DiderotsGhost
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Before the game I said to my game, "I'll be happy if we win by 1, but I'd like to win just one by fiddy!" Well, we had another nail-bitter but I'm happy we pulled it out!
Nico. Best game of his career IMO. It's so fun to watch his progress. 28-38 for 292 yards. If not for the drops, he may have inched up towards the 400 yard territory and had 3 TD passes. He only had 1 big mistake that I can recall and we got a bit lucky (bad pass under pressure that Kentucky was close to intercepting, but couldn't secure), but otherwise, he made so many incredible throws this game. Still not getting enough protection from the O-line and way too many drops this game, though, so his stats understate how well he played.
Sampson. It was nice to hear him finally get his due from the media. He should be mentioned in the Heisman conversation. Last night, he had 27 carries for 142 yards and 2 TDs, averaging 5.3 ypc. I loved his post-game interview where he was so happy that he got his 18th TD on a play the entire team pushed him over the goal-line. That was honestly one of the most incredible plays of the night - looked like it should've been stopped dead for a small loss and not a single UT player gave up on the play. Sampson now has 980 yards and 19 TDs on the season. Averaging 5.7 ypc in the SEC is no joke.
Peyton Lewis. Speaking of the running game, I was encouraged by Peyton Lewis' performance. He didn't put up huge stats, but he came up big when he needed to. I've been worried about our RB depth all season - just felt like there was a huge dropoff after Sampson and Bishop. Lewis came in and scored a very important TD for us.
Kitselman. I knew he had a big game, but crazy that he almost went for over 100 yards receiving. Finished the night with 6 recs for 97 yards and 1 TD.
Will Brooks. Another huge play last night. He's working his way up that "best walk-ons in Tennessee history" list.
9th straight game holding opponent under 20. Interestingly, this was probably our worst defensive performance of the year, but we still held Kentucky to 18. We struggled a bit in the early game, but the D played incredibly well in the 4th Quarter, though, when it really mattered.
3 Missed FGs. I don't want to pile on Max Gilbert. He clearly had a bad night. So bad that I kept wondering if something was wrong; like some minor injury throwing him off. 2 of those FGs weren't even close. That said, he's a freshman and he was 12/15 on FGs before last night, including 4/4 from 40-50 yards, and all 3 of his misses were from 50+ yards. His kicks last night were terrible, but hopefully just a bad game that we can move past. He's clearly a good kicker, but something was off last night.
Execution issues. Running theme for much of the season. If we execute well last night, this isn't a close game. If we hit 2 out of the 3 FG attempts and we don't have 2 drops on big plays, the final score ends up closer to 48-18. At some point, we've got to start executing better if we want a shot at the playoffs. Both this game and the Florida game, we should've won in blowouts, but they ended up being close games. We're probably not going to be able to afford these types of games against Georgia or even Vandy.
The road to the playoff. At the beginning of the season, I thought we would make the playoffs with 2 losses. Now, I'm not so sure. The problem is, with all the narrow victories, we're not as high in the rankings as you might think for a 7-1 team with a win over Bama. Also, a lot of our ranked victories (NC State, Oklahoma) now look way less impressive. And our loss to Arky looks much worse now that they are 5-4. Arky has Texas, La Tech, and Mizzou remaining on the schedule; unless they upset Texas, they are looking like a 6-6 or 7-5 team. If we win out, obviously we make it, but it now looks like 2 out of our 3 toughest games are remaining (at Georgia, at Vandy), and it's not 100% clear that winning 1/2 gets us there.
FPI. We dropped 2 spots in FPI down to #8. While it's ultimately "WIN BABY WIN!", the narrow wins against lackluster competition are clearly hampering us in the quant polls as well as the human polls. Good news is that FPI has us at #1 in defensive efficiency and they have us with a 74% chance of making the playoffs even while predicting that we get a 2nd loss. So while it's not a sure thing, there's still a reasonable chance we could make it into the playoffs with 2 losses.
Miss State. On paper, they are the worst team in the SEC and we are playing in Knoxville, so we should win by a few TDs. In reality, we've played down to the competition all season. But I would like to see us finally have something close to a complete game.
Our ceiling. We've not had a game where we were "firing on all cylinders" yet. Feel like if we did, we could be a top 5 team. That said, the O-line is the one area that still concerns me. It's struggled in pass protection for most of the season. And for that reason, I'm not sure that I see us as having a great shot at the national title, but if we hit our ceiling, we could be a playoff team that makes it to the final 8 or final 4 right now.
That's all I got for now.
GBO!
Nico. Best game of his career IMO. It's so fun to watch his progress. 28-38 for 292 yards. If not for the drops, he may have inched up towards the 400 yard territory and had 3 TD passes. He only had 1 big mistake that I can recall and we got a bit lucky (bad pass under pressure that Kentucky was close to intercepting, but couldn't secure), but otherwise, he made so many incredible throws this game. Still not getting enough protection from the O-line and way too many drops this game, though, so his stats understate how well he played.
Sampson. It was nice to hear him finally get his due from the media. He should be mentioned in the Heisman conversation. Last night, he had 27 carries for 142 yards and 2 TDs, averaging 5.3 ypc. I loved his post-game interview where he was so happy that he got his 18th TD on a play the entire team pushed him over the goal-line. That was honestly one of the most incredible plays of the night - looked like it should've been stopped dead for a small loss and not a single UT player gave up on the play. Sampson now has 980 yards and 19 TDs on the season. Averaging 5.7 ypc in the SEC is no joke.
Peyton Lewis. Speaking of the running game, I was encouraged by Peyton Lewis' performance. He didn't put up huge stats, but he came up big when he needed to. I've been worried about our RB depth all season - just felt like there was a huge dropoff after Sampson and Bishop. Lewis came in and scored a very important TD for us.
Kitselman. I knew he had a big game, but crazy that he almost went for over 100 yards receiving. Finished the night with 6 recs for 97 yards and 1 TD.
Will Brooks. Another huge play last night. He's working his way up that "best walk-ons in Tennessee history" list.
9th straight game holding opponent under 20. Interestingly, this was probably our worst defensive performance of the year, but we still held Kentucky to 18. We struggled a bit in the early game, but the D played incredibly well in the 4th Quarter, though, when it really mattered.
3 Missed FGs. I don't want to pile on Max Gilbert. He clearly had a bad night. So bad that I kept wondering if something was wrong; like some minor injury throwing him off. 2 of those FGs weren't even close. That said, he's a freshman and he was 12/15 on FGs before last night, including 4/4 from 40-50 yards, and all 3 of his misses were from 50+ yards. His kicks last night were terrible, but hopefully just a bad game that we can move past. He's clearly a good kicker, but something was off last night.
Execution issues. Running theme for much of the season. If we execute well last night, this isn't a close game. If we hit 2 out of the 3 FG attempts and we don't have 2 drops on big plays, the final score ends up closer to 48-18. At some point, we've got to start executing better if we want a shot at the playoffs. Both this game and the Florida game, we should've won in blowouts, but they ended up being close games. We're probably not going to be able to afford these types of games against Georgia or even Vandy.
The road to the playoff. At the beginning of the season, I thought we would make the playoffs with 2 losses. Now, I'm not so sure. The problem is, with all the narrow victories, we're not as high in the rankings as you might think for a 7-1 team with a win over Bama. Also, a lot of our ranked victories (NC State, Oklahoma) now look way less impressive. And our loss to Arky looks much worse now that they are 5-4. Arky has Texas, La Tech, and Mizzou remaining on the schedule; unless they upset Texas, they are looking like a 6-6 or 7-5 team. If we win out, obviously we make it, but it now looks like 2 out of our 3 toughest games are remaining (at Georgia, at Vandy), and it's not 100% clear that winning 1/2 gets us there.
FPI. We dropped 2 spots in FPI down to #8. While it's ultimately "WIN BABY WIN!", the narrow wins against lackluster competition are clearly hampering us in the quant polls as well as the human polls. Good news is that FPI has us at #1 in defensive efficiency and they have us with a 74% chance of making the playoffs even while predicting that we get a 2nd loss. So while it's not a sure thing, there's still a reasonable chance we could make it into the playoffs with 2 losses.
Miss State. On paper, they are the worst team in the SEC and we are playing in Knoxville, so we should win by a few TDs. In reality, we've played down to the competition all season. But I would like to see us finally have something close to a complete game.
Our ceiling. We've not had a game where we were "firing on all cylinders" yet. Feel like if we did, we could be a top 5 team. That said, the O-line is the one area that still concerns me. It's struggled in pass protection for most of the season. And for that reason, I'm not sure that I see us as having a great shot at the national title, but if we hit our ceiling, we could be a playoff team that makes it to the final 8 or final 4 right now.
That's all I got for now.
GBO!
