How well does Butch recruit?

[BeecherVol]

So if I disliked Dooley more than someone dislikes Jones, that makes it natural for them to constantly bash the coach and rarely to never, show appreciation for the team and positives?
Still not seeing a connection.
Honestly, even then it's a figure of speech. I truly hate someone who murders innocent people for example, not any sports related figure. (Obvious figure of speech)

Feels like you're drawing attention to that one word to not address the context.

I just thought it was interesting, thats really it.

Ive noticed in a few threads that it even carries over to Fulmer albeit in a little different way.

And I agree with the idea that you can back the program (or be a fan) and not be all in on the HFC or the AD or anyone else making decisions up there, even if you have no control over who it is.

 

[05_never_again]

I find it interesting that you picked that out of all I said.

It doesn't really matter though...It's my opinion. I don't like the spread, or how Butch runs it. It hasn't been personnel friendly....just like misusing Hurd for three years....so much so that he eventually becomes a distraction and transfers. We've misused receiver personnel as well.

Most importantly to me....it's not what I view as Tennessee Football. I don't really care who else is running it.

I actually didn't like the spread either when it was being first introduced about 10 or 15 years ago, but it has grown on me over time. It clearly works in college when executed properly and his here to stay until defenses figure out how to consistently stop it. Nearly everyone runs some type of it now - Georgia and LSU are really the only examples in the SEC that I can think of that don't use all that many spread concepts.

I don't have a problem with Butch running his spread concept. The concept itself appears to be pretty sound to me. But you are absolutely right about misusing personnel. The fact that Alvin Kamara wasn't the starting RB until midway through his second season, and he only became the starter due to injuries/Hurd quitting, is coaching malpractice of the highest order.

I would go further and question his overall talent development as well. I know it is an unpopular thing to say, and I don't like saying it because I really like Josh Dobbs, but I don't think he truly became the QB he could have at Tennessee. He never became a great passer, and he was a great runner mostly in improv situations when he could rely on pure natural ability. If you go back and watch games closely, you'll see that he wasn't the greatest operator of the read option (for every one he read correctly, he misread about 3 or 4). Butch's offensive lines the last couple of years are supposed to be talented and have lots of experience but appear to be quite mediocre in games.

 

[08Vol]

You miss my point entirely - I'm not saying the classes have not been really good.

The point is Butch has recruited near top ten talent and yet struggled to break the top 25 in the final polls.

He has under achieved with the talent he has brought in.

I'm late to the party here but the reason for this is in large part due to all CFB teams playing vastly different schedules. The "easy" teams we lost to, Vandy and USC, would be in the top half of WMU's schedule. They finished 7 spots ahead of us. Applying the same mindset to baseball you come up with "why do people think the Cubs were the best baseball team last year, they lost 58 games. The best team wouldn't lose 58 games".