Let's talk about the OL for a minute, shall we?

#1
ptcarter

ptcarter

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#1
Driving back from the MO game last night, I had an interesting conversation with my son. Some of what we talked about I thought would be worthy of stimulating some discussion here. Would love to know others opinions.

So it was senior day. My son bought a program and as we drove home, I mentioned that Doug Mathews has said we have everyone returning of offense. My son went through the program, player by player, and sure enough, our offense is intact for next year, except those that are NFL bound. Early exits could be Callaway and Jennings on offense and maybe Bituli on defense? Those are could really hurt.

But no seniors on the OL. Having said that, here are some points to ponder.

Will Friend is the OL coach. At this point in the season, we are still seeing 2 guys blocking the same guy and leaving lanes wide open to the backfield. Who do you blame, coaches or players?
Pruitt is a defensive guy. But his boss knows a lot about coaching the OL. Of course he's AD now. Do you think he might insist on an OL coaching replacement at the end of the season? If so, would Pruitt be annoyed Fulmer may be backseat driving on his program?

My view is that there are lots of problems on this team, but OL to me is most glaring. Most stem from lack of talent. Drew Richmond must be the best we got and we are stuck there. If you are Pruitt, what is the quickest fix?
 
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#3
#3
I think the talent is lacking. Richmond is a complete bust. Great tools no heart. Most of the time he either joins in a half hearted double team or actually moves out of the way of his man. And Richmond isn’t alone.
 
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#5
#5
The O-Line is atrocious but I'm not ready to blame Friend just yet. Our O-Line was terrible for most of Butch's tenure with the exception being his first year. Dobbs legs made them look WAY better than they actually were. It's just going to take time and new recruits to make our O-Line SEC ready.
 
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#9
#9
Flat out bad play. Center had a head up 0 technique and didn't even put a hand on him and neither did the left guard. Thats on the players. You should know simple protections like that. It wasn't an exotic 6 man pressure. They rushed like 4.
 
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#10
#10
MyBloodRunnethOrange said:
Kennedy was showing promise before he was injured. Hopefully he can come back healthy. Jahmir Johnson has the heart, but not the size. Other than that I have no answers short term. The long term solution is recruiting, plain and simple.
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Kennedy and by mid season, two frosh will be starting. Quite frankly, I thought JJ was a senior. Wow to have him back will be huge. I don't think Calloway or JJ bolt this year. Could be wrong, but they could legitimately go from a 5-7 round pick to 2nd round pick...again, if OL is improved.
 
#11
#11
Our starting O-Line would be Bama’s 3rd string right now.

We are very outclassed in the trenches, it’s too obvious.
 
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#12
#12
njvols said:
Kennedy and by mid season, two frosh will be starting. Quite frankly, I thought JJ was a senior. Wow to have him back will be huge. I don't think Calloway or JJ bolt this year. Could be wrong, but they could legitimately go from a 5-7 round pick to 2nd round pick...again, if OL is improved.
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I think JJ was able to not have last year counted because of injury. Not sure it was classified as a medical redshirt, but he's listed as a junior in the program.
 
#13
#13
Definitely recruit better OL talent and nasty attitude. It really hurt to miss out Cade Mays as he’s got that nasty attitude. Also, Our OL just looks soft.
 
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#14
#14
We have glaring issues on the OL. And the DL. And at DB. And depth. And yesterday we looked, and played, fragile again.

There are lots of things we could talk about for a minute. And as aggravating and frustrating as it is to watch this team play lights out against UK, and then left out against Mizzou, it's going to take time to fix all that ails this program.

And it starts with recruiting.

Right now, Vandy is a toss-up. Go Vols.
 
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#15
#15
VolInNW said:
I think the talent is lacking. Richmond is a complete bust. Great tools no heart. Most of the time he either joins in a half hearted double team or actually moves out of the way of his man. And Richmond isn’t alone.
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Yes Richmond isn’t good, but our biggest OL issues are at guard. For some reason, after 11 games and all of fall camp, they still have no clue who to block on any given play. As Pruitt has said, when we at least get in front of somebody or, GOD forbid, get a hat on a hat, we execute fairly well. But those moments are few and far between, nearly nonexistent.

As far as where the fault lies, it has to stop at Friend’s doorstep. It’s one thing to just get beaten, which we’re very good and consistent at as well....but it’s quite another to still not know the blocking schemes and philosophies and who the hell to even block with only 1 game left in the season.
 
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#16
#16
GreyWolf1129 said:
We have glaring issues on the OL. And the DL. And at DB. And depth. And yesterday we looked, and played, fragile again.

There are lots of things we could talk about for a minute. And as aggravating and frustrating as it is to watch this team play lights out against UK, and then left out against Mizzou, it's going to take time to fix all that ails this program.

And it starts with recruiting.

Right now, Vandy is a toss-up. Go Vols.
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Well said. Although I don’t believe Vandy is s toss up, I think they’ll be pretty solid favorites to beat us because they’re a better team with, by and large, better athletes.
 
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#17
#17
I blame both the coaches and talent of the players. The coaches are to blame when players still make bonehead plays of blocking the same guy, no one, or lack of technique causing them to get bowled over. I readily admit that the talent level of the OL is minimal and wonder how much better will any of these guys get in the off season or ever. We need three or four of these guys to develop over the off season and we desperately need to sign both the five star guys in this class. SEC offenses need to be able to put up 35 to 40 ppg without mistakes to win these days.
 
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#18
#18
dduncan4163 said:
Yup, this will be the only true fix to the problem. Morris and Wright will help right this ship and let's hope that Trey can beat the odds and return next season. It's doubtful but you never know.
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We'll need 3 recruiting classes before the line is 'fixed'. You can't just plug a highly rated recruit or two into the line and have it work.
 
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#19
#19
It's difficult to know who to "blame" after a loss like that. And I'm not 100% sure.

O-line was atrocious, but a lot of the issues stem from the previous regime. Not enough depth. Players that aren't big enough. And then some bad luck thrown on top of all that (losing Trey Smith, Kennedy injury). I wouldn't go so far as to call Richmond a "bust", but it's clear that he was extremely overrated coming out of high school. He was more of a 3-star project than a 5-star elite lineman and I don't know that any amount of coaching is going change his struggles.

Is it possible that Will Friend could be doing a better job? Maybe, but difficult to evaluate him given the situation he inherited.

The running theme this season is when the O-line collapses, everything else goes wrong as well. I don't think defense was nearly as big of a problem as people think. We had trouble defending against Lock, but we played pretty well early on before our D was worn down.

Chryst played awful, though, and I think the OL issues got into his head (same deal as Dormady last season). Some of his throws were just outright terrible and couldn't be blamed on the O-line, but I think a lot of QBs start panicking when they play behind an OL like that. JG is the rare exception.
 
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#20
#20
KBVol said:
Yes Richmond isn’t good, but our biggest OL issues are at guard. For some reason, after 11 games and all of fall camp, they still have no clue who to block on any given play. As Pruitt has said, when we at least get in front of somebody or, GOD forbid, get a hat on a hat, we execute fairly well. But those moments are few and far between, nearly nonexistent.

As far as where the fault lies, it has to stop at Friend’s doorstep. It’s one thing to just get beaten, which we’re very good and consistent at as well....but it’s quite another to still not know the blocking schemes and philosophies and who the hell to even block with only 1 game left in the season.
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I believe we had three so. Olinemen who weighed somefrom 272 ols to 298 lbs and for the first time this year. We have # 51 who has played for three different Oline coaches and still get pushed into the backfield or completely misses his man. We ave a guy playing center who had never played that position in college. Simply put, we are too small, too slow, essentially no college experience, and too weak to win one on one match-ups. Our backs do not pick up the blitz and QBs and RBs have to run for their life. The solution is recruiting and signing the OLmen we want as EEs and work the heck out of them in the off season workouts and Spring practice. Three or four of these new Freshmen next year may be good enough to hold their own next Fall and we will likely see a big improvement, even with Freshmen starting. By the end of next season, we may have a pretty good oline and be winnig games wich we lost this year. The Dline is in a similar position and can only get better as next year progresses.
 
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#23
#23
BeecherVol said:
Recruit better players.
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Short and sweet, but it's the solution. Competition, if nothing else, will either yield better players to replace the current ones, OR, it will drive the current OL to get better. I don't think we have much competition on the current roster, we kind of just grabbed the best 5 we could find.
 
#24
#24
mrmax86 said:
Short and sweet, but it's the solution. Competition, if nothing else, will either yield better players to replace the current ones, OR, it will drive the current OL to get better. I don't think we have much competition on the current roster, we kind of just grabbed the best 5 we could find.
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It ain't rocket surgery.

We a few that may make solid contributions currently on the roster at some point. Others that have no business in this league.
 
#25
#25
I just don't get it.. we recruit higher ranked o linemen every year than these other teams we are struggling against. Why are ours so bad every single year? Why was mizzou's oline handling our dline full of 4 and 5 stars? It never freaking fails. How did charlotte have a chance?? I just don't understand how we could miss on so many prospects living up to their billing over and over..
 
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