Reminiscing On Bray's Throws vs JG's Throws

Hired Wilcox.

Yes but could not keep him or replace with equal or better hire when he left. Hiring Sal did not even seem wrong at the time - how do you go wrong hiring someone form Bama defensive staff - at least that was the thinking at the time. If Sal was not stubborn in terms of insisting on changing the system maybe things would have turned out differently. By the way, if Butch kept Chaney and Pittman instead of being stubborn about changing offensive staff/system (which was actually the one strength of the previous staff) maybe things would have turned out differently for him as well.
 
Hunter and Patterson were definitely fun to watch but let's also not forget D Rogers - this was against Cincy when Butch was coaching there.

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I will admit it Tennessee Volunteers would have been better off with Sam Pittman Chaney and Dooley and a better defensive cordinater than getting in that Butch mix. Dooley was dumb to try a 3-4 like he did but let him fire and go another route. Butch is not a position coach and never should have been a head coach like it or not Dooley was always a coach and Butch is a no good coach car salesman .
 
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Yes but could not keep him or replace with equal or better hire when he left. Hiring Sal did not even seem wrong at the time - how do you go wrong hiring someone form Bama defensive staff - at least that was the thinking at the time. If Sal was not stubborn in terms of insisting on changing the system maybe things would have turned out differently. By the way, if Butch kept Chaney and Pittman instead of being stubborn about changing offensive staff/system (which was actually the one strength of the previous staff) maybe things would have turned out differently for him as well.
That's one thing I have been impressed with is how Pruitt has made the transition from 4-3 to 3-4 a hole lot better than Sal.
 
Those were the days.......sigh





Yeah, those were not the days????...... it’s been 20 years since the Vols played Tennessee Football.......
I haven’t forgotten those days, but some fans were not around back then and that’s too bad, because Tennessee was feared on the Gridiron....... it’s true, believe it or Not ?
 
That's one thing I have been impressed with is how Pruitt has made the transition from 4-3 to 3-4 a hole lot better than Sal.

I agree. I actually think we have the right coaches in place now and if people are patient (hard sell to our fans after years of being miserable) this staff will turn it around. I can see Chaney put together similar offense to what we had during his Bray/Hunter/CP days. Bailey has the talent and physical attributes, and we also have some young and seemingly very talented receivers - but it will take some time to develop them. If anything I'm a little bit disappointed with the recruiting on the defensive side. I kind of expected a lot more 5 stars by now given Pruitt's credentials everywhere he coached defense.
 
Imagine if Dooley would have hired the other coach from the defensive staff at Alabama other than Sunseri! Imagine Pruitt being DC with that offense! Oh wait, that is what we have now! We have Chaney on Offense and Pruitt on defense! Fulmer is a genius! We will be great as soon as we get JG on the bench!
 
If Rogers had stayed off the weed we would’ve had a 3-headed monster at WR that had never been seen before in college up to that point. Legitimately could’ve averaged 50 points per game if he could’ve just waited until the offseason. So disappointing.
 
Going back to Sal, I actually think if we happened to have enough 5 star talent on the roster when he was hired he would have been very succesful with us (even changing the system right away to be very aggressive with lots of blitzing etc would have worked if he had faster and more physical players). Wilcox on the other hand probably had to learn to improvise becasue he came from Boise State where they certainly never had top talent so he was used to working with what he had (better fit for us at the time for sure). Pruitt seems to be able to do both - he can improvise as well, but his defense will really shine once he manages to recruit type of talent he had when he was at Bama (similar to Kirby who now has that at UGA).
 
There’s no comparison obviously. Bray had some of the best raw arm talent out of any QB in a long time. He just had no defense to help and some maturing to do.
 
It's not just his arm strength, it's his decision making. He makes the correct read really quick and gets the ball out of his hands. This is something JG can't seem to do. Bray was a gunslinger and he had some weapons.

Dooley was bad at recruiting and certainly messed up with his DC hire. I still think he is a better coach than Butch, but with his recruiting, things were only going to get worse
 
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He did play well against Carolina that year, but the turnover bug got him against good teams (Florida, Georgia, Alabama). Also served up a stinker against Miss St that year (13/24 for 148 yds, 1 INT). And he totally gave up, along with the rest of the team, in the Vandy game.

The thing about Bray was that when he looked good, he looked gooood. He seemingly put up better stats against garbage teams that consistently good QBs put up against garbage teams. The throws and the stat lines were really pretty, and that's mostly what people remember.
I don’t totally disagree with you. He played pretty damn well against Georgia that year turnovers or not. I think we put up nearly 50 points on them. He was crap against Bama, Florida and MSU and Vandy. My problem with the criticism Bray got is that he repeatedly bailed the defense out of bad situations. But to me it seemed that the defense never bailed him out when he made a mistake. It always seemed a one way street. I’d take Bray in a heartbeat on this team
 
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If you had to choose 1, would you rather have a great offense (with a bad defense) or a great defense (with a bad offense)? I ask because I remember back during the Dooley years and the 2016 season, we all complained about how terrible our defense was and now it’s a complete reversal.

I think I would rather have a great offense just because at least even if we lose, the games would be a lot more enjoyable to watch (I.e. the KY game this past Saturday).
 
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If you had to choose 1, would you rather have a great offense (with a bad defense) or a great defense (with a bad offense)? I ask because I remember back during the Dooley years and the 2016 season, we all complained about how terrible our defense was and now it’s a complete reversal.

I think I would rather have a great offense just because at least even if we lose, the games would be a lot more enjoyable to watch (I.e. the KY game this past Saturday).

I agree. During this whole long down period for UT football my favorite year to watch was Dooley's final year (at least until the wheels came off at the very end). That offense was so much fun that I kept hoping (against all odds) that the defense would step in at some point and salvage the season. This was what made the coaching change so difficult to swallow at that time - because the offense really was quite good and seemed a shame to throw that all away and start the rebuild from beginning (which is exactly what Butch did and to add insult to injuri he brought the best Cincy bearcat staff in America along to replace the great offensive staff we already had in place).
 
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The only TN QB I ever saw with Brays arm strength wad Shuler. The kid had a cannon and his release was as quick has Manning's. He was a special player but he never reached his potential. Ugh what might have been.
 
The only TN QB I ever saw with Brays arm strength wad Shuler. The kid had a cannon and his release was as quick has Manning's. He was a special player but he never reached his potential. Ugh what might have been.

No question Shuler had an amazing arm. Scary to imagine what Shuler and Bray could have done with their careers if they had Peyton's work ethics and dedication to study the game.
 
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