Happy at 4-2 but Have a question

#1
surrealvol

surrealvol

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 13, 2005
Messages
7,374
Likes
145
#1
Sailing along yesterday throwing the ball so well and getting a big lead...Why start running the ball so much in the second half and especially with our #1 back injured?
 
#2
#2
no inside knowledge, but my thought was to shorten the game and try to minimize any additional injuries.

That being said, could have backfired. Glad it didn’t, but there was a bit of time there that SC could have gotten within two scores and made the ending a bit uncomfortable. Didn’t happen, but I had a couple nerves there for a bit.
 
  • Like
Reactions: amorange, deezvols, House of Neyland and 14 others
#3
#3
You can never sail through weekends or you’ll get beat, but I do believe the staff was trying to be smart and get guys healthy. I was a little concerned with the 2nd half offensive woes, but you could tell we were not trying to do much. I felt a lot better after the game when I saw this quote from Coach Heupel:

“Obviously the first half I thought all three phases played well. Some things in the second half that you can’t do. It’s a great learning lesson for our players. Just the competitive edge and how fine of a line it is. You have to be on the right side of that for 60 minutes. You pull off just a little bit, you lose focus just a little bit, and all of a sudden the things that were happening don’t transpire in the second half. So some things we have to be better at, coaching staff included. Overall a great win for our program. Enjoy it tonight and then get to work next for a really good football team (Ole Miss).”
 
  • Like
Reactions: amorange, morristown vol, VolGirl81 and 4 others
#5
#5
willinhf said:
no inside knowledge, but my thought was to shorten the game and try to minimize any additional injuries.

That being said, could have backfired. Glad it didn’t, but there was a bit of time there that SC could have gotten within two scores and made the ending a bit uncomfortable. Didn’t happen, but I had a couple nerves there for a bit.
Click to expand...

Credit to USCjr as well for knowing that we would try to run the ball down their throats the second half and making defensive adjustments to stop it.

The only nitpick I have is that early in the third quarter, we were still doing the hurry up offense when running the ball instead of burning clock. It sort of seemed counter intuitive.
 
#8
#8
What others have said about shorting game. Also consider USCe has a strong interception stat this year. No need to take any chances by giving them a momentum booster or easy pick six.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 67Vol
#10
#10
SC gave effort in the 2nd half and made adjustments. We won this game handily and with many pieces missing. Now. Let's get on to Ole Miss.
 
#11
#11
The game was over at 38-7 we were trying to shorten the game and run clock it was purposely a very vanilla offensive game plan and you then you saw in the 4th when we needed a door slammer touchdown we got it. Yea I would’ve loved to see us put 60 on them like we did Mizzou but I understand what Heup was trying to do get the win and get out without anymore injuries.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rickyvol77 and tennesseepride84
#12
#12
At no point was the game in doubt and it was an opportunity to work on the ground game. We may need to kill a game off and now CJH has a lot of film against a pretty decent SEC defense to coach up the O Line.

Not directed to you OP, but VN is funny sometimes. Everybody complained about not being able to punch it in on 4th and goal, but then are miffed when the coach takes the opportunity to work on those plays in a game that was over after 15 minutes.

While I don’t think he was going for three and out on those series, he called those plays for a reason. He didn’t just forget how to call plays. Those are plays that we are going to have to execute successfully the next few weeks in order to win.

Now the defense is another question altogether.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SockeyeVol and Rickyvol77
#14
#14
House of Neyland said:
The game was over at 38-7 we were trying to shorten the game and run clock it was purposely a very vanilla offensive game plan and you then you saw in the 4th when we needed a door slammer touchdown we got it. Yea I would’ve loved to see us put 60 on them like we did Mizzou but I understand what Heup was trying to do get the win and get out without anymore injuries.
Click to expand...
100% agree, this is exactly what I saw and noticed
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rickyvol77
#16
#16
As satisfying as it would have been to hang half a hundred on them, or more, Heupel is well aware of how bad our numbers are. The team had beaten the snot out of a top 30 defense and is looking at a Bataan Death March of a schedule over the next four games. We're playing an SEC schedule with barely more scholarship players than an FCS team.

Once this game was won, Heupel was doing what a sensible head coach would do in his circumstances. He needs every available man as healthy as possible to have a shot at beating Ole Miss.

And I think we all really want Tennessee to beat Ole Miss.
 
#17
#17
surrealvol said:
Sailing along yesterday throwing the ball so well and getting a big lead...Why start running the ball so much in the second half and especially with our #1 back injured?
Click to expand...

the game was over by the end of the first quarter.

Tennessee has a big game coming up next week.

Tennessee has 71 scholarship players, lots of injuries, and a lack of solid depth.

Heupel “probably” wanted to shorten the game and get out with a win……..with as fast as Tennessee plays, it can make for a long drawn out game.
 
  • Like
Reactions: HuntlandVolinColo
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top