Recruiting Forum Football Talk [RIP 9.3.2019]

[MoCo_Vol]

It was said that some of the players actually quit. I think Drew Richmond was one that quit....

I mean it's all perception honestly "quit" is a vague term. Drew could have been to every practice, class, meeting, etc. and if his effort slipped from fatigue (mental or otherwise) staff, fans, or media may all have said "he quit" but would Drew feel the same way?

 

[ChismsHeadband]

It was said that some of the players actually quit. I think Drew Richmond was one that quit....

All or none with a group of 85 18-22 year olds is pretty hard to come by, especially in a transition year.. A few guys can quit without the entire team quitting, and those guys have had the chance to GTFO this offseason.

 

[titansvolsfaninga]

I mean it's all perception honestly "quit" is a vague term. Drew could have been to every practice, class, meeting, etc. and if his effort slipped from fatigue (mental or otherwise) staff, fans, or media may all have said "he quit" but would Drew feel the same way?

If he is honest, yes. The guy was ridiculed and called a bust for 3 years. I personally think that he was just going through the motions.

 

[smokeyz1]

IMO the last two game results last year were a combination of things.

You had an Offensive Coordinator with one foot out the door for those two games. Play calling was a bad as I can remember since Lane Kiffin's UCLA game.

Missouri was one of the better SEC teams when we played them. Drew Lock was at his best and if you remember they had just beat the crap out of Florida as well. I think once we got behind, some of the players quit in that game.

Vandy passing game in the first half made some very contested completions to gradually build a lead. When you combine those plays with the really bad plays our Offensive Coordinator was calling, then you get the blowout in the 2nd half.

 

[VolGee4]

I mean it's all perception honestly "quit" is a vague term. Drew could have been to every practice, class, meeting, etc. and if his effort slipped from fatigue (mental or otherwise) staff, fans, or media may all have said "he quit" but would Drew feel the same way?

Yep, the word "quit" is thrown around too easily these days. Fans don't want to believe that the opponent is better or had a better game, so they just say their team quit. I have seen it used when we had good sports teams with players who aren't quitters. Just too easy to say.
With regard to football last year, I was most disappointed with the Vandy game because our personnel was just as good (or better) than theirs. It wouldn't have mattered if we could have closed out USC.

 

[MoCo_Vol]

If he is honest, yes. The guy was ridiculed and called a bust for 3 years. I personally think that he was just going through the motions.

I'm sure you know Drew better than he knows himself I guess.

You're welcome to whatever opinion you wish to have, I disagree with you on this though.

 

[VolGee4]

I'm sure you know Drew better than he knows himself I guess.

You're welcome to whatever opinion you wish to have, I disagree with you on this though.

I have said this before, but a guy I went to law school with is a local high school assistant coach. His team scrimmaged Richmond's MUS team his senior year. He said then that Richmond was a good talent but thought he was better suited to be a college guard. I tend to believe he was correct.

 

[drvenner]

Today would have been my grandmas birthday. Her battle with Alzheimer’s ended three years ago. Really tragic disease. Luckily “Gi” still remembered her family up to the end, but mannn it’s a weird thing how they revert. It will always be with me though, how just before she died I had a 5 minute conversation with her (our last) and she had more clarity and wisdom in that conversation than ever before. It was as if the hazy, confused, repetitive, “normal” for her at that point just completely disappeared and her spirit came through unfiltered. I’m thankful to believe that sickness is only temporary, in the grand scheme of things.

Sorry for the Facebook post have a good day y’all!

No need to apologize. We all have our situations and I, for one, don't mind hearing about what folks are going through. It might help one of us out and there is never anything wrong with sending good vibes or prayers to folks who have difficult situations to deal with. I am glad you got to have at least one more good conversation with "Gi."

 

[ChattaTNVol]

In taking a closer look at the work that ESPN does with their FPI and Bill Connelly does with his S&P+ I found a golden nugget that I hadn’t really studied closely before. The nugget was in Connelly’s work. The vast majority of these two analytical approaches to “forecasting” is based on returning production. There are some elements included which try to account for recent history. Connelly doesn’t use the most recent year; he uses year 2 through year 5 in history.

For recent history, I’ve found that getting a little weird predicts pretty well. This number isn’t a strict five-year average — last year’s ratings already carry heavy weight from the returning production piece. Instead, what you see below is a projection based solely off of seasons two to five years ago. Recent history doesn’t carry much weight in the projections, but it serves as a reflection of overall program health. We overreact to one year’s performance sometimes.

So our program health is being evaluated by Connelly based on the performances we had in 2014, 2015, 2016, & 2017. So while this is the second year with Pruitt at the helm, Connelly’s approach sees it still as Butch Jones’ program. ESPN FPI, on the on the other hand, gives points for a returning head coach. We didn’t have a returning head coach last year but we do this year.

The remaining component of these analysis approaches is recruiting impact. In Connelly’s work he’s found that weighting the historical recruiting classes are more predictive than just using a simple average. This is the golden nugget. The 2016 recruiting class in his analysis will only contribute 3% to our recruiting rating this year. The 2017 class, the five-star hearts class, will contribute 15% to our score for recruiting impact. The 2018 class, Pruitt’s year zero class, will also contribute 15% to our recruiting score. A whopping 67% or 2/3rds of the recruiting impact on our team this year will come from the 2019 class. In total 82% of the recruiting impact in Connelly’s analysis for predicting our season will come from recruits that Pruitt has brought on board. Whether that’s reality or not from a standpoint of who we put on the field, that’s the sort of math that these prediction models are using.

The reason I was looking at this more closely is Devo I think has raised some legitimate concerns regarding our defense for the coming season. ESPN thinks we’ll have a top 20 defense, projecting us at #19 but Connelly sees it different, positioning us on defense all the way down to #49. Connelly likes our offense at #13 and ESPN FPI has it at #18. So why the big difference in views regarding our defense?

Connelly states that he is using historical performance not including the most recent year to assess program health. From a program health standpoint he has us ranked as having a program state that ranks as the #33 best in the country based on our performances in the 2014, 2015, 2016, & 2017 seasons. Any credit we get from jumping from #82 to #49 in total defense from 2017 to 2018 is in his approach already accounted for in the returning production numbers. Our 2016 defense was ranked #95 for total defense in the country so I think those two years are likely skewing the analysis by not accounting for the change in coaching staffs and the improved performance on that side of the ball in 2018, something that ESPN’s FPI apparently rewards us for.

One last point. Devo, along with many others, have raised specific concerns about our defensive line this year. Others continue to harbor ongoing reservations about our offensive line heading into this season. Connelly suggests based on his analysis of the vast amount of data in his database there is little correlation between either line and the performance of the unit on that side of the ball. This certainly could be a flawed analysis and he admits that it is contrary to what one would expect. As a standalone data point I can easily see how positive and negative correlations would tend to cancel each other out if you were trying to isolate performance just based on the line of scrimmage.

Each unit on a football team is composed of 11 men. Skill position players have measurably the most impact on these mathematical models but I suspect that a team’s running game and passing game with good skill position players and a good offensive line is going to more often vastly outperform a team with good skill position players and a mediocre offensive line. The same applies to the defensive side. I think it was Muschamp when he was at Florida who said that the best pass defense was a good 4-man pass rush. I’ve heard over the years that a defense is really only going to be as good as its secondary and Connelly agrees that defensive backs have more impact on the performance of a defense than any other position group on that side of the ball. Putting this altogether I find myself in agreement with Devo in this respect, that while I think we have the potential for a really good secondary this year, it will be all that much better if we can field a decent defensive line. jmo.

Edit to add that I think most people would tend to agree that in our 3-4 scheme that having a good defensive line will also likely directly contribute to the improve performance of our primary skill players (playmakers) against our opponent's running game, our linebackers.

 

[MoCo_Vol]

To be honest if our offense is top 20 and our defense is top 50 we'll win 8+ games.

 

[HankHill]

To be honest if our offense is top 20 and our defense is top 50 we'll win 8+ games.

If we have a top 20 offense I’ll write a hand written apology letter to Chaney.

 

[Sleegro]

Janitor hand writing

FYP

 

[ChismsHeadband]

To be honest if our offense is top 20 and our defense is top 50 we'll win 8+ games.

If we field a top-20 O and a top-50 D, we better win 10.

 

[MoCo_Vol]

If we have a top 20 offense I’ll write a hand written apology letter to Chaney.

Why? Not like he could read it anyway.

 

[JacketVol]

Guys,
Love your families today. Love the gift of life. This morning we lost another friend under the age of 50 to cancer. That’s two sub 50 friends in the last five months. Another young relative of mine in early 30’s found out Monday she has stage 4 lung cancer. I am a pretty mentally tough guy but tears are flowing today. All women and lung and colon and neither were smokers. You never know.

 

[ChismsHeadband]

Was it @Devo182 that mentioned earlier (yesterday) about the small DL rotation we had going last year? Or @901LookAlive ?

I'm looking more into it, and I think I can revise my own thoughts and expectations. I overestimated Bain and Kongbo, and to some degree Shy.

Basically Kongbo didn't do much before getting injured, Bain was a space-eater at best, and Shy was consistently average-to-good with a few flashes of brilliance.

It'll be intriguing to watch how deep the DL rotation goes this year.

 

[Kingston Vol]

Was it @Devo182 that mentioned earlier (yesterday) about the small DL rotation we had going last year? Or @901LookAlive ?

I'm looking more into it, and I think I can revise my own thoughts and expectations. I overestimated Bain and Kongbo, and to some degree Shy.

Basically Kongbo didn't do much before getting injured, Bain was a space-eater at best, and Shy was consistently average-to-good with a few flashes of brilliance.

It'll be intriguing to watch how deep the DL rotation goes this year.

I think Mincey was going to start getting more heavily in the rotation until he got hurt in warmups going against Trey Smith.

 

[UTProf]

Jeremy Pruitt’s father takes coaching job in Georgia

Getting him into the GA High School coaching scene certainly can't hurt recruiting.

 

[Big Gucci Sosa]

Guys,
Love your families today. Love the gift of life. This morning we lost another friend under the age of 50 to cancer. That’s two sub 50 friends in the last five months. Another young relative of mine in early 30’s found out Monday she has stage 4 lung cancer. I am a pretty mentally tough guy but tears are flowing today. All women and lung and colon and neither were smokers. You never know.

If they’re in the same family they should look into getting genetic testing.

 

[ChismsHeadband]

I think Mincey was going to start getting more heavily in the rotation until he got hurt in warmups going against Trey Smith.

When, last year? Or this spring?

I thought Mincey and Butler were both in line for more time.

 

[WriterVol]

Wasnt a fun first half though. I figured a coaching search was near while standing in line at concessions during half time.

Yes, it was a defeating feeling. My first Florida game, but now I can say I'm undefeated against them.

 

[WriterVol]

i was in the lower bowl in '98. couldn't even hear the person next to me.

Yes, I think that was the loudest thing I've ever witnessed, including many a concert both played in and watching. Didn't care, was glorious.

 

[Kingston Vol]

When, last year? Or this spring?

I thought Mincey and Butler were both in line for more time.

Last year - I believe it was Mincey. Anyway, a DL went half speed against Trey in the warmups before Florida and got rolled up and injured. Hurt our rotation.

 

[ChismsHeadband]

Last year - I believe it was Mincey. Anyway, a DL went half speed against Trey in the warmups before Florida and got rolled up and injured. Hurt our rotation.

Welp, probably taught him a lesson.. Doubt Mincey's presence would've changed the outcome anyway.

 

[Kingston Vol]

Welp, probably taught him a lesson.. Doubt Mincey's presence would've changed the outcome anyway.

I think he was out like 6 weeks because of it.

Not saying he makes a ton of difference but the coaches liked him and they didn’t like very many of those guys they had to play last year.