Time for reflection

#1
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a vol n tears

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#1
The season is over. Even though the majority on here don’t like evaluating how the season has gone and who are valid contributors (players & coaches) going forward, I feel it needs to be done. Fans don’t like the negativity but coaches do this with players at the end of every season.
OL - Either talent evaluation or coaching is sorely lacking. In 4 years CJH has not had 1 HS signee start on the Offensive line. Even more alarming is the portal guys have not been that reliable. Living in the portal for any team group is playing with fire and OL is the worst. It never allows to build depth because nobody good is coming to play behind someone else, and many times you only get 1 or 2 years max.
WR - Here I think it is more coaching than talent evaluation. Speed is not the issue. There are probably 2 or 3 WRers faster than Hyatt was. The signees are sought after by many top schools so I think the talent is there to be coached. The starters this year had a bad case of drops. Why were players like Matthews and Staley not playing more and at least given a game chance. They preferred playing injured players over these guys.
QB - Where to start? Again coaching or talent evaluation? They are paying a reported $2M per year (current $4M invested) for a QB who averages a tad over 200 ypg passing. Can’t throw an accurate deep ball. All this after 14 starts, playing mop up last year, and has been through 3 bowl / post season practices.
Head coach OC - Why has the offense slowed down and why continue to play the wide splits? Considering 22 was the best season of his tenure, why slow down. They were not just winning, they were dominating foes. Defensive depth is better, WRers are faster with more system experience, RBs have experience, but stats are down. While use the splits if you are playing a slower pace and not taking advantage of confusing the defense.

My opinion is talent evaluation. I think Nico is over rated. He is probably a better QB for a pro style system. Problem will be not being able to play the current and incoming QBs due to the money invested. High school O linemen are apparently not SEC ready even after 2 years in the system.
Many are bragging arguing about winning 10 games this year. Of those 10 wins, I believe only 3 teams had a better than .500 record and Ala lost 3 games and is a shell of their former self.
 
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#3
#3
a vol n tears said:
The season is over. Even though the majority on here don’t like evaluating how the season has gone and who are valid contributors (players & coaches) going forward, I feel it needs to be done. Fans don’t like the negativity but coaches do this with players at the end of every season.
OL - Either talent evaluation or coaching is sorely lacking. In 4 years CJH has not had 1 HS signee start on the Offensive line. Even more alarming is the portal guys have not been that reliable. Living in the portal for any team group is playing with fire and OL is the worst. It never allows to build depth because nobody good is coming to play behind someone else, and many times you only get 1 or 2 years max.
WR - Here I think it is more coaching than talent evaluation. Speed is not the issue. There are probably 2 or 3 WRers faster than Hyatt was. The signees are sought after by many top schools so I think the talent is there to be coached. The starters this year had a bad case of drops. Why were players like Matthews and Staley not playing more and at least given a game chance. They preferred playing injured players over these guys.
QB - Where to start? Again coaching or talent evaluation? They are paying a reported $2M per year (current $4M invested) for a QB who averages a tad over 200 ypg passing. Can’t throw an accurate deep ball. All this after 14 starts, playing mop up last year, and has been through 3 bowl / post season practices.
Head coach OC - Why has the offense slowed down and why continue to play the wide splits? Considering 22 was the best season of his tenure, why slow down. They were not just winning, they were dominating foes. Defensive depth is better, WRers are faster with more system experience, RBs have experience, but stats are down. While use the splits if you are playing a slower pace and not taking advantage of confusing the defense.

My opinion is talent evaluation. I think Nico is over rated. He is probably a better QB for a pro style system. Problem will be not being able to play the current and incoming QBs due to the money invested. High school O linemen are apparently not SEC ready even after 2 years in the system.
Many are bragging arguing about winning 10 games this year. Of those 10 wins, I believe only 3 teams had a better than .500 record and Ala lost 3 games and is a shell of their former self.
Click to expand...

You had some valid points until that last part about 10 games and only 3 being over .500

That's a silly argument. We beat some solid teams that we definitely would not have beaten under previous regimes. The SEC notoriously cannibalized itself this year, and a lot of those teams would have had better records if they hadn't had to play us.

10 wins in the SEC is never something to dismiss.
 
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#4
#4
KnoxRealtorVOL said:
You had some valid points until that last part about 10 games and only 3 being over .500

That's a silly argument. We beat some solid teams that we definitely would not have beaten under previous regimes. The SEC notoriously cannibalized itself this year, and a lot of those teams would have had better records if they hadn't had to play us.

10 wins in the SEC is never something to dismiss.
Click to expand...
Not trying to argue firing the staff and starting over, but the past 2 years my ranking of SEC coaches put CJH no higher than mid pack.
Give Tenn the schedule Fl had this year, do they win 10, 9, 8 games?
 
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#6
#6
This week has not been very fun guys. Luckily the holiday has brought some much better cheer and respite from the doom and gloom.

I'm sure ALL of us will feel much better about the season in March than we do 4 days removed from a thorough butt whooping.

Thankfully, there are about 7 Playoff games left if my math is correct Odds are that at least one of those seven is going to be bigger spanking than we received a few days ago. Pretty good odds of it anyway and I'll take those odds. What do we have to lose at this point? Lol.
 
#7
#7
We have a talent gap from us and teams like GA and OSU.
This was known going into the game but glaringly obvious.
We don’t seem very agressive in the portal and not sire how competitive our NIL is compared to those top teams.

The more concerning issue is the gap in coaching.
Offense has been stale and predictable all year. The articles showing OSU and also Arkansas knew what plays TN would run based on what the defense showed is very concerning.
We were severely out coached in some games this year.

Heupel to me is at a point where he has to decide if he is willing do what it takes to compete at the highest level.
This would mean some staff changes (OL and OC) and a hard look himself to wonder why he’s running a predictable easily shut down offense
 
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#8
#8
I'd say the reason those freshman receivers didn't play a lot is because they were so reliant on the run game.. They're not going to insert freshman and focus more on passing.. They don't run block well straight out of high-school most of the time. I think Heupel had pretty much settled on being run heavy before the season started.
 
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#9
#9
KnoxRealtorVOL said:
You had some valid points until that last part about 10 games and only 3 being over .500

That's a silly argument. We beat some solid teams that we definitely would not have beaten under previous regimes. The SEC notoriously cannibalized itself this year, and a lot of those teams would have had better records if they hadn't had to play us.

10 wins in the SEC is never something to dismiss.
Click to expand...
6. 6 wins in the SEC. The other 4 wins were bullsh_t games.
 
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#10
#10
a vol n tears said:
Not trying to argue firing the staff and starting over, but the past 2 years my ranking of SEC coaches put CJH no higher than mid pack.
Give Tenn the schedule Fl had this year, do they win 10, 9, 8 games?
Click to expand...
With same layout and dates, I see 2 losses. Miami, A&M, LSU and Ole Miss all at home.
 
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#12
#12
KnoxRealtorVOL said:
Ok that's a ridiculous game of semantics.

Sorry, here you go: "Winning 10 games when you play in the SEC is never something to dismiss"
Click to expand...
You know darn well our record was an indication of VERY fortunate circumstances. We were fortunate that Oklahoma was down this year. We were fortunate that Florida had not yet figured things out with their QB. We were fortunate that we caught Alabama in a transition year. We were fortunate that we didn't have to play Texas or South Carolina or Ole Miss. We were fortunate that ALL of our out of conference opponents were awful. In reality, we were an 8-4 team who played a 10-2 schedule. We won't be so lucky next year.
 
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#13
#13
I think a team should be judged by how well they improve as the season goes along. Things on both sides of the ball should be clicking by the end of the season. This team never got that consistency to beat other top level teams
 
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#14
#14
KnoxRealtorVOL said:
You had some valid points until that last part about 10 games and only 3 being over .500

That's a silly argument. We beat some solid teams that we definitely would not have beaten under previous regimes. The SEC notoriously cannibalized itself this year, and a lot of those teams would have had better records if they hadn't had to play us.

10 wins in the SEC is never something to dismiss.
Click to expand...
Everyone on this board dismissed Texas for winning more games despite playing the same schedule, except swap Bama for A&M.

We beat Bama who wasn’t that good and Florida who was maybe better than their record showed. Other than that, we didn’t beat a good team all year. We beat one Power Conference team that had a winning conference record.
 
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#15
#15
Our best win was over a non-playoff Bama team that lost to freakin Vandy. Their fans are completely disgusted and are already ready to be out on their coach behind losing to them. There's also no way in hell that we play Florida's 2024 schedule and win ten games. No way. It's ok to admit the truth. We aren't there yet.
We need to recruit high school players at top 5 clip nationally, on a yearly basis. And then supplement that with the best portal talent we can buy. No team has won the SEC without being elite recently. Alabama Georgia or going back to LSU from 2019. All were big boy teams without any doubts. That's what we have to be. And we damned sure aren't right now.
 
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#17
#17
Should rename this one “The Thread For Whiners” so all the Eeyore’s can reside here. Make the 12 team playoff and some folks just can’t find a way to enjoy the journey. There’s 122 other teams that would have gladly traded places. Deal with it.
 
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#18
#18
a vol n tears said:
Not trying to argue firing the staff and starting over, but the past 2 years my ranking of SEC coaches put CJH no higher than mid pack.
Give Tenn the schedule Fl had this year, do they win 10, 9, 8 games?
Click to expand...
30 wins in the last 3 seasons. He's not middle of the pack my guy.
 
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#20
#20
MiramarVol said:
30 wins in the last 3 seasons. He's not middle of the pack my guy.
Click to expand...
I think you misunderstand my intentions. I think CJH is my guy also, I just think he has some growing / learning to do. If he was committed to being a running offense this year, don’t be afraid of playing less than 4 WRers, and forget the wide splits on every formation. Change based on personnel is what every good coach has to do.
I definitely think he has improved his clock management this year and hopefully he continues to progress in other ares, including talent assessment for whatever system he runs. Also don’t be afraid of firing coaches who are not meeting your expectations.
 
#21
#21
a vol n tears said:
I think you misunderstand my intentions. I think CJH is my guy also, I just think he has some growing / learning to do. If he was committed to being a running offense this year, don’t be afraid of playing less than 4 WRers, and forget the wide splits on every formation. Change based on personnel is what every good coach has to do.
I definitely think he has improved his clock management this year and hopefully he continues to progress in other ares, including talent assessment for whatever system he runs. Also don’t be afraid of firing coaches who are not meeting your expectations.
Click to expand...
But the wide splits are a big reason why the running game is so successful in CJH's offense. It basically takes the corners out of the play.
 
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#22
#22
a vol n tears said:
The season is over. Even though the majority on here don’t like evaluating how the season has gone and who are valid contributors (players & coaches) going forward, I feel it needs to be done. Fans don’t like the negativity but coaches do this with players at the end of every season.
OL - Either talent evaluation or coaching is sorely lacking. In 4 years CJH has not had 1 HS signee start on the Offensive line. Even more alarming is the portal guys have not been that reliable. Living in the portal for any team group is playing with fire and OL is the worst. It never allows to build depth because nobody good is coming to play behind someone else, and many times you only get 1 or 2 years max.
WR - Here I think it is more coaching than talent evaluation. Speed is not the issue. There are probably 2 or 3 WRers faster than Hyatt was. The signees are sought after by many top schools so I think the talent is there to be coached. The starters this year had a bad case of drops. Why were players like Matthews and Staley not playing more and at least given a game chance. They preferred playing injured players over these guys.
QB - Where to start? Again coaching or talent evaluation? They are paying a reported $2M per year (current $4M invested) for a QB who averages a tad over 200 ypg passing. Can’t throw an accurate deep ball. All this after 14 starts, playing mop up last year, and has been through 3 bowl / post season practices.
Head coach OC - Why has the offense slowed down and why continue to play the wide splits? Considering 22 was the best season of his tenure, why slow down. They were not just winning, they were dominating foes. Defensive depth is better, WRers are faster with more system experience, RBs have experience, but stats are down. While use the splits if you are playing a slower pace and not taking advantage of confusing the defense.

My opinion is talent evaluation. I think Nico is over rated. He is probably a better QB for a pro style system. Problem will be not being able to play the current and incoming QBs due to the money invested. High school O linemen are apparently not SEC ready even after 2 years in the system.
Many are bragging arguing about winning 10 games this year. Of those 10 wins, I believe only 3 teams had a better than .500 record and Ala lost 3 games and is a shell of their former self.
Click to expand...

We need a laugh reaction option on here for posts like this
 
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