Wishful thinking or reality?

[sjt18]

I agree with that on what weve been doing the last two weeks. Thats what most dominate teams do to "impose their will" take alabama for instance, they really dont do anything special, they just do simple things very well. And that is my problem, we dont do little things well, we cant impose our will on weaker teams. We are sloppy and undisciplined. That will not fly against sec teams.

When do you get to get rid of that avatar?

To the point. I don't think they're as far away as some do. Richmond has really been the object of ridicule here because of some obvious mistakes. The penalties were bad. But in the previous two games, the 3 inside guys were the big problem. UT couldn't do anything up the middle. Vs UTEP, I thought Carvin and Ryan Johnson took huge steps forward. Unless he improves drastically... UT needs someone else at LG.

 

[jakez4ut]

I agree with that on what weve been doing the last two weeks. Thats what most dominate teams do to "impose their will" take alabama for instance, they really dont do anything special, they just do simple things very well. And that is my problem, we dont do little things well, we cant impose our will on weaker teams. We are sloppy and undisciplined. That will not fly against sec teams.

I don't think anyone thinks we're dominant. But can we compete with Florida? Who is extremely similar to us in those respects?

At home?

Yeah I think so.

Against utep the story was mistakes. Those are correctable.

They got one week to do so

 

[firedog28]

I don't think we have opened the offense up completely.They have kept it real simple so far.The TE has only caught 2 or so.The backs haven't been used as recievers much at all. Helton has the old Western KY. offense in his pocket and if the OL can hold up ,who knows?

 

[jakez4ut]

I don't think we have opened the offense up completely.They have kept it real simple so far.The TE has only caught 2 or so.The backs haven't been used as recievers much at all. Helton has the old Western KY. offense in his pocket and if the OL can hold up ,who knows?

Yeah and I don't necessarily think we're sandbagging per se..., But I don't think we've been calling plays because if a specific match up or game plan against an opponent either.

 

[volfannbama]

When do you get to get rid of that avatar?

To the point. I don't think they're as far away as some do. Richmond has really been the object of ridicule here because of some obvious mistakes. The penalties were bad. But in the previous two games, the 3 inside guys were the big problem. UT couldn't do anything up the middle. Vs UTEP, I thought Carvin and Ryan Johnson took huge steps forward. Unless he improves drastically... UT needs someone else at LG.

Generally coaches show what they will be in year 2, sometimes 3. But we will know by then.

Avi was put up for navy/army game a while back. I dont give it much thought. But i am a navy fan, vols first though.

 

[volfannbama]

I don't think anyone thinks we're dominant. But can we compete with Florida? Who is extremely similar to us in those respects?

At home?

Yeah I think so.

Against utep the story was mistakes. Those are correctable.

They got one week to do so

I think we can compete with uf, but not many other teams on the schedule.

 

[EastTN]

I use to “hope” that was the case with Butch Jones teams but we know how that went. We are who we are sure they may have not passed the ball much or ran certain routes but that don’t change the fact our OL can’t get any push or that we are very weak in the secondary.

 

[BigOrangeTrain]

OP, its extreme wishful thinking. This Saturday, we will see the same thngs we have seen since WV. Most teams dont pull the vanilla stuff. The great teams run their plays regardless of opponents. We arent running any vanilla plays. We are just a team with a rookie coaching staff, new schemes and not much talent.

 

[Tumbleweedvol]

My opinion op ed, when a TD comes from a simple pass play, it isn't a play that kept from the other team, it just worked! Every series of plays try to drive is for a score. Tennessee's biggest problem is creating big plays that score. The announcers for the game said we had 4 plays of 50 yds or longer last year. We had two against UTEP.

 

[BigOrangeTrain]

Generally coaches show what they will be in year 2, sometimes 3. But we will know by then.

Avi was put up for navy/army game a while back. I dont give it much thought. But i am a navy fan, vols first though.

Hmmmm, so what if it were to take a coach 4 years? Is every coaching situation in college football the same?

 

[99gator]

I keep seeing a theme on the message board suggesting that the team is purposely not showing their arsenal. I am not inclined to believe or deny this so I think a more appropriate question to ask is do teams do this? Can anyone provide examples of this in the past? Pruitt did keep a lot close to the vest before the season opener, not even releasing the true starters in the line up but rather listing a lot of guys as “OR.”

What are your thoughts Vol brethren?

No. Teams don't do this.

1. The way you choose to attack the Florida defense may be different than how you have attacked the other defenses so far. So, it's not "saving anything". It's that you think something may work against one opponent, but may not be as successful against another opponent. You don't bring the same game plan to the table each week.

2. Most teams are honestly running the same stuff as everybody else. Alabama hasn't fooled anyone under Nick Saban. They just have superior personnel and superior execution. But, they aren't reinventing the wheel or saving something for the big games.

3. When you are struggling, or have struggled, you don't save jack. You're trying to win games and build confidence.

4. Usually the teams that can't execute the "vanilla" have epic failure when trying to get more exotic or creative. Coaches are not fools. Most of the time, the answer to "why don't we run this type of play" is that the coaches have seen it in practice and they can't execute that play or it's such a struggle to run the vanilla that they haven't even tried to work on anything beyond that.

 

[volfannbama]

Hmmmm, so what if it were to take a coach 4 years? Is every coaching situation in college football the same?

Why do you keep referring to that? Of course not. However, i posted a lengthy thread a while back of new coaching hires that most people consider good coaches. Most of them showed the biggest turm around in year 2 amd some on year 3. Doesnt mean they are winning NC, just that the program has clearly turned in the right direction. So if a coach isnt winning after 3 years, where 75% of the players are kids they recruited, it isnt likely that the coach will do well.
Its a reasonable stance based on historical data, so make me out to be unreasonable all you want. I was one of the guys saying butch deserves a 4th year, not because i thought he was a good coach but because he had dont enough to be given a shot to prove himself. However, i pointed out warning signs over the first 3 years to show he wasnt going to be a gppd coach. So despite him winning a few games in year 2-3, he had shown himself to not be a good coach in that time span.

 

[TGFHeupel16]

Pruitt told them not to block or tackle in the first 3 games, just so he could enjoy seeing the look on Mullen's face when we really turn it on against Florida. Genius!

Lol

 

[BigOrangeTrain]

Why do you keep referring to that? Of course not. However, i posted a lengthy thread a while back of new coaching hires that most people consider good coaches. Most of them showed the biggest turm around in year 2 amd some on year 3. Doesnt mean they are winning NC, just that the program has clearly turned in the right direction. So if a coach isnt winning after 3 years, where 75% of the players are kids they recruited, it isnt likely that the coach will do well.
Its a reasonable stance based on historical data, so make me out to be unreasonable all you want. I was one of the guys saying butch deserves a 4th year, not because i thought he was a good coach but because he had dont enough to be given a shot to prove himself. However, i pointed out warning signs over the first 3 years to show he wasnt going to be a gppd coach. So despite him winning a few games in year 2-3, he had shown himself to not be a good coach in that time span.

This premise is dumb. Not every coach walks into the same thing. Do you think Pruitt would be struggling if he would have walked into Ohio State this year? Ot Clemson? Highly doubtful. Also, you have to take into consideration the circumstances of what the new HC had to follow. In Pruitts case, its much worse than most of us thought.

We basically lost 2 years of strength and conditioning. In 2015, Botch fired Dave Lawson. Since then, we have had record injuries, we are slow, soft and weak. Now, you may think S&C doesnt mean much but you would be wrong on an enormous level. We are on our 3rd S&C coach since 2015. Thats unreal. Fitz may hev the hardest job of any new coach on Pruitts staff. And speaking of the staff, how often is it that a new HC comes in and replaces EVERY single one of the previous coaches staff?

While you take the simpleton approach to this, it's exactly that. Too simple. Many factors go into a determining a HC success. Butch cannot be compared to Pruitt in any way. Butch was a HC before who had won double digit games. Pruitt has never been a HC. Like I said, not all coaching situations are the same.

 

[volfannbama]

This premise is dumb. Not every coach walks into the same thing. Do you think Pruitt would be struggling if he would have walked into Ohio State this year? Ot Clemson? Highly doubtful. Also, you have to take into consideration the circumstances of what the new HC had to follow. In Pruitts case, its much worse than most of us thought.

We basically lost 2 years of strength and conditioning. In 2015, Botch fired Dave Lawson. Since then, we have had record injuries, we are slow, soft and weak. Now, you may think S&C doesnt mean much but you would be wrong on an enormous level. We are on our 3rd S&C coach since 2015. Thats unreal. Fitz may hev the hardest job of any new coach on Pruitts staff. And speaking of the staff, how often is it that a new HC comes in and replaces EVERY single one of the previous coaches staff?

While you take the simpleton approach to this, it's exactly that. Too simple. Many factors go into a determining a HC success. Butch cannot be compared to Pruitt in any way. Butch was a HC before who had won double digit games. Pruitt has never been a HC. Like I said, not l coaching situations are the same.

Its not a simpleton approach, its factual. See for yourself. In the second (sometimes 3rd) year, in most cases we can see what the coach is likely to become. That doesnt necessarily mean it translates to huge wins all the time. However, if after 2-3 seasons we still see a sloppy team, its unlikely it will ever change.

 

[photovol]

Who knows what to expect against Florida, the one thing we do know is that save for a few frosh, this team is mostly comprised of players that were responsible for the worst season in Tennessee football history, no matter how you spin it

 

[jakez4ut]

I think we can compete with uf, but not many other teams on the schedule.

of the 5 games we play next, i agree.
don't get me wrong, i don't thing we're very good.
but neither is FLorida. and we're at home.

i won't be surprised if we lose. won't be if we win either.

 

[sjt18]

No. Teams don't do this.

1. The way you choose to attack the Florida defense may be different than how you have attacked the other defenses so far. So, it's not "saving anything". It's that you think something may work against one opponent, but may not be as successful against another opponent. You don't bring the same game plan to the table each week.

2. Most teams are honestly running the same stuff as everybody else. Alabama hasn't fooled anyone under Nick Saban. They just have superior personnel and superior execution. But, they aren't reinventing the wheel or saving something for the big games.

3. When you are struggling, or have struggled, you don't save jack. You're trying to win games and build confidence.

4. Usually the teams that can't execute the "vanilla" have epic failure when trying to get more exotic or creative. Coaches are not fools. Most of the time, the answer to "why don't we run this type of play" is that the coaches have seen it in practice and they can't execute that play or it's such a struggle to run the vanilla that they haven't even tried to work on anything beyond that.

Mostly agree but watching the UTEP game again it was pretty apparent that the coaches were calling plays that were schematically disadvantaged against what UTEP was doing on D. The safety or safeties played up the whole game. They seemed to run a CB run blitz on every other play. They slanted constantly. They gave a 6 or 7 in the box look then crashed the box at the snap.

It almost looked like UT asked them to challenge the O. Pruitt stubbornly stuck to the run game. UT probably could have thrown for 500 yds if they'd wanted to.

 

[Volanta]

Mostly agree but watching the UTEP game again it was pretty apparent that the coaches were calling plays that were schematically disadvantaged against what UTEP was doing on D. The safety or safeties played up the whole game. They seemed to run a CB run blitz on every other play. They slanted constantly. They gave a 6 or 7 in the box look then crashed the box at the snap.

It almost looked like UT asked them to challenge the O. Pruitt stubbornly stuck to the run game. UT probably could have thrown for 500 yds if they'd wanted to.

This here is my suspicion because I’ve seen the O coordinator make wiser calls before so why the vanilla play calling? I felt they were specifically trying to iron out and strengthen our best asset: the run.

Either way excited for Saturday.