In retrospect to 2021…. man Heupel had some bad luck

[Iam4utalways]

Luck denies two things that I affirm. One, that cause and effect operates universally with one exception. Two, that one exception is God... and God leaves nothing to "luck".

We all need to know it rains on the just and the unjust. His plan is in place. How we accept our role in His plan is critical to our own eternity.

 

[FLVOL_79]

And, for the usual Contrarian Vol Fans who will always argue against the program they seem to love so much, here is the Purdue call. No whistle, and upon review, no pulling over the line, either. Our guy realized what he was about to do and stopped. We had the ball across the line before the whistle.

Just an absolutely blown call. But I am sure the Legions of the Contrarians will lecture us on how we are wrong, and Tennessee lost fairly.

This is the moment I lost my voice in the stadium.

 

[GetYouSomeofThat]

Yeah. That's what the record books will show just like Bama's vacated wins won't show up on their record though everyone knows they happened.

We don't get to see the inner workings of reviews of officials. But someone should have lost their job especially over the Purdue call. I think there were worse calls in the OM game than that one. If I were going to pick that nit then my attention would be on the initial call. Even if UT was still short, the initial spot was very clearly wrong.


I like Heupel more than anyone they've hired since Fulmer was fired. I think he's the best leader as a HC UT has had at least since Majors was fired. I am hopeful. However I wouldn't call last year a positive result. I think it was neutral. When you could have very easily been a 10 win team and win 7... even with the caveats... I don't think that's "positive". There were a LOT more ways those 3 games could have been won than a good break on a few calls.

I think it was better than neutral although maybe not so positive CJH needs the annointing oil brought out yet.

However when i think how much better the D would likely have been had Crouch and HT remained...that does make think Heupel did a pretty good job considering the hand he was dealt. IMO those two defenders would have helped get wins in the Pitt and Ole Miss games.

 

[iuvol]

Our best RB didn't play about half the season

 

[Volador]

Character building year....

 

[Orange_Crush]

But folks just called him "Yeller".

 

[njvols]

There were plenty of things the team could have done to win 10 games but they won 7. Why feel cheated when they did accomplish a lot? It was a great 1st year on offense so let’s see if we can handle the adjustments that the defenses will make. As to our defense, we have plenty of room to be better. Can’t wait for the season!

Yes. Best luck I can think of is we finally got a good AD. JH not our coach probably without the AD. So our luck is more a moving forward thing I think. We have good culture set and strong NIL..so maybe we are lucky to have NIL hit to allow us to catch up quicker (not that I like the looseness of NIL and transfer portal)...but it’s working for us.

 

[sjt18]

Our best RB didn't play about half the season

That's a good point also. In retrospect, I wonder how much was due to injury and how much was due to discipline. The rumor around the time he hit the portal is that he wouldn't put effort into academics.

 

[VFL28]

Some say Joe Milton is still running out of bounds to this day.

 

[SpookyAction]

And, for the usual Contrarian Vol Fans who will always argue against the program they seem to love so much, here is the Purdue call. No whistle, and upon review, no pulling over the line, either. Our guy realized what he was about to do and stopped. We had the ball across the line before the whistle.

Just an absolutely blown call. But I am sure the Legions of the Contrarians will lecture us on how we are wrong, and Tennessee lost fairly.

This was the first time in my life I had been in such a large group of people with a scary energy. I was part of it. My wife took a look at me and bear hugged me for three or four minutes. She was both scared and shaking with anger. She didn't let go of me until we got to the car.

 

[JohnWardForever]

And you are wrong... AND I MEAN WRONG.

The decision was on him. By ALL ACCOUNTS, Milton won the competition in practice. By several accounts, it wasn't all that close. So what would your recommendation have been? "Guys, I know Joe has been best in practice but I'm going to start Hendon anyway"? Milton played poorly in the first game. So do you give up on the starter that quickly and risk losing the trust of anyone on the roster? He then played poorly against Pitt. Very poorly. He made a MAJOR contribution to that loss by missing wide open TD's. He was injured and Hooker provided a spark. Heupel wasn't hesitant with Hooker... and he didn't put Milton back though the reports I've seen since said he could have played. He was also available for the next game... but Heupel stuck with Hooker to see if the spark could be sustained. Then Hooker became the starter. Heupel didn't play them both or give everyone a chance to earn it on the field as the Bailey fans wanted. He made Hooker the starter... and quite possibly Milton was still the best practice player.

There were A LOT of different and wrong ways he could have handled it. But putting yourself into the moments of his decisions... they were all "good" decisions. Coaches are not fortune tellers. They have to go on the best information they have when it is time to make a decision. He did that when he chose to start Milton... and again when he made Hooker the starter. He just had a lot more information with his second decision.

Whatever. You obviously weren't around when Everyone was questioning WHY He was sticking with Milton. You typed quite a few words here and said nothing. Not Impressed.

 

[hUTch2002]

Just a few points of note here to put it in perspective:

-Pitt was a combined 26-23 in the 4 years leading up to our game. In 2020 they were 6-5 in a really bad ACC conference. They basically brought back the same team, same QB, and in 2021 they were magically an 11-win team with a Heisman finalist at QB.

-We lost against Ole Miss by 5, and we scored a TD that the refs were just like “Nah, we don’t want that to be a TD”

-We scored a TD in OT against Purdue…. and the refs were just like “Nah, we don’t want that to be a TD”

-Florida completely derailed, and in the back half of the season was one of the worst teams in the league. The Florida we played was good enough to slug it out with Bama in a 2-point loss the previous week.

-Heupel had to go up against 2 of the 5 Heisman finalists, and Matt Corral who was basically the #6 finalist.

There are other things, like the Georgia and Bama games being way closer than the score indicates.

But geez… a lot of tough breaks for a Year 1 coach.

I really don’t get the Ole Miss fumble. I had never seen what I thought was such a blatantly bad call on a fumble before but then I saw that same call in other games this past year. I guess a rule changed?

 

[LittleVol]

Played even with Pitt and Ole Miss.
Purdue was bad...no excuse.
Florida is Florida...

Sometimes your'e lucky. Rather us be just good.

The more weapons we have and the more years we run the system the more efficient it will become.

Could have easily been a 6 win team too.

Heupel had us in position to win 10 games realistically. You have to be positive about that. Going in the right direction.

Overall positive 1st year. I gave him a "B-"

 

[901 Orange]

The Purdue & Ole Miss game were robberies.

Had officials actually done their jobs right, we would have won 9 games.

10 if we started HH vs Pitt

 

[901 Orange]

And don’t forget this head-scratcher.

That's one of those times where u should just turn into backyard football once your 4-5th options are gone. U can't tell me he isn't a good enough athlete to extend the play better than that. He shortened the field on himself.