Pruitt honesty

[Aday25]

10 men on field coaches fault or players?

Player ran off. Not sure if coaches were telling him or not. Seemed just general confusion of a first game under a first year head ball coach. This year is a learning curve for everyone

 

[OneVolNation]

They might have thought there were 12 out there instead of 11?

 

[photovol]

Pruitt was like our 12 coaching choice but I do believe he is committed to succeeding in his first HC'ing job. What sucks is Butch left him squat to work with and his tenure here may over before he can build anything. Not sure we can wait 4-5 years to see if he is the right man. I am just at a loss as a fan.....

You and thousands of Vol fans, sometimes you have to wonder if Tennessee will ever be relevant again.......... No one really knows for sure

 

[volmandu]

His other mistakes:
Not deferring to second half
Never throwing deep (poor protection and slow WR also to blame)
Never having JG run in the RPO (Helton and JG also to blame)
Not passing more to Jennings

I agree. All coaches make mistakes. The good ones learn from them and keep improving. The better ones make enough good decisions to cover up the bad ones. I hope Pruitt does the latter two. Last coach we had was too rigid to admit such thing. Kirby did latter two after mediocre first year. Given Pruitt took over a 4-8 talent (which was evident against WVU) it will take some time but hope we see progress in how team plays each week.

 

[OneVolNation]

JG cant really run dude. That "dual threat" stuff was resume fluff.

I can see why you'd say that based off not seeing him run last year, but on that play he rolled out and turned up field, JG got to the 2 yard line when it was goal to go, it looked like he's got more run ability than we got to see last season. It's true that was only one play, but he turned it into positive yards and showed some athleticism in the process. I don't think it would hurt to have him roll out like that and pick up a quick five to seven every so often until the defense comes up to take it away from him -- at which point he hits the receiver they abandon coverage to contain him. That would keep the defense honest, stretch them thin in coverage, and buy both him and the receiver at least an extra step while the D decides which choice he's forced to make before fully committing to it.

That's one of those situations where the threat can be just as dangerous as the execution because of the potential to burn them either way if they guess wrong, so they're indecisive even if it's just for an extra step. Then he exploits that window of time the extra step buys him as a weakness he created in the defense and puts the ball in whichever spot they didn't pick. Keeps them imbalanced and second-guessing. If he spots the secondary cheating, boom make them pay. If they stay back in coverage, take the short yards with the run.

What could buy him even more than just that extra step would be if he can manage to not telegraph his intention. There were a couple of hand offs Sat. where he just totally sold out to the play facing toward the running back and extending his arms for him to take the hand off for what seemed to be just a hair longer than absolutely necessary because it gave the defense an opportunity to see where he was headed and get there. I'd like to see him not turn his helmet toward the place he's looking, but to stare straight ahead as he's getting set to throw for as long as he can get away with it and then pass. That would buy his receiver a little extra time before the defender sells out to make a play on him because he isn't sure if it's going to the other side of the field until just before he passes. If he keeps looking straight ahead to see the coverage out of the corners of his eyes, they can't see where he's reading. He did a damn fine job. That's just one little thing on the wishlist I'd like to see Coach Helton help him add to his game to make him even more dangerous to our opponents than he already is. His footwork and pocket presence is definitely night and day better than last season.

Once the issues with the offensive line that hurt us Saturday get ironed out, I'm already looking forward to watching more of the Jarrett Guarantano show.

Yeah, I completely and 100% respect Coach Pruitt for not denying or side-stepping responsibility for the results. I had a feeling that was his character based on what I knew from his previous posts, but it inspired confidence to see him acknowledge the situation for what it was and make it clear he's working to improve it. Like someone already said in another thread, Coach Pruitt and staff finally have some game film of the team against competition they can analyze which is something they didn't have before last game. As a fan, I'm completely content to see improvement now that we got a better idea of where everything's at.

 

[Bluetic]

New system gaffs, guys not sure of what they are supposed to be doing in the new scheme and why, lack of confidence...etc.. Could take a while, but we still looked better Saturday. No turnovers, seem to have more than 3 formations for offense, and there didn't seem to be any of those "wtf" moments when you were just shocked that Butch really called that, like shotgun dives inside the ten at UF. Now that I'm thinking about it, there were no stupid slogans, like about bricks and garbage cans. CP will get it turned around, but there's not a lot of play in our schedule.

 

[OrangeSquid]

Player ran off. Not sure if coaches were telling him or not. Seemed just general confusion ......

That's what I was thinking. There was 11 on the field to start, then the player started running off, hesitated, went back and forth. Was close to an offside penalty if he tried to get back on Defensive side of the field.
I don't know if it would have been worth wasting a TO. WVU didn't score that play, so not sure that made any difference. Who knows.

 

[08Vol]

Speculation on my part but based on CJP showing these guys film of his past stars at Bama, Georgia and FSU getting beat in order to show them even good players lose sometimes and its not if you lose but how you move forward tells me he was concerned about getting them out of their loser mindset. I think he just wanted the opportunity to score first. I'm sure he was hoping like us his OL would allow the Vols to run on their D. Didn't work but he wasn't playing scared all his chips were in the middle of the table right away, proof is that 4th down pass for the first TD.

The problem with not deferring is you end up in the position we were in on Saturday. We punted the ball away with 1:50 to go in the 2nd down 10-7. The next time we touched the ball we were now down by 13, 20-7.

 

[OneVolNation]

I misspoke a bit in my previous post about the quarterbacks not turning to look where he's going to throw it before he passes, so I edited the previous post to hopefully make it clearer what I intended. If the QB can just look straight ahead deep down the middle of the field while getting a read on coverage using his peripheral vision, then the defense can't use which way he's looking as a "tell." The QB can see what he needs to while looking deep middle and choose which progression of receivers to read by the time he finishes his drop. That way defenses couldn't get a read on the QB as easily because he doesn't give away anything with where he's looking.

 

[BigOrangeTrain]

A guy being a HC for the first time ever admitting his mistakes? Man, clearly Pruitt isnt the guy.

 

[TN_Transplant]

I never get upset at someone making a mistake. However, I am not able to tolerate consistent repetition of the same mistake.

Admitting you made a mistake is the first step in learning from that mistake and taking steps to correct it.

We will learn a lot about the type of person Coach Pruitt is going forward if we pay attention to clock management.

 

[TN_Transplant]

How does the punter not know this or the Special Teams coach remind him to snap at 1 on the play clock when he is running onto the field?

While I agree with you, the fact that Coach Pruitt accepts personal responsibility for that (I not we) tells me a lot about the type of leader he is.

 

[wmcovol]

How does the punter not know this or the Special Teams coach remind him to snap at 1 on the play clock when he is running onto the field?

Most punters are just happy they ran out on the field and didn't trip over the lines. Special teams coach or OC should have helped him here.

 

[photovol]

 

[photovol]

Brutally Honest

 

[rocytop2624]

I misspoke a bit in my previous post about the quarterbacks not turning to look where he's going to throw it before he passes, so I edited the previous post to hopefully make it clearer what I intended. If the QB can just look straight ahead deep down the middle of the field while getting a read on coverage using his peripheral vision, then the defense can't use which way he's looking as a "tell." The QB can see what he needs to while looking deep middle and choose which progression of receivers to read by the time he finishes his drop. That way defenses couldn't get a read on the QB as easily because he doesn't give away anything with where he's looking.

Put a sun visor on the QB lol.

 

[SmokyRiverDog]

Forget the “8” on end on post, first year poster mistake.

OK. Good luck in the future.

 

[Orangeredblooded]

OK. Good luck in the future.

Lol

 

[sechamp2012]

Volnation: where every play with an African American QB is an RPO that wasn’t properly executed.

I thought JG was Italian/Indian never knew he was African. He may be fast in the 40 but I bet the first 10 yards are slow. Very accurate passer% wise. He will be really good if OL can come together with chemistry & consistency.

 

[Remy]

You and thousands of Vol fans, sometimes you have to wonder if Tennessee will ever be relevant again.......... No one really knows for sure

When you start seeing numbers like 65,000 showing up for an SEC home game at Neyland, the Vols being relevant again will certainly be in doubt. UTAD has had a decade of a very loving and dedicated fan base showing up to support mediocrity on the football field. There is a generation of youngsters out there that see UT as losers, they better get that turned around this time.

 

[WildTurkey]

The problem with not deferring is you end up in the position we were in on Saturday. We punted the ball away with 1:50 to go in the 2nd down 10-7. The next time we touched the ball we were now down by 13, 20-7.

Could be argued that the deferment wasn't the problem, but rather that we didn't score when we had possession.