Expectations for the 2025 Season and ESPN direspect.

#26
#26
TN Volunteers. said:
Hopefully, I am not jinxing anything, but I am excited about the 2025 season and do not think that it will be a transitional year. Yes, we are losing many key players, but they can be replaced. We are losing Sampson, but our RBS are good every year. I think we will do what we did in 2023 and use Star Thomas, DeSean Bishop, and Peyton Lewis. I think our o-line will be better through development and transfers. Nico will be much better. I saw his improvement throughout the season. He looked good in the second half of Alabama, great vs. Kentucky, and would have had 400 yards if not for drops, looked great vs Mississippi State, looked good vs Georgia, and looked great vs Vandy. He didn't even look bad vs OSU. The O-line just could not block, so they could just put 7 in coverage. If Nico improves his deep ball, he could become elite next season. Our receiving core has gotten worse just from looking at it, but I think our receiving core has high potential, just not much experience.
ESPN put us behind Illinois, Indiana, Kansas State, Iowa State, and BYU are the big ones. I think we should be above Florida and other teams like them, but I am not that mad about that.
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I like that their rankings will be an incentive to our coaches and players to prove them wrong. I think we make the playoffs agains this year.
 
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#27
#27
BigOrangeFanatic said:
We have a pretty decent sample size since Heupel has been here. In most (not all), but most road games we have struggled, especially against teams of equal or more talent. Which to me means you can just about automatically mark Bama and UF in the loss column.

We get UGA at home this year, but JH hasn't beaten them yet. Even with an unproven QB they're gonna be hard to beat. They still have more talent than we do, I have hard time seeing a win there.

And then there is the unexplainable Akry (2024), USCe (2022) UF (2023) game that might happen somewhere. Who knows which game that might be this year.

All the above together with replacing several veteran OL, paired with an OL coach whose hardly developed anybody since being here...a WR group that is unproven, and also coached poorly...lost an NFL RB, and several DL...and I'm still not 100% sold that Nico is a great QB. He's got a lot to prove this year....all these things together make it hard for me see us not taking a step back. I think 8 wins is where we land.
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Yes too many question marks to make a valid prediction at this time.
 
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#29
#29
Chad F said:
Ok, ok.

“This program” hasn’t proven anything other than the pattern that described earlier. That’s true til it’s not. Maybe “this team” in 2025 will break the pattern.
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We have road wins against a ranked LSU team that won the West that season and a Pitt team that was ok. Bad losses to Arkansas and South Carolina. We definitely haven’t been good on the road a lot, but not an automatic loss either. I like our chances on the road vs Mississippi St and UK. Our next step is getting that big road win. History is certainly against us in Tuscaloosa and Gainesville, but I don’t look at either of those teams the way that I once did. Also an interesting dynamic is that the game in Gainesville is late November .
 
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#30
#30
Chad F said:
Ok, ok.

“This program” hasn’t proven anything other than the pattern that described earlier. That’s true til it’s not. Maybe “this team” in 2025 will break the pattern.
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Yeah, I was totally being a smart butt. Just messing though.
 
#32
#32
BigOrangeFanatic said:
We have a pretty decent sample size since Heupel has been here. In most (not all), but most road games we have struggled, especially against teams of equal or more talent. Which to me means you can just about automatically mark Bama and UF in the loss column.

We get UGA at home this year, but JH hasn't beaten them yet. Even with an unproven QB they're gonna be hard to beat. They still have more talent than we do, I have hard time seeing a win there.

And then there is the unexplainable Akry (2024), USCe (2022) UF (2023) game that might happen somewhere. Who knows which game that might be this year.

All the above together with replacing several veteran OL, paired with an OL coach whose hardly developed anybody since being here...a WR group that is unproven, and also coached poorly...lost an NFL RB, and several DL...and I'm still not 100% sold that Nico is a great QB. He's got a lot to prove this year....all these things together make it hard for me see us not taking a step back. I think 8 wins is where we land.
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So you’re a glass half full kind of guy.
 
#34
#34
I expect a complete dumpster fire at OL, with Nico pressured by everyone, including the opponents band and hot dog vendors. D should be solid, but our complete failure to develop OL will finally bite us hard.

We cannot seem to develop a standout WR or OL, in a system where both should shine.
 
#35
#35
Did any of you watch Bama against Ok and UM? They were a disaster. Saban isn't there anymore, what makes you think they are going to reload and be former Bama again? They have an unproven QB, in fact nobody even knows who that will be. Deboer hasn't proven he can coach on a SEC level.
 
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#36
#36
At some point you have to be what you want to be or not. We are nearing that point. Last year’s team lost some good players but that always the case in CFB. A 10-2 team going 7-5 is a bad look. It just shows we were a fluke. A 10-2 team going 9-3 or better shows we have a real program.

Loss wise, Bru was not the same as before and can be replaced. The rest of the WRs either weren’t consistent or didn’t play. Squirrel was hurt but also had the dropsies as a result. OL wise we lose Mayes which likely hurts but he was kinda smallish and not dominant. He was a good player. Who knows if we actually upgrade that. Sampson will be hard to replace, but Heupel has a track record with RB production even if by committee. Nico should see things faster. He held it a lot last year. His time to throw was inconsistent but he frequently had over 3 seconds to throw.

Pearce was a force but we rotated so many guys that we are going to be able to get production across the board. Most of the interior guys are replaceable. We didn’t lose any All SeC interior guys. Coach G has a lot of guys with experience that can play. Lbs were young and will be more seasoned. DBs also. Lost Brooks but should be faster.

We gotta put up or shut up.
 
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#37
#37
RDU VOL#14 said:
We have road wins against a ranked LSU team that won the West that season and a Pitt team that was ok. Bad losses to Arkansas and South Carolina. We definitely haven’t been good on the road a lot, but not an automatic loss either. I like our chances on the road vs Mississippi St and UK. Our next step is getting that big road win. History is certainly against us in Tuscaloosa and Gainesville, but I don’t look at either of those teams the way that I once did. Also an interesting dynamic is that the game in Gainesville is late November .
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Hanging your hat on 2 wins 3 years ago doesn’t inspire much confidence.
 
#39
#39
LWSVOL said:
I guess one can have that opinion. IMO, they over achieved in 2024 by getting into the playoffs.
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We probably did, but 8 wins in year 5 with a #1 ranked QB in year 3 would be a tough pill to swallow.

Personally, I think our OL is going to be better than most expect, and noticeably better than 2024. I like the explosiveness we have at WR and think Matthews, Staley, and Jefferson can be a better trio than Thornton, Squirrel, and Bru. Brazzell will be year better, which only helps. We'll see what Boo brings to the table in practice. With Nico being more experienced, I think we'll have our best offense since 2022.

Defensively, Jermod McCoy's recovery is a big X factor. He was a big part of our success in 2024. Need him back to 100%. Pearce will also be missed but Josephs is a better run defender than Pearce. We'll need to get pressure on the QB some other way. Maybe that's Joseph's improving his pass rush or maybe that's someone like former 5-star Jordan Ross stepping up his sophomore year.

Banks has improved our defense every year since taking the job. Can he do it again? If he does, I think we'll be right back in the playoffs. If we take a little step back on defense, I think we're looking at 9 wins. Winning only 8 would mean that we lost to every decent team on our schedule, including Syracuse.
 
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#40
#40
LegionnaireOfTheMiserable said:
ESPN has us at 19th. To take that as disrespect is outrageous.
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You don't think it's disrespectful to drop a playoff team returning its QB to 19?

We're losing one good player on offense and one good player on defense, and the positions those players played (RB and DE) has been our deepest positions under Heupel.
 
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#42
#42
bpalmer28 said:
You don't think it's disrespectful to drop a playoff team returning its QB to 19?

We're losing one good player on offense and one good player on defense, and the positions those players played (RB and DE) has been our deepest positions under Heupel.
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Well a lot of what you are saying is just objectively wrong. We are losing more than 2 good players total. Hell, we are losing two All Americans on offense alone.

Also returning a mediocre QB doesn’t mean that mediocre QB will ever be better than mediocre. Frankly DJ U showed more as a true freshman than Nico did as a redshirt freshman. And DJ U just got worse from there. Improvement is neither automatic, nor guaranteed.
 
#43
#43
9 wins...I just cannot find 4 losses. We play well at home...so I have us winning all home games except UGA.

Road play is our weakness--UF and UA losses. Other road games should be won period and inexcusable to lose (MSST, UK).

Wildcard for me is Syracuse on Neutral field that should have a heavy Vol fan presence.
 
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#44
#44
farmdogvol said:
Did any of you watch Bama against Ok and UM? They were a disaster. Saban isn't there anymore, what makes you think they are going to reload and be former Bama again? They have an unproven QB, in fact nobody even knows who that will be. Deboer hasn't proven he can coach on a SEC level.
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ranked 3rd in recruiting for 2025. Doesn't seem they are going anywhere.. As long as teams recruit in the top 5, year in and year out, they will be in contention for the SEC title which leads to playoffs. Texas, Georgia and Bama are 1, 2 and 3.
 
#45
#45
LWSVOL said:
ranked 3rd in recruiting for 2025. Doesn't seem they are going anywhere.. As long as teams recruit in the top 5, year in and year out, they will be in contention for the SEC title which leads to playoffs. Texas, Georgia and Bama are 1, 2 and 3.
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Absolutely and we all have to remember that year one rarely goes as planned anywhere. I am interested to see if coach DeBoer is the guy there or not. He had a less than stellar first season but it isn’t like he forgot how to coach.
 
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