This post is to point out why those who are saying Josh deserves no criticism are wrong, and why I personally don't think Josh will achieve anything beyond the occasional play off appearance here at Tennessee. That being said this is not a call to fire Josh, that would be stupid with all of the coaching changes going on right now. Also if you are fine with mediocrity, if you are fine being average and not great, Josh is the prefect guy for you, just move along from this post, call me stupid for my concern, all of the typical BS I get instead of listening to the legitimate complaints.
1. Clock management - He has no idea what the rules are. Josh literally didn't know the clock was not stopping late into the Oklahoma game, not the first game he has mismanaged the clock. In this past game he had to have the ref explain the rules to him right at the two minute mark. This is a huge red flag, how are the players suppose to know the rules if the coaches don't know them, how can a staff this big not know the rules over half way through the season?
2. Stubbornness - He adapts slowly, refuses to play the best players if they are younger, most of the time. He also gives players and coaches more chances than they deserve. He didn't change up the offense for two years, we had two years of stagnation and he refused to change until this year. He has yet to force the D to change, we continue to play the same regardless if we are getting sacks or not, DB's continue not to turn and locate the ball even when they could etc...
3. Talent Evaluation/Development - While we have some good talent evaluators at Tennessee, Josh himself has been really bad at evaluating QB talent, at least since he has been at Tennessee. Also WR was an issue till this year it seemed, why did it take so long to fix these things? Hopefully they figured that blind spot out, remember though, If it was not for Joe Milton getting hurt Hendon Hooker would have sat on the bench, if it was not for the COVID year players we would have been in a world of hurt last year and this year to a degree.
4. Preparedness - Multiple games every year we go into not prepared, making critical mistakes and losing or almost losing to inferior teams. We win many of these games just because we have better overall talent, but those games should never be that close. TBF Other teams do this from time to time, Georgia comes to mind, But Georgia has one or two of these games a year, that they normally win, we on the other hand have about 4 and we are lucky if we win half of them.
5. Blindness - This is the biggest issue I see with Josh. Anyone who pays attention could clearly see we need more people on the DL, proven talent and depth. Anyone could see we were about to lose TONS of production from 2024, the type of production that you can't just get back without using the transfer portal. Think about it, it's very scary to think that if Nico stayed, just how bad would we be. Josh is very LUCKY, becasue for all the mistakes Joey makes, he also makes some really good plays, that I doubt Nico would make, and they fully expected Nico to be our QB this year. How can we lose so much of our production and think we are going to be ok with Nico at QB. This is what we lost from 2024, Omari Thomas, Omarr Norman-Lott, Elijah Simmons, James Pearce Jr, Jayson Jenkins, Jakobe Thomas, and Will Brooks. I can recall many plays from each one of these guys that helped us win games, critical plays that we might not win the game if they don't make them. I can't be the only one who seen this coming, our D taking huge steps back, this concerns me because as I said above, if Nico stays we are probably lose the Arkansas and Mississippi state games. We would be 1-5 in the SEC.. and Josh would probably be fired.
All of this being said I don't want Josh to be fired, I want him to make changes, but I'm losing confidence that he will do it, or do it fast enough to save his job, and our program from being bad again. If you get mad at me over that, I don't care, I've been a VFL and will always be, I just don't want a repeat of the bad years. I want Tennessee to be how I was when I was a kid, dominant, feared, winning championships, and we will never get there if Josh settles with the state of things now and makes no changes. I have hope he will, hopefully this past game will be the catalyst for change.
1. Clock management - He has no idea what the rules are. Josh literally didn't know the clock was not stopping late into the Oklahoma game, not the first game he has mismanaged the clock. In this past game he had to have the ref explain the rules to him right at the two minute mark. This is a huge red flag, how are the players suppose to know the rules if the coaches don't know them, how can a staff this big not know the rules over half way through the season?
2. Stubbornness - He adapts slowly, refuses to play the best players if they are younger, most of the time. He also gives players and coaches more chances than they deserve. He didn't change up the offense for two years, we had two years of stagnation and he refused to change until this year. He has yet to force the D to change, we continue to play the same regardless if we are getting sacks or not, DB's continue not to turn and locate the ball even when they could etc...
3. Talent Evaluation/Development - While we have some good talent evaluators at Tennessee, Josh himself has been really bad at evaluating QB talent, at least since he has been at Tennessee. Also WR was an issue till this year it seemed, why did it take so long to fix these things? Hopefully they figured that blind spot out, remember though, If it was not for Joe Milton getting hurt Hendon Hooker would have sat on the bench, if it was not for the COVID year players we would have been in a world of hurt last year and this year to a degree.
4. Preparedness - Multiple games every year we go into not prepared, making critical mistakes and losing or almost losing to inferior teams. We win many of these games just because we have better overall talent, but those games should never be that close. TBF Other teams do this from time to time, Georgia comes to mind, But Georgia has one or two of these games a year, that they normally win, we on the other hand have about 4 and we are lucky if we win half of them.
5. Blindness - This is the biggest issue I see with Josh. Anyone who pays attention could clearly see we need more people on the DL, proven talent and depth. Anyone could see we were about to lose TONS of production from 2024, the type of production that you can't just get back without using the transfer portal. Think about it, it's very scary to think that if Nico stayed, just how bad would we be. Josh is very LUCKY, becasue for all the mistakes Joey makes, he also makes some really good plays, that I doubt Nico would make, and they fully expected Nico to be our QB this year. How can we lose so much of our production and think we are going to be ok with Nico at QB. This is what we lost from 2024, Omari Thomas, Omarr Norman-Lott, Elijah Simmons, James Pearce Jr, Jayson Jenkins, Jakobe Thomas, and Will Brooks. I can recall many plays from each one of these guys that helped us win games, critical plays that we might not win the game if they don't make them. I can't be the only one who seen this coming, our D taking huge steps back, this concerns me because as I said above, if Nico stays we are probably lose the Arkansas and Mississippi state games. We would be 1-5 in the SEC.. and Josh would probably be fired.
All of this being said I don't want Josh to be fired, I want him to make changes, but I'm losing confidence that he will do it, or do it fast enough to save his job, and our program from being bad again. If you get mad at me over that, I don't care, I've been a VFL and will always be, I just don't want a repeat of the bad years. I want Tennessee to be how I was when I was a kid, dominant, feared, winning championships, and we will never get there if Josh settles with the state of things now and makes no changes. I have hope he will, hopefully this past game will be the catalyst for change.
