Thoughts on today

[Woodlawn VOL]

From my memory the defense stopped the run for the most part, They got some sacks caused a couple turnovers that led to at least 2 TD's ....BUT we'd get them 3rd and long and the secondary would give up a 20 pass for a 1st down. The offense played great, Rb'S bowling over folks. Looks like 2022 where our offense is going to have to win the games for us by running up the score

I wouldn’t put the defense out to pasture yet. It’s the first game and both units shined at times. The defense got dinged up there and we seemed to let up slightly once we got the lead. I think both units will shine as the season moves forward. Overall I agree with your take. It was a solid win. GBO

 

[MDsweetT]

I wouldn’t put the defense out to pasture yet. It’s the first game and both units shined at times. The defense got dinged up there and we seemed to let up slightly once we got the lead. I think both units will shine as the season moves forward. Overall I agree with your take. It was a solid win. GBO

I also feel like even though the defense wasn’t great, creating turnovers is a great equalizer. After our fumble to get a fumble 6 was huge. And the pick by Telander off the McMurray pressure.

If our defense gives up more points but forces more turnovers, that’s a fair trade off. So much to improve but it’s August still. Gotta get better every day

 

[J C Higgins]

Syracuse was stronger than I thought they would be. QB is very good and they're solid defensively and offensively. They don't have an easy schedule so don't know if they'll have a good W/L record but don't underestimate their capabilities.
Don't know about us but was disappointed in the defense. Aquilar is an upgrade from last year although his arm strength might not be as good as would like for the long balls and he needs to improve his accuracy especially on the flank passes. Impressed with his game especially for a newcomer without having benefit of being here for spring practice.

 

[cyclevol]

I would give the offense a solid B to B+. Got to work on accuracy throwing the ball to the sidelines.

Defense gets a D. Pass defense needs a lot of work. Must get better.

Hmm. I remember it taking Syracuse 4 downs to get 5 yards. I remember the refs seeemed to be trying to help them catch up. I remember a few 4th down conversions that they were a fraction of a second from stopping. I also recall we kept running our offense and failed to move the ball at times in the second half leaving the defense with little rest. It was more like 2022 in my opinion. Outscoring the other team works everytime.

 

[sami]

Neither the offense nor defense played a “great” game and yet it was a win by a comfortable margin. Game 1, the best is yet to come.

Agree. To me, it was what you want from an opening game, with the exception of the injuries - a comfortable win, but where the coaches have things to hammer on and iron out before Georgia comes to town in two weeks.

* Joey is a massive upgrade from Nico, and it was clear from the first possession. He makes quick decisions, is able to run the uptempo, can go through his progressions, and is able to use his feet when needed. They need to work on those high throws, but this kid is the real deal, and perfect for this offense.

* The three-headed monster at RB will be just fine, and not having to depend on one back to carry the load actually makes it better than last year, where the Sampson injury before the playoff game was a killer.

* The concern about the WR's is overblown IMO, and these kids will get even better as the season goes on.

* The OL needs to get healthy, but the depth is good and the experience they are getting is a great thing.

* The DL needs to be better, Coach Garner has his work cut out for him. Getting everyone healthy will be huge.

* Colton Hood is the real deal. I don't buy that he has to change the aggressive way he plays, as I'll take the occasional PI rather than playing soft and getting beat deep.

* I'm not a Banks hater like many on here, but damn, can we please get off the field on 3rd down? Teams will be more willing to go on 4th down when it's clear we can't get off the field, and in big games those are killers. Not sure what the fix is, but it seemed we couldn't get pressure on those plays and Angeli picked us apart. That has to change if this team is going to be as good as it can be.

All in all, this is a really solid, well coached group that should be able to play with anyone in the country, but has some work to do to get to that point.

 

[VolsnRavens]

Receivers have to catch the ball when it hits them in the hands. Defense is not elite like many have been saying

It took the receivers a while to understand that a football can be thrown to you and not somewhere around you. lol

 

[Behr]

You also predicted a Syracuse win in the pick the score contest, so there’s that.

Lol.

 

[volbound1700]

One thought that hasn't been brought up was how well the teammates played with each other and were unselfish.

 

[Les Paul Vol]

I was anxious to see Bishop , Lewis and Thomas in action and they didn't disappoint. One of the best running back rooms in the nation , in my opinion. Aguilar was impressive and played with poise and calmness, he can scoot out of the pocket . Wide receivers were solid and I noticed some good downfield blocking by them , I thought the call on Davis negating the Thomas touchdown run was horrible and he and Miles K were not used a lot yesterday. Good to see Miles get the late touchdown reception. Defensively I thought Tennessee played well and used a lot players in the rotation , building depth . Carter , Hood , Robinson, Josephs stood out to me and the McMurray pass deflection and Telander with the interception was a great play and momentum changer. Overall a really good performance by Tennessee yesterday and Syracuse is a pretty good team , Tennessee has lots to work on and improve . Georgia is coming to Knoxville and that's a big time test, Go Vols

 

[knox73]

A ton on young players got meaningful playing time against an excellent opponent. They experienced a road trip with a home game atmosphere. The schedule is perfect. ETSU is next and injured guys can heal while young guys play more. ETSU has some good athletes including former Michigan qb Cade McNamara and is better than fans may think.

Ethan Utley and freshmen defensive linemen must get ready fast for the SEC games.

Syracuse has a very challenging schedule but 8 wins would not surprise me as they are a tough physical team.

 

[TMvol10]

Very little pressure without a designed blitz.

Thought we collapsed the pocket pretty well on a regular basis. We didn’t necessarily have guys break free tho. Syracuse also did not run anything down field so there’s wasn’t much time to get home. We are definitely thin, both in numbers and size, on the interior DL. Desperately need Moi to be ok and Hobbs back by Georgia. SEC run games might feast on us up the middle this year. That’s my biggest concern coming out of the first game.

 

[cgrish]

There was a point in the 4th quarter where they could have pulled to within a score of us and at that point anything can happen. To act like Syracuse had no chance in the 4th quarter is silly. We played a good to great game offensively and made some plays on defense, but we also couldn't stop their offense a lot of times. Some of it was injuries but not all. The game changed in the third quarter when Heupel tried to revert to last year and we just coast and let the defense win the game. I don't think that's gonna work this year. We will have to keep the foot on the pedal on offense because this defense isnt going to be as good as it was last year.

I totally agree with your assesment, we took the foot off the pedal, and against a real quality team that will get you beat most of the time imo. I think we could hve put up 60 points had we not slowed the tempo in the 3rd qtr.

 

[Vol8188]

Very little pressure without a designed blitz.

Most of our sacks weren’t blitzes

 

[cgrish]

Agree. To me, it was what you want from an opening game, with the exception of the injuries - a comfortable win, but where the coaches have things to hammer on and iron out before Georgia comes to town in two weeks.

* Joey is a massive upgrade from Nico, and it was clear from the first possession. He makes quick decisions, is able to run the uptempo, can go through his progressions, and is able to use his feet when needed. They need to work on those high throws, but this kid is the real deal, and perfect for this offense.

* The three-headed monster at RB will be just fine, and not having to depend on one back to carry the load actually makes it better than last year, where the Sampson injury before the playoff game was a killer.

* The concern about the WR's is overblown IMO, and these kids will get even better as the season goes on.

* The OL needs to get healthy, but the depth is good and the experience they are getting is a great thing.

* The DL needs to be better, Coach Garner has his work cut out for him. Getting everyone healthy will be huge.

* Colton Hood is the real deal. I don't buy that he has to change the aggressive way he plays, as I'll take the occasional PI rather than playing soft and getting beat deep.

* I'm not a Banks hater like many on here, but damn, can we please get off the field on 3rd down? Teams will be more willing to go on 4th down when it's clear we can't get off the field, and in big games those are killers. Not sure what the fix is, but it seemed we couldn't get pressure on those plays and Angeli picked us apart. That has to change if this team is going to be as good as it can be.

All in all, this is a really solid, well coached group that should be able to play with anyone in the country, but has some work to do to get to that point.

I thought our dl played very good, we were getting to their qb so much they started throwing qucik slants in order for him to have time to do much else

 

[sami]

I thought our dl played very good, we were getting to their qb so much they started throwing qucik slants in order for him to have time to do much else

The pressure was good, but they were running pretty much at will all day. That OL isn't good enough to be able to push our DL around.

But you're right, the only time it seemed Angeli had any time were those 3rd down blitz pickups. We need to start getting off the field.

 

[VOLINVONORE]

I wouldn’t put the defense out to pasture yet. It’s the first game and both units shined at times. The defense got dinged up there and we seemed to let up slightly once we got the lead. I think both units will shine as the season moves forward. Overall I agree with your take. It was a solid win. GBO

Our defense played pretty good except for our zoom on third downs. That has to be cleared up or we will lose games we should not lose.

 

[VawlIn]

Still see that same pattern with Banks. Their OC was just flat out better today. O looked better than expected.

Aguilar had some misses and was still better than Nico. Looked better as the game settled in. All of the RBs ran well. TEs played well.

Good to beat a decent opponent by more than the spread and still see things to work on.

Hopefully yesterday was the 1 of 2 bad Banks game for the year that we seemingly always get. Once always comes against a mediocre team away from Neyland and the other comes against a powerhouse. It never fails

 

[VawlIn]

He did seem to have a cool head and know what to do when a play broke down or wasn’t there. Could have been a great day if he hadn’t been so consistently high on his throws, but he was good overall.

Mike Matthews has to be better too