DG's Takeaways from the Florida Disaster

[99gator]

My wife and I attended the LSU Vandy game. First, let me say LSU will crush UF this year. The LSU Bama game is going to be a blast to watch.
Secondly, as we were walking back to our car we were held up where the Vandy players exit the stadium and cross the street to the Fieldhouse. The team is really small. One young man greeting his parents and girlfriend had a LBs number and is smaller than me.
Lastly, to your point, meh.

I think Auburn, LSU, and Georgia all crush Florida

 

[Girth Brooks]

Our D-tackles seriously !! We're playing to freshman o-linemen !! We just don't have the depth that LSU, Georgia, and Bama have of quality talent I don't know why you can't understand that!!!! Is there boneheaded coaching decisions yes I agree but our depth and talent level at every position is nowhere near top-tier SEC level play!!!!!

The offensive line has looked relatively good this season, and they are certainly not “the problem” right now.

You, and others like you, have been using the depth excuse for over a decade. I guess we’re the only university in the country with 10th-year freshmen?

We have quality talent. See my original response to you. If you don’t agree, you’re mentally devoid of rational thought. Further, I suggest you look up some of our players, and investigate who was in contention for their services.

From a talent standpoint in the SEC, we are behind AL, UGA, and LSU. Everyone else is a wash or behind us. If the recruiting services are wrong, why does it seem that they are only wrong about UT’s recruits? A more likely scenario is this: the recruiting services did not whiff, we just have incompetent leadership. This is the crossroads you’re at. I’m not suggesting recruiting services never miss, only that they don’t miss on dozens of kids that were recruited to play anywhere in the country but decided to come to UT. Do you see how dumb this sounds? It is your argument, though.

 

[McDad]

I think Auburn, LSU, and Georgia all crush Florida

LSU looks like a completely different team...from an offensive philosophy standpoint. They're fun to watch.

 

[99gator]

LSU looks like a completely different team...from an offensive philosophy standpoint. They're fun to watch.

They've had some of the best WR's in America for years and no one would have ever known

 

[Neyland Law Vol]

LSU found a QB. That is what we need. Need to wait till HB arrives

 

[McDad]

They've had some of the best WR's in America for years and no one would have ever known

True.
Their defense was supposed to be lights out amazing. But they were only good yesterday. Maybe took off a bit because of Vandy. Idk.

 

[McDad]

LSU found a QB. That is what we need. Need to wait till HB arrives

Not only that, but they did a lot of work in the offseason working with the N.O. Saints coaches to help with their passing attack.
The jumbotron showed some stats in 1st Q. LSU had time of possession of 3 minutes and some change. They had 21 points.

 

[99gator]

Not only that, but they did a lot of work in the offseason working with the N.O. Saints coaches to help with their passing attack.
The jumbotron showed some stats in 1st Q. LSU had time of possession of 3 minutes and some change. They had 21 points.

You have to give Ed O credit. I saw an interview with him. He became comfortable in his own skin, said it's my program, screw it, I'm going to do what I need to do.

And he went and found an OC and handed him the reins on that offense.

 

[orangerush]

So there is room for improvement at every position to include coaching.

 

[VOLINVONORE]

I appreciate your efforts but I must take issue with you regarding the defense.

They were sliced and diced on the first drive looking flat footed and slow. They did adjust and did some nice things during the game, but they didn’t ever get pressure on the QB without blitzing, the linebackers were terrible in pass coverage and the secondary left receivers open too often. The TD before the half on 4th and 1 was unacceptable and heartbreaking. The best I could rate this Defense is a C - for their performance yesterday.

The offense gets a D - as they don’t have a serviceable QB. The line play was solid for the most part against a solid defense.

It took them a while at adjust to the pass across the middle. Other than that, I think the defense played much better until the offense had their string of three and out. No defense can stand up to that without a lot of depth. We don't yet have a lot of depth in most of the team,but specifically on the Dline.

 

[VOLinAL]

Defense at B+ is a joke. Mainly because our d line couldn't put pressure on a high school team. I understand almost any QB that has 5+ seconds to throw will light us up no matter how good or bad our secondary is. I think our defense was C- at best more likely a D+.

 

[Memphisvol87]

I will say this with regard to QB and coaching.....

People brought it up earlier and it's true.

JG may be limited. JG may not be great. But, he's better than what he has been this season.

Lane Kiffin thought Crompton could do some things, realized he couldn't, and changed what they did in the passing game to allow Crompton a chance to be successful.

It's clear, at least to me, that JG is lost mentally right now and that is on coaches. If you have to dumb it down, dumb it down.

If you do that, I don't think he misses throws like he did to DWA. But, his confidence is completely shot.

You don’t dumb down an offense that has been schemed good enough to win all 4 games. Watch the film, we have open receivers, tight ends, and missed blocks all over the place. JG just hasn’t been able to execute. Band aid fixing a problem is how you end up being the next Dooley, butch, etc.
I bet JG has been executing fine in practice and now Pruitt is realizing what we all see. Pruitt can’t bail on his rebuild because we have a couple head cases.
Run Pruitt’s defense and Chaney’s offense, and show the film to recruits. Play whoever can execute the rest of the year, we aren’t playing for anything meaningful.

 

[diehardvolsfan]

I agree our biggest problem is no QB

If JG stays next year and Pruitt is coach guess what happens....yep you got it. JG will start AGAIN. HB will say I’m outta here.....

 

[lynnh]

Ugly game, but here we go.


Grading Our Units

Special Teams: B. Few mistakes this game, but we seriously might have the best special teams in the nation.

Defense: B+. Played very well. Still filled with young talent, but I feel like this unit could be elite by 2020 or 2021. 3 turnovers against a very good offense, though, is encouraging. Even with some mistakes in pass coverage, 3 turnovers makes up for a lot of mistakes ... errr ... it would if the offense could move the ball.

Offense: F. Almost all of our problems were on offense. If the offense plays worth a crap, it's a close game at a bare minimum.

2005 all over again. This year is starting to feel a lot like 2005 to me. That season, we had a great defense, but couldn't win because our offense was so putrid. We went 5-6. It was the "first strike" against Fulmer that eventually led to his firing.

71 - 55. Number of plays the Gators ran versus number of plays we ran. Gives a better sense of how bad the offense was and why the D had an uphill struggle.

Quarterback

JG. His regression continues. JG was far from a "Hall of Famer" last season, but he wasn't anywhere near this bad. He's already thrown 4 INTs (more than all of last season); that's even worse when you consider the level of competition it's come against. However, that's not even the worst part.

Lack of leadership / out of sync. The most concerning thing about JG isn't his declining passing skills (as bad as that is) but his complete lack of leadership. The offense looks confused and out of sync with him on the field. It's like there's no communication at all.

The baffling. The most baffling thing about JG right now is that when he has good OL protection, he can't hit the broad side of a barn, but when a defender is about to obliterate him, he can somehow throw a perfect pass. Sort of reiterates the idea that his problems are more mental than mechanical. He may be the only QB I can ever remember who seems to play better "under pressure".

Maurer. Maurer is a true Freshmen QB who looks like a true Freshman QB. He was 4 for 11, threw an INT, and consistently underestimated the size and speed of Florida's defenders. Several of his passes were batted down because in his head, the D-lineman should be shorter. But the team at least looked like it knew what it was doing with Maurer on the field. For those saying Maurer played well, you're wrong; he played poorly, but the ways he "played poorly" at least look like they can be fixed with more experience. I continue to believe he was one of the most underrated prospects in the 2019 class, but it's going to take him some time to develop.

No good options. The most frustrating thing about VolNation right now is its persistent belief that Jeremy Pruitt has "gold" sitting on the bench right now, but is inexplicably sticking with JG. None of the options are good. We have a regressing 4th year QB, an INT-prone 2nd year QB, and a true Freshman who looks every bit like a true Freshman. Of the 3, Maurer has the most upside IMO, but it's going to be an ugly ride no matter who we go with.

The case for Shrout. Of the 3 QBs, Shrout "looks" the most like a legit SEC QB, but his issue thus far has been accuracy. He routinely lets passes sail on him, which is why he was an interception machine in high school. In his Senior year, he threw 29 TDs, but also 26 INTs. He's a flawed QB, but the case for Shrout is that the offense is so putrid right now, that at least Shrout probably hits Jennings / Callaway / Palmer / DWA for a few long TD passes; it's just that he also probably throws the ball to other team at some point. But very tough to win with a QB that can generate 0 points.

The case for Maurer. Of the 3 QBs, Maurer seems like he's the one most likely to evolve into a legit SEC QB. He has good leadership qualities, he's a good scrambler, good instincts, and he's unafraid. He's got to start realizing that the Florida Gators (and the Georgia Bulldogs and Alabama Crimson Tide, etc) do not have high school level defenders. He's throwing the ball too low, underestimating how quickly DBs can react, etc, etc, etc. But all that should be fixable with experience.

Stop blaming Pruitt; there's no easy solution. I'm not saying Pruitt doesn't deserve any blame this season, but the QB problems are not his fault.

2020: Wide Open Competition. Here's the good news. We add blue-chip recruit Harrison Bailey next season. We also get Maryland transfer QB Kasim Hill. Both Shrout and Maurer will improve. So while we have bad options this year, the coaches have been working hard to fix the situation. Unless JG gets his head together, we're going to have a new starting QB in 2020. But this year, may simply be a mess at QB.

My pick. All bad options, but I think I start JT Shrout against Georgia. Right now, none of the 3 QBs stand out. Shrout has already used his redshirt (unlike Maurer), and we're not beating Georgia anyway, so might as well try him out, let him make some mistakes, and see if he can gain control of this offense. What do we have to lose at this point?



The Rest of the Offense

O-line penalties. Not every issue on offense was JG's fault. The O-line penalties were excessive. We should not have that many penalties and this offense looks undisciplined right now. Some of that is Freshmen mistakes, but the coaching needs to be better on OL as well.

Miscommunication. While I'm putting the onus on JG to get communication right, all of the offense deserves some blame.

The Jennings Drop. Jennings is our best player on offense, but even he had a bad day out there. Jennings has bailed JG out of a few INTs this season, but one of JG's INTs should have been a touchdown this game. Jennings should have caught that ball; it was perfectly thrown.

Overall. No one played great on offense, but QB feels like the biggest problem right now. The rest of the offense seemed to get more in sync when Maurer was out there, which says something to me.

Tyson Helton was underrated. I said this all last season, but Helton was much better than given credit for. He basically took the worst offense and worst O-line in the P5 conferences and made it serviceable enough to win 5 games, and almost 6 games (South Carolina) against one of the toughest schedules in the nation. He also managed to make JG look reasonably good in the process.


Defense

Played well. Some people are blaming the defense, but I saw a very good performance out there against an elite offensive coach. First off, offense has 4 turnovers that helped create some of those 34 points.

3 turnovers; should've been 4. We took the ball away from Florida 3 times and it would've been 4 if not for a defender's foot slightly gracing out of bounds line.

Goal line stand was bad call by refs. I rewatched Florida's TD score at the end of the half a few times, and it looks to me like his knee was down before crossing the goal line. Bad call by the refs, but it didn't really make a difference in a 34-3 blowout.

17 points on 71 plays. Get rid of the points off of turnovers (10 points) and the bad goal line call and the Vols D gave up 17 points to a good Gator offense. Even more amazing when you consider that the Gators ran 71 plays due to our own offensive ineptitude.

3.5 yards per carry. This is a very good stat for our D. We held Florida to 3.5 ypc.

Could be elite in 2020 or 2021. I don't know the direction of the offense, but the main reason I have some confidence in Pruitt is that I think this D has the potential to be elite in 2020 or 2021. So long as Pruitt can continue recruiting at a high level, add some top-notch DL, we will have an extremely good D the next 2 seasons.


Big Picture

Overreaction. All the "FAHR PRUITT!" crap needs to die down. We suck right now, but I can see major progress on defense. We need a QB badly. We'll have a much better situation at QB in 2020.

Pruitt needs to channel Butch's salesmanship. Look ... I don't like Butch Jones ... but the sales job he did in 2013 and 2014 was almost certainly needed. Butch was a mediocre football coach, but he knew how to inspire people. Pruitt needs to continue selling these recruits on turning around this program and the opportunity to play early, because those opportunities are going to be available. He can not put his head down and think "all hope is lost". This offense can be fixed next year with a new QB.

We always expected to lose to Florida. Feel like the "END OF THE WORLD" vibe on VN is more the result of losing to Georgia State and BYU. We always expected to lose to Florida this year. Even the crazy "9-3" prediction people had us losing to Florida. Suddenly, people convince themselves that Florida was a "crap team" rather than an top 10 team. Get used to it; we're probably getting clobbered by Bama and Georgia.

Judge progress by the end stretch. We got to look at how we play against Miss State, South Carolina, Vandy, and Kentucky to see where we really are. Florida + Georgia + Bama don't tell us much that we didn't already know.

Play Shrout for Georgia. I don't think Pruitt will do it, but the odds of beating Georgia are so low, I think I'd risk starting Shrout against Georgia. If he fails, no biggie. You got your Freshman QB some valuable experience.

Keep on 'cruiting. It's the only way to succeed.

No matter what, I will always be a Tennessee Vols fan!

GBO!

Giving the defense B+ that is really generous I didn't see that "D", I'm not putting the interception on JJ, if receiver is 5 yds away QB shouldn't
knock receiver down with a throw......…….

 

[Bigun]

Lol at the defense being elite next year or the next.

Let me guess...JJ Petersen will be a monster next year?

 

[Volhoops]

My biggest disagreement on the grading is to say the D played well. It didn't look to hard for Florida to move the ball. 5-10 yard pass plays were awful easy for Florida. Then when they brought in their freshman QB who was only going to hand off UT still stayed in a coverage formation instead of crowding the line and trying to stop the run. Our current QB situation is entirely the fault of Pruitt because they did not go hard at the graduate transfer market and get an experienced QB to come in for this season. There were a fair amount of SEC teams that did do that and most have competent QB play. That is something UT does not have with JG. Got to play the freshman QBs and try and build. Our only points were from Maurer and he gets yanked. Frustrating.

 

[HuntlandVolinColo]

Good summation DG:

Despite leading team in receptions, Jennings had three uncharacteristic mistakes: Pass off his hands for an Int, penalty on punt returner, and letting fumble recovery slip through his hands.

All those painful PF penalties, especially the drive killers on offense. OL got flustered and confused and went into melt down at times.

JG regression continues.

Maurer provided a spark to the offense and looked good on the first drive. Then he tried too hard and as a result started making mistakes/ not seeing opportunities. That's why he got pulled the first time. He appears to be a better option than JG though.

I wouldn't rule out Strout either and I believe he has the better arm but right now Maurer leads him...plus his Maurer's mobility is a plus with a young, developing OL.

Defense played respectable but stayed on the field too long. Lack of DL pressure gave Trask a ton of time on several plays which he eventually found an open receiver. Secondary made too many mistakes, like that first play.

On the Plus side: I really liked using Crouch for short yardages situations. We really needed a beefy RB like him and he plowed his way through marginal blocking to get 3 yards on a 3 and 1. Just think of how many short-yardage failures we have already had this year.

 

[I40flyer]

I thought the Defense played relatively well especially in the first half before they got worn down in the second half after the O couldn’t get anything going all game. Appreciate your assessment.

This has been the problem all year, we play for half the game, JG gets emotional (maybe a few tears) and the team "quits" for the second half.

 

[HuntlandVolinColo]

My biggest disagreement on the grading is to say the D played well. It didn't look to hard for Florida to move the ball. 5-10 yard pass plays were awful easy for Florida. Then when they brought in their freshman QB who was only going to hand off UT still stayed in a coverage formation instead of crowding the line and trying to stop the run. Our current QB situation is entirely the fault of Pruitt because they did not go hard at the graduate transfer market and get an experienced QB to come in for this season. There were a fair amount of SEC teams that did do that and most have competent QB play. That is something UT does not have with JG. Got to play the freshman QBs and try and build. Our only points were from Maurer and he gets yanked. Frustrating.

Fair point but until they got tired, they created opportunities with turnovers....bend but not break.

DL gave Trask a ton of time on occasion and he always found the open receiver on those downs. A few mistakes by Secondary too. But for the most part run game was bottled up.

 

[Roustabout]

I appreciate your efforts but I must take issue with you regarding the defense.

They were sliced and diced on the first drive looking flat footed and slow. They did adjust and did some nice things during the game, but they didn’t ever get pressure on the QB without blitzing, the linebackers were terrible in pass coverage and the secondary left receivers open too often. The TD before the half on 4th and 1 was unacceptable and heartbreaking. The best I could rate this Defense is a C - for their performance yesterday.

The offense gets a D - as they don’t have a serviceable QB. The line play was solid for the most part against a solid defense.

Agree, zero pass rush doesn’t get you a B+.
They get a B+ on run defense.

 

[HuntlandVolinColo]

I hate to call out a kid but I’ve been waiting 4 years for warrior to be the player we all thought he was going to be but he just seems to be the weak link in the secondary.

His Soph season was his best IMHO. Theo Jackson keeps getting better though!

 

[Volhoops]

Fair point but until they got tired, they created opportunities with turnovers....bend but not break.

DL gave Trask a ton of time on occasion and he always found the open receiver on those downs. A few mistakes by Secondary too. But for the most part run game was bottled up.

Bend but do not break ? They gave up 34 points to what everybody keeps saying is a bad Florida team. Florida has no running game so stopping it is only mildly ok.

 

[I40flyer]

Just as our team typically quits the game during the second half, it appears many fans have taken a dose of "Let's quit" laxative!! As anyone can see, we won't win many (if any) more games. GA and BAMA are going to KICK our butts (maybe even another old fashion GA Ass Whooping, where we end up with a Zero, as boy butch gave us), so the answer is to Quit, and think about next year, or 2021...…. Things get worse every day.

 

[lilesrt]

Plan for the QB options stated above, but keep a look out for QB talent in the transfer portal come the off-season. We need instant contributors. The portal potentially gives us that. We don’t need minor adjustments. We need complete over-haul.

 

[bluetick2]

It is Pruitts fault that there is no decent qb on the roster. College football is filled with transfers who are dominating and we are left with JG