Expectations too high

#26
#26
Brave Volunteer said:
Just to play devil's advocate, what exactly did James Franklin have to work with when he got to Vanderbilt? He got to 9 wins and a bowl victory in year two.
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James Franklin wasn't playing Oregon and Oklahoma as his out of conference games though.
 
#29
#29
Brave Volunteer said:
Just to play devil's advocate, what exactly did James Franklin have to work with when he got to Vanderbilt? He got to 9 wins and a bowl victory in year two.
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Looks like, at this point, that he maybe had more to "work with" than what he has left Derek Mason with. Of course, I don't know that it really matters when you play this type of schedule.....

Wins-
Presbyterian Blue Hose ....... 2-9
Missouri ............................... 5-7 (2-6 SEC)
Auburn ................................. 3-9 (0-8 SEC)
UMass .................................. 1-11
Kentucky ............................... 2-10 (0-8 SEC)
Ole Miss ................................ 7-6 (3-5 SEC)
Tennessee ............................. 5-7 (1-7 SEC)
Wake Forest .......................... 5-7
NC State ................................ 7-6

So, let's sum up. 9 wins vs teams that went a total of 37-72 (.339%). SEC teams they beat were 6-34 in the SEC that year.

Does that help explain why he might've had so much success in year 2?
 
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#30
#30
KBVol said:
Looks like, at this point, that he maybe had more to "work with" than what he has left Derek Mason with. Of course, I don't know that it really matters when you play this type of schedule.....

Wins-
Presbyterian Blue Hose ....... 2-9
Missouri ............................... 5-7 (2-6 SEC)
Auburn ................................. 3-9 (0-8 SEC)
UMass .................................. 1-11
Kentucky ............................... 2-10 (0-8 SEC)
Ole Miss ................................ 7-6 (3-5 SEC)
Tennessee ............................. 5-7 (1-7 SEC)
Wake Forest .......................... 5-7
NC State ................................ 7-6

So, let's sum up. 9 wins vs teams that went a total of 37-72 (.339%). SEC teams they beat were 6-34 in the SEC that year.

Does that help explain why he might've had so much success in year 2?
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Of course, you are over-looking the fact that Franklin inherited a program that went 2-10 (and never ever won 9 games) against a similar schedule.
 
#31
#31
gonzagafan62 said:
Uh yeah, and if you look at the teams Vandy beat that year, its nowhere near impressive.....

Presbyterian
Missouri
Auburn (the 3 win team)
UMASS
Kentucky
Ole Miss
Tennessee
Wake Forest
NC State

Yeah, if Tennessee and Butch had that schedule this year, we would win 9 games too.
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They're still Vandy. You can whine about strength of schedule all you want but even in our worst years, we have better talent than Vandy does top to bottom. The turn around that Franklin was able to achieve at that school was nothing short of miraculous. In Franklin's 3 years at Vandy he went 6-7, 9-4, and 9-4 with wins against Tennessee (twice), Georgia, Mizzou, Auburn, Ole Miss, and Florida and reached a bowl game every single year. But yeah, you go ahead and keep telling yourself that.
 
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#33
#33
Brave Volunteer said:
Just to play devil's advocate, what exactly did James Franklin have to work with when he got to Vanderbilt? He got to 9 wins and a bowl victory in year two.
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shhhh...we're not supposed to mention him or Hugh Freeze, who inherited a 2-10 team and went 8-5 in his 2nd year, beating Texas and LSU (and don't even think of bringing up Nick Saban taking over a 3-8 LSU team and winning the SEC in his 2nd year).
 
#38
#38
oregonvol said:
Of course, you are over-looking the fact that Franklin inherited a program that went 2-10 (and never ever won 9 games) against a similar schedule.
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Exactly. People can talk about Vandy's easier schedule all they want but when you factor in the year in and year out talent disparity between the level that Vandy recruits at and what Tennessee recruits at, I think it's a more than fair comparison.

And look let me be clear here. I'm not asking for 9 wins. I'm asking for 6 wins and bowl game. We should have gotten that last year, but we didn't. Vanderbilt HANDED us that game on a silver platter but for whatever reason we couldn't accept it.
 
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#39
#39
oregonvol said:
Of course, you are over-looking the fact that Franklin inherited a program that went 2-10 (and never ever won 9 games) against a similar schedule.
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Not overlooking it. I've stated several times on here that he did a fantastic job relative to Vandy's history. He had unprecedented success there.

But if you actually look at how he did it, who he did it against, it's takes a lot of the shine off of it. As a matter of fact, part of his stated strategy was to play the easiest OOC schedule he could to get 4 easy wins and then find 2 SEC wins to get to a bowl game. Bottom line, he was a tremendous success.....at Vandy/for Vandy..... he never finished higher than 4th in the SEC East.
 
#41
#41
KBVol said:
Not overlooking it. I've stated several times on here that he did a fantastic job relative to Vandy's history. He had unprecedented success there.

But if you actually look at how he did it, who he did it against, it's takes a lot of the shine off of it. As a matter of fact, part of his stated strategy was to play the easiest OOC schedule he could to get 4 easy wins and then find 2 SEC wins to get to a bowl game. Bottom line, he was a tremendous success.....at Vandy/for Vandy..... he never finished higher than 4th in the SEC East.
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He also managed to beat Florida, Georgia, Tennessee (twice), Ole Miss, and Auburn. While his OOC schedule might have been easy, those wins against SEC opponents were real. Even though those teams at the time had problems they were all top to bottom way more talented than that Vandy team. Franklin can flat out coach.

The problem with us is that we cannot wait for our competition to get worse. We have to elevate ourselves to rise up and meet our competition. Recruiting helps but we cannot keep using that as an excuse. At some point we have to play above our expectations.
 
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#42
#42
KBVol said:
Not overlooking it. I've stated several times on here that he did a fantastic job relative to Vandy's history. He had unprecedented success there.

But if you actually look at how he did it, who he did it against, it's takes a lot of the shine off of it. As a matter of fact, part of his stated strategy was to play the easiest OOC schedule he could to get 4 easy wins and then find 2 SEC wins to get to a bowl game. Bottom line, he was a tremendous success.....at Vandy/for Vandy..... he never finished higher than 4th in the SEC East.
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He took over a program that already played an easy schedule, but they were so bad, they still went 2-10. He changed the wins per season by leaps and bounds. In a few short years, they were regularly beating SEC teams and were competitive against just about everybody. That is a great coaching job. He made a huge difference in their performance.

Contrast that to someone who takes over team that is 5-7 against a tough schedule and again goes 5-7 against a tough schedule. That is not a great coaching job.

We'll see what Butch can do this year, but so far, it doesn't look like we'll be making the kind of jump that other downtrodden programs (Ole Miss, Vanderbilt) in this league have made anytime soon. I just don't believe you can take baby steps and hope to eventually win big in this league. It's too competitive. Almost all of the coaches who are building up their programs are doing it fast and impressively.

(* and yeah, I know, caveat-guy, that Spurrier took awhile to win at USCe. It's a curious lone exception though, because even his down years there were among the most successful years in that program's entire history).
 
#43
#43
Brave Volunteer said:
He also managed to beat Florida, Georgia, Tennessee (twice), Ole Miss, and Auburn. While his OOC schedule might have been easy, those wins against SEC opponents were real. Even though those teams at the time had problems they were all top to bottom way more talented than that Vandy team. Franklin can flat out coach.

The problem with us is that we cannot wait for our competition to get worse. We have to elevate ourselves to rise up and meet our competition. Recruiting helps but we cannot keep using that as an excuse. At some point we have to play above our expectations.
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Beat a 4-8, injury-depleted, worst Florida team since 1979

Beat a .500 Ole Miss team in the first year of a major rebuild, coming off a 2-10 season ...lost to that same Ole Miss team at home the next year.

Beat a 5 loss Georgia team playing without their 3 top WRs, 1 of their 2 best running backs and their best defensive player after Georgia's 4th string freshman RB fumbled deep in Georgia territory and their punter dropped a snap near his own goal line late in the 4th qtr. Georgia had the game well in hand before basically handing Vandy the game with 2 late turnovers. I guess kudos to Franklin because they more than likely would've still lost that game in previous years.

Beat a 3-9 Auburn team by 4 pts... that finished 0-8 in conference play

Beat Tennessee twice.... do I really have to say anything here? Vanderbilt beat Tennessee during the best 2 season stretch in their school's history..... when UT was in the midst of its worst era in school history.

Don't disagree with anything in your last paragraph.
 
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#44
#44
KBVol said:
Beat a 4-8, injury-depleted, worst Florida team since 1979

Beat a .500 Ole Miss team in the first year of a major rebuild, coming off a 2-10 season ...lost to that same Ole Miss team at home the next year.

Beat a 5 loss Georgia team playing without their 3 top WRs, 1 of their 2 best running backs and their best defensive player after Georgia's 4th string freshman RB fumbled deep in Georgia territory and their punter dropped a snap near his own goal line late in the 4th qtr. Georgia had the game well in hand before basically handing Vandy the game with 2 late turnovers. I guess kudos to Franklin because they more than likely would've still lost that game in previous years.

Beat a 3-9 Auburn team by 4 pts... that finished 0-8 in conference play

Beat Tennessee twice.... do I really have to say anything here? Vanderbilt beat Tennessee during the best 2 season stretch in their school's history..... when UT was in the midst of its worst era in school history.

Don't disagree with anything in your last paragraph.
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Most of Georgia's and Florida's 3rd stringers would start at Vandy. Injuries are no excuse. Tennessee and Auburn had WAY more talent than those Vandy teams did. Our skill players alone in those years totally outclassed Vandys.
 
#45
#45
Brave Volunteer said:
Most of Georgia's and Florida's 3rd stringers would start at Vandy. Injuries are no excuse. Tennessee and Auburn had WAY more talent than those Vandy teams did. Our skill players alone in those years totally outclassed Vandys.
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Injuries are no excuse? You think Georgia or Florida were the same teams, just as difficult to beat later in the season last year as they were earlier in the season? Wow. Florida had lost around 20 players, key contributors to injury by the time they played Vandy. They were in the top 20 coming off an 11-win season when UT played them week 4..... after all the injuries they lost to Vandy and Georgia Southern. You don't see the correlation?

We'll disagree about talent levels I guess. Here's what I know for sure. The 2 Tennessee teams and the one Auburn team, that went 3-9 overall and 0-8 in the SEC..... those teams were absolutely awful.
 
#47
#47
orangepeopleeater said:
I have seen posts in threads today that are putting down this young team. They have also been a couple about Coach Jones. When did the sky start falling. This young Vol team held their own against a senior Oklahoma team. Alabama lost by double points to them in last years bowl game. I gaurentee you if the last three or four Vols teams played Oklahoma it would have been a worse loss. This young team grew last night. They can call it a loss, but this was no moral win...this was a slap in the face and a wake up call to the Vols team. This team is going to be fun to watch this year. Hey Tennessee is 2-1. Go Vols!!!!!!
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Statistically, on offense and defense, we are at or near the bottom in most categories. About the same, so far, as last season.

Losing a key player every game to injury is not going to help us reach the sixth win. I sure hope we can though.
 
#48
#48
YorkVol said:
A cup cake schedule and sucky SEC East.
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And a favorable SEC West draw his last 2 years. Also, beat bad teams, got blown out vs the good teams. To be fair, Vandy historically just lost to everybody, so Franklin deserved credit for beating the bad teams.
 
#49
#49
KBVol said:
And a favorable SEC West draw his last 2 years. Also, beat bad teams, got blown out vs the good teams. To be fair, Vandy historically just lost to everybody, so Franklin deserved credit for beating the bad teams.
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Yes and he did it with "Vandy" level talent. That's the point you keep missing! Franklin didn't inherit Ron Zook's Florida team for God's sake! If he had, you would have a valid argument.
 
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#50
#50
Brave Volunteer said:
Yes and he did it with "Vandy" level talent. That's the point you keep missing! Franklin didn't inherit Ron Zook's Florida team for God's sake! If he had, you would have a valid argument.
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And you keep missing the point that the teams he beat over his 3 year tenure typically lost 2/3 of the games they played.

When they played good teams, teams that had a decided talent advantage, they were blown off the field. For example, take 2013..... the 3 best teams they played last year, SCar, Missouri and Texas A&M, beat them by a combined score of 142-77....average score of 47-26.

Look, you think he did any outstanding job at Vanderbilt. So do I.....in the right context....the historical context of Vandy football only, especially given how historically bad the SEC East was last year.

We should probably just agree to disagree.
 
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