What record would make you worry?

#76
#76
Brave Volunteer said:
Anything worse than 7-5. But even with that, a LOT would have to go wrong this season I think for us to finish that low.

The way I see it, there are 3 sure losses on our schedule (Georgia, LSU, and Alabama), 4 swing games on our schedule (Pitt, Florida, Kentucky, and South Carolina), and 5 sure wins (Ball State, Akron, UT Martin, Vanderbilt, and Missouri). I think we need to take 3 of 4 of those swing games to truly feel like we've taken a step forward. 2 of 4 would be expected and less than that, things have gone terribly wrong.
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I may be wrong but South Carolina as a toss up?

If we dont win that game we are long long way from where we want and expect to be. And my thinking about CJH and his abilities will likely change.
 
#77
#77
I hope we win the games we should win and not lose the ones we shouldn’t. 8-4 would be disappointing but certainly not surprising. 7-5 and I’d be trending towards hopeless. 9-3 is what I hope to see. 10-2 and I’d be exstatic. Really though, we need to win one of florida, Georgia, bama or we’ll continue to fall behind. This is potentially a make or break year for heupels future recruiting efforts (he could still be here 3-4 more years, but if we don’t win games and translate that to recruiting then we’re still in the lost decades of Tennessee football). Gotta improve each year early on until expectations are to battle for an sec championship birth every year. Most great coaches make big strides in year 2 that lead to superior recruiting success and that’s what we gotta shoot for.
 
#78
#78
Here’s the deal: Tennessee could win a game or two they probably shouldn’t win because of the offense, but, they could also lose a game or two they probably shouldn’t lose because of the defense.

See last year‘s Purdue game, when Purdue was missing five or six of their top players and still won.
 
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#79
#79
zooguy said:
Here’s the deal: Tennessee could win a game or two they probably shouldn’t win because of the offense, but, they could also lose a game or two they probably shouldn’t lose because of the defense.

See last year‘s Purdue game, when Purdue was missing five or six of their top players and still won.
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Exactly. If you get into these shootout type games then it’s kinda a flip of the coin. We could’ve easily lost to Kentucky and beat Purdue
 
#83
#83
We haven’t won 10 games since 2007 I really want to end that drought and have another 10 win season for a program like us rich in winning tradition that is far too long.
 
#85
#85
sunnyvol79 said:
We haven’t won 10 games since 2007 I really want to end that drought and have another 10 win season for a program like us rich in winning tradition that is far too long.
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Me too.

I think that's as good an indicator as any that we've emerged from the Dark Ages. I mean, winning the East would be even more definite. But a 10-win season would be a very good indicator that we have climbed out of the pit.
 
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#87
#87
GetYouSomeofThat said:
I may be wrong but South Carolina as a toss up?

If we dont win that game we are long long way from where we want and expect to be. And my thinking about CJH and his abilities will likely change.
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Historically we aren't that dominant against them and most of our wins have been close. If Spencer Rattler can keep his head on straight, SC could be dangerous on offense. I by no means consider them a guaranteed win.
 
#89
#89
Brave Volunteer said:
Historically we aren't that dominant against them and most of our wins have been close. If Spencer Rattler can keep his head on straight, SC could be dangerous on offense. I by no means consider them a guaranteed win.
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Wut, Brave?

We are that dominant against them. We lead the series 28 wins to 10 (with 2 ties). And two of the last three games we won by 20 points or more (45-20 last year, 41-21 in 2019...we also won in 2020, but by just 4 points).

Now, granted, when we lose, then it is usually a close game.

But when we beat them, and we have the past three seasons running, it is often by quite a bit.

We don't dominate USCe quite as lopsidedly as we do Kentucky, but an almost 3 to 1 advantage is still strongly in our favor. That's even more to our advantage than our winning margin over Vandy through the years.


EDIT: Out of curiosity, I looked up our win rates against all four of the weaker sisters of the East. Listing them most lopsided to least:

vs KY - .739 win rate (82-26-9)
vs USCe - .725 win rate (28-10-2)
vs Vandy - .700 win rate (78-33-5)
vs Mizzou - .500 win rate (5-5)
 
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#90
#90
Aggravated assault or grand larceny.

Oh, wait....what was the question again....??

Oh, that kind of record.....ma bad.
 
#91
#91
GetYouSomeofThat said:
I may be wrong but South Carolina as a toss up?

If we dont win that game we are long long way from where we want and expect to be. And my thinking about CJH and his abilities will likely change.
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Seems a little like tunnel vision. Could lose to USC jr and win many other games.

Similar to 2019 (Ga St...BYU).

Never take away too much from one game. The transitive property doesn't apply to sports.
 
#92
#92
UT_Tix79 said:
For this year, what record would make you worried for the future?

I’m expecting us to be 8-4 at worst, but for me, anything worse than that would have me worried. With this team, there’s no excuse for us to be worse than that.
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7-5 or worse barring massive injuries would make me uncomfortable about the near future
 
#94
#94
Brave Volunteer said:
Historically we aren't that dominant against them and most of our wins have been close. If Spencer Rattler can keep his head on straight, SC could be dangerous on offense. I by no means consider them a guaranteed win.
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If our offense doesnt torch them...

Then we are just in a new phase of the suckage that had been the last 14 years of being a Vol football fan.
 
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#95
#95
GetYouSomeofThat said:
And Ga St and BYU were the obvious red flags CJP was clueless.
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Those players, led by the seniors, in 2019 turned that season around. They won those 8 games in spite of horrific coaching. I said after the bowl game that was the poorest coached game the Vols won that I could remember (Ga Tech in ‘17 was another) and many attacked me but 12 months later the verdict was in.
 
#96
#96
Anything less than .500 is cause for concern as these are teams that we would expect to beat without much trouble. I think it is important to note that we are still razor thin from a depth perspective and the talent we have, while exciting, is young. This concern is more defensive but last time I checked you still had to stop someone once in awhile.

I am concerned people are putting too much on this season. This was never the make or break year but we are (and should be) excited about the success CJH had in Year 1. If we build on that and win some games we were not supposed to that is incredible. Reality is we still have a lot of toss ups on the schedule.

Cautiously optimistic would be my feelings for the 8 wins a lot of people expect. I will take that and more though! GBO!
 
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#97
#97
UT_Tix79 said:
For this year, what record would make you worried for the future?

I’m expecting us to be 8-4 at worst, but for me, anything worse than that would have me worried. With this team, there’s no excuse for us to be worse than that.
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6-6. Unless Hooker gets hurt. Then that record isn’t terrible.
 
#98
#98
Remember last year we outperformed expectations, so dont get ahead of ourselves.
6-6 or worse is worrisome. 7-5 is underwhelming, but not the end of the world. 8 is a good attainable goal. 9 is lofty. 10 would create unreasonable expectations for year 3.
Honestly it's how we look against UF, Mizzou, USCe and Kentucky.
 
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#99
#99
Anything less than 7-5 would be disappointing, but we're in year two coming off the disaster of Pruitt and our roster being gutted by transfers. We still have depth issues, and there are six games on the schedule that are anything from almost certain losses to tossups at this point. 8-4 or better would be wonderful, but I'm not ready to hit the panic button at this point after the hell this program has been through.

Now going 7-5 in 2024 would be an entirely different story.
 
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#100
#100
7-5 wouldn’t be a disaster. We are still razor thin at a number of positions that if the wrong guy(s) goes down we end up losing narrowly Ione we did a few times last year.

Keep grinding and competing. If we get a little luck we will win 8-10 games.
 
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