DC hire

#2
#2
t-bone10 said:
I would like to get everybodys thought on the DC hire, is it a good one or what, I really know the guy so just wanted to know
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Little late to the party, aren't you? It is a fantastic hire, but don't trust me, but just take time to look through the threads on Volnation.
 
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#7
#7
vol_sec said:
I think we have seen the last of watching a game where the opposing team scores every drive hitting every 3rd and long all night, while watching players out of place. No where to go but up from the Vandy game.
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Yep. Hopefully no more of an "open up the middle" for the opposing QB to run all day. That was so predictable for the defense to give that up during the past.
 
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#10
#10
t-bone10 said:
I would like to get everybodys thought on the DC hire, is it a good one or what, I really know the guy so just wanted to know
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Most prolific and quality coordinator hire Tennessee has ever made. We hired a man who can run the entire defense by himself and I suspect that is why we hired him. There isnt a single person we could have hired that would of been as good or given as big of a splash. Make this hire a year ago and it would be the most talked about non-HC hire in the nation.
 
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#11
#11
I've got a bad gut sense about Knowles. Let's all hope my gut is dead wrong, but I see a mercenary type dude with no real loyalty, no real interest in UT, and a crappy personality in the twilight of his career hopping around collecting his millions with nothing more to gain. He runs a complex defense that may not be compatible with turnover from transfer portal. He doesn't recruit at all and he may prove to be poison among coaching staff - as appears to be the case in his previous two stops. I see a train wreck in the making.
Flame away, but that's my honest gut assessment. I bet I'm not alone.
 
#12
#12
t-bone10 said:
I would like to get everybodys thought on the DC hire, is it a good one or what, I really know the guy so just wanted to know
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Danny White and coach Heupel sure hit a home run by landing Knowles.
Figure in about two years to see Knowles defense to be able to kick in.

Hope you have a smooth recovery.
 
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#13
#13
Really won’t know for 2 years. First yr is the
install year and honeymoon and 2nd yr
the true story will emerge. I expect next year to be similar
to this year, win the cupcakes and lose the big 5.
 
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#19
#19
Old Geezer said:
I've got a bad gut sense about Knowles. Let's all hope my gut is dead wrong, but I see a mercenary type dude with no real loyalty, no real interest in UT, and a crappy personality in the twilight of his career hopping around collecting his millions with nothing more to gain. He runs a complex defense that may not be compatible with turnover from transfer portal. He doesn't recruit at all and he may prove to be poison among coaching staff - as appears to be the case in his previous two stops. I see a train wreck in the making.
Flame away, but that's my honest gut assessment. I bet I'm not alone.
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FYI, he does have UT family ties with his only daughter graduating from UTK while he coached at Duke (for Cutcliffe). So I'm guessing there is some UT interest. And a fiancé who's celebrating getting back to the South. He's 60 so who knows how long he's up for the grind but seems like a great hire. We shall see in the results
 
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#20
#20
Old Geezer said:
I've got a bad gut sense about Knowles. Let's all hope my gut is dead wrong, but I see a mercenary type dude with no real loyalty, no real interest in UT, and a crappy personality in the twilight of his career hopping around collecting his millions with nothing more to gain. He runs a complex defense that may not be compatible with turnover from transfer portal. He doesn't recruit at all and he may prove to be poison among coaching staff - as appears to be the case in his previous two stops. I see a train wreck in the making.
Flame away, but that's my honest gut assessment. I bet I'm not alone.
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You know they have meds for gut problems.
 
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#22
#22
t-bone10 said:
I would like to get everybodys thought on the DC hire, is it a good one or what, I really know the guy so just wanted to know
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I wrote most of this in a response in another thread, but tried to edit it enough to make sense in this thread. I’m too tired to rewrite it, so here is my opinion put as best as I can considering the above.

As a marketing professional, I have learned never to take data at face value and have spent much of my career analyzing data at a deeper level and eliminating false narrative—ultimately helping organizations to eliminate waste in the form of misconception and to craft sound strategies, programs, products, etc. based on accurate interpretation.

I appreciate the questions people are asking, and I think they are fair. Some people are questioning the slide at PSU and the firing of Banks, pointing to how good our healthy defense was just a year ago. Make no mistake, I thought the most glaring weaknesses were in S&C with all of the upper body injuries across both sides of the ball, and our historically poor OL play. However, this year’s defense is the first year I added Banks to the make a move list—with slight exception to making those other changes and giving him one more year.

Before discussing the hire, I would like to discuss Tennessee’s defense just a year ago—starting with comparing it with other years. While Banks’ defenses improved year to year, his defenses were never really great, or highly rated much like most championship teams. It is my opinion we benefited last year both in record and defensive rankings from a weak schedule, and one could point to other years—including this year’s defense for context that there might be more to last year’s story.

That said, there’s more relativity to consider than simply Tennessee’s own performance on defense outside of last year. That is hardly to discount that factor however. A lot of people look to SOS. But that’s not very telling. For one, that’s a metric of averages.

The only teams with 9 or more teams we played last year were Alabama and Georgia, yetsomehow our SOS is as high as 8th last year (On3 had us 31st) which is more in line what I would have guessed. Still, the fact we played OSU and Georgia last year heavily skews the entire season, because it’s a metric of averages. This year, we played FOUR teams with TEN wins or more. Yet our SOS currently sits at 28th. Crazy.

So that tells you when looking at SOS alone, there is some subjectivity going on. Regardless, that’s mostly dictated by records. We are looking at defenses. And to do that, you really need to look at opponents’ offensive rankings to understand how good your defense is/was.

Last year, the highest ranked offense Tennessee played was OSU’s. Their offense was ranked 13th. They put up 42 on Tennessee’s “top 7” defense. Outside of that you have Alabama’s offense at 24th, and Georgia’s at 38th, and Arkansas of all teams at 43rd and the list goes on down from there.

But then you have OSU, who had the number 1 defense in the nation playing teams with offensive rankings such as Indiana #2, Oregon (TWICE), #7 Notre Dame #10, Tennessee #14, Penn State #28, Texas #29. That’s insane to play those offenses and still have the #1 total defense at the end of the year.

Next up is Ole Miss at #2. Offenses played Georgia #38, Arkansas #43, LSU #47, South Carolina #48, and on down. That’s closer to the look of Tennessee’s, but with 4 opponent offenses in the top 50 vs 3. I think we are kind of splitting hairs between these two teams.

Looking at Texas who had the #3 total defense, they played more opponents with top 25-50 offenses than Ole Miss (7). OSU at #13, Georgia (TWICE) #38, Arkansas #43, Texas A&M 50, Clemson #18, Arizona St. 30.

Regardless, the oppontents’ strength of offenses of Tennessee and Ole Miss BOTH are night and day from Texas’ OSU’s, and yet Ole Miss sits 1 spot behind OSU one spot in front of Texas, and Tennessee sits only 6 spots behind them in total defense. It should also be noticed that FIVE of OSU’s opponents had TOP TEN offenses, while Tennessee, Ole Miss and Texas played ZERO TEAMS COMBINED with top 10 offenses.

One could try to interject the fact teams like OSU and Texas played more games due to conference championships and going deeper into the playoffs, but this is about performance averages across those games—not the number of games or total stats.

They might also interject the strength of conference, but then all you have to look at is the head to head between OSU and Tennessee to see just how real those differences were (that goes for offense too).

As I said earlier, Tennessee’s offense ranked 14th in the nation (one spot behind OSU who sat at #13). But when you look at the head to head, Tennessee’s #14 offense put up 17 points against OSU’s #1 defense, and OSU’s #13 offense put up 42 points against Tennessee’s #7 defense.

Those results are as lopsided as the number of top 25-50 offenses OSU played in comparison to Tennessee. (5 top 25, 7 top 50). That’s real, consistent data.

So when you consider the second point, the end result might have been worse for Tennessee had they played more games against teams with top 25-50 offenses.

So, to your point—Tennessee is not the only team with a top ranked total defense that should have a ? beside that ranking. But, to my point, Tennessee’s defensive ranking was achieved by playing relatively a bunch of low ranked offenses in comparison to the actual best defenses in the nation.

When you look at things more closely, OSU’s defense was far and away better than Tennessee’s and Ole Miss’ defenses, despite their total defensive rankings. Their defense was also better than Texas’ defense by this comparison. When you look at the two teams whose total defensive rankings were inaccurate,one team got left out of the playoffs while the other was blown out. While the two with more accurate total defensive rankings made the top 4–one of which won the whole thing. And THAT team had the best and most accurate defense and offensive rankings.

The bad news is that we weren’t that good last year as a team, and that our defense was not one of the top 10 defenses in the nation. The only possible argument left is that Tennessee’s defense was really that good and the difference is simply that the separation at the top was that substantial.

When you look at how few top offenses Tennessee played in comparison to OSU and even Texas, having that high of a regard for our last year’s defense is a tough sell for me. What isn’t a tough sell for me is that indeed OSU’s defense (and Texas’) were that much better than Tennessee’s.

That’s where the good news comes in. We got that guy that took a top 30ish defense in the nation to winning an NC with, hands down, the #1 defense in the nation.

Kudos to Josh for being patient with Banks and giving him a chance to continue to improve. Kudos to Josh for overcoming perhaps a loyalty complex due to his firing and finding the right balance between loyalty and necessity. Kudos to Josh (and Danny), for making a major upgrade to the part of the team he has the least influence over.

The more I think about it, this could not have been a better hire.
 
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