Per Hubbs, "lack of depth biggest concern for this team"

#201
#201
sjt18 said:
This season he'll again use the excuses of depth and inexperience if things go poorly. Maybe he'll even say that the clock should be reset making this "year zero"? I'm pretty certain he'll try to use the staff changes to buy 3 or 4 years... and unfortunately... there are too many willing to buy it.

Hopefully this staff will get it done and for once since coming to UT Jones will actually overachieve his talent.... but based on what we've seen... count me a skeptic.
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well, i do believe that barring something epic happening, he's probably here thru 2018. i don't think Currie has any agenda for or against Jones, and i doubt seriously he's licking his chops to fire him after this season.

so i do think that so long as we don't do a complete nose dive, and go to a bowl, that's enough justification for them to keep him. of course, as stated, that's solely dependent upon whether or not Currie has any type of agenda regarding Butch Jones. and i don't know the answer to that. if he does, or he does have a "guy"....then currie should go get him if there's a window to do so.

long story short, while i agree, there will be comments and statements made that will likely drive me up the wall, i don't think that will have too much to do with whether he's retained or not.
 
#202
#202
jakez4ut said:
well, i do believe that barring something epic happening, he's probably here thru 2018. i don't think Currie has any agenda for or against Jones, and i doubt seriously he's licking his chops to fire him after this season.

so i do think that so long as we don't do a complete nose dive, and go to a bowl, that's enough justification for them to keep him. of course, as stated, that's solely dependent upon whether or not Currie has any type of agenda regarding Butch Jones. and i don't know the answer to that. if he does, or he does have a "guy"....then currie should go get him if there's a window to do so.

long story short, while i agree, there will be comments and statements made that will likely drive me up the wall, i don't think that will have too much to do with whether he's retained or not.
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I think his mark is 8 wins.... or should be. After the egg he laid in '16, I don't think he deserves to keep the job if he wins less than 8 regular season games. I KNOW that is a tough goal based on the returning players and competition. But IMO he hasn't bought himself any slack.

I don't know what the AD is thinking. However I don't think that necessarily matters for '17. He didn't approve the staff hires. Someone else did. Whoever that person or group of people happens to be... what they had in mind will govern what happens. You could be right... but I have to believe they put some minimum expectations in front of Jones. It would be total mismanagement if they didn't.
 
#203
#203
sjt18 said:
I think his mark is 8 wins.... or should be. After the egg he laid in '16, I don't think he deserves to keep the job if he wins less than 8 regular season games. I KNOW that is a tough goal based on the returning players and competition. But IMO he hasn't bought himself any slack.

I don't know what the AD is thinking. However I don't think that necessarily matters for '17. He didn't approve the staff hires. Someone else did. Whoever that person or group of people happens to be... what they had in mind will govern what happens. You could be right... but I have to believe they put some minimum expectations in front of Jones. It would be total mismanagement if they didn't.
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:eek:lol: on that, definitely call me a skeptic.....

what i think will happen, and what i think should happen are two different things.

i think 7-5, is pretty safe, all things considered as you said.

should it be? no.

though i am intrigued by the staff changes, and i think defensively they're great hires, offensively, ok hires. either way, there's a part of me that wants to see how that looks in 2018.

bottom line, i'm like you. i want them to exceed my 7-5 expectation. badly. it'd be great if they went 9-3 or better, and really 'reset' the table going forward.
 
#204
#204
I think Currie will absolutely fire someone his first year. All four marquee sports are underachieving, and UT is 113th-- last in the SEC-- in the Director's Cup standings. UT had very disappointing postseasons in FB, BB and WBB-- and then there's baseball.

Currie said he expects UT to compete for championships and he has four well-compensated coaches who are underachieving for different reasons. He's not going to see great value in giving Dave Hart's hires a long leash. Other SEC schools are rising; UT is falling behind. IMO, Currie will show he means business by weeding out 1-2 coaches who don't kick it into a higher gear.
 
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#205
#205
VFL-82-JP said:
If you're talking about quality (of the 1st string, 2nd string, 3rd string, whatever), talk about quality.

If you're talking about depth, talk about depth.

Confusing the two is just...confusing.

Even a team loaded with 5-star backups, like Bama, has a drop in quality behind the first string. That's true for every team, and shouldn't surprise anyone that it's true for us as well. That still leaves plenty of room to discuss whether the drop in quality is more severe for the Vols than it should be. That's pretty much what this conversation is really about.

This isn't a "depth" conversation; it's a "quality" conversation. Unless he shows up and explains that he meant something entirely different, Hubbs used the wrong phrase.
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Can't separate the two imo. If you don't have quality you don't have depth, bodies/numbers alone don't do it. In other words, you can have 10 cornerbacks on your roster, but if none of them are solid performers who can play at a high SEC level, from the starter on down, then you have no depth imo.
 
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#206
#206
sjt18 said:
Edit: I found the article and read it. I counted 9 names. I'm pretty sure 3 were Fr. One guy is moving from DE to LB. And still... only McDowell and DKjr have proven themselves to be SEC caliber 2-deep LB's. I appreciate Jumper as much as anyone but he is physically overmatched by too many OL's and RB's in the SEC.
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i'd say Jumper adds to the depth, as part of a rotation. no one is going to mistake him for Luke Kuechly, but he proved a lot of the naysayers wrong last year, self included. he provides solid depth. you're really looking at guys like Bituli, Sapp and Austin Smith to come on and make an impact. and you still need a couple more past that to do so as well.

DK, McDowell, Bituli, Sapp, Jumper, Smith.....shannon reid? i feel like we're stacked at the mike. outside, we're really thin.
 
#207
#207
KBVol said:
Can't separate the two imo. If you don't have quality you don't have depth, bodies/numbers alone don't do it. In other words, you can have 10 cornerbacks on your roster, but if none of them are solid performers who can play at a high SEC level, from the starter on down, then you have no depth imo.
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Sure, you can separate the two. It's called using words they way they're defined. In football, depth = more bodies behind the first set of bodies. We have plenty of bodies (and will have about 25 more in another month or two).

You mean quality, KB. Particularly quality in the 2nd string and beyond. You're just misusing "depth" to mean that. Kinda like Hubbs apparently did.
 
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#208
#208
can we agree that quality is usually implied when discussing depth, since hardly anyone at this level is not going to field an 85 man scholarship roster? unless on some kind of probation....
 
#209
#209
There have been teams (including past Vols squads) who truly had depth issues, Jake. Most recent example: the DT position, midway through last season, when we were moving DEs to DT (and LBs to DE) just to cover for the absolute lack of depth.

So it is far better to say what you mean. Depth means depth, and quality means quality. Rather than agreeing to mean one thing when we say another, which is just kinda weird.
 
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#210
#210
ok, i just always took it as a reference to quality, not sheer #'s. it never even occurred to me he could be talking about #'s.
 
#211
#211
jakez4ut said:
can we agree that quality is usually implied when discussing depth, since hardly anyone at this level is not going to field an 85 man scholarship roster? unless on some kind of probation....
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No. Because silly debates over semantics deflect from the legitimate concern that Butch's recruiting hasn't been as great as some folks want to believe it's been.
 
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#212
#212
There was a time when the media, esp. the print media, took pride in their ability to sculpt concepts using words, to impart complex ideas clearly. They were true wordsmiths, and they knew it. The best of them wouldn't be caught dead tossing around inaccurate phrases and hoping to be understood anyway.

Those days are clearly long gone, victim of the broadband assault of internet journalism, where being exact, heck even being right, often takes a back seat to being first to publish.

*shrug* Hubbs said one thing but meant another. I'm not gonna have a stroke over it, nor do I think anyone else will. Doesn't mean we can't correct the record so we can avoid talking past each other in these forums.
 
#213
#213
VolunteerHillbilly said:
No. Because silly debates over semantics deflect from the legitimate concern that Butch's recruiting hasn't been as great as some folks want to believe it's been.
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Not trying to deflect. In fact, I'm very interesting in the discussion of whether we have enough quality players on the 2017 squad to win more than 7 or 8 games.

Just don't think confusing the issue with inexact terms helps us have that conversation. At all.
 
#214
#214
VFL-82-JP said:
Sure, you can separate the two. It's called using words they way they're defined. In football, depth = more bodies behind the first set of bodies. We have plenty of bodies (and will have about 25 more in another month or two).

You mean quality, KB. Particularly quality in the 2nd string and beyond. You're just misusing "depth" to mean that. Kinda like Hubbs apparently did.
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The definition of "depth" as you are using is a pretty irrelevant term to a coach. You can grab 20 guys off the sidewalk on the way to the practice field and improve depth.

Im not sure I remember the last time I listened to a coach talk about having "depth" without quality being implied or actually used in defining the thought. Or "quality depth"
 
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#217
#217
BeecherVol said:
The definition of "depth" as you are using is a pretty irrelevant term to a coach. You can grab 20 guys off the sidewalk on the way to the practice field and improve depth.

Im not sure I remember the last time I listened to a coach talk about having "depth" without quality being implied or actually used in defining the thought. Or "quality depth"
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How quickly we forget. Lack of depth does come up, and is a serious issue when it hits. It was a legitimate concern last October after a spate of injuries thinned our defensive tackles down to the 3rd string (Paul Bain) and some converted defensive ends (Kongbo, et al).

So it happens, infrequently, but it happens. And when it happens, lack of depth is not irrelevant to the coaches, at all. In fact, it pretty quickly becomes one of their top priorities to fix.
 
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#218
#218
VFL-82-JP said:
How quickly we forget. Lack of depth does come up, and is a serious issue when it hits. It was a legitimate concern last October after a spate of injuries thinned our defensive tackles down to the 3rd string (Paul Bain) and some converted defensive ends (Kongbo, et al).

So it happens, infrequently, but it happens. And when it happens, lack of depth is not irrelevant to the coaches, at all. In fact, it pretty quickly becomes one of their top priorities to fix.
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at the risk of going down this rabbit hole...it's spring, talking about upcoming season. different implication than being mid way thru the season and determining how many bodies are simply available to play week to week. that's why it never occurred to me. we'll have #'s, that's not really the issue.... today. it could be next October too, as you said.

but i don't think it was too big a leap....and besides the vast majority of the conversation has been about quality of depth, not much at all referring to overall #'s. and if there was, i pretty much ignored it...cause i never took that to be the actual topic....:p
 
#219
#219
Exactly. Depth is almost never a problem in spring camp. Far too far out for that to be the issue. This conversation is about quality.
 
#221
#221
VFL-82-JP said:
Sure, you can separate the two. It's called using words they way they're defined. In football, depth = more bodies behind the first set of bodies. We have plenty of bodies (and will have about 25 more in another month or two).

You mean quality, KB. Particularly quality in the 2nd string and beyond. You're just misusing "depth" to mean that. Kinda like Hubbs apparently did.
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Couldn't disagree more. I said what I meant JP.....depth connotes more than just numbers of players....it means, imho, there are quality players at a position that can play at a high or certainly acceptable level. I don't think either I or Hubbs are misusing the term at all in the context of football positions.
 
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#222
#222
Perpetually thin, perpetually injured. Same song and dance every year. With UT, it's always something.
 
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#223
#223
VFL-82-JP said:
Exactly. Depth is almost never a problem in spring camp. Far too far out for that to be the issue. This conversation is about quality.
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I think quality is a valid concern-- how big of one is yet to be seen. Are we going to be better at any position this year than we were last year? Do we have quality players two-deep at every position? Injuries are inevitable. Have last year's 2s, 3s and 4s developed? Can we replace last year's offensive and defensive production without significant drop-off? We'll start getting answers this summer. I'm not sure spring has revealed much at all.
 
#224
#224
Hell wouldn't have the fury that this board would have if Butch had passed on Bates and Elliott Berry but sad truth is neither have proven they can play LB in the SEC and that is two examples why there is a depth problem there.

CB has been a recruiting challenge going back to Majors days. Tennessee has always struggled getting top CB talent. Same for TEs.

RB is a issue of having two RBs, both who left early (for different reasons) taking the majority of the reps the last couple yrs.
 
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#225
#225
jakez4ut said:
at the risk of going down this rabbit hole...it's spring, talking about upcoming season. different implication than being mid way thru the season and determining how many bodies are simply available to play week to week. that's why it never occurred to me. we'll have #'s, that's not really the issue.... today. it could be next October too, as you said.

but i don't think it was too big a leap....and besides the vast majority of the conversation has been about quality of depth, not much at all referring to overall #'s. and if there was, i pretty much ignored it...cause i never took that to be the actual topic....:p
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If the entire 3 deep on defense quit tomorrow Jones could blast an email across campus and have more "depth" than he could shake a stick at, given the definition. Thats why #s themselves are irrelevant. You have a quality problem at that point.
 
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