DG's takeaways after the Georgia game

[DiderotsGhost]

There's nothing I hate more than losing to Georgia, but we knew that was likely at the beginning of the season. Yesterday's game sucked, but this is still the best Vols team we've seen in over 20 years.

Great coaches outperform, but talent still wins championships. In college football, I can't think of a single example of a team winning a national championship without top-level talent in the past 25+ seasons. Plenty of teams outperform with great coaching. Kansas State under Bill Snyder is a great example. Roster filled with 2- and 3-star players, often ranked in the 50's or 60's on the recruiting rankings. Snyder had nine 10+ win seasons in his career, but never won the national championship. We've outperformed our talent level all season and just ran into a team filled with 5-star recruits yesterday. And we still had a shot to win.

Georgia most talented team in US. Absolutely loaded with 5-star class after 5-star class. No team in America is on their level talent-wise. And there's probably not another team in college football that can play our WRs like Georgia did.

Hooker's off-day. Hooker has played well all season, but yesterday was his worst game of the season. To be sure, Georgia's defense had a lot to do with it, but his rhythm was also off for much of the day, particularly in the 1st Quarter. Several missed deep throws. Hooker also struggled with knowing when to tuck and run the ball. That said, I thought Hooker got better as the game went on. Unfortunately, we dug ourselves a deep hole early and couldn't make it up.

2 deep passes and the game goes down to the wire. The game was much closer than the score indicated. If Hooker hits those 2 wide-open deep passes, we're right in the game. The difference yesterday was that Stetson Bennett hit his open deep throws and Hooker did not.

Crowd impacted the O-line. Difficult to deny it. Our crowd caused Bama to have a lot of penalties and likely won us that game. Georgia's crowd did the same to us. 9 penalties for 55 yards and many false starts in critical situations.

Secondary struggled again. I think we've built a roster that is playoff-caliber in many places, but we're still not quite there at LB and DB. We struggled in pass coverage and those two big TD passes from Bennett won the game for Georgia.

Tillman played well. Sorta lost in that game was that Tillman played very well for his 1st "full game" back. 7 receptions for 68 yards against the best defense in America.


Big picture and looking forward

Notre Dame beats Clemson. While losing to Georgia makes our path to the playoffs more difficult, Clemson losing has re-opened the door. Clemson's weak schedule down the stretch means there is almost no way they were going to lose after this week. If they beat Notre Dame, they were probably in. The blowout loss to ND puts us squarely ahead of them, though.

LSU over Bama. Meanwhile, Bama's 2nd loss makes it difficult for them to get in by beating Georgia in the SECCG. In fact, they might not even make the CG; both LSU and Ole Miss are ahead of them at the moment. Bama running the table and beating a dominant Georgia in the SECCG would almost certainly made us the '3rd SEC team'. Now, we're still 2nd in the pecking order and have a shot at the playoffs.

4 teams ahead of us for now. So essentially only four teams should be ahead of us now: Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan, and maybe TCU. Georgia will probably win through the SECCG; and they probably get in even with a loss at this point. Ohio State and Michigan play each other, so one of them has to lose. TCU is the tricky one but they have a very good Texas team and Baylor left on the schedule, as well as the Big 12 CG (which will be against someone they've already played in all likelihood). So even if TCU ends up at #5 (behind us) this week, they'll leapfrog us if they win out. But they still have 3 tough games on their schedule, so it will not be an easy path for them.

Beat Mizzou. All that matters now is beating Mizzou. Noon game in Neyland next Saturday.

8-1. At this point in the season, we were expected to be somewhere between 5-4 and 7-2. We've exceeded every expectation of us. While the loss yesterday sucks, no one other than Vol homers expected us to make it this far. Bama and Georgia were supposed to be automatic L's. We beat Bama and we showed we could be competitive with Georgia.

Recruiting will help. If anything, this season will help recruiting in the future and make it a bit easier for us to jump into the elite talent ranks. We're not that far off right now and everything Heupel has done will help us moving forward.


GBO!

 

[Fatdad32]

Great analysis!

 

[tbh]

Well stated...the sky is not falling by any means. We're in a better spot than expected at this point...time for the program to focus on the next game and take care of business moving forward.

 

[Halph66]

The only thing I’ll add is Tennessee’s next three opponents won’t help our cause, similar to Clemson. We have to win out and let the chips fall where they may.
I like where we are today as compared to past years. I never made a prediction of this year’s performance, but thought it was in that 5-4 to 7-2 with luck.
They have far exceeded my expectations to date. But don’t let one loss turn into two. Reference the elephants. There is still a lot to play for.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Solid observations, DG, thanks for them.

Particularly appreciate your comments about talent imbalance. As courageous and devoted and big-hearted as our lads are, it is tough to go up against a wall of eleven 5- and 4-star freaks of nature (I mean, did you see the TE, Washington? Dude looked like Sasquatch in a red jersey). It grinds. It tightens up all the throwing windows and running lanes until they're dangerously small. It can be like blowing out those birthday candles that re-light themselves: one of our offensive lineman put a blitzing Dawg on the ground, I mean put him all the way down...and then he popped back up at 25 mph to sack Hooker anyway. Those candles just won't go out. It gets really frustrating the 40th, 60th, 70th time you try.

And we need to acknowledge the strength of the UGa crowd. We scoff at visiting teams (like Bama) who try to pretend Neyland didn't throw them off their game. So let's not be silly like they are. The UGa fan base absolutely helped their team win last night. They made a difference. Tip the cap to them.

~ ~ ~

As for the rest of the season, LSU makes it to Atlanta. The only two SEC games they have left are teams that are melting (Arkansas and A&M). The Tigers have the tie-breaker win over Ole Miss. They're in.

So UGa-LSU for the SEC. I think we all know how that turns out, 99 times out of 100. Congrats, Georgia, you not only de facto won the East last night, you de facto won the SEC title.

~ ~ ~

Coming into the season, we knew Pitt, Florida, and LSU were "peer competition." Splitting those matches with two wins would've been a good outcome. Sweeping all three was just glorious.

Coming into the season, we knew Bama and UGa out-talented us. Splitting those two games, well, that was beyond all reasonable expectations.

I'm still thrilled with the lads. I'm still thrilled with the coaches. It only gets better from here. I see an incredibly bright future full of championship games. Hitting the ceiling at the top end of this season doesn't change any of that.

~ ~ ~

And Hendon's Heisman chances aren't gone. Set back, sure. But now he gets to pad his stats with relative cupcakes the way CJ Stroud has been doing all year. It is Hendon's turn to make his case against lesser competition. Fair is fair.

Thanks again, DG, good write-up.

Go Vols!

 

[tim]

we won the 2nd half

 

[VAVolsFan2009]

Great analysis. Thanks for sharing. Heupel and staff have done an excellent job of focusing the team on "one game at a time." Starting today, everyone's sole mission is to prepare for Mizzo. We'll see a Vols team ready to compete on Saturday. #GBO #WGWTFA

Edit: Vols win out and play in the Sugar Bowl.

 

[UTFanHades]

You could have have saved words and said we were beaten soundly in all 3 aspects of the game and coaching and nobody other than McGrath played to their level of play.

 

[VollerNbham]

Hooker could not handle the nerves and the rush. Should have thrown the ball away several times instead of holding on and trying to get free.

 

[chattaboogie]

Solid observations, DG, thanks for them.

Particularly appreciate your comments about talent imbalance. As courageous and devoted and big-hearted as our lads are, it is tough to go up against a wall of eleven 5- and 4-star freaks of nature (I mean, did you see the TE, Washington? Dude looked like Sasquatch in a red jersey). It grinds. It tightens up all the throwing windows and running lanes until they're dangerously small. It can be like blowing out those birthday candles that re-light themselves: one of our offensive lineman put a blitzing Dawg on the ground, I mean put him all the way down...and then he popped back up at 25 mph to sack Hooker anyway. Those candles just won't go out. It gets really frustrating the 40th, 60th, 70th time you try.

And we need to acknowledge the strength of the UGa crowd. We scoff at visiting teams (like Bama) who try to pretend Neyland didn't throw them off their game. So let's not be silly like they are. The UGa fan base absolutely helped their team win last night. They made a difference. Tip the cap to them.

~ ~ ~

As for the rest of the season, LSU makes it to Atlanta. The only two SEC games they have left are teams that are melting (Arkansas and A&M). The Tigers have the tie-breaker win over Ole Miss. They're in.

So UGa-LSU for the SEC. I think we all know how that turns out, 99 times out of 100. Congrats, Georgia, you not only de facto won the East last night, you de facto won the SEC title.

~ ~ ~

Coming into the season, we knew Pitt, Florida, and LSU were "peer competition." Splitting those matches with two wins would've been a good outcome. Sweeping all three was just glorious.

Coming into the season, we knew Bama and UGa out-talented us. Splitting those two games, well, that was beyond all reasonable expectations.

I'm still thrilled with the lads. I'm still thrilled with the coaches. It only gets better from here. I see an incredibly bright future full of championship games. Hitting the wall at the top end of this season doesn't change any of that.

~ ~ ~

And Hendon's Heisman chances aren't gone. Set back, sure. But now he gets to pad his stats with relative cupcakes the way CJ Stroud has been doing all year. It is Hendon's turn to make his case against lesser competition. Fair is fair.

Thanks again, DG, good write-up.

Go Vols!

I think you’re counting the SECC for UGA a little prematurely. LSU is pretty obviously a very different team than the one we played.

 

[TheFlash1971]

There's nothing I hate more than losing to Georgia, but we knew that was likely at the beginning of the season. Yesterday's game sucked, but this is still the best Vols team we've seen in over 20 years.

Great coaches outperform, but talent still wins championships. In college football, I can't think of a single example of a team winning a national championship without top-level talent in the past 25+ seasons. Plenty of teams outperform with great coaching. Kansas State under Bill Snyder is a great example. Roster filled with 2- and 3-star players, often ranked in the 50's or 60's on the recruiting rankings. Snyder had nine 10+ win seasons in his career, but never won the national championship. We've outperformed our talent level all season and just ran into a team filled with 5-star recruits yesterday. And we still had a shot to win.

Georgia most talented team in US. Absolutely loaded with 5-star class after 5-star class. No team in America is on their level talent-wise. And there's probably not another team in college football that can play our WRs like Georgia did.

Hooker's off-day. Hooker has played well all season, but yesterday was his worst game of the season. To be sure, Georgia's defense had a lot to do with it, but his rhythm was also off for much of the day, particularly in the 1st Quarter. Several missed deep throws. Hooker also struggled with knowing when to tuck and run the ball. That said, I thought Hooker got better as the game went on. Unfortunately, we dug ourselves a deep hole early and couldn't make it up.

2 deep passes and the game goes down to the wire. The game was much closer than the score indicated. If Hooker hits those 2 wide-open deep passes, we're right in the game. The difference yesterday was that Stetson Bennett hit his open deep throws and Hooker did not.

Crowd impacted the O-line. Difficult to deny it. Our crowd caused Bama to have a lot of penalties and likely won us that game. Georgia's crowd did the same to us. 9 penalties for 55 yards and many false starts in critical situations.

Secondary struggled again. I think we've built a roster that is playoff-caliber in many places, but we're still not quite there at LB and DB. We struggled in pass coverage and those two big TD passes from Bennett won the game for Georgia.

Tillman played well. Sorta lost in that game was that Tillman played very well for his 1st "full game" back. 7 receptions for 68 yards against the best defense in America.


Big picture and looking forward

Notre Dame beats Clemson. While losing to Georgia makes our path to the playoffs more difficult, Clemson losing has re-opened the door. Clemson's weak schedule down the stretch means there is almost no way they were going to lose after this week. If they beat Notre Dame, they were probably in. The blowout loss to ND puts us squarely ahead of them, though.

LSU over Bama. Meanwhile, Bama's 2nd loss makes it difficult for them to get in by beating Georgia in the SECCG. In fact, they might not even make the CG; both LSU and Ole Miss are ahead of them at the moment. Bama running the table and beating a dominant Georgia in the SECCG would almost certainly made us the '3rd SEC team'. Now, we're still 2nd in the pecking order and have a shot at the playoffs.

4 teams ahead of us for now. So essentially only four teams should be ahead of us now: Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan, and maybe TCU. Georgia will probably win through the SECCG; and they probably get in even with a loss at this point. Ohio State and Michigan play each other, so one of them has to lose. TCU is the tricky one but they have a very good Texas team and Baylor left on the schedule, as well as the Big 12 CG (which will be against someone they've already played in all likelihood). So even if TCU ends up at #5 (behind us) this week, they'll leapfrog us if they win out. But they still have 3 tough games on their schedule, so it will not be an easy path for them.

Beat Mizzou. All that matters now is beating Mizzou. Noon game in Neyland next Saturday.

8-1. At this point in the season, we were expected to be somewhere between 5-4 and 7-2. We've exceeded every expectation of us. While the loss yesterday sucks, no one other than Vol homers expected us to make it this far. Bama and Georgia were supposed to be automatic L's. We beat Bama and we showed we could be competitive with Georgia.

Recruiting will help. If anything, this season will help recruiting in the future and make it a bit easier for us to jump into the elite talent ranks. We're not that far off right now and everything Heupel has done will help us moving forward.


GBO!

Well said, Ga beat us on talent . Kirby Smart is no guru when it comes to coaching. His offenses are vanilla with a golden standard defense. Right he is getting all the good ga talent . Year 2 11-1 that’s pretty damn good. I predicted 9-3 and possibly 10-2. So I’m happy. Can we beat ga on at a neutral sight possibly yes but have to wait and see if we get that shot. We just need TCU to lose.

 

[Kinglberry]

While I'm sure the crowd imparted their affect, I would also say that these guys were up against fast, powerful and very talented line across the board coming at them. Trying to get that little extra head start and high tension anticipating leads to jumping.

 

[Clayton]

There's nothing I hate more than losing to Georgia, but we knew that was likely at the beginning of the season. Yesterday's game sucked, but this is still the best Vols team we've seen in over 20 years.

Great coaches outperform, but talent still wins championships. In college football, I can't think of a single example of a team winning a national championship without top-level talent in the past 25+ seasons. Plenty of teams outperform with great coaching. Kansas State under Bill Snyder is a great example. Roster filled with 2- and 3-star players, often ranked in the 50's or 60's on the recruiting rankings. Snyder had nine 10+ win seasons in his career, but never won the national championship. We've outperformed our talent level all season and just ran into a team filled with 5-star recruits yesterday. And we still had a shot to win.

Georgia most talented team in US. Absolutely loaded with 5-star class after 5-star class. No team in America is on their level talent-wise. And there's probably not another team in college football that can play our WRs like Georgia did.

Hooker's off-day. Hooker has played well all season, but yesterday was his worst game of the season. To be sure, Georgia's defense had a lot to do with it, but his rhythm was also off for much of the day, particularly in the 1st Quarter. Several missed deep throws. Hooker also struggled with knowing when to tuck and run the ball. That said, I thought Hooker got better as the game went on. Unfortunately, we dug ourselves a deep hole early and couldn't make it up.

2 deep passes and the game goes down to the wire. The game was much closer than the score indicated. If Hooker hits those 2 wide-open deep passes, we're right in the game. The difference yesterday was that Stetson Bennett hit his open deep throws and Hooker did not.

Crowd impacted the O-line. Difficult to deny it. Our crowd caused Bama to have a lot of penalties and likely won us that game. Georgia's crowd did the same to us. 9 penalties for 55 yards and many false starts in critical situations.

Secondary struggled again. I think we've built a roster that is playoff-caliber in many places, but we're still not quite there at LB and DB. We struggled in pass coverage and those two big TD passes from Bennett won the game for Georgia.

Tillman played well. Sorta lost in that game was that Tillman played very well for his 1st "full game" back. 7 receptions for 68 yards against the best defense in America.


Big picture and looking forward

Notre Dame beats Clemson. While losing to Georgia makes our path to the playoffs more difficult, Clemson losing has re-opened the door. Clemson's weak schedule down the stretch means there is almost no way they were going to lose after this week. If they beat Notre Dame, they were probably in. The blowout loss to ND puts us squarely ahead of them, though.

LSU over Bama. Meanwhile, Bama's 2nd loss makes it difficult for them to get in by beating Georgia in the SECCG. In fact, they might not even make the CG; both LSU and Ole Miss are ahead of them at the moment. Bama running the table and beating a dominant Georgia in the SECCG would almost certainly made us the '3rd SEC team'. Now, we're still 2nd in the pecking order and have a shot at the playoffs.

4 teams ahead of us for now. So essentially only four teams should be ahead of us now: Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan, and maybe TCU. Georgia will probably win through the SECCG; and they probably get in even with a loss at this point. Ohio State and Michigan play each other, so one of them has to lose. TCU is the tricky one but they have a very good Texas team and Baylor left on the schedule, as well as the Big 12 CG (which will be against someone they've already played in all likelihood). So even if TCU ends up at #5 (behind us) this week, they'll leapfrog us if they win out. But they still have 3 tough games on their schedule, so it will not be an easy path for them.

Beat Mizzou. All that matters now is beating Mizzou. Noon game in Neyland next Saturday.

8-1. At this point in the season, we were expected to be somewhere between 5-4 and 7-2. We've exceeded every expectation of us. While the loss yesterday sucks, no one other than Vol homers expected us to make it this far. Bama and Georgia were supposed to be automatic L's. We beat Bama and we showed we could be competitive with Georgia.

Recruiting will help. If anything, this season will help recruiting in the future and make it a bit easier for us to jump into the elite talent ranks. We're not that far off right now and everything Heupel has done will help us moving forward.


GBO!

Got to be kidding me. The game was nowhere near as close as the score suggest. You have to be looking at the game with orange tinted glasses to think that it was even close. It was total destruction on both sides of the ball by Georgia. They went on cruise control and clock management mode the entire second half. Bennett only threw 4 passes the entire second half because they didn't have to do anything else. You seem to forget the drop passes by Georgia and the overthrown passes by Georgia that would've resulted in touchdowns as well. Tennessee wouldn't even score a touchdown if not for facemask penalty on fourth and 28. This game wasn't anywhere near close. Where did you show that you could be competitive with Georgia? It was a complete beat down by UGA. That's just being blatantly honest.

 

[Rememberthelate90s]

The only thing I’ll add is Tennessee’s next three opponents won’t help our cause, similar to Clemson. We have to win out and let the chips fall where they may.
I like where we are today as compared to past years. I never made a prediction of this year’s performance, but thought it was in that 5-4 to 7-2 with luck.
They have far exceeded my expectations to date. But don’t let one loss turn into two. Reference the elephants. There is still a lot to play for.

Doesn't matter just win out. Our schedule strength is good to great. It's about time we had some easier opponents.

 

[SouthpawTN]

Georgia could have scored 40 or 50. The game would not have gone down to the wire with the 2 deep pass connections. They took their foot off the gas and cruised to an easy victory. No need to risk it in the rain when they knew we couldn’t score.

 

[TnVol!]

There's nothing I hate more than losing to Georgia, but we knew that was likely at the beginning of the season. Yesterday's game sucked, but this is still the best Vols team we've seen in over 20 years.

Great coaches outperform, but talent still wins championships. In college football, I can't think of a single example of a team winning a national championship without top-level talent in the past 25+ seasons. Plenty of teams outperform with great coaching. Kansas State under Bill Snyder is a great example. Roster filled with 2- and 3-star players, often ranked in the 50's or 60's on the recruiting rankings. Snyder had nine 10+ win seasons in his career, but never won the national championship. We've outperformed our talent level all season and just ran into a team filled with 5-star recruits yesterday. And we still had a shot to win.

Georgia most talented team in US. Absolutely loaded with 5-star class after 5-star class. No team in America is on their level talent-wise. And there's probably not another team in college football that can play our WRs like Georgia did.

Hooker's off-day. Hooker has played well all season, but yesterday was his worst game of the season. To be sure, Georgia's defense had a lot to do with it, but his rhythm was also off for much of the day, particularly in the 1st Quarter. Several missed deep throws. Hooker also struggled with knowing when to tuck and run the ball. That said, I thought Hooker got better as the game went on. Unfortunately, we dug ourselves a deep hole early and couldn't make it up.

2 deep passes and the game goes down to the wire. The game was much closer than the score indicated. If Hooker hits those 2 wide-open deep passes, we're right in the game. The difference yesterday was that Stetson Bennett hit his open deep throws and Hooker did not.

Crowd impacted the O-line. Difficult to deny it. Our crowd caused Bama to have a lot of penalties and likely won us that game. Georgia's crowd did the same to us. 9 penalties for 55 yards and many false starts in critical situations.

Secondary struggled again. I think we've built a roster that is playoff-caliber in many places, but we're still not quite there at LB and DB. We struggled in pass coverage and those two big TD passes from Bennett won the game for Georgia.

Tillman played well. Sorta lost in that game was that Tillman played very well for his 1st "full game" back. 7 receptions for 68 yards against the best defense in America.


Big picture and looking forward

Notre Dame beats Clemson. While losing to Georgia makes our path to the playoffs more difficult, Clemson losing has re-opened the door. Clemson's weak schedule down the stretch means there is almost no way they were going to lose after this week. If they beat Notre Dame, they were probably in. The blowout loss to ND puts us squarely ahead of them, though.

LSU over Bama. Meanwhile, Bama's 2nd loss makes it difficult for them to get in by beating Georgia in the SECCG. In fact, they might not even make the CG; both LSU and Ole Miss are ahead of them at the moment. Bama running the table and beating a dominant Georgia in the SECCG would almost certainly made us the '3rd SEC team'. Now, we're still 2nd in the pecking order and have a shot at the playoffs.

4 teams ahead of us for now. So essentially only four teams should be ahead of us now: Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan, and maybe TCU. Georgia will probably win through the SECCG; and they probably get in even with a loss at this point. Ohio State and Michigan play each other, so one of them has to lose. TCU is the tricky one but they have a very good Texas team and Baylor left on the schedule, as well as the Big 12 CG (which will be against someone they've already played in all likelihood). So even if TCU ends up at #5 (behind us) this week, they'll leapfrog us if they win out. But they still have 3 tough games on their schedule, so it will not be an easy path for them.

Beat Mizzou. All that matters now is beating Mizzou. Noon game in Neyland next Saturday.

8-1. At this point in the season, we were expected to be somewhere between 5-4 and 7-2. We've exceeded every expectation of us. While the loss yesterday sucks, no one other than Vol homers expected us to make it this far. Bama and Georgia were supposed to be automatic L's. We beat Bama and we showed we could be competitive with Georgia.

Recruiting will help. If anything, this season will help recruiting in the future and make it a bit easier for us to jump into the elite talent ranks. We're not that far off right now and everything Heupel has done will help us moving forward.


GBO!

Great post. We are still alive I believe we'll win out.

 

[FranklinVFL]

Yep. Look, UGA is just that good. They are better than we are. We had chances to make it close with some deep balls, but really, we just simply got beat by a very talented, well-coached team.

That being said, all of our goals are intact and still achievable. I am not hanging my head at all today.

Team needs to get back to work and not show up vs Mizzou with a hangover and just go out and get back on track.

I do think the Heisman hype is over now.

 

[TNVOLFN]

UGA lost by a larger margin on a neutral field last year and still made the playoffs. Vols have to take care of business the rest of the way and we’re going to the CFP, simple as that; Vols still have much control of their destiny.

 

[Stoerner Fumbles]

Solid observations, DG, thanks for them.

Particularly appreciate your comments about talent imbalance. As courageous and devoted and big-hearted as our lads are, it is tough to go up against a wall of eleven 5- and 4-star freaks of nature (I mean, did you see the TE, Washington? Dude looked like Sasquatch in a red jersey). It grinds. It tightens up all the throwing windows and running lanes until they're dangerously small. It can be like blowing out those birthday candles that re-light themselves: one of our offensive lineman put a blitzing Dawg on the ground, I mean put him all the way down...and then he popped back up at 25 mph to sack Hooker anyway. Those candles just won't go out. It gets really frustrating the 40th, 60th, 70th time you try.

And we need to acknowledge the strength of the UGa crowd. We scoff at visiting teams (like Bama) who try to pretend Neyland didn't throw them off their game. So let's not be silly like they are. The UGa fan base absolutely helped their team win last night. They made a difference. Tip the cap to them.

~ ~ ~

As for the rest of the season, LSU makes it to Atlanta. The only two SEC games they have left are teams that are melting (Arkansas and A&M). The Tigers have the tie-breaker win over Ole Miss. They're in.

So UGa-LSU for the SEC. I think we all know how that turns out, 99 times out of 100. Congrats, Georgia, you not only de facto won the East last night, you de facto won the SEC title.

~ ~ ~

Coming into the season, we knew Pitt, Florida, and LSU were "peer competition." Splitting those matches with two wins would've been a good outcome. Sweeping all three was just glorious.

Coming into the season, we knew Bama and UGa out-talented us. Splitting those two games, well, that was beyond all reasonable expectations.

I'm still thrilled with the lads. I'm still thrilled with the coaches. It only gets better from here. I see an incredibly bright future full of championship games. Hitting the ceiling at the top end of this season doesn't change any of that.

~ ~ ~

And Hendon's Heisman chances aren't gone. Set back, sure. But now he gets to pad his stats with relative cupcakes the way CJ Stroud has been doing all year. It is Hendon's turn to make his case against lesser competition. Fair is fair.

Thanks again, DG, good write-up.

Go Vols!

If I ever need a two day filibuster, I’m calling you.

 

[Vols1313]

The only thing I’ll add is Tennessee’s next three opponents won’t help our cause, similar to Clemson. We have to win out and let the chips fall where they may.
I like where we are today as compared to past years. I never made a prediction of this year’s performance, but thought it was in that 5-4 to 7-2 with luck.
They have far exceeded my expectations to date. But don’t let one loss turn into two. Reference the elephants. There is still a lot to play for.

I agree but we also have a good body of work to reflect on if Ga continues dominance and LSU continues winning it looks good on us

 

[MemphisVol77]

2 deep passes and the game goes down to the wire. The game was much closer than the score indicated. If Hooker hits those 2 wide-open deep passes, we're right in the game. The difference yesterday was that Stetson Bennett hit his open deep throws and Hooker did not.

Not even. I strongly disagree.

 

[KeyVol14]

Got to be kidding me. The game was nowhere near as close as the score suggest. You have to be looking at the game with orange tinted glasses to think that it was even close. It was total destruction on both sides of the ball by Georgia. They went on cruise control and clock management mode the entire second half. Bennett only threw 4 passes the entire second half because they didn't have to do anything else. You seem to forget the drop passes by Georgia and the overthrown passes by Georgia that would've resulted in touchdowns as well. Tennessee wouldn't even score a touchdown if not for facemask penalty on fourth and 28. This game wasn't anywhere near close. Where did you show that you could be competitive with Georgia? It was a complete beat down by UGA. That's just being blatantly honest.

And you forget two overthrown TD passes by hooker. Everyone knows your an UGA fan, y’all beat us move on

 

[WoodsmanVol]

I'll wager if the Vols win out by an average of 30pts or more wins, we are a shoo-in for the NCS. We're already an exciting team to watch. Wrapping the season in the way I described would make us too, way too much of a draw to not include us in the NCS. So says my cracked crystal ball.

 

[MeanOrange]

There's nothing I hate more than losing to Georgia, but we knew that was likely at the beginning of the season. Yesterday's game sucked, but this is still the best Vols team we've seen in over 20 years.

Great coaches outperform, but talent still wins championships. In college football, I can't think of a single example of a team winning a national championship without top-level talent in the past 25+ seasons. Plenty of teams outperform with great coaching. Kansas State under Bill Snyder is a great example. Roster filled with 2- and 3-star players, often ranked in the 50's or 60's on the recruiting rankings. Snyder had nine 10+ win seasons in his career, but never won the national championship. We've outperformed our talent level all season and just ran into a team filled with 5-star recruits yesterday. And we still had a shot to win.

Georgia most talented team in US. Absolutely loaded with 5-star class after 5-star class. No team in America is on their level talent-wise. And there's probably not another team in college football that can play our WRs like Georgia did.

Hooker's off-day. Hooker has played well all season, but yesterday was his worst game of the season. To be sure, Georgia's defense had a lot to do with it, but his rhythm was also off for much of the day, particularly in the 1st Quarter. Several missed deep throws. Hooker also struggled with knowing when to tuck and run the ball. That said, I thought Hooker got better as the game went on. Unfortunately, we dug ourselves a deep hole early and couldn't make it up.

2 deep passes and the game goes down to the wire. The game was much closer than the score indicated. If Hooker hits those 2 wide-open deep passes, we're right in the game. The difference yesterday was that Stetson Bennett hit his open deep throws and Hooker did not.

Crowd impacted the O-line. Difficult to deny it. Our crowd caused Bama to have a lot of penalties and likely won us that game. Georgia's crowd did the same to us. 9 penalties for 55 yards and many false starts in critical situations.

Secondary struggled again. I think we've built a roster that is playoff-caliber in many places, but we're still not quite there at LB and DB. We struggled in pass coverage and those two big TD passes from Bennett won the game for Georgia.

Tillman played well. Sorta lost in that game was that Tillman played very well for his 1st "full game" back. 7 receptions for 68 yards against the best defense in America.


Big picture and looking forward

Notre Dame beats Clemson. While losing to Georgia makes our path to the playoffs more difficult, Clemson losing has re-opened the door. Clemson's weak schedule down the stretch means there is almost no way they were going to lose after this week. If they beat Notre Dame, they were probably in. The blowout loss to ND puts us squarely ahead of them, though.

LSU over Bama. Meanwhile, Bama's 2nd loss makes it difficult for them to get in by beating Georgia in the SECCG. In fact, they might not even make the CG; both LSU and Ole Miss are ahead of them at the moment. Bama running the table and beating a dominant Georgia in the SECCG would almost certainly made us the '3rd SEC team'. Now, we're still 2nd in the pecking order and have a shot at the playoffs.

4 teams ahead of us for now. So essentially only four teams should be ahead of us now: Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan, and maybe TCU. Georgia will probably win through the SECCG; and they probably get in even with a loss at this point. Ohio State and Michigan play each other, so one of them has to lose. TCU is the tricky one but they have a very good Texas team and Baylor left on the schedule, as well as the Big 12 CG (which will be against someone they've already played in all likelihood). So even if TCU ends up at #5 (behind us) this week, they'll leapfrog us if they win out. But they still have 3 tough games on their schedule, so it will not be an easy path for them.

Beat Mizzou. All that matters now is beating Mizzou. Noon game in Neyland next Saturday.

8-1. At this point in the season, we were expected to be somewhere between 5-4 and 7-2. We've exceeded every expectation of us. While the loss yesterday sucks, no one other than Vol homers expected us to make it this far. Bama and Georgia were supposed to be automatic L's. We beat Bama and we showed we could be competitive with Georgia.

Recruiting will help. If anything, this season will help recruiting in the future and make it a bit easier for us to jump into the elite talent ranks. We're not that far off right now and everything Heupel has done will help us moving forward.


GBO!

Wow. I did not know LSU had beat Bama until I saw your post.

 

[Hacksaw]

There's nothing I hate more than losing to Georgia, but we knew that was likely at the beginning of the season. Yesterday's game sucked, but this is still the best Vols team we've seen in over 20 years.

Great coaches outperform, but talent still wins championships. In college football, I can't think of a single example of a team winning a national championship without top-level talent in the past 25+ seasons. Plenty of teams outperform with great coaching. Kansas State under Bill Snyder is a great example. Roster filled with 2- and 3-star players, often ranked in the 50's or 60's on the recruiting rankings. Snyder had nine 10+ win seasons in his career, but never won the national championship. We've outperformed our talent level all season and just ran into a team filled with 5-star recruits yesterday. And we still had a shot to win.

Georgia most talented team in US. Absolutely loaded with 5-star class after 5-star class. No team in America is on their level talent-wise. And there's probably not another team in college football that can play our WRs like Georgia did.

Hooker's off-day. Hooker has played well all season, but yesterday was his worst game of the season. To be sure, Georgia's defense had a lot to do with it, but his rhythm was also off for much of the day, particularly in the 1st Quarter. Several missed deep throws. Hooker also struggled with knowing when to tuck and run the ball. That said, I thought Hooker got better as the game went on. Unfortunately, we dug ourselves a deep hole early and couldn't make it up.

2 deep passes and the game goes down to the wire. The game was much closer than the score indicated. If Hooker hits those 2 wide-open deep passes, we're right in the game. The difference yesterday was that Stetson Bennett hit his open deep throws and Hooker did not.

Crowd impacted the O-line. Difficult to deny it. Our crowd caused Bama to have a lot of penalties and likely won us that game. Georgia's crowd did the same to us. 9 penalties for 55 yards and many false starts in critical situations.

Secondary struggled again. I think we've built a roster that is playoff-caliber in many places, but we're still not quite there at LB and DB. We struggled in pass coverage and those two big TD passes from Bennett won the game for Georgia.

Tillman played well. Sorta lost in that game was that Tillman played very well for his 1st "full game" back. 7 receptions for 68 yards against the best defense in America.


Big picture and looking forward

Notre Dame beats Clemson. While losing to Georgia makes our path to the playoffs more difficult, Clemson losing has re-opened the door. Clemson's weak schedule down the stretch means there is almost no way they were going to lose after this week. If they beat Notre Dame, they were probably in. The blowout loss to ND puts us squarely ahead of them, though.

LSU over Bama. Meanwhile, Bama's 2nd loss makes it difficult for them to get in by beating Georgia in the SECCG. In fact, they might not even make the CG; both LSU and Ole Miss are ahead of them at the moment. Bama running the table and beating a dominant Georgia in the SECCG would almost certainly made us the '3rd SEC team'. Now, we're still 2nd in the pecking order and have a shot at the playoffs.

4 teams ahead of us for now. So essentially only four teams should be ahead of us now: Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan, and maybe TCU. Georgia will probably win through the SECCG; and they probably get in even with a loss at this point. Ohio State and Michigan play each other, so one of them has to lose. TCU is the tricky one but they have a very good Texas team and Baylor left on the schedule, as well as the Big 12 CG (which will be against someone they've already played in all likelihood). So even if TCU ends up at #5 (behind us) this week, they'll leapfrog us if they win out. But they still have 3 tough games on their schedule, so it will not be an easy path for them.

Beat Mizzou. All that matters now is beating Mizzou. Noon game in Neyland next Saturday.

8-1. At this point in the season, we were expected to be somewhere between 5-4 and 7-2. We've exceeded every expectation of us. While the loss yesterday sucks, no one other than Vol homers expected us to make it this far. Bama and Georgia were supposed to be automatic L's. We beat Bama and we showed we could be competitive with Georgia.

Recruiting will help. If anything, this season will help recruiting in the future and make it a bit easier for us to jump into the elite talent ranks. We're not that far off right now and everything Heupel has done will help us moving forward.


GBO!

This is why I don't pay for any of the subscription sports coverage sites. This is free and it's a better synopsis than you will find anywhere, IMO.