How Much Talent Does Pruitt have to Work With in His First Year?

[BeecherVol]

When Pruitt first got here he was surprised how small and slow Tennessee was. I don't see how you could coach that up. Don't know how much you could depend on first-year help from recruiting class.

Doubtful. He didn't move here from the west coast.

Having said that, when you are in that shape (pun intended) you don't fix it in 6-8 mnths. But you can see some major gains. He's not waiting to coach the athlete he's able to recruit here. (And even that player is gonna require a year or 3 to physically mature) He's molding what he has here until that happens. If the current players have bought in as he claims in large number, you will see a big difference on the field in how his team plays compared to a similar team last year with a lame duck coach. That may not equal 10 wins but it won't be 4 either.

 

[MyBloodRunnethOrange]

If it’s that bad then this is one of the main reasons we will struggle in 2018. You can’t coach size and speed and one off season won’t fix it either.

A good S&C program will help with the size issue. Looks like several players added weight during the off-season. Speed is something you either have or you don't.

 

[savannahfan]

You do know it takes awhile to coach up players who were coached by trash? Have to fix the bad mistakes, install new schemes, and get players that fit said scheme.

New scheme ---

Moving to the 3-4 on defense makes me really nervous.
It seems that it takes most any team a year or maybe three to really preform like you want to see a defense preform. It may be personal changes to suit 3-4 or just plain learning many new things. But this may be the hardest thing for this team to change in order to get to 7-9 wins.

 

[ManchesterV]

New scheme ---

Moving to the 3-4 on defense makes me really nervous.
It seems that it takes most any team a year or maybe three to really preform like you want to see a defense preform. It may be personal changes to suit 3-4 or just plain learning many new things. But this may be the hardest thing for this team to change in order to get to 7-9 wins.

I'm optimistic the transition won't be as tough for us. Last year, half the team didn't look like they knew what scheme we were running anyway

 

[JCHateSteve]

I would say we have good talent. This staffs strong suit is likely to be coaching guys up, based on their track record, especially on defense. The question is how much they can get done in a single off season with a team that has had terrible coaching and S&C before now. Changing to 3-4 usually takes a couple years to fully happen and S&C changes generally take that long to be fully realized as well. Depth will likely be an issue in the second half of the season again. I expect it will be better than the last couple of years, but still not where it needs to be.

Beating either WV or UF is going to be critical for Tennessee going bowling. UGA, Bama, and Barn are almost definite losses. SC is going to be a tough out the week after Bama with them coming off a bye and playing at SC. I expect the last 3 SEC games to be tough due to attrition from injury, at least to some extent.

Development was always the problem with the last staff. It's probably going a take a couple years to completely correct that. Talent isn't so much the issue as starting to get full potential out of it and keeping it healthy. If Pruitt can get us to a bowl this year I'll take that as a great sign and look forward to better days. But, we're going to need to show some patience this year.

 

[Roustabout]

I don't think we're as bad as people think we are. As I showed in a different thread, in the East the gap between teams 2-7 is very very small.

So small in fact we even had chances to win games against at least three of the other teams in this group.

The injuries and apparently incompetent coaching I believe is what killed us last year. I don't think we'll win the East but I would't be surprised if we ended up second in the East. We don't be near the bottom I can say that with some certainty.

The problem is UT catches Bama and Auburn on their schedule.
This would have been a great a year to catch Ole Miss or Arky in the rotating team.

 

[OrangeMagic]

Our former HC's tenure could best be described as The Era of the Post Turtle.

When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle.

You know he didn't get there by himself, he doesn't belong there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, and you just wonder what kind of idiot put him up there in the first place.

The talent cupboard may not be where it needs to be, but it isn't bare, either. With a motivated, knowledgeable coaching staff, who knows how well they'll develop. And besides, the embarrassment of last season should be added motivation for these kids.


GBO!

So, Mike Hamilton and Derek Dooley, is that the blind post turtle leading the blind post turtle?

 

[KBVol]

On a serious note. If Spurrier and Cutcliffe can win at Duke then I tend to believe that good coaching ALONE can add two or three wins improvement in a single season
Coaching last year would have given us a Florida, Vandy, Ky and USC win

Correct. A well coached, well organized, properly motivated team wins 8 games last year.

 

[jakez4ut]

Doubtful. He didn't move here from the west coast.

Having said that, when you are in that shape (pun intended) you don't fix it in 6-8 mnths. But you can see some major gains. He's not waiting to coach the athlete he's able to recruit here. (And even that player is gonna require a year or 3 to physically mature) He's molding what he has here until that happens. If the current players have bought in as he claims in large number, you will see a big difference on the field in how his team plays compared to a similar team last year with a lame duck coach. That may not equal 10 wins but it won't be 4 either.

:thumbsup:

 

[KBVol]

The problem is UT catches Bama and Auburn on their schedule.
This would have been a great a year to catch Ole Miss or Arky in the rotating team.

I’ll go on the record right now. I think our best opportunity for an upset is at Auburn. We come off a bye while Auburn will be playing their 7th consecutive game after a tilt vs Miss State. I think by that time, with 5 games under our belt and a week of rest we’ll be trending up, playing well, and we’ll get a tired Auburn team in a year when they normally drop off a bit. I’m sure others might predict this as well, I’m surely not the only one, just wanna go on record here.

 

[Volfan2012]

Hard to say don't know if a lot of these players were less talented than expected or that they were undercoached. A lot to be learned in 2018 football season.
My view is we have more talent than Vandy, Missouri, Kentucky, and even with Florida. We have slightly less than Auburn. Much less than Bama or Georgia. SC doesn't look that talented according to their recruiting classes but everyone seems to be hyping them so we'll see.
According to recruiting and JMO we should have 7 to 8 wins this season with the absolute worse being 6 and the possible best 10.

The players weight and size as listed seems to be in line with everyone in the SEC. Whether it is all butt and belly and no strength and muscle remains to be seen.