SEC Country ranks Vols OL worst in SEC

#76
#76
Btw, here's my incorrect but best attempt at a depth chart from another thread...

Our depth might look like this w/ crossover.

LT - Richmond / Tatum / Smith /
LG - Robertson / Boulware / Johnson / Smith
C - Thomas / Boulware /
RG - Jones / Kendrick / Mosley
RT - Hall / Tatum / Kendrick / Niehaus

Appears we finally have talent + depth for the first time in a while.
 
#77
#77
Dobbs 4 Heisman said:
This is what has held us back the last 2 years. The o-line was an achilles heel that exposed us. We need to improve big time along the lines of scrimmage if we want to be a championship contender.
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I think if we can stay healthy along the defensive front we'll be just fine there...and the OL has had its share of injuries as well....
 
#78
#78
Not sure why everyone keeps talking about the S&C coach being the answer.... if you read the article, he says there is physical talent, but nothing between the ears... coaching... clearly anyone will be an upgrade...
 
#79
#79
Mahoney's neutral zone blocking scheme has always been problematic. It's designed to disguise but it ends up making your running back meet the first level defenders at the line or in the backfield.
 
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#81
#81
Wells it is! This most certainly be a boost for our OL and for recruiting. Beginning to look like an SEC coaching staff finally.
 
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#82
#82
lonelawyer said:
Mahoney's neutral zone blocking scheme has always been problematic. It's designed to disguise but it ends up making your running back meet the first level defenders at the line or in the backfield.
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Mahoney only carried out coaching/teaching the blocking scheme based on what his head Coach's offense demanded imo.
 
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#83
#83
I most certainly do not think out OL is the worst in the SEC. Having said that, I do think we're in the bottom 1/2 somewhere around 9th-10th. Maybe that will change come 2017 with some more experience & what we have coming in.
 
#84
#84
Yes we had the worst O-line and one of the top 2-3 offenses in the SEC what does that say? If we had the worst Oline and a bad offense then it would be something to bellyache about. The fact that in spite of that we had not only one of the best offenses in the country this year but one of the best in school history leaves one optimistic. Butches offense does work in the SEC.. hell it just plain works. He spent 2.5 years putting a square peg in a round hole (Hurd) and it still worked.

Will the offense be better this year. Almost certainly not but I don't think it drops off as much as people think. The Oline will improve and the defense will improve both merely because of less injuries. there is almost no way this team can be as snakebitten on injuries 2 years in a row as we were last year. We have schemes on both sides of the ball that will work and the personnel to work in them for the most part.

I think next years team is going to overproduce most people are expecting us to barely make a bowl. I think anywhere between 7 and 9 wins is realistic. 6 wins and 10+ are the signposts of great success and great failure imo. given the reality of the roster and schedule. The GT game sets the tone for the whole year. Its not a must win but its damn close.
 
#85
#85
pimo1 said:
Yes we had the worst O-line and one of the top 2-3 offenses in the SEC what does that say? If we had the worst Oline and a bad offense then it would be something to bellyache about. The fact that in spite of that we had not only one of the best offenses in the country this year but one of the best in school history leaves one optimistic. Butches offense does work in the SEC.. hell it just plain works. He spent 2.5 years putting a square peg in a round hole (Hurd) and it still worked.

Will the offense be better this year. Almost certainly not but I don't think it drops off as much as people think. The Oline will improve and the defense will improve both merely because of less injuries. there is almost no way this team can be as snakebitten on injuries 2 years in a row as we were last year. We have schemes on both sides of the ball that will work and the personnel to work in them for the most part.

I think next years team is going to overproduce most people are expecting us to barely make a bowl. I think anywhere between 7 and 9 wins is realistic. 6 wins and 10+ are the signposts of great success and great failure imo. given the reality of the roster and schedule. The GT game sets the tone for the whole year. Its not a must win but its damn close.
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So if we find a way to clone Josh Dobbs, we won't have to worry about poor Oline play, a poorly coached receiving corps, or poorly-timed play calls?
 
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#86
#86
pimo1 said:
Yes we had the worst O-line and one of the top 2-3 offenses in the SEC what does that say? If we had the worst Oline and a bad offense then it would be something to bellyache about. The fact that in spite of that we had not only one of the best offenses in the country this year but one of the best in school history leaves one optimistic. Butches offense does work in the SEC.. hell it just plain works. He spent 2.5 years putting a square peg in a round hole (Hurd) and it still worked.

Will the offense be better this year. Almost certainly not but I don't think it drops off as much as people think. The Oline will improve and the defense will improve both merely because of less injuries. there is almost no way this team can be as snakebitten on injuries 2 years in a row as we were last year. We have schemes on both sides of the ball that will work and the personnel to work in them for the most part.

I think next years team is going to overproduce most people are expecting us to barely make a bowl. I think anywhere between 7 and 9 wins is realistic. 6 wins and 10+ are the signposts of great success and great failure imo. given the reality of the roster and schedule. The GT game sets the tone for the whole year. Its not a must win but its damn close.
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I think your first line is just a testament to how well our guys at the skill positions played this year; doing what they did despite playing behind the worst OL in the SEC. And yes, if you watch some replays from the season (it was even worse than I remmbered in some cases), few OL got knocked flat on their backs as often as ours did. No scheme calls for that $&@!, and no scheme can consisistenly be effective with that $&@!.

That said, I think next year will tell the story. If the coaching at that position was truly that awful, then we should see a pretty quick turn around at OL play. If that $&@! Performance had more to do with the scheme Jones insists on running, then we may be looking for a new HC for 2018.
 
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#87
#87
I mean just look at the clip vs. App St. that accompanies the article. 3 Vol blockers end up hitting the deck on that play. Totally uncalled for. And I don't want to hear any of that bull$&@! about how their smaller quicker DL are so much harder to deal with than what we're used to dealing with, that's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.
 
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#88
#88
We have a lot of talent on the oline. Hopefully the coaching change corrects the issues.
 
#89
#89
livefaith said:
Btw, here's my incorrect but best attempt at a depth chart from another thread...

Our depth might look like this w/ crossover.

LT - Richmond / Tatum / Smith /
LG - Robertson / Boulware / Johnson / Smith
C - Thomas / Boulware /
RG - Jones / Kendrick / Mosley
RT - Hall / Tatum / Kendrick / Niehaus

Appears we finally have talent + depth for the first time in a while.
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It's a talented group for sure. Especially the interior guys. Hopefully the staff gets the most out of them.
 
#90
#90
Vol8188 said:
It's a talented group for sure. Especially the interior guys. Hopefully the staff gets the most out of them.
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Honestly, I'm not so sure the talent is there. I've yet to see much evidence of it. They appear soft, passive and very out of shape. Perhaps it's a conditioning issue. Perhaps they don't have that nasty streak in 'em. Maybe it's the back on your heels scheme we run. Regardless, I've watched a lot of these guys for a while now. I'm finding it hard to buy into this being their breakout/coming of age season. If anything, I wonder if not having Dobbs to bail them out over and over again when protection breaks down will make for an even more dismal year for the OL. And I'm not buying Wells being the savior either. Nope. I'm bearish on UT....in every sport.
 
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#91
#91
CAVPUT said:
Honestly, I'm not so sure the talent is there. I've yet to see much evidence of it. They appear soft, passive and very out of shape. Perhaps it's a conditioning issue. Perhaps they don't have that nasty streak in 'em. Maybe it's the back on your heels scheme we run. Regardless, I've watched a lot of these guys for a while now. I'm finding it hard to buy into this being their breakout/coming of age season. If anything, I wonder if not having Dobbs to bail them out over and over again when protection breaks down will make for an even more dismal year for the OL. And I'm not buying Wells being the savior either. Nope. I'm bearish on UT....in every sport.
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Well articulated Cav....I'm with you, I'm just not impressed with any aspect of our OL personnel. Another year with the same guys running the same passive scheme, without Dobbs to save the day with his legs, doesn't inspire confidence imo.
 
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#92
#92
CAVPUT said:
Honestly, I'm not so sure the talent is there. I've yet to see much evidence of it. They appear soft, passive and very out of shape. Perhaps it's a conditioning issue. Perhaps they don't have that nasty streak in 'em. Maybe it's the back on your heels scheme we run. Regardless, I've watched a lot of these guys for a while now. I'm finding it hard to buy into this being their breakout/coming of age season. If anything, I wonder if not having Dobbs to bail them out over and over again when protection breaks down will make for an even more dismal year for the OL. And I'm not buying Wells being the savior either. Nope. I'm bearish on UT....in every sport.
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I dont think we have less talented Olinemen than Vandy, UK, Miss State, or even a handful of others in the SEC, yet all those teams' OL played better than ours this season. Sounds like our S & C situation was garbage, so I'll give you that. We can't count on having a QB like Dobbs and the kind of talent we had at the skill positions every year to mask terrible OL play. We'll know next year if it's the OL coaching or the blocking scheme that's garbage IMO.
 
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#93
#93
MrVolton said:
I dont think we have less talented Olinemen than Vandy, UK, Miss State, or even a handful of others in the SEC, yet all those teams OL played better than ours this season. Sounds like our S & C situation was garbage, so I'll give you that. We can't count on having Dobbs and the kind of talent we had at the skill positions that we had this year to mask the terrible OL play. We'll know next year if it's the OL coaching or the blocking scheme that's garbage IMO.
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That's my take on it as well. You don't have to have the five best offensive linemen in the country, to end up with with the best offensive line in the country. It's just one of those positions where talent has to be coached to work together, and execute the the blocking schemes correctly. Mahoney either wasn't able to coach Jones' scheme, or Jones' scheme is crap.

I'm not sure how much we'll be able to determine with Wells only having a few months with them, but by the end of the season we should have an idea which was the case.
 
#94
#94
Now that Mahony is history, what would be the excuse if our OL sucks again? I mean its actually hard for me to believe that UK, Mizzou and Vandy can have a better OL than us. Thats just a failure on a universal scale.
 
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#95
#95
BigOrangeTrain said:
Now that Mahony is history, what would be the excuse if our OL sucks again? I mean its actually hard for me to believe that UK, Mizzou and Vandy can have a better OL than us. Thats just a failure on a universal scale.
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If the OL still struggles this bad next year, gotta think it's scheme. All other possibilities seem to have been addressed.
 
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#96
#96
Does anyone think that the fact that we were never able to start the same 5 OL for 2 games in a row affected our play? Statistically how could we have been the worst? We were better than Georgia and Florida for sure. We were as good as Texas A&M.
 
#97
#97
livefaith said:
Btw, here's my incorrect but best attempt at a depth chart from another thread...

Our depth might look like this w/ crossover.

LT - Richmond / Tatum / Smith /
LG - Robertson / Boulware / Johnson / Smith
C - Thomas / Boulware /
RG - Jones / Kendrick / Mosley
RT - Hall / Tatum / Kendrick / Niehaus

Appears we finally have talent + depth for the first time in a while.
Click to expand...

Based on CBS sports we have 3 OL that may be drafted next year. Here is where they have them as of now:
Kendrick #12 tackle 3-4 round
Robertson #20 guard 7-FA
Thomas #11 center 7-FA

Kendrick will either start at right or left tackle. Only lineman to started all 13 games last year and that was with 2 torn ligaments in his left ankle which happened in the spring game.
 
#98
#98
Our T play has been horrible for several years... The article must of been written after the happy state game. They were absolutely pathetic versus high school kids
 
#100
#100
I don't know if I would say worst line in the SEC. There is a lot of room for improvement tho. If they can become more aggressive and consistent then I think they will be one of the better lines in the SEC.
 
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