, I do think is a key; their WRs will murder you if you give them time to get open. Nothing DBs can do if you’re giving them 5 or 6 seconds to get open. You’ve got to get a pass rush going. We succeeded at times with this, but not nearly enough to win the game.
Young pass rushers. This is being overlooked right now, but most of our pass rushers are 1st and 2nd year players. It’s rare to have elite pass rushers that are that young. Remember, Darrell Taylor, who was a 2nd round NFL draft pick this year, didn’t really become a great pass rusher till his 4th and 5th seasons; he barely got to play his first 2 seasons. Have some patience with these guys; they're going to be good.
Tyler Baron. Got his 1st sack. Good for him! True Freshman.
Promising core. Given that we likely have the youngest D in the entire SEC and they’re still in the top-half if not top-quarter of the SEC, that’s a very positive sign. Sure, they have a way to go, but it’s pretty rare to have this many good young players. This D has the potential to be very good in 2021 and 2022. Just give it time.
Grade. I give the defense a “B” for this game.. This is one of the most prolific offenses in the country and we did more to stop it than any other team, but I felt like we could have held them down to 24 or even 17 points if we hadn’t screwed up on a few of those big 3rd down plays. Clean up a few mistakes and this could've been a great defensive performance. Holding Florida under 25 would've been huge!
Offense
Offense is a different story. We played much better this week than we have in previous weeks (particularly Arkansas, Auburn, Kentucky, and Bama), but we’re still a long way from where we need to be.
Florida’s defense. Florida’s D has averaged giving up 25 points per game this season. We scored 19 (albeit, would’ve been 21 without the failed 2-point conversion attempt and rare missed PAT). So overall, our offense did below-average against Florida’s D.
Better than it has been. While the offense performance leaves a lot to be desired, it was still probably one of our best performances this season. 0 turnovers. Effectively, 21 points against a good defense. We need more, but I think we beat Auburn, Kentucky, and Arkansas with this type of performance on offense.
O is better without JG. JG is a VFL, tough as nails, and I like the guy personally, but I hope he stays on the bench for the rest of the season. We can compare mistakes, accuracy, and the such between the QBs, but the offense just feels like it runs smoother with every other QB. Bailey did not play great, but he still looks better in his 1st start as a true Freshman than JG looks in his 5th year.
Bailey. He made quite a few mistakes, but nothing fatal. 0 turnovers. Most errors were communication related, which is something that will improve with experience. He had 2 overthrows on deep routes, as well, but we’ve seen him nail those throws in high school. Far from a perfect performance, but overall, a solid game for a true Freshman QB with no offseason, starting his first game. If he hit those 2 deep passes, we might've been looking at 24 - 35 points and may have even had a legit shot at winning.
Shrout. Played very well, albeit in garbage time. Tough to know what to think of his performance given the circumstances (Florida mostly playing prevent D), but the best he’s looked his entire career here.
O-line was bad. Huge disappointment yesterday. Gave up way too many sacks and QB pressures, did not get much of a push in the run game. Definitely did not make Bailey's job (or Chandler / Gray's) easy, and yet I thought Bailey played reasonably well in spite of this.
Chandler. Played terrible in 1st half, but thought he played the best he has in his career in the 2nd half.
Eric Gray. Florida’s D focused in on Gray, but he made an impact in the passing game with 7 receptions for 46 yards, and 1 TD, on top of 47 rushing yards
Other
Velus Jones, KR. Can we please just take the ball at the 25 on kickoffs? I see no evidence that Velus is ever going to bust through and hit a big return. He’s a decent KR, but he’s not Eric Berry. We’d be better off taking it at the 25 almost every time. Though, kudos for Velus on some big plays in the passing game, but I don't have a lot of faith in him as KR.
Terrible grounding call. I often have the sound down during the games, as I'm on my phone with my dad watching, but we both thought that was one of the worst intentional grounding calls ever on Bailey. Looked like he anticipated the receiver (Palmer?) was going to cut the other direction and didn't. Bailey wasn't under much pressure on the play so there was no reason to ground the ball. Just felt like a ticky-tack / bad call by the refs. WR cut the other way; it was miscommunication; not grounding.
Big Picture
Will Friend. I’m always cautious to call for changes and I think too many fans think the moment something goes bad, we need to fire someone. That said, what’s the case for keeping Will Friend at this point? Outside of QB, where JG has played like dogs#$% most of the season, the O-line has been the biggest disappointment. I’m not necessarily calling for a change, but we have elite talent at OL, but we’re not playing at an elite level. It’s not all bad; we’ve had games where the OL dominated and we lost due to other issues (see Kentucky and Auburn), but this was just a bad performance versus Florida. And let’s not forget, Will Friend was not a Chaney hire anyway.
Tosh Lupoi. I’m hoping Pruitt can also bring in Tosh Lupoi as the DL coach next season. That’d be a top-notch hire and he was sort of Pruitt’s “right-hand man” at Alabama.
FAHR PRUITT!!! I’m definitely NOT jumping on that bandwagon yet. The D is very young and shows a ton of promise for the future. Offense has been bad, but I’m hopeful that either Bailey and / or Salter (our class of 2021 QB) can improve things next year. A few other issues such as hiring a new DL coach and maybe changing OL coach, but I don’t think burning down everything is the solution right now. We’ll see where we are after 2021. Besides, Fulmer is not pulling the trigger this year regardless, so get over it.
Dan Mullen. Mullen was 9-15 in the SEC after his first 3 seasons. Pruitt is 9-15. Doesn’t mean Pruitt is Mullen, but it does mean there are reasons to give him another year and see how things go. Pruitt didn’t exactly start out with a loaded cupboard.
That’s all, folks! Hopefully, we don’t embarrass ourselves against a completely awful Vandy team next week, and then we’ll see what we can do against A&M. I'll still be here rooting for my Vols every week no matter how bad it gets!
As always ...
GBO!
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