Yeah, I don't think it is THAT we lost the games, as much as HOW we lost the games. Granted, no one is happy being 2-5. And of course, we should have won against Arkansas and Kentucky for sure.
But the unhappiness comes from the rigidity of Pruitt to make changes when it appears obvious to everyone that they need to be made. And honestly? I think that if Pruitt took out Guarantano after the first half of Kentucky, and played Bailey the rest of the way, this year would be a lot different. Maybe not so much in wins and losses, but I think our team looks a lot different, and the ways the games played out would look a lot different.
Nobody is happy getting blown out. But more so, nobody is happy seeing the same thing play out over and over and over in a quarterback who has stared down receivers for 5 years, and who has under/overthrown receivers for 5 years, and who has thrown probably more pick 6's than any SEC quarterback in the past 50 years. It's so predictable now that we just grow to expect it. And that's the sad part. We grow to expect that our coaches are going to put a player in who continually makes glaring mistakes, and there's a part of us that wonders, "Do we really truly not have any better options?"
And the things is, if we don't? Okay, well, that sucks. But we have seen Bailey and even Maurer and Shrout so little this year, that it's impossible to truly know what we have right now.
I think the thing that just has me so resigned right now, is that this team, for whatever reason, has lost its swagger. It has no confidence. It has no aggression. It lays down and dies. And that is RADICALLY different than the team that I saw last year. And that is really sad.
I've wondered all year how much losing Jennings, Calloway, Bituli and Darrell Taylor really hurt.