Recruiting Forum Football Talk IV

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Yes. We’re a few weeks from launching a new website and will be launching an ad campaign to drive awareness leading into football season.
Be sure you highlight the 90% for the SA and 10% for overhead/events. That seems to be a consistent question - How much to the SA for NIL vs to Spyre.
 
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They didn’t want arch or the kid going to USC. Check your pulse if a 5* qb that everyone wanted didn’t get you excited. Unbelievable how content some people on here are with being miserable.
We people just complain but do nothing to help when given the opportunity, you have to wonder.
I seriously believe some of our “fans” would rather be miserable. Some are afraid that the better we get, the less they can complain

Or, as I’ve said before, some are more like customers than fans. If they don’t get enough in return for their money, or even their time, they think they’ve been cheated. As a customer why should you do anything of substance to try to make things better?
 
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It’s a line of scrimmage league –

Part 1 – Offensive Line

In 2018 if we remember we went through spring practice without an offensive line (no bodies). For the 2018 season Football Outsiders ranked our offensive line 127th best in the nation. In 2019 we improved our ranking to 69th best. In 2020 we moved up to 28th, and last year (2021) we moved up to 9th best. We lost one starter from last year’s OL and return 4.

Our rushing yards per attempt in 2018 ranked #108 in the nation. In 2019 we improved to 85th and slid back to 94th in 2020 against an all-sec schedule. We had a change of scheme and running backs going into 2021 and ended up 34th best in the nation in yards per rushing attempt.

Our best rushing performance on the year, relatively speaking, was against Kentucky. We ranked 10th best in the nation against a top 20 rushing defense. We played 3 other top 20 rushing defenses, Georgia (#2), Alabama (#4), and Pittsburgh (#6). All of our RBs were banged up against Pitt and we fared little better than anyone else against the Georgia and Alabama fronts. It looks like as long as we weren’t facing a top 10 rushing defense last year we could run with success against everyone else.

The one area of our offensive line that Football Outsider has ranked low is sacks allowed. I think this may be misleading to some extent. In total offense we were ranked 9th best with a #122 ranking for sacks allowed per game. Alabama was ranked #7 for total offense and #103 in sacks allowed per game. UNC was 10th best in total offense and #127 in sacks allowed per game. Pittsburgh was #8 in total offense and #87 in sacks allowed per game. Ole Miss was #6 in total offense and #93 in sacks allowed per game. My theory is that the style of play for these highly proficient offenses offers more opportunity to the opposing defenses on the QB than a more mundane offensive approach. I’m not saying sacks are a good thing, just that if I get to choose, I’m choosing to have a top 10 offense. jmo.

Since the offensive line is considered a developmental position group and given our returning starters and reserves along with our trajectory over the past few years I think it’s likely we continue to have a highly ranked offensive line in 2022, perhaps limited only by the most elite talented defensive fronts in the nation. jmo.
 
Something that is often missed, BVS is reinforced and triggered by the national media. Case in point, Barrett Sallee has us winning 8 games this year, but he has us losing to South Carolina. WTF? Did these people not see how Rattler played, or didn't play, at Oklahoma? It's like slapping Tennessee in the face is a game for these media people. And we take it, and then play down to their expectations. We need to break this vicious cycle. Tennessee needs its toughness back. We need to be a team that other teams are afraid to play. Rival teams need to know that playing Tennessee is gonna hurt, and not just be some gimme game.
 
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Ticket question. Anyone ever sat at C,D, or E? It’s on visitor side row 8. How was it? I’ve never sat on that side.
Also, section X is what I’m looking at if those aren’t that great of seats. Any experiences with any of these?
 
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I, like everyone else on this board, am super excited to have Nico.

The big issue to me, though, is that as important as we may think this board is, we are a very small segment of Vol fans. Out of the dozens of hardcore, lifelong fans that I know, I am the only one of them on Volnation. This board represents a VERY small fraction of the total number of Vol fans out there. We all know about Spyre and how impactful they could be but I think a lot of fans have no idea that they even exist.

I have talked to several friends, some of them being season ticket holders, and they had no clue what Spyre was or that they even existed. That is a major issue IMO!

Maybe I'm wrong but I took that as what the poster earlier meant about "not having a brand".

@WillAtSpyre
100% same for me...I am literally the only one that knows about it. When I have told others about it, they thought I was joking until I showed them the website and asked them where they thought Nico got his money from.

@WillAtSpyre you guys are going to have to advertise and get the word out if it's going to blow up.
 
It’s a line of scrimmage league –

Part 2 – Defensive Line

In 2018 Football Outsiders ranked our defensive line #104 in the nation and our rushing defense ranked #55 in yards allowed per rushing attempt. In 2019, our DLine ranking moved up to #95 and our run defense moved up to #30 in yards allowed per rushing attempt. In 2020 our DL moved up to #45 and held at #30 for yards allowed per rushing attempt. Last year with a scheme change our DL fell to #88 but we only slid to #36 in yards allowed per rushing attempt. In fact the yards we gave up per rushing attempt in 2019 (3.70), 2020 (3.68), and 2021 (3.71) are the only 3 years since 2008 that we’ve limited opponents to less than 4.00 yards per rushing attempt.

The only losses on our DL from last year are Butler and Tremblay.

These are the pff season grades for our DL last year (including # of plays graded):

Butler (664 plays) 75.8
Young (399 plays) 75.6
Simmons (157 plays) 75.3
Terry (251 plays) 74.0
Baron (395 plays) 69.7
Bumphus (142 plays) 68.1
Thomas (301 plays) 66.5
Harrison (335 plays) 63.0
Tremblay (399 plays) 61.2

We obviously return a lot of guys on the DL from last year and I expect with CRG they will continue to improve. Young was mostly a rookie last year but he’s garnered some preseason all-sec accolades already coming into his 2nd year with us. Additionally, we have some new young talented reinforcements now on campus to further strengthen this group. I think most people think the DL will be our strongest position group on that side of the ball this year, and with good reason. jmo.

Latrell Bumphus is the player I think may surprise this year. Out of high school he was projected to be a WDE by the services and rated a 4-star by ESPN & Rivals. CRG only had positive things to say about him during the spring. Butch put him at TE (where he excelled in HS) when he first got to campus in 2017 and Pruitt left him there in 2018 but moved him to the DL in 2019 and 2020. He had a knee injury in late 2020 but has been steadily coming back. He started against Alabama last year. In any event I think his athleticism and maturity could be a huge advantage as he continues to progress as a DT on our line. I think Bumphus is about 0.4 seconds faster than the average DT and that’s one of the assets he brings to the interior of our DL. jmo.

This is my thinking on our defensive front for this year. First, as has been said, football is a developmental game and for most I think the idea is that kids need to play in order to developed. Last year, similar to Bumphus, we had other guys that were learning on the job, including Byron Young. That’s going to pay off this year but the position group where we may (hopefully) get the most payoff is at linebacker.

There are things that you can only learn by playing the position, instincts and anticipation, quickly reading your keys, recognizing personnel and formations, etc. For most of the season last year we only had 3 linebackers. Mitchell got hurt and that left Banks, Beasley, and Page. This year we’ve got a few more bodies but maybe more importantly Banks (a converted RB) and Beasley (a converted Safety) have a lot of snaps under their belts from last year. Banks had 659 snaps graded last year and Beasley had 685 snaps graded by PFF.

Their grades weren’t anything to write home about but probably somewhere between 80-90% of the snaps each has played in their entire football careers at linebacker happened last year and against some of the very best offenses in the nation. The offenses for the 6 games we lost were OM (6), UA (7), Pitt (8), UF (15), UGA (25), and Purdue (33). We beat every team we played with an offense ranked below Purdue.

Banks & Beasley were our two leading tacklers and while it’s important to qualify that by noting that NFL scouts don’t care how many tackles a kid makes but where on the field he makes them, it’s my contention that experience most often leads to improvement, both physically and mentally. I think last year we were just playing aggressively because maybe that’s the best we could do. This year we have the opportunity owing to our experience to play smarter, especially at the point of attack. If we can do this we can maybe reduce our yards allowed per rushing attempt by somewhere in the neighborhood of 0.6 yards per attempt. That would give our rushing defense a shot at being in the top 10 in the nation. jmo.
 
Which was what (the charm)? A massive moneymaker already, while also being "charming" because fans could be assured the players were broke in the meanwhile?

Like the SCOTUS opinions mentioned, those are really perverted reasons why someone would enjoy a sport.

What, precisely, is it that will make CFB lame in 10 years as compared to now? I'm truly interested. Unless there are major rule changes, I don't see how the mechanics of football and the enjoyment of said sport will change all that much. Or are we suggesting people hated cfb in the 90s more than in the 70s because it had become commercialized, players were paid every which way, million dollar coaches, and it had become professionalized? The growth of the sport would greatly disagree either way.

For me, they just need to expand the playoff asap. Even if the same teams are still winning it all at least more teams will have the possibility of making the playoffs. The playoffs could be more exciting with a different mix of schools.
 
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