Thread says it. Are we ever really going to catch them? I don’t think so. People can talk about the portal and NIL all you want. It’s not
Leveling anything. All it’s doing is making the rich richer. I mean how long has it been since we have owned UGA? Well let’s look at facts.
Since 2000, we are 6-18 against UGA. And let’s face facts. The UGA that Heupel is going against is VASTLY better than ANY UGA team Fulmer or anyone else faced. I mean Butch beat UGA in 2015 and 2016. I mean really? That was Riches last year and Kirby’s first ever with a true FR QB. In 2016 we needed a pure luck play to beat them.
We know UGA will recruit nothing less than top 3 from here on out. So how do we overcome that?
You say let’s look at facts? Well let’s do exactly that when we talking about closing the talent gap.
Since 2021 UT has been gutted for what talent they did have and lost it. After Pruitt was fired UT had 35 or so players transfer, recruits de-committing, and having to vacate scholarships due to Pruitts behavior. That has been the biggest difference between UT and UGA and Bama over the last 2 years. Our starters have been as good as anyone else starters most times. But when the game gets into the 2nd half, either teams come back from being behind, or they pull away. This year we have 4 losses where the Vols were either leading or only down by 14 or less at half. 2nd half comes and our starters are worn out for having to play as much, and our rotational players are not near as good as other teams due to lack of depth.
35+28= 63 scholarship players lost due to transfers and scholarship reductions since 2021. NCAA only allows 85 scholarship players. Up till spring of last year, you could only sign 25 players per cycle and now it’s 32. Heupel has not had enough time to rebuild the depth to be Competive with the top teams for the entire game. When you look at UGA you see 4* and 5*’s at every position in their 2 and 3 deep. When they sub, they don’t have a drop in talent. When the Vols sub, it’s not even close to what they replaced at most positions.
Injuries have been a big issue this year that has most definitely caused the Vols some problems. The Vols have not had the same starting 22 players since the 1st game of the year. Our WR’s have been bad this year with dropping passes and can’t get separation, and our only bright spot was Bru McCoy and he goes down for the year. Then when it appears Thornton is finally getting healthy and playing well, he goes down for the year. Our running backs are great, but when UGA and Mizzou knows we can’t pass it, they have no reason to play it and just solely concentrate on the run and force us to beat them through the air and we can’t yet. Then look at the defensive side of the ball and we have starters and key backups like Arion Carter out for the year.
Expectations- When Heup took the job, most everyone just wanted a bowl game for years 1 and 2 as we all knew it was gonna take time to fix the mess he inherited. I remember everyone saying he would need 4 full recruiting classes, and need year 5 to actually tell what kind of coach we have and before we can start actually judging him. But the Heup man had other plans and it’s great. In year 2 he done the unthinkable and took the tram to a NY6 bowl game. Even after the small success we had the year before, we still wasn’t expecting 11 wins and competing for the CFP so quick. In fact most fans would have been satisfied for 9 wins and going to good bowl and keep showing improvement because they all knew just how bad the team was he took over and the depth issues we had. Now with all the success and the over achieving Heupel and this team has accomplished, everyone forgot that we still have real depth issues that are not fixed and all of sudden changed to borderline expectations after losing all the talent we did to the NFL. The Vols are not at the point YET where we can replace NFL talent the next year because of depth.
The pre season expectations for the Vols this year was 9-3 to 8-4 according to ESPN FPI. And we can still accomplish this and with a bowl game win 9 games. We have only lost 1 game this year that we was the favorite to win before the season. ESPN FPI projections had us losing to Florida, Bama, and UGA. Had us as a toss up with Kentucky but we was barely favored. Mizzou was the only game the FPI was wrong about. Many experts were wrong about Mizzou as they was picked to finish 6th in the east.
4 losses:
#1 UGA
#8 Bama
#10 Mizzou
Florida
UT is the only team in the country that has to play UF, UGA and Bama every season. Also how many teams have played 3 top 10 teams already? There’s only a hand full of teams in the entire country that can come out of this 4 game stretch with a winning record, and 2 of them are on this list. Not everyone can have Auburn, or Arkansas as their cross permanent team like Mizzou and UGA.
The last 3 years the Vols have played Bama(x3) Ole Miss, LSU, and aTm. UGA has played Bama(x1), Auburn(x3), Miss State, and Ole Miss. Mizzou has played Arkansas(x3), aTm, Auburn, and LSU. No one plays the same schedule as we do and we have to take that into consideration when we talk about expectations when Heup has been on the job less than 3 years. Imagine swapping our cross rival with Arkansas, Auburn or Miss State? What would UGA or Bama record be every year if they had to play each other every year plus other top teams. Bama and UGA both have scheduling advantages against the Vols also.
Anyways have a great night and know the future is bright and need to give Heupel the time to really build the depth. He has been recruiting well the last 2 years and let’s see what we do over the next 3 years visored to the previous 3 years.
but 2023 class was 56% three stars, and the current class is 40% three stars. Further recruiting efforts should continue to increase that bluechip ratio while also yielding more guys who turn out to be bluechips but weren’t rated as such, like Squirrel and Jeremiah Telander.
