I don’t get why you don’t get it

[EZE]

I think we already know who huepal is: a beast. The way he coaches and schemes up his guys is amazing.

I’m saying to be EXCITED bc CJH will get JA right!

I agree. Getting last years team into the playoff was a helluva coaching job.

 

[EZE]

Meh, give it a little time. He missed on Nico but he was coming along. Redshirt freshman the only year he played. Recruiting was hampered the first few years bc of violations. We’ve been pretty damn good in the portal but kind of hampered by injuries. Long story short evaluations are somewhat overplayed. If you’re winning 10 games year in and out you’re doing pretty good

Agree. Winning 10 means you likely went 6-2 in conference…and that is really good.

 

[Volanta]

Y’all ever feel like D4H test drives new accounts ever now and then?

Lol wow.

 

[vegasvolfan]

Wait, is this a slam on Heupel or are you praising him?

It’s clear the OP is saying Heupel is a stupid genius.

 

[NighthawkVol]

Some difficult yet weird truths about CJH: His evaluation skills have been oddly bad. His biggest success stories? Jeremy Pruitt recruits. Hendon Hooker was Pruitt’s recruit—yet Heupel handed the job to Joe Milton, a QB he chose, over Hendon. We all saw how that turned out.

So I don’t understand the angst around Joey Aguilar.

Heupel may struggle at talent evaluation, but he’s elite at maximizing lesser talent. Last season, the truth was…..Nico was a liability. But Heupel schemed around him and still managed 10 wins. That’s what great coaches do.

Ok so we have Joey Aguilar—a seasoned QB who thrived at Appalachian State despite having:

• a weaker O-line,
• Inferior coaching, (is anyone really going to argue any of those app state coaches have the prowess and offensive genius of CJH?)
• and worse overall talent around him.

And he still balled out. So why shouldn’t we believe Heupel can coach this guy to at least match, if not exceed, what Nico did?

JA could throw for 4,000+ yards in this system. He’s got a better offensive line this time, the defense is still solid, and the run game is always there under Heupel. WRs are a little shaky and unproven- I’ll give you that, but still better then anything he ever had at app state or ucla for that matter.

Is he Cam Newton? No. Is he some huge blue chip recruit? No. But I’m tired of that. The last guy we trusted screwed us- for the slow ones in the back I’m talkin about Nico. You got a guy that was casted to the side and is pissed off and ready to prove himself.

My point: let’s just see what happens.

It's been well-documented that Hendon gave Heupel zero reason to start him over Joe in 2021. Everyone who saw practice thought Joe was much better than Hendon. Heupel could only go by what he saw...and what he saw was Joe Milton outperforming Hendon Hooker in practice every day.

The fact that the light came on for Hooker doesn't mean that Heupel can't evaluate. It means the light came on for Hooker.

Again, this has been reported ad nauseum.

 

[Orangeburst]

Wait, is this a slam on Heupel or are you praising him?

its a praislam

 

[vegasvolfan]

Some difficult yet weird truths about CJH: His evaluation skills have been oddly bad. His biggest success stories? Jeremy Pruitt recruits. Hendon Hooker was Pruitt’s recruit—yet Heupel handed the job to Joe Milton, a QB he chose, over Hendon. We all saw how that turned out.

So I don’t understand the angst around Joey Aguilar.

Heupel may struggle at talent evaluation, but he’s elite at maximizing lesser talent. Last season, the truth was…..Nico was a liability. But Heupel schemed around him and still managed 10 wins. That’s what great coaches do.

Ok so we have Joey Aguilar—a seasoned QB who thrived at Appalachian State despite having:

• a weaker O-line,
• Inferior coaching, (is anyone really going to argue any of those app state coaches have the prowess and offensive genius of CJH?)
• and worse overall talent around him.

And he still balled out. So why shouldn’t we believe Heupel can coach this guy to at least match, if not exceed, what Nico did?

JA could throw for 4,000+ yards in this system. He’s got a better offensive line this time, the defense is still solid, and the run game is always there under Heupel. WRs are a little shaky and unproven- I’ll give you that, but still better then anything he ever had at app state or ucla for that matter.

Is he Cam Newton? No. Is he some huge blue chip recruit? No. But I’m tired of that. The last guy we trusted screwed us- for the slow ones in the back I’m talkin about Nico. You got a guy that was casted to the side and is pissed off and ready to prove himself.

My point: let’s just see what happens.

I think the only miss was Milton. He went to the NFL and frankly would have had at least one more win had our OL been top shelf. That said, Hooker apparently didn’t separate himself in practice. It took an injury for Hooker to have that opportunity and Milton never got the job back once it became clear. Nico experienced the same issues. He would have been far better if he had a better OL. We have some guys coming in, but it will take time to get that line right and perhaps a new coach in that position. Nico didn’t want to wait. I don’t blame him. Where I do blame him was asking for more money. Kind of. It is what it is. I like this Aguilar kid a bit, but hard to gauge on what a person does at App St.

 

[OldVol]

Explain that more. Interesting point.

Sometimes you end up with the best you can get for the money. Sometimes you’re stuck with a player because you lacked the resources to get a player that you wanted much worse. You start at the top of your board and work your way down and in balancing your budget, you have to take less here to get better there.

 

[thistime]

If you look at his past history Oklahoma, Missouri, Utah St and UCF, it tells the real story.

 

[Volanta]

Sometimes you end up with the best you can get for the money. Sometimes you’re stuck with a player because you lacked the resources to get a player that you wanted much worse. You start at the top of your board and work your way down and in balancing your budget, you have to take less here to get better there.

Gotcha

 

[Volanta]

If you look at his past history Oklahoma, Missouri, Utah St and UCF, it tells the real story.

What do you mean?

 

[LAVol1]

Some difficult yet weird truths about CJH: His evaluation skills have been oddly bad.

You may be spot on, but, evaluating HS QB's is very difficult. There are probably more QB "failures" than any other single position. JG was a 5*--never looked like it. Look at all the 4* and 5* QBs that have entered the portal that haven't played or played very little. Look at all the highly-rated Vol QB's that came in and were disappointments (Ratay, Banks, Crompton, Stephens, M. Simms, Worley, Peterman, Dormady, Guarantano, Maurer, Bailey, Salter, Jackson, and finally Nico). It may be better to get a QB in the transfer portal vs. paying a highly-touted HS QB.

 

[thistime]

He coached Sam Bradford, Landry Jones, Trevor Knight, Kent Myers, Drew Locke and Dillon Gabriel before coming to UT so I feel certain he had some input when it came to recruiting those guys.

 

[Volfan76]

Some difficult yet weird truths about CJH: His evaluation skills have been oddly bad. His biggest success stories? Jeremy Pruitt recruits. Hendon Hooker was Pruitt’s recruit—yet Heupel handed the job to Joe Milton, a QB he chose, over Hendon. We all saw how that turned out.

So I don’t understand the angst around Joey Aguilar.

Heupel may struggle at talent evaluation, but he’s elite at maximizing lesser talent. Last season, the truth was…..Nico was a liability. But Heupel schemed around him and still managed 10 wins. That’s what great coaches do.

Ok so we have Joey Aguilar—a seasoned QB who thrived at Appalachian State despite having:

• a weaker O-line,
• Inferior coaching, (is anyone really going to argue any of those app state coaches have the prowess and offensive genius of CJH?)
• and worse overall talent around him.

And he still balled out. So why shouldn’t we believe Heupel can coach this guy to at least match, if not exceed, what Nico did?

JA could throw for 4,000+ yards in this system. He’s got a better offensive line this time, the defense is still solid, and the run game is always there under Heupel. WRs are a little shaky and unproven- I’ll give you that, but still better then anything he ever had at app state or ucla for that matter.

Is he Cam Newton? No. Is he some huge blue chip recruit? No. But I’m tired of that. The last guy we trusted screwed us- for the slow ones in the back I’m talkin about Nico. You got a guy that was casted to the side and is pissed off and ready to prove himself.

My point: let’s just see what happens.

There is not denying that Heupel has misjudged a few situations. Had Milton not been injured we may have never known how great Hooker was. I recall reports about Nico's superior maturity/intellect and I remember scratching my head the first time he spoke. I'll even go on to say that he has whiffed on his evaluation of some of his assistant coaches. That being said, getting to the playoffs in his short tenure has been pretty impressive.

 

[Volanta]

There is not denying that Heupel has misjudged a few situations. Had Milton not been injured we may have never known how great Hooker was. I recall reports about Nico's superior maturity/intellect and I remember scratching my head the first time he spoke. I'll even go on to say that he has whiffed on his evaluation of some of his assistant coaches. That being said, getting to the playoffs in his short tenure has been pretty impressive.

Yeah he’s really good at adjusting and making it work with wha the has. I’m so glad we have him as a coach.

 

[LegionnaireOfTheMiserable]

Some difficult yet weird truths about CJH: His evaluation skills have been oddly bad. His biggest success stories? Jeremy Pruitt recruits. Hendon Hooker was Pruitt’s recruit—yet Heupel handed the job to Joe Milton, a QB he chose, over Hendon. We all saw how that turned out.

So I don’t understand the angst around Joey Aguilar.

Heupel may struggle at talent evaluation, but he’s elite at maximizing lesser talent. Last season, the truth was…..Nico was a liability. But Heupel schemed around him and still managed 10 wins. That’s what great coaches do.

Ok so we have Joey Aguilar—a seasoned QB who thrived at Appalachian State despite having:

• a weaker O-line,
• Inferior coaching, (is anyone really going to argue any of those app state coaches have the prowess and offensive genius of CJH?)
• and worse overall talent around him.

And he still balled out. So why shouldn’t we believe Heupel can coach this guy to at least match, if not exceed, what Nico did?

JA could throw for 4,000+ yards in this system. He’s got a better offensive line this time, the defense is still solid, and the run game is always there under Heupel. WRs are a little shaky and unproven- I’ll give you that, but still better then anything he ever had at app state or ucla for that matter.

Is he Cam Newton? No. Is he some huge blue chip recruit? No. But I’m tired of that. The last guy we trusted screwed us- for the slow ones in the back I’m talkin about Nico. You got a guy that was casted to the side and is pissed off and ready to prove himself.

My point: let’s just see what happens.

I don’t get how you can argue that Heupel is bad at evaluations, so that should give us confidence in his latest evaluation. Those are some mental gymnastics that would make Simone Biles blush.

We are all going to see what happens, it’s all we can do. Nobody is too upset about moving on from Nico, nor should they be. But it’s only natural for there to be some discussion around Aguilar and if he will be any good.

 

[LegionnaireOfTheMiserable]

We're sick of improving every year even though we just came out of a program defining scandal that could have led to a generations worth of basement dwelling. Furthermore, this crawling out of sheol that we've been in since about 06'-07' is hurting the trolls and negavols......we are a woke society now and need to be all inclusive to include the feelings and well-being of trolls and nega's.......we need to hope for a complete failure this year to allow for the peace of our opposite spectrum brothers and sisters.

We haven’t improved every year. So far, the best season we have had was year 2. For that to be the case after year 4, improving every year is impossible.

 

[OldVol]

We haven’t improved every year. So far, the best season we have had was year 2. For that to be the case after year 4, improving every year is impossible.

I think that’s relative. We rode a guy in 22 who was tailor made for this offense. He made fast reads and was always a threat to run. Other than at QB, we are better at almost every position than we were in 22. I’d say we’re a QB really clicking with this offense away from being really good. We may take a slight step back in the Oline but that’s yet to be seen. It could be better. I know we’re better at every defensive position than in 22.

I’d also add that we were not considerably better at QB AThan in 23. Nico just wasn’t that good. If Aguilar starts, he will throw more INTs than Nico but He also gets the ball out much faster than Nico. He will have fewer sacks but how much of a liability will he be in TOs.

 

[VOLINVONORE]

Many of the guys he brought in didn’t hit. Also our most productive players during his tenure have been Pruitt recruits.

He recruited Nico and it’s safe to say he didn’t fit the system. He even hand picked a qb in Milton over hooker and still was wrong. That’s just not his strength. Sorry not sorry.

Lastly if you remember that was a huge knock on him at his previous stop. He balled out with Scott Frost’s recruits and struggled as they left.

It’s a shame that Heupel is such a bad coach and recruiter. He has positioned our football program into the best position it has been since the glory early day of Phil Fulmer, and he was able to do it with Almost 30 fewer scholarship players that he rest of college football. He recruited and coached our team to participate in the first play off series. His teams have consistently been rated in the top 10 football teams in the Nation. He has a winning record against Alabama, our greatest rival and constantly ranked top 10 ranked team.

 

[LegionnaireOfTheMiserable]

I think that’s relative. We rode a guy in 22 who was tailor made for this offense. He made fast reads and was always a threat to run. Other than at QB, we are better at almost every position than we were in 22. I’d say we’re a QB really clicking with this offense away from being really good. We may take a slight step back in the Oline but that’s yet to be seen. It could be better. I know we’re better at every defensive position than in 22.

I’d also add that we were not considerably better at QB AThan in 23. Nico just wasn’t that good. If Aguilar starts, he will throw more INTs than Nico but He also gets the ball out much faster than Nico. He will have fewer sacks but how much of a liability will he be in TOs.

It isn’t relative. Receiver was much better in 2022, O line was significantly better. We had a better OC. Idk what you are arguing in that first sentence in that second paragraph, but if you are saying that 2022 was not significantly better at QB than 2023, that’s outrageous.

Our defense improved in 2023 and 2024, but neither the 2023 team, nor the 2024 team would have beaten the 2022 team more than twice if they played 10 times, and both sides of the ball are likely to regress this year, unless some QB is way better than anticipated.

 

[GetYouSomeofThat]

Some difficult yet weird truths about CJH: His evaluation skills have been oddly bad. His biggest success stories? Jeremy Pruitt recruits. Hendon Hooker was Pruitt’s recruit—yet Heupel handed the job to Joe Milton, a QB he chose, over Hendon. We all saw how that turned out.

So I don’t understand the angst around Joey Aguilar.

Heupel may struggle at talent evaluation, but he’s elite at maximizing lesser talent. Last season, the truth was…..Nico was a liability. But Heupel schemed around him and still managed 10 wins. That’s what great coaches do.

Ok so we have Joey Aguilar—a seasoned QB who thrived at Appalachian State despite having:

• a weaker O-line,
• Inferior coaching, (is anyone really going to argue any of those app state coaches have the prowess and offensive genius of CJH?)
• and worse overall talent around him.

And he still balled out. So why shouldn’t we believe Heupel can coach this guy to at least match, if not exceed, what Nico did?

JA could throw for 4,000+ yards in this system. He’s got a better offensive line this time, the defense is still solid, and the run game is always there under Heupel. WRs are a little shaky and unproven- I’ll give you that, but still better then anything he ever had at app state or ucla for that matter.

Is he Cam Newton? No. Is he some huge blue chip recruit? No. But I’m tired of that. The last guy we trusted screwed us- for the slow ones in the back I’m talkin about Nico. You got a guy that was casted to the side and is pissed off and ready to prove himself.

My point: let’s just see what happens.

While the talent around him will definitely be betrer. The talent in the other side of the line will be vastly superior to what he faced.

I still think Merklinger wins the spot

 

[Vol865]

We have yet to see any of his skill positions other than Dylan Sampson and Nico due to mostly the depth chart. I'll reserve my opinions for when more become upperclassmen.

 

[GUNTERSVOL]

Kirby Smart is a helluva football coach, especially on the defensive side of the ball. I don't know how anybody could legitimately think otherwise at this point.

Just for conversation, what % of his games where he has the more talented team has he lost?

What % of his games where he had the least talented team did he win?

These answers will clarify the position one way or the other that opinion sharing can’t touch.

The rest is wasted bandwidth.

 

[OldVol]

It isn’t relative. Receiver was much better in 2022, O line was significantly better. We had a better OC. Idk what you are arguing in that first sentence in that second paragraph, but if you are saying that 2022 was not significantly better at QB than 2023, that’s outrageous.

Our defense improved in 2023 and 2024, but neither the 2023 team, nor the 2024 team would have beaten the 2022 team more than twice if they played 10 times, and both sides of the ball are likely to regress this year, unless some QB is way better than anticipated.

Nico wasn’t much better than Milton was the argument, absent the typo. Neither thought it was a bad idea to run out of bounds on the final play of a game with the game on the line. I disagree on the offensive line. Hooker made line play look much better than they were because he got the ball out so fast. Nico spread a blanket and had a picnic back there last year. Our line was good enough last year to have the best rushing attack in the conference. The pass blocking was on a QB who couldn’t read his progressions beyond his priority target. There’s no measurable metric to say the 22 line was better. Everyone knows Nico held the ball when his primary was covered.

 

[lukeneyland]

Many of the guys he brought in didn’t hit. Also our most productive players during his tenure have been Pruitt recruits.

He recruited Nico and it’s safe to say he didn’t fit the system. He even hand picked a qb in Milton over hooker and still was wrong. That’s just not his strength. Sorry not sorry.

Lastly if you remember that was a huge knock on him at his previous stop. He balled out with Scott Frost’s recruits and struggled as they left.

Lots of recruits don’t hit. I can think of quite a bit that have come good.