Championship defense

#1
DarkVolder

DarkVolder

Come on over to the dark side
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#1
Do you think Heupel will ever have a good enough defense here to win a championship? We know he can put together great offenses but he seems to not put much focus on the defensive side of the ball. Personally I have my doubts that we will ever have a great defense consistently with Heupel and yes I know it’s improved steadily every year since he arrived in 2021. But do you seriously have faith that the defense can stop a Florida and Georgia and Bama to complement our offense in order to win?. I personally thought Tim Banks and Wille Martinez should’ve been given their walking papers after last season.
 
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#2
#2
DarkVolder said:
Do you think Heupel will ever have a good enough defense here to win a championship? We know he can put together great offenses but he seems to not put much focus on the defensive side of the ball. Personally I have my doubts that we will ever have a great defense consistently with Heupel and yes I know it’s improved steadily every year since he arrived in 2021. But do you seriously have faith that the defense can stop a Florida and Georgia and Bama to complement our offense in order to win?. I personally thought Tim Banks and Wille Martinez should’ve been given their walking papers after last season.
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Hype has been here 3 years coming into a terrible situation. It's a miracle he has done this good so quickly. He may or may not but at least give him time to do so.
 
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#6
#6
DarkVolder said:
Do you think Heupel will ever have a good enough defense here to win a championship? We know he can put together great offenses but he seems to not put much focus on the defensive side of the ball. Personally I have my doubts that we will ever have a great defense consistently with Heupel and yes I know it’s improved steadily every year since he arrived in 2021. But do you seriously have faith that the defense can stop a Florida and Georgia and Bama to complement our offense in order to win?. I personally thought Tim Banks and Wille Martinez should’ve been given their walking papers after last season.
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Also have to seen our defensive line play. I would say he has put focus on the defense. It takes time
 
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#8
#8
We may finally have the talent in the secondary to be really solid on defense. There just hasn't been much to work with, particularly in the back 7. Line backer talent has been upgraded and their performance has gotten better over the last two seasons. Now the secondary has some real talent and speed, something we have lacked. I'm not sure how good they will be this year, particularly early on with all the new faces in the secondary, but this should be a very solid unit in 2025. Defense over all should be pretty good this year, and has the potential to be borderline elite next year.
 
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#9
#9
norrislakevol said:
We may finally have the talent in the secondary to be really solid on defense. There just hasn't been much to work with, particularly in the back 7. Line backer talent has been upgraded and their performance has gotten better over the last two seasons. Now the secondary has some real talent and speed, something we have lacked. I'm not sure how good they will be this year, particularly early on with all the new faces in the secondary, but this should be a very solid unit in 2025. Defense over all should be pretty good this year, and has the potential to be borderline elite next year.
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While I think BJM did a good job with LBs, they’ve been lacking in pass coverage. I hope Inge can improve that area.
 
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#10
#10
The thing is it doesn't have to be stellar to win a championship. We were good enough to compete for one 2 years ago. But...having Said that it needs to be good enough to bail you out at times. There were some times 2 years ago where the offense had no margin for error. I don't think it'll ever be a great defense, but can it be good enough? As long as the offense returns to what it was Hookers last year, I think it can. But, it sure would be nice to know it's not something we have to worry about, but as long as Banks and Martinez are here, it won't be stellar.
 
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#11
#11
norrislakevol said:
We may finally have the talent in the secondary to be really solid on defense. There just hasn't been much to work with, particularly in the back 7. Line backer talent has been upgraded and their performance has gotten better over the last two seasons. Now the secondary has some real talent and speed, something we have lacked. I'm not sure how good they will be this year, particularly early on with all the new faces in the secondary, but this should be a very solid unit in 2025. Defense over all should be pretty good this year, and has the potential to be borderline elite next year.
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We still don’t have coaching talent in the secondary
 
#14
#14
DarkVolder said:
Do you think Heupel will ever have a good enough defense here to win a championship? We know he can put together great offenses but he seems to not put much focus on the defensive side of the ball. Personally I have my doubts that we will ever have a great defense consistently with Heupel and yes I know it’s improved steadily every year since he arrived in 2021. But do you seriously have faith that the defense can stop a Florida and Georgia and Bama to complement our offense in order to win?. I personally thought Tim Banks and Wille Martinez should’ve been given their walking papers after last season.
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Yes. And soon.
 
#16
#16
BigBadVol said:
OP, have you not looked at his recruiting and acquisitions thru the portal? Are you that clueless? I feel like people post crap just to post crap and don’t pay attention to anything.
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Yes I know we have more talent coming in, my concern is the defensive coaches. How can you get shredded up by that bad Florida team last season? and even though we beat Kentucky our defense looked lost and got torched by Devin Leary who had a mediocre season. It’s the same ole same ole every season so far under Heupel with the defense and the two common denominators that have been there since he arrived in 2021 are Tim Banks and Wille.
 
#18
#18
DarkVolder said:
Do you think Heupel will ever have a good enough defense here to win a championship? We know he can put together great offenses but he seems to not put much focus on the defensive side of the ball. Personally I have my doubts that we will ever have a great defense consistently with Heupel and yes I know it’s improved steadily every year since he arrived in 2021. But do you seriously have faith that the defense can stop a Florida and Georgia and Bama to complement our offense in order to win?. I personally thought Tim Banks and Wille Martinez should’ve been given their walking papers after last season.
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I think the poster has a legitimate concern with our defense. I mean the goal is to be the best isn’t it? I don’t think we should fault those who want to pursue greatness, I mean that’s what made Tennessee great to begin with. Personally I like the “it’s never good enough” mentality, I like finding things to improve upon no matter how successful we get.

I do think a unique defensive challenge for Heupel is the type of offense we run. It’s great that we are fast and have a lot of plays, but I do feel like it wears down our d, especially if we have 3 and outs.

That’s why I feel like recruiting depth and talent specifically with DBs should take a bigger priority, even over some offensive positions. And Thank god for Garner, he’s brought in a lot of talent alone the defensive line to maintain constant pressure on the line but I wonder how tired the DBs get because theoretically they would run the most distances on defense right?

By the way this is just an assumption, I haven’t seen any data on how many plays our dbs run so this could be completely wrong haha. But it’s just a hypothesis
 
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#19
#19
DarkVolder said:
It’s not trolling it’s the facts so far. Do you expect to make the playoff or win the SEC with Tim Banks and Wille Martinez calling your defense?
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You can call it what you want, but as many have said, the D has systematically improved each year. The talent is rising dramatically. We led the league in TFL last year and 2nd in sacks. There is massive improvement from the last year of Pruitt. I think UT will be in the playoffs in the next two years potentially.....
 
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#20
#20
DarkVolder said:
Do you think Heupel will ever have a good enough defense here to win a championship? We know he can put together great offenses but he seems to not put much focus on the defensive side of the ball. Personally I have my doubts that we will ever have a great defense consistently with Heupel and yes I know it’s improved steadily every year since he arrived in 2021. But do you seriously have faith that the defense can stop a Florida and Georgia and Bama to complement our offense in order to win?. I personally thought Tim Banks and Wille Martinez should’ve been given their walking papers after last season.
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All the top players will end up in the SEC over the next 5 years from across the country. Its where the money is. With the transfer portal rules every coach should be able to have a top defensive and offensive team, or lets say they should have the best team they can afford. Its just a question of money as far as player personal goes.
 
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#21
#21
If you think Hyp doesn't understand what makes a championship team your basically saying he doesn't know how to coach. He played on a NC team. If he didn't think his D coaches were getting the job done he would change them. He has total backing and $ from the AD to do whatever he needs. AD White is very aware FB pays all the bills and is the face of UT sports.
 
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#22
#22
DarkVolder said:
Do you think Heupel will ever have a good enough defense here to win a championship? We know he can put together great offenses but he seems to not put much focus on the defensive side of the ball. Personally I have my doubts that we will ever have a great defense consistently with Heupel and yes I know it’s improved steadily every year since he arrived in 2021. But do you seriously have faith that the defense can stop a Florida and Georgia and Bama to complement our offense in order to win?. I personally thought Tim Banks and Wille Martinez should’ve been given their walking papers after last season.
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Yes, we have already beaten Florida and Bama under Heupel and we will continue to only get better on D. GBO
 
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