Josh Heupel and Tennessee lining up a strong 2023 recruiting class

[butchna]

Vol fans should never be impressed with a 7-6 season with the signature win being KY.
Vol fans should never be impressed with a recruiting class outside the top 10.
Vol fans should never be impressed by running up the score and stats against cupcakes.
What impresses you?
Perhaps you are confusing competence with greatness. It is easy to do after having to suffer the last 3 UT staffs.

We still looking for a new HC in two years?

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Vol fans should never be impressed with a 7-6 season with the signature win being KY.
Vol fans should never be impressed with a recruiting class outside the top 10.
Vol fans should never be impressed by running up the score and stats against cupcakes.
What impresses you?
Perhaps you are confusing competence with greatness. It is easy to do after having to suffer the last 3 UT staffs.

So you're an absolutist. That's fine.

But relativism has its place, too.

Running the table 15-0 with SEC and national titles is absolutely the ultimate goal. Getting there, though, is going to take more than one season. An absolutist might say there's no reason to celebrate while we're on the path headed there.

I say we should. If we were expected by many to go 5-7 (2-6 SEC) in 2021, and instead we went 7-5 (4-4 SEC), well, I think that's a clear sign of early progress. An indicator we're going the right direction. I mean, swing it the other way: if we'd gone 3-9 (0-8), we would all certainly take THAT as a negative indicator. Works both ways.

In absolute terms, we're not there yet. But relatively speaking, comparing where we are to where we've come from, we're going the right way.

So it's okay to be impressed with faster-than-expected improvement. Quite okay. Encouraged, in fact. Same with recruiting classes that are better than expected.

Nothing wrong with that.

 

[miket4god]

I don't get why anyone worried about his recruiting when he killed it at UCF. It still baffles me.

Or did people just not adjust for the fact that he was in the lowly AAC? Recruiting is all relative to your level of program. He beat up the AAC in recruiting.

UCF fans told us he was not a good recruiter. Could have been sour grapes, could have been partly true, could have been that he didn't have much to recruit to at UCF. Time will tell.

 

[SpookyAction]

Even as a kid, I remember John Ward listing off high schools on the radio for Willie Gault and so many more of the boys on gameday: some Californias, lots of North Carolina, lots of Georgias, lots of Floridas, some of South Carolina, some Ohios, lots of Tennessee high schools, but not more than half.
Don't act like Vol history is all Tennessee boys. It never was in the TV age.

I have posted it before, but I believe NIL is going to be the end of running the table for championship seasons every year. We are going to see more and more 1, 2 and maybe even 3 loss teams winning national championships like in the NFL as the talent gets spread more evenly due to NIL. This actually makes the games more meaningful. NIL is going to bring parody in a fashion to the top half of the SEC.

 

[BruisedOrange]

I've never lived in TN. I grew up in the same town as Heath Shuler where practically everyone is still a Vol fan. UT is a national brand. You don't have to be from TN to love Neyland or the Vols.


You just lifted your leg on most of the great players who ever played at UT and more the likely most of the great players who will in the future.

Just a short list of guys you just labeled as lesser VFLs.... Shuler, Manning, Clausen, Martin Witten, Graham, Little, Bryson,... there are loads of them.

NIL is an influence. To some it may be the deciding influence. But if you have always just gone for the job who paid you the most then you've probably had a lot of misery at work. If you are more like these guys and had the opportunity to work in different states and have simply followed the biggest offer... then you've DEFINITELY given yourself some misery.

Hopefully you've had the opportunity to work for an employer that you loved... on a team you loved.... doing something you loved... that didn't forget to pay you. The guys who just go after the biggest NIL... will likely be in the portal at some point.

I think you misunderstood everything I said. But, maybe I just didn't it articulate well.

Go Vols--wherever they hail from!

 

[Devo182]

He's doing very well NOW. He did well in the transfer portal. Also to end 2022 class.

But he wasn't killing it at UCF imo.
It was top 3rd in that conference but at a place like UCF he could have maybe should have been #1 in AAC.

You're talking strict rankings which do NOT include transfers...meanwhile Heupel took something like 6 P5 transfers in just 1 class alone lol (as an example).

Once you add the transfers (or equivalents) into the class calculator for each team, he ended up ahead of his competition.

 

[Devo182]

UCF fans told us he was not a good recruiter. Could have been sour grapes, could have been partly true, could have been that he didn't have much to recruit to at UCF. Time will tell.

Lol they were just mad they were "national champs" in their minds and still couldn't recruit like the big boys...with Frost or anyone else...that's because they don't understand college football recruiting and just started following the year prior. They're UCF and will never recruit at a big boy level. They didn't understand that.

 

[orangelo]

What’s being missed is Heupel and his staff are easily the best developers of talent we have had in a very long time. This skill can mask some recruiting woahs but gues what… we aren’t having recruiting woahs either!

 

[tnutater]

We still looking for a new HC in two years?

Remains to be seen.
I am convinced Vol fans will not be satisfied with 6 or 7 win seasons and getting curb stomped by any program with a pulse for very long.
It is really dependent upon the UT money movers and shakers.
It will be on to the next staff soon enough.
UT sells false hope for the future with your season tickets and parking passes.
Fan Boys eat it up like a starving dog, then when the wins do not come the hope dies and the staff is gone. Let the circle be unbroken.
To me there is no acceptable excuse for the Vols not being an annual top ten program.
Excellence is never achieved by accepting mediocracy.

 

[butchna]

Remains to be seen.
I am convinced Vol fans will not be satisfied with 6 or 7 win seasons and getting curb stomped by any program with a pulse for very long.
It is really dependent upon the UT money movers and shakers.
It will be on to the next staff soon enough.
UT sells false hope for the future with your season tickets and parking passes.
Fan Boys eat it up like a starving dog, then when the wins do not come the hope dies and the staff is gone. Let the circle be unbroken.
To me there is no acceptable excuse for the Vols not being an annual top ten program.
Excellence is never achieved by accepting mediocracy.

Accepting “mediocrity” is a step towards said excellence when the previous season was a train disaster. Not recognizing vast improvements in offensive performance to hold onto one’s narrative is a case study of intentional obtuseness. Labels like “fan boys” is useful in healthy conversations. Demanding instant annual top ten program status leaves us nowhere to go.

 

[LAVol1]

Josh Heupel and Tennessee lining up a strong 2023 recruiting class

When we hired Heup the ONLY worry I had was his ability to recruit top talent. I knew he could coach with the best of them. Well worry no more Heup is KILLING IT on the recruiting trail. The number one kid in the state and we need an elite edge rusher. Can you imagine what Rodney is gonna turn this kid into.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO It's great to be a VOL NATION

I don't see him "killing it" right now. If he was, we would have some top-notch players from the portal on the roster (DB's, DE's, LB's). We don't. And, if those positions don't get some serious help...well, it might get ugly this fall. I still have not put on my orange-tinted glasses.

 

[sjt18]

I don't see him "killing it" right now. If he was, we would have some top-notch players from the portal on the roster (DB's, DE's, LB's). We don't. And, if those positions don't get some serious help...well, it might get ugly this fall. I still have not put on my orange-tinted glasses.

He couldn’t take earlier portal players. It appears that their strategy for getting rid of the NCAA was to take a bunch of scholarship reductions in 2021. That school year ends after the spring term.

I don’t know who they will or won’t add before summer but you really can’t condemn him for not talking portal players earlier in this cycle.

They may also have to ask some guys to leave or pull scholarships. Again I don’t think that can be done until after the current term.

 

[Rickyvol77]

Accepting “mediocrity” is a step towards said excellence when the previous season was a train disaster. Not recognizing vast improvements in offensive performance to hold onto one’s narrative is a case study of intentional obtuseness. Labels like “fan boys” is useful in healthy conversations. Demanding instant annual top ten program status leaves us nowhere to go.

He’s a troll. Ignore him

 

[butchna]

He’s a troll. Ignore him

I'm familiar. He's a mixed bag...like VolunteerHillbilly.

 

[LAVol1]

He couldn’t take earlier portal players. It appears that their strategy for getting rid of the NCAA was to take a bunch of scholarship reductions in 2021. That school year ends after the spring term.

I don’t know who they will or won’t add before summer but you really can’t condemn him for not talking portal players earlier in this cycle.

They may also have to ask some guys to leave or pull scholarships. Again I don’t think that can be done until after the current term.

Not "condemning him", just don't think he's "killing it" in recruiting right now. Maybe he will, but with the results so far....show me.

 

[Brave Volunteer]

Huep is doing very well but let's not pretend like NIL isn't a thing and isn't having a huge impact. Luckily for us, we seem to have our ducks in a row when it comes to NIL and Spyre Sports and its paying dividends. Other programs will soon catch up though and it will once again come down to A.) Who's winning championships and B.) Who's putting players in the NFL.

 

[jackaro]

Huep is doing very well but let's not pretend like NIL isn't a thing and isn't having a huge impact.

Literally no one is making the argument that NIL has no impact, quite the opposite in fact.

 

[Orange_Crush]

Whoa there, Mr. BOP! Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. Love the Heup, but he hasn't really done anything yet until he beats the lizard men, the slobbering mutts, and the toxic algae bloom. Meanwhile, we need a defense made up of guys who put Gorilla Glue on their pancakes instead of maple syrup, eat Godzilla patties as sausage, biscuit sop xenomorph blood-gravy, and washes it down grizzly bear milk and river pebble coffee.

Grizzly bear milk isn't so bad once you've gotten used to it.

 

[Brave Volunteer]

Literally no one is making the argument that NIL has no impact, quite the opposite in fact.

All Im saying is NIL money will only take us so far. Right now we are actually ahead of the curve for once and we are benefitting from that. But other programs will catch up eventually and it will come down to what it always comes down to, winning and putting guys in the league.

 

[Orange_Crush]

Huep is doing very well but let's not pretend like NIL isn't a thing and isn't having a huge impact. Luckily for us, we seem to have our ducks in a row when it comes to NIL and Spyre Sports and its paying dividends. Other programs will soon catch up though and it will once again come down to A.) Who's winning championships and B.) Who's putting players in the NFL.

That's kind of like saying, "Let's not pretend UT doesn't have incredible facilities" in order to undermine the recruiting job someone did 5 years ago. Good recruiters use the resources they have. NIL is now one of those resources.

 

[Brave Volunteer]

That's kind of like saying, "Let's not pretend UT doesn't have incredible facilities" in order to undermine the recruiting job someone did 5 years ago. Good recruiters use the resources they have. NIL is now one of those resources.

Not a good comparison because a ton of schools have great facilities now.

 

[Orange_Crush]

Not a good comparison because a ton of schools have great facilities now.

So? It doesn't change that they were an arms race and resource that coaches used to sell to recruits, just like NIL is now. It doesn't change the fact that recruiters have always needed to use every resource available to them judst like they do now.

Here's your post:

Huep is doing very well but let's not pretend like NIL isn't a thing and isn't having a huge impact. Luckily for us, we seem to have our ducks in a row when it comes to NIL and Spyre Sports and its paying dividends. Other programs will soon catch up though and it will once again come down to A.) Who's winning championships and B.) Who's putting players in the NFL.

No one is pretending anything. Some just aren't as prone to invent ridiculous excuses in order to add that "but" behind the fact that recruiting at UT is going well.

I'm sure other programs will catch up. And of course the staff needs to start winning and putting recruits in the league. (But do you know what helps do that? Starting with good recruits that will win games and go to the league. This class looks like a good start toward that.)

 

[Brave Volunteer]

So? It doesn't change that they were an arms race and resource that coaches used to sell to recruits, just like NIL is now. It doesn't change the fact that recruiters have always needed to use every resource available to them judst like they do now.

Here's your post:



No one is pretending anything. Some just aren't as prone to invent ridiculous excuses in order to add that "but" behind the fact that recruiting at UT is going well.

I'm sure other programs will catch up. And of course the staff needs to start winning and putting recruits in the league. (But do you know what helps do that? Starting with good recruits that will win games and go to the league. This class looks like a good start toward that.)

Well excuse me if the last 14 years hasn't grizzled my optimism just a tad. Ill believe it when I see it. Right now I just dont feel like giving credit to anybody until I see the fruits of that labor in the win column.

 

[Orange_Crush]

Well excuse me if the last 14 years hasn't grizzled my optimism just a tad. Ill believe it when I see it. Right now I just dont feel like giving credit to anybody until I see the fruits of that labor in the win column.

OK.

"Let's not pretend" your argument was anything more than jaded BVS.

 

[Brave Volunteer]

OK.

"Let's not pretend" your argument was anything more than jaded BVS.

Probably is. But that doesn't mean what I said isn't true.