The Importance of Certainty for a Football Player

[MikeHamiltonFan]

I have written here about what I thought was the single greatest mistake that led to last year's team being so awful on offense, Clawson's refusal to change the way he coached the offensive line. As an offensive lineman you have a tough job. You are aware that you do not want to get a false start penalty, but you are also getting down and trying to stay low and keep pad leverage on a giant man whose goal is to go through and/or around you. You are trying to listen in a loud environment on the road to your QB, you are remembering if you are pulling or sweeping. You are watching and trying to ascertain what is coming in terms of linebacker blitzes etc. In our offense last year Clawson himself said that he never saw the offense get comfortable. A large part of that was that he used all manner of tricks up at Richmond that did not translate at UT. Now for many of us with 20/20 hindsight, the fact that what worked for the Spiders did not work for the Volunteers should have been obvious at the time. They had smaller linemen than we do, they had guys who had years to learn a system where they ran around like stunting D Linemen and where each lineman was comfortable with all the positions. If you are a prototypical NFL guard, you will be better at that position than at tackle. If you are coming out of a play wondering what it is you are supposed to be doing, that hesitation will get you beaten every time.

Lane Kiffin understands this. I like what they are doing with walkthroughs, see the Eric Berry article on SN
Eric Berry diary: 'We're very comfortable with this staff' - Eric Berry, For Sporting News - College Football - Sporting News (and notice how perfect for recruiting it is that Eric talks about how well the coaches prepare you for the NFL and how well they work with players from all over the country) but also see below from Rivals:

VQ: Your dad said after Saturday's pre-season game that you got after the defense pretty good, throwing a lot of things at them. You have said you are about midway with installing your offense. Are you further along with what you can do offensively than you thought or about where you expected to be?

LK: "I would like to be further along. But because of a number of variables, we have really slowed down where we are at. One, it's our first year so they (the players) don't have a background with us. Where obviously after you have guys for a couple of years they have a background with the offense and you can always just add. Two, the quarterback competition. You didn't know who your guy was for sure to build it around him and number three, these injuries and playing so many freshmen. On offense, we have those two backs and one of them is in there almost all the time. Then the three freshman receivers, one of them is in there all the time. So it has been difficult to keep growing and adding. I could have done it and been stubborn, but I think our players would have suffered from it. Just so I could have a thousand plays in and tell everyone that.

Our new head coach ladies and gentlemen understands that it is better to have 20 plays you can run without making mistakes 95% of the time than 40 that you can run with 80% of them being screwed up whether with missed blocks, wrong routes, confused handoffs etc.

Thank God! I see so much reason for optimism prior to the first game this season and think 8 wins is something I can be very confident in.

 

[VIF]

I have written here about what I thought was the single greatest mistake that led to last year's team being so awful on offense, Clawson's refusal to change the way he coached the offensive line. As an offensive lineman you have a tough job. You are aware that you do not want to get a false start penalty, but you are also getting down and trying to stay low and keep pad leverage on a giant man whose goal is to go through and/or around you. You are trying to listen in a loud environment on the road to your QB, you are remembering if you are pulling or sweeping. You are watching and trying to ascertain what is coming in terms of linebacker blitzes etc. In our offense last year Clawson himself said that he never saw the offense get comfortable. A large part of that was that he used all manner of tricks up at Richmond that did not translate at UT. Now for many of us with 20/20 hindsight, the fact that what worked for the Spiders did not work for the Volunteers should have been obvious at the time. They had smaller linemen than we do, they had guys who had years to learn a system where they ran around like stunting D Linemen and where each lineman was comfortable with all the positions. If you are a prototypical NFL guard, you will be better at that position than at tackle. If you are coming out of a play wondering what it is you are supposed to be doing, that hesitation will get you beaten every time.

Lane Kiffin understands this. I like what they are doing with walkthroughs, see the Eric Berry article on SN
Eric Berry diary: 'We're very comfortable with this staff' - Eric Berry, For Sporting News - College Football - Sporting News (and notice how perfect for recruiting it is that Eric talks about how well the coaches prepare you for the NFL and how well they work with players from all over the country) but also see below from Rivals:

VQ: Your dad said after Saturday's pre-season game that you got after the defense pretty good, throwing a lot of things at them. You have said you are about midway with installing your offense. Are you further along with what you can do offensively than you thought or about where you expected to be?

LK: "I would like to be further along. But because of a number of variables, we have really slowed down where we are at. One, it's our first year so they (the players) don't have a background with us. Where obviously after you have guys for a couple of years they have a background with the offense and you can always just add. Two, the quarterback competition. You didn't know who your guy was for sure to build it around him and number three, these injuries and playing so many freshmen. On offense, we have those two backs and one of them is in there almost all the time. Then the three freshman receivers, one of them is in there all the time. So it has been difficult to keep growing and adding. I could have done it and been stubborn, but I think our players would have suffered from it. Just so I could have a thousand plays in and tell everyone that.

Our new head coach ladies and gentlemen understands that it is better to have 20 plays you can run without making mistakes 95% of the time than 40 that you can run with 80% of them being screwed up whether with missed blocks, wrong routes, confused handoffs etc.

Thank God! I see so much reason for optimism prior to the first game this season and think 8 wins is something I can be very confident in.

Very informed position. Liked your opinion backed by reference. I think 8 wins depends solely on staying healthy. Depth is huge in late October. GO VOLS! and stay healthy Cody!:good!:

 

[lawgator1]

Agree with the comment above re: depth. That is the real monster lurking here.

Also agree that the offensive line needs to be re-tooled. UT offensive lines used to be famous for their push and a half-way decent back could always count on 3-4 yards just driving behind the Oline. But its been a few years since I've seen anything other than a UT Oline that seemed spread out, standing up, and in pure pass protection mode.

Blocking isn't just about keeping the other guy out of your backfield -- its about pushing him backwards into his own.

 

[MikeHamiltonFan]

Agree with the comment above re: depth. That is the real monster lurking here.

Also agree that the offensive line needs to be re-tooled. UT offensive lines used to be famous for their push and a half-way decent back could always count on 3-4 yards just driving behind the Oline. But its been a few years since I've seen anything other than a UT Oline that seemed spread out, standing up, and in pure pass protection mode.

Blocking isn't just about keeping the other guy out of your backfield -- its about pushing him backwards into his own.

I think that is where Kiffin started. In the same interview I quoted he said we are better at run blocking right now than pass protection. That could also have to do with the fact that he knows this offense will need to be successful relying heavily on the run due to our problems at WR.

Also of interest in that article is that he says that we are not as prepared to succeed defensively against "college offenses" meaning offenses like those run by WKU, UF and Miss. State now. That could be a problem if we never figure out how to combat it but for now I think most of us expect to beat WKU with more talent, to lose to UF with less talent and to need more than anything to be good at stopping NFL style offenses (Georgia, Alabama, Ole Miss) if we are going to be a good team this year.

 

[lawgator1]

I think that is where Kiffin started. In the same interview I quoted he said we are better at run blocking right now than pass protection. That could also have to do with the fact that he knows this offense will need to be successful relying heavily on the run due to our problems at WR.

Also of interest in that article is that he says that we are not as prepared to succeed defensively against "college offenses" meaning offenses like those run by WKU, UF and Miss. State now. That could be a problem if we never figure out how to combat it but for now I think most of us expect to beat WKU with more talent, to lose to UF with less talent and to need more than anything to be good at stopping NFL style offenses (Georgia, Alabama, Ole Miss) if we are going to be a good team this year.

And of course its not like the development ends suddenly the night before the first game. Establishing the run has to be UT's first priority, especially of all years this year. UT simply does not have the QB, the Oline, and now is missing the rceivers to come into the year expecting to fling it all over the place. Not to say there won't be some schemes developed over the course of the year to do that, but at the start of the season as you pointed out above the offense is going to be keep-it-simple-stupid level just because that gives you the best chance to score some points.

 

[gainesvol82]

We have seen lots of schools who have 1 or 2 guys with great offensive talent utilize them in ways that allow them to compete with schools who have overall better talent.

UT has a few guys on the roster this year who can play like that. I'm glad to finally have a coaching staff that should be able to put our playmakers in the best position possible to succeed and is fitting the system to their abilities.

David Oku is going to be UT's version of Brian Westbrook and will open up the field for the WRs to be able to make big plays.