Talent wise. No. UT is more talented and should have won the game in spite of making enough mistakes to lose 5 games. But Pitt is a "good" team that didn't make mistakes.That's correct, and I guess that tells you they were actually the better team. Disciplined and functional all over and with very good QB play.
Even with all that, McElroy nailed it today in a 247 interview. UT needed Milton to hit 3 deep balls. If he had done that then Pitt couldn't have walked their safeties down. If their safeties' first step had to always be back then the run lanes and shorter throws would have been open. Missing those wide open deep balls turned the game.
Nope. This was a loss not a moral victory. UT blew what should have been a multi-score win. The "hope" that these mistakes can be corrected and would have changed the outcome of this particular game isn't unreasonable at all. In fact... it is the only reasonable position to believe that this team with a few less mistakes takes Pitt to the woodshed.Obviously a lot of people don't like to talk about "hope" and "moral victories" and all that, but I think Tennessee Recruiting is going to be bad for a while, and you're not going to out-skill mediocre teams for a while. Entitlement can only do so much in real life, and for us it may not do anything right now. I don't think there's any need to say "just wait until Heupel gets his players into the system". He can't recruit very well and so this is just who we are for a while. Now that certain people can pay players, we might have some advantages that way.
No one... including the clairvoyant you... knows whether Heupel and his staff can correct these mistakes and win games like this going forward. However UT has more talent than UK, USCe, Mizzou, and probably Ole Miss. Recruiting depends on having something to show players on the field. We won't know how that will go... until we see it.