Realism.

[calban]

Butch could get a season to prove himself under Blackburn.
Another season like this and he may not make it through though.

Soft olines, mid major offensive schemes and undisciplined on and off the field seems to be his calling card. 4 years is enough.

 

[YankeeVol]

As soon as we had the penalty on the KO, I knew we were in for a long night.

 

[pimo1]

look at my sig...

not even close..fail at that at this point.

What si wrong with you people? Yes one can make a statement like that but then one does not expect injuries on the scale we have seen. What the heck do some of you people smoke?

Just going down the depth chart.
RB top 2 out

OL walking wounded haven't been able to start the same 5 in back to back games all year and burnt a red-shirt on a true freshman. I think the SC game was the first game we didn't have at least 2 linemen go down in the game.

DL 3 of the top 4 tackles gone

LB just got back Kirkland still missing 2 of top 3 LB's

DB's has been much like the O-line where we haven't had the same starting 5 in consecutive games or from the beginning of a game to the end. We had 3 of the top 5 DB's out this past game.

No team could absorb this many injuries and play at a high level and at our best. At no point in the season have we been at near 90% much less 100. We have been missing 2 All-American players pretty much all year. Lost 2 all conference talents at RB for different parts of the last 3 games and Kirkland an easy all conference level guy has been out most of the year.

If you look at what the team has done balanced against all it has faced then what they have accomplished is amazing. even at Full strength we would have had trouble with Bama. A team with no continuity cannot grow and develop and we have not had continuity on either side of the ball. This is reflected in the huge amount of turnovers we have produced.

I get that a lot of you guys are just UT fans and not really football fans who actually understand the game or have ever played it. But people are just being silly. Unrealistic expectations were put on this team from day one. The crazy comebacks got the hype train even more in full swing but anyone that knows football knows you cannot sustain that kind of playing. It is like the whole Tebow thing in Denver and Linsanity. Be happy on the ride but realize when it ends it will ends ugly.

SC caught us slipping and at our weakest. Most people think its over but reality is we still have Kentucky on our schedule. People can keep being ridiculous and looking at what teams were in the past and thinking they stay that way all the time but this Kentucky team is for real. They can run the ball, and as mentioned above we are really hurting at DT. These last few games will be a welcome reprieve from the first nightmare stretch but they won't be a cake walk unless we get healthy really fast.

I really feel sorry for guys that actually think our third and 4th string guys should be competing with the starters for other SEC teams no matter who those teams are. You are bent in the brain. 2 or 3 guys out is something we should be expected to recover from but 6 or 7 or more no way.

 

[pimo1]

As soon as we had the penalty on the KO, I knew we were in for a long night.

Penalties and replays really hurt us that game. the Dobbs TD being called back. the punt called a touchback instead of down on the 1. The Jennings catch that got called an incomplete. Those were all big momentum changing calls. It seemed like every time we made a big playthe air got taken right out of us. If it wasn't calls it was King picking off Dobbs and both of those picks he had were legit. Those were all 100% King. on both plays e came out of nowhere and just made a play it wasn't about coaching or a good scheme the kid just made the plays.

We got beat. Oh well now we have to win out, get a good bowl game get healthy and hope this experience a lot of young guys got this year helps us next year. The one bright cloud is that I think the chances of both Hurd and Kamara leaving early is slim to none at this point. Which is good news bad news because Kelly has shown he is the right type of back for this system. It should not come as a surprise though for anyone that watched his HS film as he played in a very similar offense.

Butch is building a team and people just have to be patient. Once it gets rolling it will be grand but there is a huge hill to climb called the SEC.

As far as the earlier comment on Dooley. I was in the camp of not sure. I didn't think he was the guy for the job but I also didn't think firing coaches at the rate we wee doing so was good for the program and firing butch now would be a huge mistake. Unless you already have someone proven in line for the job and there is no one. No coach that is proven is out there that would take this job. UT will always have on of the hardest schedules in the country because we play Bama every year, have a delusional fanbase and have a state with horrible demographics for football recruiting. we can win again but we have to accept the growing pains it takes to get there.