Thoughts after game 1?

#201
#201
VolArmy74 said:
We only gave up 3 plays over 20 yards all night.

We gave up one sack and one other tackle for loss all night. We had 236 yards rushing and 5 rushing tds. Hooker had all day to throw, and Milton had time as well.

So I'm not seeing the many "big chunks" of yards we gave up. Their offense was dink and dunk, get it out in a hurry with simple short throws.

And frankly, the offensive line was pretty dominant, especially considering we played the depth chart tonight on offense and still managed to not have and negative OL plays that stood out besides one personal foul and a snap that I couldn't tell if it was bad or the 5th string QB just did something wrong.
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Who is the 4th string qb?
 
#202
#202
Gandalf said:
Offensively we were vanilla and still got things done very nicely. Hard to complain about anything in the first half.

Defensively, the lack of defense on the slant and the lack of penetration - NO SACKS TONIGHT AT ALL! - seriously concern me going forward. These are things we MUST take care of if we want to go 10-2 or maybe even 9-3.
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The defense was very vanilla. Didn't want to show a lot against Ball State and did not. I don't remember a single blitz. I am still a little worried about #4. Gave up a a lot of yards, missed tackles and look a lot like he did last year. He may have lost his job last night. The Freshman right rusher looked like he has played the game before. Impressed. Milton looked better than expected. We have some good running backs. Just stand to lose more than one. Did not see a lot of pressure on the QB, so the Line must have played well. Short yardage seem better. Offense did well on 4th down plays. Defense did better on 3rd and 4th downs, especially after the middle of the first Qt. Over all, I was pleased with what I saw last night.
 
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#204
#204
OLEVOLFAN said:
Well is it kinda "Stupid" to criticize a team after a 59-10 Win knowing good and well that the game plan was very Vanilla! So yeah our fan base has a lot of Stupidity!
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It just shows a lack of intelligence. You can include yourself in that group.
 
#205
#205
Way too early, knee-jerk reaction to the game....

Feel like Milton has grown and looked great out there...8/9 passing with only one laser thrown that should have been a touch pass. Looked much better than last year and looking forward to seeing him in some 2nd halves this year in our other two OOC games. He really got the ball to the outside quickly giving the WRs some time to make a move or two.

Hooker looked a bit more rusty with overthrows to the outside and throwing high that did not give the WR time to make a move and a couple overthrows....but not really worried there....first game and all, he will be fine. Feel like our 2 deep QB position is in good position. RB, WR room looks talented. WR position is like what, 4 deep???? OL gave our QBs time in the pocket as well.

Defense--seems like every year we say "we ran a vanilla offense"...I am tired of that excuse--seems it never turns out that it was the basic defense we were running that was the issue.....That is my concerning side of the ball (as it was going into the season).....too many open receivers, no pressure on QBs, and did we have a TFL before the 4th quarter? This side of the ball still is concerning.

Overall, this is why you play a G5 school first game.....helps you shake off some rust. But if we do not get pressure on the Pitt QB, he looked great when he got time in the pocket....so pressure and sacks are needed to take him off his game.
 
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#206
#206
Jauan't Some? said:
Here’s a real concern: RB depth and Justin Williams-Thomas fumbling at the mesh point. As I understand it 99% of the time mesh point fumbles are the QBs fault but with as thin as we are we can’t afford a RB with ball security issues.
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Come on, now. Near the end of our first game, freshman Rb taking handoff from 4th team Qb. Mistakes will be made, and corrected, with reps over time.
 
#208
#208
This is chess not checkers the offense looked predictable because it was !! My goodness we ran inside zone all game and threw pretty simple routes and won by 50… yeah let’s open up the playbook and show Pitt everything Vs ball state to make vol nation happy lol… heup is not a fool we didn’t show Pitt 10% of the playbook yall need to relax and look at the big picture… 50 point win and healthy heading into week 2 mission accomplished
 
#211
#211
VolArmy74 said:
We only gave up 3 plays over 20 yards all night.

We gave up one sack and one other tackle for loss all night. We had 236 yards rushing and 5 rushing tds. Hooker had all day to throw, and Milton had time as well.

So I'm not seeing the many "big chunks" of yards we gave up. Their offense was dink and dunk, get it out in a hurry with simple short throws.

And frankly, the offensive line was pretty dominant, especially considering we played the depth chart tonight on offense and still managed to not have and negative OL plays that stood out besides one personal foul and a snap that I couldn't tell if it was bad or the 5th string QB just did something wrong.
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TOP was almost identical. No way a scrub team like BS should have driven up and down the field on our D all night with an untested rookie QB even with our vanilla D and tons of substitutions. We pretty much let them dink and dunk for big CUMULATIVE CHUNKS of yardage on drives. Their O dictated the pace not our D. With a better QB they score at least 2 more TDs.

Not a negavol but IMO we’ve got some D issues to correct. But if you want to sit down and construct a case on paper that our D did great then suit yourself but I hope our coaches don’t share your view.
 
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#212
#212
The freak out by some posters in here is comical but sadly expected. From a coach’s perspective this game was textbook of how to beat down an inferior opponent. Not a perfect performance but there were more positives to take away from this game instead of negatives. UT will have to take it up a few notches when we face PITT next week. GBO!
 
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#213
#213
BoroVol93 said:
This is chess not checkers the offense looked predictable because it was !! My goodness we ran inside zone all game and threw pretty simple routes and won by 50… yeah let’s open up the playbook and show Pitt everything Vs ball state to make vol nation happy lol… heup is not a fool we didn’t show Pitt 10% of the playbook yall need to relax and look at the big picture… 50 point win and healthy heading into week 2 mission accomplished
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I keep seeing this “didn’t show Pitt anything” take. Uhh, they have an entire game film from our head to head match up last year, and every other game under Heupel.

Did we install some magical new offense and defense since January?

We were vanilla because we could be. Work on fundamentals as we should have. Not sure what exactly we’re hiding from Pitt?
 
#214
#214
sona said:
Joe looked good minus a couple of heaters, Sampson is going to be fun, and I don't think anyone got hurt. It was the first game and played conservatively.
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Milton only missed one pass and that was the one in the end zone that went right through the TEs hands. It was a little hard, but should’ve been caught. I was very happy with his play and glad to see Holiday make s big play.
 
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#215
#215
Nationdom said:
Needed to shut Ball out and get at least 4 sacks
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First string did shut them out. Even against our 2nd and 3rd stringers, they could only score 10

As for the lack of sacks, the reason we didn't have more was because their QB decided to throw the ball up for grabs rather than take a sack. That meant we got some INTs and he got away with some grounding
 
#216
#216
Vols till I fall said:
Overall report:

I believe the offense held their own and did a great job. As long as you have hooker leading this offense, I'm not concerned with that unit. Scale 1-10, I would give the offense an 8.

Defensive was kind of embarrassing tonight. If Ball state actually had a good QB and a decent head coach, this game would have been closer. Like years past, Tennessee continues to struggle Defending outside slants as well stopping third down convertions. That Defensive line tonight, very piss poor. Defensively, this side of the ball gets a 3. 0 sacks and Paddock had all day to throw, we were very fortunate that he was an inexperienced QB

Tennessee has a good team but not a great team. When you see Georgia or Alabama play against cupcakes, you can see the sheer talent emerge from multiple players, in Tennessee's case, I haven't seen that in a UT player besides Hooker.

Tennessee will compete against most of the SEC this season, still a year or two away from getting on Alabama's level

Go Vols! Beat Pitt!
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I pretty much cosign what OP has provided. My one exception is I woulkd be a wee bit harsher on our pass rush. We are entering our 2nd year where our overall pass rush is not SEC caliber at all. It's not lack of effort, it's just we do not have the talent to get through a MAC OL. That's sad, and worse yet, bad for this team.
 
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#217
#217
Navy Schuler debut!! Wow. When have you seen a 5th (or was it 6th) string QB in. I thought that was cool. Heupel getting kids in the game that under Jones, Dooley and Pruitt would never have seen the field. Believe it or not, that builds a TEAM attitude. I thought that was great.
 
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#218
#218
orangebloodgmc said:
Come on, now. Near the end of our first game, freshman Rb taking handoff from 4th team Qb. Mistakes will be made, and corrected, with reps over time.
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And, the defensive player put his helmet squarely on the football. Most player would have fumble the ball on that hit. This kid will be a very good RB.
 
#219
#219
General question. Do you think Pitt has an advantage (more flaws exposed to work on practice this week) having played a better team. Or Tennessee because they got an easy W but maybe some of the issues aren’t spotted because ball st. Couldn’t force the hand? I can see both ways. Pitt looks to have struggled to run well early in their game, I’m sure their O-line will be challenged by the staff this week. On the other hand coaches can watch a 70 yard td bomb and still find someone on film to coach up because they missed their assignment and it just didn’t matter against ball st. Still think Tennessee wins next week, but my gut says Pitt gained a bit of an advantage playing a decent air raid team in week 1.
 
#224
#224
davethevol said:
The D was fine. We don’t need to show all our wrinkles in a game like last night’s. By most media accounts, defense was much improved in the off season.
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Our front seven should have been able to apply pressure and get at least 1 sack without "wrinkles".
 
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#225
#225
DustyRockSolid said:
I'm one of the most negative posters on this site. Here's my take.
I saw way more good than bad.
Carry on.
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I agree with that... in one way it was expected based on what we saw last year... but maybe not coming out of the gate in the first game of the season... a good start for sure
 
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