Here's the thing. Everyone knows we are 2-3. Everyone knows that it's likely we don't win more than 4 games. Didn't say it's impossible, just not likely.
But you have to look at more than what the numbers are saying.
If someone was to ask me before the season, "You're going to lose Jashon Robertson, Brett Kendrick and Coleman Thomas from the OL, the three of which had played a total of 127 games in their career at UT, and you're going to lose Ethan Wolf, who accounted for 27% of all receiving touchdowns last year, and 11.8% of our total receiving yards, and you're going to lose John Kelly, who accounted for 14.3% of all receiving yards, 64.2% of all rushing touchdowns, 54.9% of all our of rushing yards last year, 45.8% of all rushing attempts last year (23% of them were by QB's, likely including sacks as well), and was 30.7% of TOTAL offense for us. Also, the offensive players that scored 52% of the touchdowns from last year are not on this year's team because they've graduated or left early to be drafted, and 2 more touchdowns were scored by Carlin Fils-Aime, who is now on defense, and you're implementing an entirely new scheme, going from a Spread/Read-Option to more of a Pro-Style, how do you think your offense will be?"
I honestly would have been pretty pessimistic. We have Chandler, who ran pretty good last year (71 carries, 305 yards, and 2 TDs), but then you have Tim Jordan, who only had 52 yards rushing last year, and Jeremy Banks, who nobody knew anything about. And our OL consists of Trey Smith, who is great, but Drew Richmond, who many feel has underachieved, and hoping that maybe Jerome Carvin, Jahmir Johnson, and a Bama backup transfer Kennedy panned out.
But yet, we've ran the ball 49 more times this year, and done it for over 200 yards more than we did last year. We already have 10 rushing touchdowns through 5 games. We only scored 14 rushing touchdowns THE ENTIRE SEASON last year. How is that not improvement?
And if someone were to say to me, "You're going to lose Cam Sutton, Emmanuel Moseley, Cortez McDowell, Rashaan Gaulden, Colton Jumper, Kendal Vickers, Justin Martin, Shaq Wiggins, Kahlil McKenzie, Elliott Berry, Quay Picou. And you're going to lose players who made 38.7% of all solo tackles last year, 43% of all of your sacks last year, and 60% of all your interceptions last year. On top of that, you're losing most all of your secondary, and the front that gave up 3015 rushing yards and 29 rushing yards to other teams is coming back. You're switching to a 3-4/multiple defense, and you haven't recruited players that fit that until now. And in your first 5 games, you'll play two of the most profilic offenses in the country. How do you think your defense is going to do?"
Once again, pessimistic. Losing all of that experience in the secondary is gonna hurt, and we couldn't anyone trying to run on us last year, it's going to be even worse this year, right?
Except for our defense has allowed significantly fewer yards on the ground this year, and yes, we got torched by WVU, but they have 17 passing touchdowns in 4 games! Meaning, that aside from the 5 they scored against us, they've scored 3 passing touchdowns and averaged over 350 passing yards each game. And we played a secondary that was mostly young guys, except for Warrior and Abernathy, and for some like Taylor and Flowers, it was their very first game out there. Our defense has allowed 237 fewer total yards than it did at this point last year. We already have 9 sacks on the year, and are on pace to tie or exceed the 22 sacks we got last year.
We finished the year 119th/130 in offense last year, and we are currently 92/130. We have played against defenses that are ranked 21st, 100th, 9th, and 6th in points allowed.
We finished the year 83rd/130 in defense last year, and we are currently 69/130. We have played against offenses that are ranked 21st, 130th (dead last), 42nd, and 20th in points scored.
So...hard to say we haven't improved. Played some really good defenses, and yet our offense has managed to score more points than last year, despite losing a large portion of our production. Played some decent/good offenses (WVU and UGA mainly), and yet, our defense has allowed fewer yards and the same amount of points, despite losing a large portion of our production.
I like numbers. And procrastinating on actual important things.
