Todays signings confirm Josh Heupel has us pointed in the right direction

#101
#101
EastTNVol6240 said:
Our schedule is much harder next year with the added SEC. The recruiting class is great no doubt, but how many of those true freshmen do you expect to immediately contribute? Likely 0, a few if you’re lucky.

Our success next year depends heavily on filling defensive holes with portal players. If you go into next season expecting 9-10 wins you’re likely gonna be disappointed.
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1. Half of our SEC foes have either have new coaches, new QBs, or both.

2. Most of our tough games are at home.

3. You're assuming we won't get any better. Again, yougest team in the SEC and we still went 8-4. We would have been 9-3 at worst if we had a competent kicker.
 
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#102
#102
Carp said:
1. Half of our SEC foes have either have new coaches, new QBs, or both.

2. Most of our tough games are at home.

3. You're assuming we won't get any better. Again, yougest team in the SEC and we still went 8-4. We would have been 9-3 at worst if we had a competent kicker.
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Our QB situation isn’t a given as well.

Home didn’t bode well this year for tough games.

Like I said, our success hinges heavily on portal gets, specifically on the defensive side of the ball.
 
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#105
#105
EastTNVol6240 said:
Our QB situation isn’t a given as well.

Home didn’t bode well this year for tough games.

Like I said, our success hinges heavily on portal gets, specifically on the defensive side of the ball.
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QB situation is currently better than most teams. If Joey comes back, we'll have the top returning QB in the SEC, top 150 overall QB recruit in year 2, and the number 2 overall QB recruit in 2026.

Again you seem to be ignoring the fact that we are gonna get better and these young guys who weren't quite ready this year, are likely to take big steps forward next year.
 
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#106
#106
Cartervol said:
Great class.. Now go aggressive in the portal and get some immediate defensive help. Maybe a running back of there is someone out there that's a get. You can't run that defense back out there next year..
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Between Florida players that will be entering and pretty much all of Penn State’s experienced guys, there should be no shortage of talent for the picking. We’ve gotta go get it though.
 
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#108
#108
DaddyChad said:
Well while we’re in here bitching, Heupel is quietly putting together the best recruiting class in a couple of decades and a top five national class.
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Yep. Best in 25 years minimum. Since at least 2001.

Also...we flipped four different 4* players today on signing day which is unheard of and maybe unprecedented at UT?!?

Bey
Carter
Gooden
Finch

All are 4* guys and were committed elewhere yesterday. Couple of them made our top10 highest rated recruits this cycle too. Amazing job by this staff
 
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#110
#110
Carp said:
QB situation is currently better than most teams. If Joey comes back, we'll have the top returning QB in the SEC, top 150 overall QB recruit in year 2, and the number 2 overall QB recruit in 2026.

Again you seem to be ignoring the fact that we are gonna get better and these young guys who weren't quite ready this year, are likely to take big steps forward next year.
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If JA doesn’t return our QB situation is completely unknown. We haven’t seen meaningful playing time from either back up.

Your hope for better is nothing more than just that, hope. We should’ve gotten better this year, we regressed.

I hope as well, but once again our hope hinges on the portal.
 
#112
#112
Much of our success next year depends on the development of our returning class. Half our current roster is freshman and sophmores. We only have 14 seniors. Yes getting a handful of good portal additions is important. Just as important is our returning players get bigger stronger and improve over the year. Players make the biggest jumps their freshman and sophmore seasons. We have some good juniors who will be seniors next year along with this class that will be entering Tennessee as freshman. We are building a good foundation. Now we just need some quality additions in the portal. GBO
 
#114
#114
Carp said:
Vandy had 1 successful season as the oldest team in the league with the best QB their program has ever seen in their existence. About 1/3 of their roster is graduating or heading to the draft, and that's before anyone exits for the portal. They won't win 5 games next year.

The best teams still build through HS recruits. The portal is not a long term sustainable model to maintain a top tier program.
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vandie's Blind Squirrel found a nut...don't expect a dominant football empire on West End. :cool:
 

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#115
#115
Legion of Doom said:
Have to do this. I am sure they know they have to do this.
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Do they? I'm honestly not so sure. With this huge signing class, it almost seems as though they plan on rolling with the guys they've recruited to this roster and spot filling in the portal just like this year. They're going to depend on their evals and development ala Dabo and Clemson. Heck of a gamble if so. After this season and the coming schedules, Heupel is pushing all his chips to the center of the table with this approach if that's what he's doing.

Of course, when you have, what, 35M waiting for you if you get fired, I guess it's actually not that gutsy of a move after all. Grab that bag and go coach somewhere else. Now that I think of it, that's probably why he's not the least bit stressed about losing to Vandy. He wins either way. How did college football get to this miserable state? Geez.
 
#116
#116
Woodlawn VOL said:
Much of our success next year depends on the development of our returning class. Half our current roster is freshman and sophmores. We only have 14 seniors. Yes getting a handful of good portal additions is important. Just as important is our returning players get bigger stronger and improve over the year. Players make the biggest jumps their freshman and sophmore seasons. We have some good juniors who will be seniors next year along with this class that will be entering Tennessee as freshman. We are building a good foundation. Now we just need some quality additions in the portal. GBO
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Gonna need more than a handful from the portal for next year. Granted, I don't see practice so I got no clue as to how good the youngsters are, but we didn't see a lot of them this year so where's the experience coming from? Thud practice? And even with a year of S&C, they're still 19. You put those guys against 22 year old men and it's going to be rough sledding most of the time. Really hope Heupel surprises us all in the portal this year, but I've got a sinking feeling, he's going to do just what he did last year and rely on his recruiting and development. Just not sure that's going to work well in today's game.
 
#118
#118
EastTNVol6240 said:
If JA doesn’t return our QB situation is completely unknown. We haven’t seen meaningful playing time from either back up.

Your hope for better is nothing more than just that, hope. We should’ve gotten better this year, we regressed.

I hope as well, but once again our hope hinges on the portal.
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We should have gotten better after losing arguably the best RB we've had in 24 years, losing nearly all of our starting DL, losing our entire starting WRs, losing our All American CB in January, and having our starting 5 star QB jump ship in April?

That's really your opinion that we should have gotten better after losing all that? Wow.


There is a reason the national media had us going 8-4 (or 7-5) before the season. And it's not because we were expected to be better than last year.
 
#121
#121
Carp said:
We should have gotten better after losing arguably the best RB we've had in 24 years, losing nearly all of our starting DL, losing our entire starting WRs, losing our All American CB in January, and having our starting 5 star QB jump ship in April?

That's really your opinion that we should have gotten better after losing all that? Wow.


There is a reason the national media had us going 8-4 (or 7-5) before the season. And it's not because we were expected to be better than last year.
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Whose fault is that? Who recruits? Who recruits the portal?

Who has to plan for big classes leaving? Who has to build the culture of “next man up”? Yes we were obviously going to regress on defense in some way. Offense not so much. Losing a great back isn’t ever ideal but the backs behind him looked to be doing fine.

We regressed is every aspect, even coaching if that’s possible. You can save your next post full of excuses for why “Heupels year 5-10 are bridge years and we should expect X and just like it”. You can sit over there and eat below mediocrity with a smile all you want. I’m gonna always want more. The resources and money UT have warrant that. We’re all wired different.
 
#122
#122
Will we have the NIL money left that it takes to have a good portal run?
I'm afraid that we have put all our money on the new recruits and we be
forced to run with what we have. If we low-balled the old roster, many will portal out
and we end up having the youngest roster year after year.
 
#123
#123
EastTNVol6240 said:
Whose fault is that? Who recruits? Who recruits the portal?

Who has to plan for big classes leaving? Who has to build the culture of “next man up”? Yes we were obviously going to regress on defense in some way. Offense not so much. Losing a great back isn’t ever ideal but the backs behind him looked to be doing fine.

We regressed is every aspect, even coaching if that’s possible. You can save your next post full of excuses for why “Heupels year 5-10 are bridge years and we should expect X and just like it”. You can sit over there and eat below mediocrity with a smile all you want. I’m gonna always want more. The resources and money UT have warrant that. We’re all wired different.
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Your expectation simply does not align with reality.

We've been dealing with scholarship limitations for 90% of Heup's tenure and his first class was basically a washout after our best players transferred out after Pruitt was fired. He had to lean heavily on the portal the first years just make this team competitive. That worked well the first 2 seasons, but it left the team short on talent in 2023, which resulted in a 8 win regular season (credit to us for just getting to 8 wins that year).

We finally started getting top tier high school talent starting in 2023, when we finished 11th. Those guys were Juniors this year and the ones that stuck around were generally very productive. We have done extremely well in the portal, despite not being big spenders. The rest of the team is largely made up of freshman and sophomores, and as expected, they were pretty raw, with some good and bad mixed in.

Also, by every metric, our offense was insanely better this year than in 2024. So no, we did not regress in every aspect.

Again, you seem to be assuming that the youngest team in the SEC, with a bunch of top tier talent, won't improve. Or that we won't fix most of the issues in the portal. Or that none of this top 5 recruiting class will make an impact. That's some mighty impressive pessimism.
 
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#125
#125
OrangeTsar said:
You never eat your seed corn.
It will always need to be a balancing act between recruiting and portal but you have to at least try and locate HS talent and try to build some new talent native to the program.
And especially close to home, you want to lock down talent that other schools covet.

Every HS standout that becomes a Vol Is one that doesn’t become an elephant, dawg, or gator (at least not right away)
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This is a good word and I agree with your take, it truly is a balance...

NIL and the portal allowed Tennessee to come back quickly (2022) from the dumpster fire that it has become under the previous administrations.

I think the new challenge is going to be keeping (talented) rosters in tact where the players (I'm staring at you, Boo Carter) don't think so highly of themselves they feel like they are worth more somewhere else. CJH does a great job in my opinion of strengthening the locker room, which is also part of the reason Boo was shunned and ended up moving on.
 
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