Team talent

#79
#79
HooahVol said:
Tonight's NFL draft probably gives us some insight. These are our guys in the draft with draft projections:

  • Edge James Pearce Jr.: Round 2 to the Seattle Seahawks (No. 52 overall)
  • RB Dylan Sampson: Round 3 to the Pittsburgh Steelers (No. 83 overall)
  • WR Dont'e Thornton Jr.: Round 6 to the Baltimore Ravens (No. 203 overall)
  • DT Elijah Simmons: Round 7 to the San Francisco 49ers (No. 252 overall)
  • DL Omarr Lott: 3rd or 4th round
  • Center Cooper: Mays: 6th or 7th round
  • WR Bru McCoy: 6th round to the Browns projected
  • DT Elijah Simmons: 7th round, possibly undrafted.

I personally disagree with Yahoo sports where I copied and pasted this and think Pearce will be a 1st rounder, but regardless decent talent. But, when you consider Georgia has 3 projected 1st rounders and 13 overall expected to be drafted and Ohio State has 4-6 projected 1st rounders with 15 overall expected to be drafted it really shows we are not elite, yet. It does take time though. We just need to keep winning.
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Sampson’s fumbling issues last year are haunting him in this draft.
 
#80
#80
Brave Volunteer said:
Yep. And us currently sitting at 17th is embarrassing. Our staff is not getting it done on the recruiting trail, plain and simple!
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I think it's just kind of where we are in the recruiting pecking order these days. It's been pretty consistent for the whole time there has been a team talent composite. What Heupel is though is that he is MUCH better at getting the talent out of players and even getting players to play above their talent level. That's what we need. Maybe sustained high level success being a playoff team most years will move us up in the recruiting pecking order eventually.
 
#81
#81
unfrozencvmanvol said:
I think it's just kind of where we are in the recruiting pecking order these days. It's been pretty consistent for the whole time there has been a team talent composite. What Heupel is though is that he is MUCH better at getting the talent out of players and even getting players to play above their talent level. That's what we need. Maybe sustained high level success being a playoff team most years will move us up in the recruiting pecking order eventually.
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I dont expect us to be top 3, but there is no reason for us not to be consistently top 10. 17th says to me that our staff is not relentless enough as recruiters. Either that or our NIL is nowhere near what it should be. Regardless, 17th is an "L" for our program!
 
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#82
#82
perico said:
Talent on paper wasn’t an issue with Butch Jones for much of his time here. His problem was winning 7-9 games with the talent to win 11 games. Jones also had a talent retention issue in the days before the transfer portal was existed. We should’ve been a playoff team with the talent Jones had in 2015 and 2016.

Yes this is a more talented team than some of the squads Pruitt put out there.
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Butch's 2014 recruiting class was the best in the country when you consider the depth of the class (recruiting services ranked only the top 25). He signed 32 players, 16-4*, 1-5*. The three lowest rated players were Elliott Berry, Emmanuel Moseley and Aaron Medley. If you could recruit 16-4* players every year, you would have a NC contender every year if your HC had half a brain.
 
#83
#83
Brave Volunteer said:
I dont expect us to be top 3, but there is no reason for us not to be consistently top 10. 17th says to me that our staff is not relentless enough as recruiters. Either that or our NIL is nowhere near what it should be. Regardless, 17th is an "L" for our program!
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It'll be interesting to see where we are this year.
 
#85
#85
Brave Volunteer said:
IMO, for a program like ours, with the resources we have, not cracking the top 10 consistently in recruiting is inexcusable. And if we can't get it all done with high school recruiting, we damn sure need to be acting with a greater sense of urgency in the portal. It'd be one thing if we were outside the top 10 but Huepel was killing it in the portal, like Ole Miss does, but we seem to struggle with both. I do give Huepel and his staff credit for a lot of things, but their recruiting ain't pulling the truck up the hill. Not if we seriously want to compete for championships. Otherwise we're just going to be the perennial 8-10 win team who watches Texas, Georgia, or Alabama win the SEC every year and either goes to a meaningless bowl game or gets bounced from the playoffs in the early rounds. We are the "Iowa" of the SEC now. High class mediocrity. I guess that's just who we are.
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Is this because Tennessee is still viewed as in the context of the past 15 years (unlike us fans who view them through our 90’s “decade of dominance’ orange tinted shades.

Or is this because of NIL driving pay to play and TN is having a hard time keeping up?
 
#86
#86
casual-observer said:
Is this because Tennessee is still viewed as in the context of the past 15 years (unlike us fans who view them through our 90’s “decade of dominance’ orange tinted shades.

Or is this because of NIL driving pay to play and TN is having a hard time keeping up?
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We just paid 4 million for one basketball player. I refuse to believe it's a money issue, unless Huepel and his staff aren't compelling boosters enough to invest more in NIL for football. If that's the case then once again, that's on him!
 
#87
#87
Brave Volunteer said:
We just paid 4 million for one basketball player. I refuse to believe it's a money issue, unless Huepel and his staff aren't compelling boosters enough to invest more in NIL for football. If that's the case then once again, that's on him!
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If I had that kind of money, I'd put it where my ROI was most likely to be seen. Heupel vs. Barnes? Yeah, I'm investing in basketball, too.
 
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#88
#88
CAVPUT said:
If I had that kind of money, I'd put it where my ROI was most likely to be seen. Heupel vs. Barnes? Yeah, I'm investigating in basketball, too.
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Aaaaand that's my point CAVPUT! Why are our boosters viewing Huepel's program as a poor investment? More importantly, what is Huepel and his staff doing to try and shift that narrative? CAN they shift that narrative? And if they can't, what are we going to do about that?
 
#89
#89
HooahVol said:
Also, and I hesitate to post this because I love Heup, but Pruitt in his 3.5 years had a total of 59 Tennessee football players were drafted into the NFL. This includes 16 first-round picks and 22 All-Americans. But before anyone runs with that number remember he was 16-19 as a coach so he obviously did not know what to do with talent.
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You really watched the Pruitt era and believed we had 22 All-Americans and 59 players drafted?
 
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#90
#90
Idk if the raw talent is any better. They are better coached in most every area outside of defensive back. I’d say we are deeper probably than any of those guys ever had us, but we haven’t had as many offensive playmakers the last two years as Butch had with Dobbs and Co or even that 2012 offense with Dooley, and we haven’t had a game wrecker on defense like Barnett was. Of course, I think the majority of the lack of offensive playmakers the last two years is due to subpar quarterbacks.
 
#91
#91
volnbama_ said:
You really watched the Pruitt era and believed we had 22 All-Americans and 59 players drafted?
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That number must have included guys he coached as a DC, and Hooah isn’t enough of a critical thinker to realize that Pruitt didn’t average 7 All Americans and 20 draft picks per season while he was here.
 
#92
#92
Today another not highly sought after Transfer WR committed to Indiana over us... We are batting ~ 0 of 20 in Transfer WR recruiting this offseason when we have a desparate need (losing 6-7 of our own). Something is amiss with the approach we are taking or a lack of funding.

We are running neck and neck with Clemson for the lead in the Football Program most out of touch with recruiting in the NIL era
 
#93
#93
OH-Vol said:
Today another not highly sought after Transfer WR committed to Indiana over us... We are batting ~ 0 of 20 in Transfer WR recruiting this offseason when we have a desparate need (losing 6-7 of our own). Something is amiss with the approach we are taking or a lack of funding.

We are running neck and neck with Clemson for the lead in the Football Program most out of touch with recruiting in the NIL era
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We have:
Matthews, Brazell, Staley, Smith, Jefferson, and Jackson in the two deep. We use three, maybe four WRs at a time.
 
#94
#94
CAVPUT said:
If I had that kind of money, I'd put it where my ROI was most likely to be seen. Heupel vs. Barnes? Yeah, I'm investigating in basketball, too.
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I agree its why teams like UCONN put big money in basketball women's and men's and their other programs suck. IMO basketball is where you make a big splash NIL wise and get that one player when you just have to have 7 or 8 players to win it all of the 15-man roster. The ratio is so different its apples to Oranges comparison. Look at Edey, Iowa is a barely top 25 team without him. If Ament is generational, you never know UT has the pieces to make it to the F4.
In football you can go big money after a generational like Nico and he turns out to be a game manager type QB and you got to get game changers at least 5 different positions on each side of the ball on 80-man roster. It cost a lot more and if you're looked at as a #15 to #25 or worse program for last 15 years in football you have no Dalton Kentch like in basketball that take less money to play for UT an established basketball program over Kentucky. Football with so many more intangibles, less games to prove yourself, over 5 times more players and you have to come up with 22 starters and actually 44 if you count special teams punting and kickoffs a terrible comparison.
 
#95
#95
Hank Bukowski said:
To me, Jones’s unforgivable sin was not using Jalen Hurd and Alvin Kamara together to wreak havoc on opposing defenses. I will never forgive him for that.
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I would love to see a Jalen Hurd in the new pistol formation Heupel is installing this year.
 
#96
#96
Heupel is rebuilding the roster. His first couple years were tough due to scholarship restrictions & NCAA penalty rumors. Every knowledgeable football person says the team looks more like a top level SEC team now than it has in years.
 
#98
#98
Brave Volunteer said:
We just paid 4 million for one basketball player. I refuse to believe it's a money issue, unless Huepel and his staff aren't compelling boosters enough to invest more in NIL for football. If that's the case then once again, that's on him!
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Pretty sure that was outside of the normal collective.
 
#99
#99
OH-Vol said:
Today another not highly sought after Transfer WR committed to Indiana over us... We are batting ~ 0 of 20 in Transfer WR recruiting this offseason when we have a desparate need (losing 6-7 of our own). Something is amiss with the approach we are taking or a lack of funding.

We are running neck and neck with Clemson for the lead in the Football Program most out of touch with recruiting in the NIL era
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Holy drama Batman! Perhaps you missed the thread about us being number 2 in NIL money.
 
#100
#100
OH-Vol said:
Today another not highly sought after Transfer WR committed to Indiana over us... We are batting ~ 0 of 20 in Transfer WR recruiting this offseason when we have a desparate need (losing 6-7 of our own). Something is amiss with the approach we are taking or a lack of funding.

We are running neck and neck with Clemson for the lead in the Football Program most out of touch with recruiting in the NIL era
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Key word there is “not highly sought after”. Dude can probably get on the field at IU, here he can’t.

There are only a few transfers that are actually about money. Most are for playing time.
 
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