Does Kirby simply have Heupel figured out?

[cbrown]

We were never going to beat Georgia by stringing together 4-5 15-play drives ending in touchdowns - they're too good on defense. We had to have a few big plays in the passing game, either for touchdowns or setting up touchdowns. I don't recall us having many of those against Georgia in the four years Heupel's been here. Georgia shut that completely down in 2022 when our offense was gashing everyone else. I'm guessing we've had less than 10 and probably less than five pass completions of over 35-40 yards against Georgia in that time. Kirby appears to know exactly what to do against Heupel's offenses.

 

[Loid]

Yes he does, I made a thread about it and several people called me dumb lol.

 

[adam.vol]

Does Kirby know that his QB’s turnovers will be negated by the officials? If you can answer that with “yes”, then the answer to your question is “yes!”

 

[DaddyChad]

Kirby has almost everyone figured out bc he has more talent than everyone else. I do believe we were the better team; I also believe we got out schemed. Really hard to beat that team; impossible to do it in Athens with that officiating crew.

 

[Voltopia]

If by “figured out” you mean recruit enough 4* and 5* players to make sure that you’ve got more than they do, then sure. I’m sure Kirby has figured that out.

Now that I think about it, he probably learned that from Saban. “Nick, how do you do it?” I’m sure the answer shocked him.

 

[freedom fighter]

TN had no chance with David Smith as head referee. simple

 

[vols27]

For all of the success that Heupel has had offensively, he just can't get over the hump vs Kirby. Until he beats them home or away, there will always be a question of whether or not we can be elite again. Kirby executed his gameplan same as 2022 and it worked. Not sure if he has Heupel figured out or if he just has the better athletes required to execute the plan. They don't get beat over the top very often.

Defense has improved under Banks but Saturday night proved that when it comes down to creating a gameplan and executing it against elite teams, he comes up short. No pressure on Beck all night is inexcusable. If we put pressure on him and he completes 75% of his passes, so be it. But to sit back and let him torch our defense without making any adjustments is baffling. So I would put this loss on Banks as much as Heupel. Our offense has not been complete all season and now it looks like the defense is regressing. I think the loss of Pili has been more impactful than most would have expected. Secondary is much improved however. We just have to be able to tie it all together to become elite.

10-2 is a solid year with a freshmen QB. The loss at Arky is inexcusable but we could have losses to Bama and Florida as well. GBO!

 

[Carp]

The offense played pretty well overall, imo. Particularly in the 1st half. But UGA was playing 2 deep safeties for most of the game, which basically takes the deep shot away. I feel like we should have stretched the sidelines a lot more with the running plays. Bama absolutely torched UGA on the outside. They didn't have an answer for it. And it opened up holes in other parts of the field. And sure enough, one of most productive runs of the game is where we pulled Campbell and ran it around the left side for a big gain.


Let's also understand it took Kirby 6 years to beat Bama and he's still only done it once in the 9 years he's been there, so UGA and Smart are not immune to what we're going through.

 

[cbrown]

Kirby has almost everyone figured out bc he has more talent than everyone else. I do believe we were the better team; I also believe we got out schemed. Really hard to beat that team; impossible to do it in Athens with that officiating crew.

Fair point. We've closed the talent gap some, but there's still a gap. As soon as you say another team has more talent the "stars aren't everything" posse comes out in force.

We have managed to open it up against Alabama tho, and I'd say that's a comparable talent gap to Georgia.

 

[adam.vol]

TN had no chance with David Glass as head referee. simple

When the SEC wants a specific winner, they have a specific crew.

Georgia was not able to do anything on offense until the officials proved that they would not let Georgia screw up. All those scoring drives that our so called fans are congratulating Georgia on were sustained by referee intervention. Every one of them.

 

[BigALWiLson]

We were never going to beat Georgia by stringing together 4-5 15-play drives ending in touchdowns - they're too good on defense. We had to have a few big plays in the passing game, either for touchdowns or setting up touchdowns. I don't recall us having many of those against Georgia in the four years Heupel's been here. Georgia shut that completely down in 2022 when our offense was gashing everyone else. I'm guessing we've had less than 10 and probably less than five pass completions of over 35-40 yards against Georgia in that time. Kirby appears to know exactly what to do against Heupel's offenses.

Hard to get those kind of plays when the DL owns our OL. That has been the case in every game and probably will continue with Elerbee. Not to mention lack of WR'S since 22

 

[Carp]

For all of the success that Heupel has had offensively, he just can't get over the hump vs Kirby. Until he beats them home or away, there will always be a question of whether or not we can be elite again. Kirby executed his gameplan same as 2022 and it worked. Not sure if he has Heupel figured out or if he just has the better athletes required to execute the plan. They don't get beat over the top very often.

Defense has improved under Banks but Saturday night proved that when it comes down to creating a gameplan and executing it against elite teams, he comes up short. No pressure on Beck all night is inexcusable. If we put pressure on him and he completes 75% of his passes, so be it. But to sit back and let him torch our defense without making any adjustments is baffling. So I would put this loss on Banks as much as Heupel. Our offense has not been complete all season and now it looks like the defense is regressing. I think the loss of Pili has been more impactful than most would have expected. Secondary is much improved however. We just have to be able to tie it all together to become elite.

10-2 is a solid year with a freshmen QB. The loss at Arky is inexcusable but we could have losses to Bama and Florida as well. GBO!

Agreed. I wish we would have blitzed more often than we did. But at the same time, our vaunted DL got zero push most of the night., You have to got to put some of the performance on them. This isn't a typical GA OL. They were beatable and out guys failed to win those matchups consistently.

 

[Golfprovol]

We were never going to beat Georgia by stringing together 4-5 15-play drives ending in touchdowns - they're too good on defense. We had to have a few big plays in the passing game, either for touchdowns or setting up touchdowns. I don't recall us having many of those against Georgia in the four years Heupel's been here. Georgia shut that completely down in 2022 when our offense was gashing everyone else. I'm guessing we've had less than 10 and probably less than five pass completions of over 35-40 yards against Georgia in that time. Kirby appears to know exactly what to do against Heupel's offenses.

No, it is player execution

 

[Gandalf]

For the life of me, I dont understand, especially once we got up by 10 why we didnt just pin our ears back and send the house over and over again against Beck. If he tosses downfield so be it but once we hit him a couple of times I guarantee you he would get jittery and the entire dynamic changes once he starts looking for pressure instead of downfield.

 

[Golfprovol]

Yes he does, I made a thread about it and several people called me dumb lol.

Because it is dumb.

 

[Visidog]

Nobody has it figured out, or everybody does. Football is about tradeoffs, and the better your players are, the fewer tradeoffs you have to make. UGA defends the deep ball against UT and tries to force things short. Safeties can play inside leverage on pass routes and still hope to be in position to help on running plays (though you’ll notice both safeties took shallow angles on Sampson’s long TD and got burned).

UGA bets that it can make enough plays against the run to force UT to punt. It has the D-linemen and LBs to make that strategy possible. It didn’t work so well in the first half—both because of big runs and some excellent pass plays—but the plan worked better in the second.

Scheme matters and sometimes scheme gets everybody. But football is mostly about athletes doing athletic things, and having more good athletes is the most successful scheme anybody has invented.

 

[onevol74]

I do think Smart knows exactly how to stop Heupel’s offense. That same results in all four games. Also, the chances of Heupel winning a night SEC game on the road against good competition is a barrier he needs to eliminate.

But Georgia is to Heupel as Florida was to Fulmer at this point.

 

[Golfprovol]

For the life of me, I dont understand, especially once we got up by 10 why we didnt just pin our ears back and send the house over and over again against Beck. If he tosses downfield so be it but once we hit him a couple of times I guarantee you he would get jittery and the entire dynamic changes once he starts looking for pressure instead of downfield.

If they hit bombs on the 1-1 coverage you would be pitching about our DB's sucking. Can't put them on an island all game and expect them to win every time.

Also you would biych when a screen or run play gets to second level for 30 yards

 

[Doberman]

Kirby has coached circles around Josh.

Not fun to say, but unequivocally true.

 

[901 Orange]

Fair point. We've closed the talent gap some, but there's still a gap. As soon as you say another team has more talent the "stars aren't everything" posse comes out in force.

We have managed to open it up against Alabama tho, and I'd say that's a comparable talent gap to Georgia.

At this point I don't think there is a gap in talent. I think they're pretty even. When 2 teams matchup evenly it's the little things that make the difference and you need a bounce or 2 to go your way. We didn't do the little things well and we got 0 bounces our way.

 

[aRmo]

Yes he does, I made a thread about it and several people called me dumb lol.

I agree with this, but our passing game has been nearly non-existent in two seasons. I get it Heupel calls the plays, but Halsle relays what hes seeing from the booth. I like Halsle but i dont think he understands what hes seeing. Golesh did, but we didnt have the horses to contend with that legendary UGA defense in 2022. We were sold all off season that this WR room has playmakers and with Nico the passing game will come to life. This passing game looks the same as last year. Nothing has really changed about it except a few elite placements by Nico. in 2023 Vols avg'd 216yds passing a game. This year we have avg'd 204 per game. Heupel has to get this figured out if we truly want to compete for championships.

 

[Cartervol]

Yeah it's called talent. He had more of it, and has had more of it during their 8 game winning streak..Needed some chunk plays the other night and didn't get them. I mean.. The offense is why they were favored by 9 or 10 whatever it was. They've watched us look like shat for most of the year, so they figured we wouldn't all of a sudden figure it out against one of the better defenses in the nation. At their place and the home cooking they got and get every time, wasn't going to happen..

 

[adam.vol]

TN has the biggest collection of vaginas in all of SEC sports. I wish I could comprehend the mindset that talks about everything that went wrong while ignoring anything that went right. Some of you boys would cower to a wet paper sack. I’d be surprised if there was one man sized testicle between the lot of you.

We went into the hedges, went up by 10, and forced turnovers that inexplicably got reversed by SEC officials. Our Vols had Kirby’s bulldogs so nervous that it took the worst officiating of the season to get them the win. If we had to play them over again, it would take another biased officiating crew to give Georgia the win.

We are not disadvantaged to Georgia in any way. The conference just wants to get 5 teams into the playoffs.

 

[CAVPUT]

Kirby has almost everyone figured out bc he has more talent than everyone else. I do believe we were the better team; I also believe we got out schemed. Really hard to beat that team; impossible to do it in Athens with that officiating crew.

It's more than just talent. Kirby provided a blueprint that other teams have used against us with success. Although a better OL and WR group would make a huge difference, too.

 

[Loid]

Because it is dumb

Just because you don't like it doesn't make it untrue.