Our Defense will be NASTY

[JMSqb11]

Its going to take years of high level recruiting and winning to produce anything near what we saw last night. I mean think about it, I highly doubt we have any player on defense that could crack the starting lineup at UGA or Bama.

Another poster said it best when he said Tennessee looks like boys compared to Bama and UGA. I think our D will be a little improved this year though. Hopefully we can stop the run a litt.e bit.

Me thinks you and others are so snakebitten by Butch, and rightfully so, that y’all dont realize we still have 4/5 stars on our defense that simply weren’t developed by Butch. The talent just didn’t disappear because of Butch. It’s still there. We finally have a top notch staff. I don’t expect an immediate turnaround by game 1, but i do expect a major improvement thru first half of season in the front seven.

 

[HuntlandVolinColo]

Call me crazy but I think you see results in year one. Top 5 defense in the SEC. That’s how good he is, so when we actually have depth and talented players all around, we will be a force. The SEC East is going to be back on the upswing. UGA is going to be really good for years, but they always choke when it matters. UF will be good under Mullen. And I believe Pruitt Will have us back in a couple years. Also, Muschamp is a way better coach the 2nd time around at SC. And Mizzou hired Dooley as their OC! Okay that last one was a joke.

Only one way to go from Rocky Bottom!

 

[HuntlandVolinColo]

My biggest concern is that two of our biggest rivals have most of their teams back. Frosh all over the field last night.

Georgia lost 31 Seniors and will lose maybe up to 5 juniors. I expect Trent Thompson to be gone.

Georgia's recruiting class is incredible though. Not even sure if they know what a 3* recruit is.

Bama is so stacked, this just means a lot less redshirts for them.

 

[Special Ed]

Butch Jones asked me to relay to the fan base that “talent” comes down to coaching.

Did he ask if you want fries with that order?

 

[DiderotsGhost]

Are you serious? We know exactly what offense Helton will run. Just look at his offense at WKU when he was OC and look at his offense he had at USC.

Don't think you read what I wrote correctly.

'We don't know what type of OC Tyson Helton will be.' NOT 'we don't know Helton's offensive system.'

He's never been an OC at the P5 level. Everyone is optimistic, but in truth, we have no idea whether he will be great, good, mediocre, or terrible. With the defense, I think it's fair to extrapolate that Pruitt will make it elite since he's done it at numerous stops at P5 programs. Helton's track record at the P5 level is non-existent. I hope he's great, but I don't think we're going to know for 2 seasons. At least we can say the offenses at USC have been very good and we know he's a good QB coach, but that's all we know right now.

 

[JMSqb11]

Don't think you read what I wrote correctly.

'We don't know what type of OC Tyson Helton will be.' NOT 'we don't know Helton's offensive system.'

He's never been an OC at the P5 level. Everyone is optimistic, but in truth, we have no idea whether he will be great, good, mediocre, or terrible. With the defense, I think it's fair to extrapolate that Pruitt will make it elite since he's done it at numerous stops at P5 programs. Helton's track record at the P5 level is non-existent. I hope he's great, but I don't think we're going to know for 2 seasons. At least we can say the offenses at USC have been very good and we know he's a good QB coach, but that's all we know right now.

He’s never had the title of OC at a Power 5 school but it’s been shown that he was the playcaller for USC. I have zero concerns with Helton. Top notch playcaller and a steal for us.

 

[OnlyGodForgives]

The whiff of 2013 is strong in this thread. Let's get at least one recruiting class in house before making the grandiose declarations. What we have on hand right this second is another 4-8 team. Warm bodies are at a premium.

 

[Smokey X]

Golic & Wingo had a very interesting fact this AM. there were 18 true Freshman on the field last night. only 3 5th year seniors.

very little redshirting takes place down there. 3 and done is the flavor

the players they bring in contribute immediately. Until we start getting a reasonable share of those guys instead of the leftovers, it could still be long road back.

 

[matrosscbc]

We don't have those kind of players...yet.

 

[JMSqb11]

The whiff of 2013 is strong in this thread. Let's get at least one recruiting class in house before making the grandiose declarations. What we have on hand right this second is another 4-8 team. Warm bodies are at a premium.

False. This roster with the new staff alone is 6-6 at a minimum.

That’s the biggest difference between Butch’s Staff and ours. I say that simply because getting an actual OC/QB coach making the play calls is a 2 win upgrade over Larry Scott.

 

[Nocleats]

Pruitt & Sherrer = Big ole fast and nasty defense.

I'm looking forward to it. It's been too long.

In 3-4 years, once they have 8 talented DL and 10 Talented LB with 8 Talented DBs, Depth and lack of fast, NFL Caliber players are too big a hurdle for anything soon IMO

 

[Titan05]

Perhaps eventually. Not expecting anything substantial over the next two years.

 

[leftsidevol]

No doubt it will take time to accumulate anything close to that talent level, but I think we have enough talent to start beating UK, Vandy, Mizzou, etc with competent coaching.

I think some of us are a little too optimistic, but nothing wrong with that. Murphy's comment is realistic.

 

[Nocleats]

False. This roster with the new staff alone is 6-6 at a minimum.

That’s the biggest difference between Butch’s Staff and ours. I say that simply because getting an actual OC/QB coach making the play calls is a 2 win upgrade over Larry Scott.

So Who is your 2nd Team D? Bama played 3 deep on the Dline all night, Vols in trouble first time a starter goes out and the days of taking 90% of the snaps per game are long gone.

 

[leftsidevol]

False. This roster with the new staff alone is 6-6 at a minimum.

That’s the biggest difference between Butch’s Staff and ours. I say that simply because getting an actual OC/QB coach making the play calls is a 2 win upgrade over Larry Scott.

Larry Scott was absolutely horrible. Predictable would be a compliment for him.

 

[JMSqb11]

So Who is your 2nd Team D? Bama played 3 deep on the Dline all night, Vols in trouble first time a starter goes out and the days of taking 90% of the snaps per game are long gone.

I think you are burnt by Butch, and rightfully so, that you think we have a bunch of 1-2 stars on our roster right now. Just because Butch didn’t develop them doesn’t mean the talent went away. We don’t have crazy good depth on Defense but we do have decent depth. Just needs developing. Something that Butch didn’t do.

I’m calling it now, 8-4 next year!

 

[Titan&Volfan4life]

Helton could turn out to be a diamond in the rough as our OC.

Don't forget 2 things about Helton...

1...He was well trained by both his brother at USC and by Coach Brohm at Western Kentucky where they lit up the scoreboard.

2...Coach Friend has also been a OC and I have zero doubts that Pruitt will have both Helton and Friend working closely together on game planing and talking a lot during our games.

Coach Friend will get our O line in good shape and working well together but 1st he needs several more good O linemen to work with before we'll get much better.

That's why 1 of the top priorities for Pruitt and Friend has been to go after some good JUCO O linemen to try to get things better much faster.

The same is true for our D.

It's going to take 2 or 3 recruiting classes but I honestly believe we're finally back on the right track.

VFL...GBO!!!

 

[JMSqb11]

Larry Scott was absolutely horrible. Predictable would be a compliment for him.

And that was a large part of our 4-8 season. Even with him, we were in position to win 6 games. Now that we have a legit OC as QB coach, we are definitely a 6 win team. I don’t understand all the doom and gloom here. I know Butch burnt a lot of us, but no reason to look thru foggy glasses.

 

[JMSqb11]

Helton could turn out to be a diamond in the rough as our OC.

Don't forget 2 things about Helton...

1...He was well trained by both his brother at USC and by Coach Brohm at Western Kentucky where they lit up the scoreboard.

2...Coach Friend has also been a OC and I have zero doubts that Pruitt will have both Helton and Friend working closely together on game planing and talking a lot during our games.

Coach Friend will get our O line in good shape and working well together but 1st he needs several more good O linemen to work with before we'll get much better.

That's why 1 of the top priorities for Pruitt and Friend has been to go after some good JUCO O linemen to try to get things better much faster.

The same is true for our D.

It's going to take 2 or 3 recruiting classes but I honestly believe we're finally back on the right track.

VFL...GBO!!!

Great point. Between Helton, Friend, and Coach Gillepsie, i really do think Pruitt is gonna let them get work on offense quite a bit without his even focus. Pruitt just needs to focus solely on defense with Sherrer this first year. Enough quality offensive guys to handle things for this first spring under Pruitt.

 

[leftsidevol]

I’m calling it now, 8-4 next year!

I hope you are right but that schedule looks awfully tough to me. Where are the 8 wins? I see 6 at best.

 

[JMSqb11]

I hope you are right but that schedule looks awfully tough to me. Where are the 8 wins? I see 6 at best.

Losses are Bama, UGA
Toss Up Games/Likely Losses UF, Auburn
Rest are wins.

 

[carpbc]

Its going to take years of high level recruiting and winning to produce anything near what we saw last night. I mean think about it, I highly doubt we have any player on defense that could crack the starting lineup at UGA or Bama.

Another poster said it best when he said Tennessee looks like boys compared to Bama and UGA. I think our D will be a little improved this year though. Hopefully we can stop the run a litt.e bit.

UNFORTUNATELY, I must agree with you. However, I believe Pruitt is putting together a pretty good staff and will begin getting the job done the right way in year one. I do not expect the results that Kirby has had at UGA in just his second year, because of the well-stocked and coached-up talent Richt left him... as compared to the chaos left behind by Jones and Company. Yeah, we had some good players, but it is highly evident they were not developed to anywhere near their level of potential playing level. Now, it WILL take several years of great recruiting and coaching, but by year three, I believe we will be pleased by the results and not be wanting to wear paper bags on our our heads during games.

GBO

opcorn:

 

[Biopsyman]

The Key is to recruit tough guys with some dog in them and not choir boys.. AL has these type of players, not only talented but likes to lay the wood to you and is intimidating.. Our team recently were beat up and played scared

 

[Titan05]

I’m calling it now, 8-4 next year!

And if it's 5-7 instead?

 

[JMSqb11]

And if it's 5-7 instead?

Then we should fire Pruitt.......


Just kidding. I just don't see 7 losses on the schedule with this staff. Especially with this offensive staff. But I'm not one to deal in guarantees or certainties. It could happen, but I think with the talent on the roster now, especially offense, we will some games that we couldn't in 2017 because of a bad offense. Take the UK and USC games. Our offense was pretty bad against UF, but we were one dropped pass at the 2 yard line from winning that game and starting out 4-0. Hell, had we not given up the hail mary, I think we still could have won that one in OT. Regardless, I think anything short of 6-6 is a step back for the program, and underperformance for this staff.