DG's Thoughts on the Florida game

#26
#26
No one is into "moral victories". That's a BS concept.

What I am intimately familiar with is how thin the line between huge success and (perceived) failure is. You can fail due to 1-2 small things. Sometimes, that's all the difference. And in this case, the QB (JG) has been the biggest thing holding us back all season.

I don't feel like this team is anything like 2012 or 2017 where the entire team was a trainwreck. We're just a few pieces away from being very good. That's not to say that I can say with 100% confidence that Pruitt will figure out those things. He may not. I don't know. But I'm not ready to burn down everything and start over from scratch just because I'm angry.

Dabo Swinney went through the same thing. Dan Mullen went through the same thing at Miss State. Nick Saban went through the same thing at Mich State. Johnny Majors went through the same thing here. Pruitt may or may not figure it out, but he's not that far off. Until I see more evidence that he can't fix those things, I'm not in the FAHR PRUITT camp.


Did you just call Pruitt’s performance “perceived failure”? DG, it’s not perceived. It’s very real and in all of our faces.
 
#27
#27
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Dabo won his Conference in his 3rd season as permanent HC
Dan Mullen was coaching at a Mississippi State that had one winning season in Sylvester Croom's 5 seasons prior.
Nick Saban was dealing with NCAA sanctions his entire time at Michigan State, and still never had a losing season while coaching there.
Johnny Majors was 40+ years ago when the college football landscape was completely different than it is now.

None of these scenarios are similar to Pruitt's time at UT.

Dabo also won his division his first full season as HC.
Mullen was at Miss St., and so for this one to to work are we now admitting we're on their level now?
Saban at Michigan St......well at least this one has evolved past "SABAN LOST TO LOUISIANA MONROE!"
And Johnny Majors had just won a National Championship and was a favorite son in a much, much different era of college football.
 
#29
#29
I scrolled down to the fire Pruitt category and upon reading that you still think he’s a great coach? Ya...I’m out on that. Lol. I definitely need to hang on to the few brain cells I have left. I’m worried that if I read something so ridiculously dumb it might wear off on me.
 
#30
#30
Dabo Swinney went through the same thing. Dan Mullen went through the same thing at Miss State. Nick Saban went through the same thing at Mich State. Johnny Majors went through the same thing here. Pruitt may or may not figure it out, but he's not that far off. Until I see more evidence that he can't fix those things, I'm not in the FAHR PRUITT camp.

I disagree so much with this and the original post, but with regard to what I have quoted....

Even if I accept these examples without detailing the situations with each one, these are the exceptions, not the rule.

The rule is that coaches who lose games to inferior opponents and look like dog squeeze for 3 straight seasons aren't the guy.

Even during their streak to end last season, they could have lost to Missouri and were damn lucky to beat Kentucky and Indiana.
 
#33
#33
When you put the kind of product on the field that we are seeing in year 3 and you continually get curb stomped by middle of the road teams then you are NOT a good head coach. Anyone can analyze and say whatever they want but Pruitt is in over his head. He NEEDS to go
 
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#34
#34
Here's the question I have.

If Tennessee is "close", then how many more years will it be before Tennessee is knocking on the door and truly challenging to win the division?
 
#35
#35
Here's the question I have.

If Tennessee is "close", then how many more years will it be before Tennessee is knocking on the door and truly challenging to win the division?

The question cannot be answered because “arrival” is an illusion when you’re always “building for the future” like this fanbase has bought into over the past several years.
 
#36
#36
The question cannot be answered because “arrival” is an illusion when you’re always “building for the future” like this fanbase has bought into over the past several years.

Wrong. Acceptable answers are:

"Next year. Next year is our year. "

Or

"This was always a 5-year rebuild."
 
#37
#37
Miles and miles better without JG than with. If he starts again for Tennessee that should tell every fat cat at Tennessee Pruitt doesent care. Take the lumps now with Bailey and watch Tennessee start hitting back sooner than later.

Bailey just needs to work on his touch and he’ll be there.
Most of his shorter throws and sideline throws were accurate, hitting receivers in stride and not burning their hands.

I'd like to see him put a little more air under the long throws but I think with more game time he will be more on target with those as well.
 
#38
#38
@DiderotsGhost, once again and with respect I say this to you and all other VOLS fans like myself, regardless of their age... Jeremy Pruitt will never be Johnny Majors!! Let alone Nick Saban, arguably the greatest coach in modern college football, nor will he be Dabo Swinney. Specifically, the Johnny Majors reference is circulating more and more now, in order to defend Coach Pruitt. I lived through the entire Coach Majors era, as I really started following UT at the early age of 5 in 1972.. I remember the early to mid 70's with Coach Battle, and then "Johnny came marching home" in 1977, after winning the National Title with Tony Dorsett at Pitt.

Coach Fulmer is trying to defend a bad hiring decision that he specifically made when he hired Coach Pruitt, and yes I understand he relatively had no other choice, although the other candidate in the mix was Mel Tucker, if I remember correctly.. Coach Fulmer only said that about comparing Pruitt and Majors to save his own hide, along with Pruitt, and that's just my opinion. Fulmer was a great recruiter, but Majors was always better at the X and O game planning compared to Fulmer. Pruitt is a much lesser Fulmer, if I made a comparison, someone with a good recruiting reputation, but Pruitt so far has been LOUSY at player development, game planning and game management, all three strengths of Coach Majors.

Also, there is no such thing as "perceived failure", in football, just like in a lot of life situations, you either win or lose, there really is no in between, and sometimes things go your way and sometimes they don't, but in life there is no such thing as a participation trophy, and as long as they continue to keep score, whether there is some kind of pandemic, like Covid-19 or not, winning will continue to matter, and that is what Coach Pruitt's tenure will be judged on, wins and losses. I will say that while I personally would be just fine with Coach Pruitt being terminated after this season, I understand that it's almost 100% certain he will get at least one more year to prove me and other members of the Tennessee fanbase wrong, and I fully expect him to be the Head Football Coach at UT for the 2021 season.
 
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#39
#39
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!

You and I are in complete alignment, right down to the interference matter. The D is much better than most here on VN give them credit for, Trask was sacked multiple times yesterday to which his uniform had plenty of grass stains. Haven't seen any other D do that to him this year. The offense for years has been a QB away from being better and more productive and yes the OL play is nowhere close to where it should be. Yes like it or not, CJP is here next year. That may be the only place where we disagree in that in my head Pruitt is one and done unless he turns in a miracle season in 2021.
 
#41
#41
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!

Sensible post here. I enjoy reading these as you put thought into these instead of emotion from the disappointment. If we would have had Kennedy at center last night I think we would have ran the ball much better. Given that I am disappointed in our next man up coaching this year (Pardon my Butchism there). It seems this year due to COVID they are going all in on the starters and neglecting the backups.

I am not sure if it’s just being numbed by the current losing streak or the fact that we didn’t give up any catastrophic mistakes last night. However, I don’t feel as if we played all that bad. If Bailey had gone through Spring and Fall camp maybe he plays better. Still it was no Peterman performance last night. My biggest worry was the look on his face after he got pulled for Shrout. I hope that look of being dejected does not linger.

Here is to hopefully turning things around against Vandy then having the smallest iota of momentum going into TAMU.
 
#42
#42
No one is into "moral victories". That's a BS concept.

What I am intimately familiar with is how thin the line between huge success and (perceived) failure is. You can fail due to 1-2 small things. Sometimes, that's all the difference. And in this case, the QB (JG) has been the biggest thing holding us back all season.

I don't feel like this team is anything like 2012 or 2017 where the entire team was a trainwreck. We're just a few pieces away from being very good. That's not to say that I can say with 100% confidence that Pruitt will figure out those things. He may not. I don't know. But I'm not ready to burn down everything and start over from scratch just because I'm angry.

Dabo Swinney went through the same thing. Dan Mullen went through the same thing at Miss State. Nick Saban went through the same thing at Mich State. Johnny Majors went through the same thing here. Pruitt may or may not figure it out, but he's not that far off. Until I see more evidence that he can't fix those things, I'm not in the FAHR PRUITT camp.

When are we going to stop with this ridiculous comparison?
 
#43
#43
Correct on taking the kickoff on the 25. Ditto not getting penalized on kickoffs.
Agree on QB performance. Secondary performance tempered by how good Trask and his WRs are plus not getting to QB. Dude had too much time to throw.
Gonna go two more years because our coaching changes have been horrible, we have talent and better QBs now, the administration/boosters need to get prepared to hire a top HC and not another cheap or expensive hail mary project. Go Vols. VFL!
 
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#44
#44
You still get called for grounding if the receiver runs the wrong route and as a result is not in the area.
 
#45
#45
Chandler. Played terrible in 1st half, but thought he played the best he has in his career in the 2nd half

By far his best half as a Volunteer. He even got some YAC.

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.

This doesn’t bother me one bit. Whether you start from the 15 or the 35, the key to each and every play after that is execution.

I’ve never had a hole-in-one either, but that doesn’t mean on every par 3 I’m going to stop aiming for the flag.
 
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#46
#46
You can’t say the offense was only slightly below average and then call Shrout’s production garbage time. If you’re going to throw out Shrout’s score than we only had 12 points against Florida’s D which is 11 points below their average.

Shrout played against UFs' 3rd string defense... Florida players said they were bored. And we're looking for something to be satisfied with this version of the Tennessee Vols?
 
#48
#48
Dont let that Fla game fool you. They looked about as interested in playing that game as I did watching it. They treated that game like it was a scrimmage. Pruitt should have never been hired and he should not be here to coach another game.
 
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