Spent the off week watching football games without having to worrying about the Vols. Noticed several things including:
--Tennessee's offensive line is very poorly coached (either scheme or technique or both). It was fun watching other teams' OL firing off the ball and knocking the DL back and opening up running lanes for the backs.
--Tennessee's WR corps is either very short on talent or coaching or both. Almost surprising to see WRs running into the secondary and creating separation from DBs. Also, who knew you could throw intermediate routes in the middle of the field or run combo routes (aka, pick routes) to help receivers get open.
--Tennessee QB play is awful. I know, I know this is obvious but surprising to see teams like Kentucky and South Carolina having QBs who roll out and throw the ball upfield and being athletic enough to make plays with their feet.
Tennessee's LBs are awful. Watch teams like UGA, Texas A&M, and even Mich St and you see LBs filling holes and knocking RBs back and playing sideline to sideline.
Tennessee has no pass rush. Even Big 10 teams DL look fast compared to UT's DEs and especially DTs. Either the players are way overrated or the coaching has been terrible.
Tennessee's defensive backs look small and slow compared to other teams. It was surprising to see how many PBUs other teams have and to see DBs breaking on the ball while it's in the air.
To sum it up, other teams are just fun to watch because they have play makers making plays. Other teams play hard and with a purpose. I'm still trying to figure out what Tennessee is trying to do offensively and the defense is just inept.
I apologize for talking football. Please resume your rumor mongering about Butch's future and who the next coach will be. We need a few more threads on that.
No one has talked football because the boards negativity tolerance threshold is set at a minimum. For instance, in one post, just like that, you done gone and pegged it out.
You are absolutely correct. This past week I've noticed day by day the fans views on Butch have softened. Just like in the offseason, the longer we go without proof of suckitude, the more we can make believe.
That falls apart however, if you are actually a fan of football. See the football fans among us spent this past weekend watching football. We were undistracted by loyalties and red-faced baboons, so we could watch objectively as good football teams played good football. The conclusion that OP posted is the same, sad faced one that lodged unsolicited and inevitably in my brain as i watched coaches coach and players make plays.
The tennessee vols are not a good football team. They are not average. The talent is not evident. The roster is not loaded.
Either the players are bad and the roster is thin, and the future is bleak. Or the coach is so bad, the scheme is so horrible, the players despise or ignore him, and have not been developed, or placed in the position to succeed, so that the end result is the players play well below their actual talent level.
As a vol fan i hope it is the latter, because that means a new coach can come in and salvage some of the current roster reasonably quickly. As a realist i wonder if both premises combine indistinguishably, or at least the coaching has been so bad, the development, so poor, the transfers so numerous,that the resident, remaining talent is effectively broken for future purposes, and this program is at or below the Dooleymarcation line of football hell.
At any rate this past weekend of good, pure football made me madder at Butch, rather than more hopeful.
