DG's Thoughts After Glory in Nashville!

[strkr]

Friday night, I had a weird dream. I was on vacation in this city I'd never visited before and I saw this family wearing Vols gear. We started talking about the South Carolina loss and the upcoming Vandy game. Everyone was worried about Vandy, but then I said, "no this is a revenge game, we're going to obliterate Vandy tomorrow!" IRL it's rare that I'm that confident about a football game, but dream-me was right! In any case, feels good to win like that after the South Carolina game.

Some thoughts after the game:

10-2 is a huge success. No one is happy about the South Carolina game, but if you told me at the beginning of the season that we finish 10-2 with a win over Bama, I take it in a heartbeat, even if the 1 non-Georgia loss has been to Vandy (rather than South Carolina). Given what Heupel inherited with over 30 players leaving before he even set foot on campus, this is a massive success. The SEC is brutal; it's the closest thing to the NFL. We got a special coach in Heupel, who took a depleted roster and made it a dark horse national title contender in Year 2.

The D has its best game of the year. Wonderful to see a goose egg next to Vandy's name. And only 254 yards on 77 plays; roughly 3.3 yards per play. In comparison, we picked up 9.7 yards per play on 53 plays. Defense played spectacular in spite of missing an absurd number of players in the secondary. Best performance all season right after our worst performance.

Jeremy Banks integral to the defense. I've known Banks was one of our best defensive players all season, but it's night and day between when he's playing and when he's not. That's a testament to how good he's become, but also a problem that we don't have anyone else like that on the D. I'm glad Banks decided to stay when a bunch of other D players bailed after Pruitt was fired. But man ... we really need to find more guys like him on the D for next season. We can't completely collapse just because we lose 1 player.

362 rushing yards on 31 carries. What is there to say? We ran all over that defense. Didn't even need to pass the ball. All 3 RBs had huge runs. Reminded me of that '19 game where Eric Gray ran for 246 yards on them; except this was a much more thorough beatdown.

Milton is improved, but still not on Hooker's level. Milton didn't look bad last night, but it's easy to do that when your running game picks up 362 yards. I still have significant concerns about him. I will say his decision-making has looked better this year. And he's hit more deep balls. But his accuracy is still way too low. He nailed the early pass to Hyatt. And we can give him a pass on that 70-yard throw to White that he barely missed (seriously, how many QBs can even throw the ball that far?). More concerned about all the intermediate throws he missed. Hooker misses some, too, but Milton misses a lot more. What I will say for him ... the constant threat of the home run ball does make things easier in the running game; even if he's not hitting enough, but I think he's going to struggle against elite defenses.. Hope he continues to improve in the offseason, because he has all the tools to be great.

Squirrel. His stats don't show it, but he played very well. Only 4 reception for 18 yards, but Milton overthrew him on big plays several times, and he had a key block on the punt return for touchdown. Dude is 5'10", 165 lbs, but isn't afraid of anyone! Also looked pretty good on his punt return as well.

Dee Williams. Speaking of said punt return, nice to see him finally take one to the house!

Clark Lea's gameplan made no sense. The 1 caveat to our defensive performance: Clark Lea's gameplan didn't make much sense to me. Give the guy credit for wins over Kentucky and Florida, but why would you watch South Carolina torch our secondary and see us with 6 DBs out and decide the key to the game is to run down our throats, right into our strength? Maybe Vandy is just so bad at passing, they didn't feel like they had a choice, or maybe the weather made them reluctant to pass, but I didn't understand their gameplan. Regardless, we clamped down on them and we even played well in coverage; they weren't beating us regardless, but i still don't get why Vandy didn't test the pass D more.

Where are we on defense? The defense played excellent against LSU, Kentucky, and Vandy. Also played very well the 2nd half against Georgia. We had complete breakdowns against Florida (couldn't stop anything), Bama (couldn't stop anything), South Carolina (literally scored TDs on 9/10 possessions), and Georgia (in the 1st half). I still don't know the answer. Is it a personnel issue? Is it just lack of depth? Too many injuries (note: we had a ton of DBs injured vs both Bama and South Carolina)? Or is it Tim Banks? Or just Willie Martinez? My gut for now says lack of depth is our biggest issue, but I really don't know the answer; I hope Heupel does.

Bowl game. Orange Bowl seems like a likely destination for us now. How will we fare? I'm not sure. Hopefully, we get some of our decimated secondary back, as I don't think we're going to run for 350+ yards against a team like Clemson or any potential bowl opponents. We need the defense to play much better for a shot to win.



Miscellany

Herbstreit's dumb prediction. I don't normally pick on people for picking against us, but Herbstreit's Vandy pick was so brazenly stupid. He acted like because we had 1 loss on the road, the team was going to fall apart against Vandy.

The music was awful. Yeesh, what was up with that music? Sounded like stereo from the rec center pool. How does an SEC stadium have that bad sound? And the selection was terrible.

South Carolina. I've thought South Carolina had been underrated all season. While I still think we should've beaten them, you have to give Shane Beamer some credit for beating us and Clemson in back-to-back weeks.

LSU. Glad to see them choke versus A&M. I was angry that the pollsters rated them #5 last week; easily overrated. No way they should be above either Bama or us.

CFP Rankings. We're almost certainly going to be ranked #7, with 1) Georgia, 2) Michigan, 3) TCU, 4) USC, 5) Ohio State, 6) Bama, 7) Tennessee

Computer polls. We are ranked #5 in Sagarin, #5 in FPI, and #6 in Massey Composite. Sagarin's recent rating thinks we are the 3rd best team in college football, albeit, it's very close at the top. The computer polls think USC is overrated.

DG's completely unscientific "best teams, no BS politics" rankings:

1. Georgia. Other than a close win over Mizzou, they haven't even really been tested all season.
2. Michigan. Look, I think the refs handed Michigan the game against Illinois last week, but the blowout win over Ohio State in Columbus was mighty impressive all the same.
3. Bama. If Bama makes the playoff, they easily become the biggest threat to Georgia. Their only 2 losses are by 3 points (to us) and overtime (to LSU) in 2 of the most hostile road environments in college football. They got unlucky this season, but Bryce Young is the best player in college football. I could see them giving Georgia fits.
4. Ohio State. I think Ohio State is better than they looked yesterday. Why do I have them above us? Mainly because their D is much better than ours. Our offense can keep up with them, but I think we struggle to stop them on D.
5. Tennessee. For all our problems on defense, I still think we're a top 5 team due to our offense.
6. TCU. Sure, they don't have any top 10 wins, and their SOS is nowhere on the level of the top SEC teams, but they keep finding ways to win.
7. Penn State. They've looked really good closing the season and only 2 losses are to Michigan and Ohio State.
8. USC. Wins over UCLA and Notre Dame are impressive, but their SoS is very weak and they avoided most of the top half of the Pac-12. They lost their only real "road test" to Utah. I don't view them as a top 4 team.
9. Utah. Very curious to see if they can beat USC a 2nd time. I'm rooting for them; really want to see USC get exposed.
10. Kansas State. Chris Klieman has become the new Bill Snyder out in the "Little Apple". He won 4 FCS championships at North Dakota State and he's outperformed his talent level consistently at K State.

That's it for now.

GBO!

Martinez needs to go. Our secondary hasn't improved much since last year Purdue game. He is not a good secondary coach. Alittle coaching would help these guys. I really wonder what he does in practice with these guys. Bama is not that good.

 

[rdk4121]

That Gamecock win over the Tigers makes our loss to them look better.

Sampson and Small are speedsters in the open field.

I think Sampson is a prefect blend of Wright and Small. To me, Small has really good elusiveness and only pretty good speed. Wright has great speed, but no real elusiveness at the second level. Sampson has both. He really just needs to get stronger, which is not uncommon for a freshman. He did run through a safety on his long run though.

 

[RAVOL]

I think Sampson is a prefect blend of Wright and Small. To me, Small has really good elusiveness and only pretty good speed. Wright has great speed, but no real elusiveness at the second level. Sampson has both. He really just needs to get stronger, which is not uncommon for a freshman. He did run through a safety on his long run though.

If Dylan has a great off season in weight room he does move to the top of running back roster as it stands today. Good post. In CHRIST Alone

 

[RAVOL]

Friday night, I had a weird dream. I was on vacation in this city I'd never visited before and I saw this family wearing Vols gear. We started talking about the South Carolina loss and the upcoming Vandy game. Everyone was worried about Vandy, but then I said, "no this is a revenge game, we're going to obliterate Vandy tomorrow!" IRL it's rare that I'm that confident about a football game, but dream-me was right! In any case, feels good to win like that after the South Carolina game.

Some thoughts after the game:

10-2 is a huge success. No one is happy about the South Carolina game, but if you told me at the beginning of the season that we finish 10-2 with a win over Bama, I take it in a heartbeat, even if the 1 non-Georgia loss has been to Vandy (rather than South Carolina). Given what Heupel inherited with over 30 players leaving before he even set foot on campus, this is a massive success. The SEC is brutal; it's the closest thing to the NFL. We got a special coach in Heupel, who took a depleted roster and made it a dark horse national title contender in Year 2.

The D has its best game of the year. Wonderful to see a goose egg next to Vandy's name. And only 254 yards on 77 plays; roughly 3.3 yards per play. In comparison, we picked up 9.7 yards per play on 53 plays. Defense played spectacular in spite of missing an absurd number of players in the secondary. Best performance all season right after our worst performance.

Jeremy Banks integral to the defense. I've known Banks was one of our best defensive players all season, but it's night and day between when he's playing and when he's not. That's a testament to how good he's become, but also a problem that we don't have anyone else like that on the D. I'm glad Banks decided to stay when a bunch of other D players bailed after Pruitt was fired. But man ... we really need to find more guys like him on the D for next season. We can't completely collapse just because we lose 1 player.

362 rushing yards on 31 carries. What is there to say? We ran all over that defense. Didn't even need to pass the ball. All 3 RBs had huge runs. Reminded me of that '19 game where Eric Gray ran for 246 yards on them; except this was a much more thorough beatdown.

Milton is improved, but still not on Hooker's level. Milton didn't look bad last night, but it's easy to do that when your running game picks up 362 yards. I still have significant concerns about him. I will say his decision-making has looked better this year. And he's hit more deep balls. But his accuracy is still way too low. He nailed the early pass to Hyatt. And we can give him a pass on that 70-yard throw to White that he barely missed (seriously, how many QBs can even throw the ball that far?). More concerned about all the intermediate throws he missed. Hooker misses some, too, but Milton misses a lot more. What I will say for him ... the constant threat of the home run ball does make things easier in the running game; even if he's not hitting enough, but I think he's going to struggle against elite defenses.. Hope he continues to improve in the offseason, because he has all the tools to be great.

Squirrel. His stats don't show it, but he played very well. Only 4 reception for 18 yards, but Milton overthrew him on big plays several times, and he had a key block on the punt return for touchdown. Dude is 5'10", 165 lbs, but isn't afraid of anyone! Also looked pretty good on his punt return as well.

Dee Williams. Speaking of said punt return, nice to see him finally take one to the house!

Clark Lea's gameplan made no sense. The 1 caveat to our defensive performance: Clark Lea's gameplan didn't make much sense to me. Give the guy credit for wins over Kentucky and Florida, but why would you watch South Carolina torch our secondary and see us with 6 DBs out and decide the key to the game is to run down our throats, right into our strength? Maybe Vandy is just so bad at passing, they didn't feel like they had a choice, or maybe the weather made them reluctant to pass, but I didn't understand their gameplan. Regardless, we clamped down on them and we even played well in coverage; they weren't beating us regardless, but i still don't get why Vandy didn't test the pass D more.

Where are we on defense? The defense played excellent against LSU, Kentucky, and Vandy. Also played very well the 2nd half against Georgia. We had complete breakdowns against Florida (couldn't stop anything), Bama (couldn't stop anything), South Carolina (literally scored TDs on 9/10 possessions), and Georgia (in the 1st half). I still don't know the answer. Is it a personnel issue? Is it just lack of depth? Too many injuries (note: we had a ton of DBs injured vs both Bama and South Carolina)? Or is it Tim Banks? Or just Willie Martinez? My gut for now says lack of depth is our biggest issue, but I really don't know the answer; I hope Heupel does.

Bowl game. Orange Bowl seems like a likely destination for us now. How will we fare? I'm not sure. Hopefully, we get some of our decimated secondary back, as I don't think we're going to run for 350+ yards against a team like Clemson or any potential bowl opponents. We need the defense to play much better for a shot to win.



Miscellany

Herbstreit's dumb prediction. I don't normally pick on people for picking against us, but Herbstreit's Vandy pick was so brazenly stupid. He acted like because we had 1 loss on the road, the team was going to fall apart against Vandy.

The music was awful. Yeesh, what was up with that music? Sounded like stereo from the rec center pool. How does an SEC stadium have that bad sound? And the selection was terrible.

South Carolina. I've thought South Carolina had been underrated all season. While I still think we should've beaten them, you have to give Shane Beamer some credit for beating us and Clemson in back-to-back weeks.

LSU. Glad to see them choke versus A&M. I was angry that the pollsters rated them #5 last week; easily overrated. No way they should be above either Bama or us.

CFP Rankings. We're almost certainly going to be ranked #7, with 1) Georgia, 2) Michigan, 3) TCU, 4) USC, 5) Ohio State, 6) Bama, 7) Tennessee

Computer polls. We are ranked #5 in Sagarin, #5 in FPI, and #6 in Massey Composite. Sagarin's recent rating thinks we are the 3rd best team in college football, albeit, it's very close at the top. The computer polls think USC is overrated.

DG's completely unscientific "best teams, no BS politics" rankings:

1. Georgia. Other than a close win over Mizzou, they haven't even really been tested all season.
2. Michigan. Look, I think the refs handed Michigan the game against Illinois last week, but the blowout win over Ohio State in Columbus was mighty impressive all the same.
3. Bama. If Bama makes the playoff, they easily become the biggest threat to Georgia. Their only 2 losses are by 3 points (to us) and overtime (to LSU) in 2 of the most hostile road environments in college football. They got unlucky this season, but Bryce Young is the best player in college football. I could see them giving Georgia fits.
4. Ohio State. I think Ohio State is better than they looked yesterday. Why do I have them above us? Mainly because their D is much better than ours. Our offense can keep up with them, but I think we struggle to stop them on D.
5. Tennessee. For all our problems on defense, I still think we're a top 5 team due to our offense.
6. TCU. Sure, they don't have any top 10 wins, and their SOS is nowhere on the level of the top SEC teams, but they keep finding ways to win.
7. Penn State. They've looked really good closing the season and only 2 losses are to Michigan and Ohio State.
8. USC. Wins over UCLA and Notre Dame are impressive, but their SoS is very weak and they avoided most of the top half of the Pac-12. They lost their only real "road test" to Utah. I don't view them as a top 4 team.
9. Utah. Very curious to see if they can beat USC a 2nd time. I'm rooting for them; really want to see USC get exposed.
10. Kansas State. Chris Klieman has become the new Bill Snyder out in the "Little Apple". He won 4 FCS championships at North Dakota State and he's outperformed his talent level consistently at K State.

That's it for now.

GBO!

DG no doubt considering the roster Heup inherited and a job no coach wanted, to have us in conversation for Playoff in year 2. Coach of the Year worthy and we still have a very average D talent wise. Great Job by him and this staff as a whole. In CHRIST Alone.

 

[allen phillips]

I was ok with the broadcast. 1st you had a former vandy QB in the booth so that is what it is. And to Roger credit he called it early in the replay review the pass would be overturned. But overall I thought it was ok. The one thing that wasn't ok was missing half of Wrights TD run. I'll take these 2 over Nessler and Danielson any time.

I don't know what it is with these TV producers and announcers. Why would anyone want to see them display their wit and eat hamburgers over watching the football game.

 

[Ned Ray McWorkher]

DG no doubt considering the roster Heup inherited and a job no coach wanted, to have us in conversation for Playoff in year 2. Coach of the Year worthy and we still have a very average D talent wise. Great Job by him and this staff as a whole. In CHRIST Alone.

And a defensive coordinator spot that not many established, upper level coordinator's were interested in. I think 10-2 is awesome, all things considered.

 

[LadyVolette]

Has been for a number of years. How old is he?

Old enough to know better

 

[nomads-11]

Don't think Milton's accuracy is that bad, we've seen and had much worse. His problem seems more of touch...which isn't good. I just think the staff may have to adjust....crossing patterns, really deep balls, come backs, slants and bubble screens. Anything that takes advantage of arm strength....vs having to lob it down the sidelines....that's more touch than anything else.

 

[robcovol]

During the week, I was so worried that Butch Jones would be seen on the Tennessee sideline Saturday night. Thankfully, he was nowhere to be found and the Vols responded the way they should have after last week. My only gripe was that the final score wasn’t 63-0.