I'm not saying this to be adversarial, so don't take it the wrong way, but I think Vol fans should temper their expectations about our offense. Is this an elite UF offense? No. But we've had a lot of missing pieces the first two weeks that will be back in place for the Vols on Saturday.
- A lot of people felt our RB Matt Jones was going to emerge as the next elite SEC RB, but he got a virus back in August that forced him to miss all of fall camp and put him in the hospital for over a week. He had also sat out the spring game to avoid injury and let other guys develop. So the Miami was his first legit contact in a long time. I think you're going to see a completely performance from him on Saturday in terms of his cuts, ability to press the hole, and hopefully pop a few long runs. Gurley, Yeldon, Davis, etc. have been getting the hype - and rightfully so - but Jones is definitely a guy with the potential to get in those same conversations.
- Then there is the heavily recruited, freshman RB Kelvin Taylor. He hasn't seen much action yet because he had to learn pass protection and how to protect the football, but in his few carries against Toledo, you could tell he is going to be special. Muschamp said he will get more looks this week.
- We also signed two of the top WR recruits in the country in Demarcus Robinson and Ahmad Fulwood. They've played in the first two games, but only saw a handful of balls thrown their way. Both are better than pretty much better than any receivers we've had since the Harvin and Cooper days, and they bring the ability to challenge defenses vertically. We haven't given them much of a chance to do that yet in the first two games, but Saturday could be a coming out party for either of them.
- The O line should be better than you saw against Toledo and Miami. Halapio will return to the O line and Moore should be healthier than he was against Miami. Humphries has had recurring knee soreness and it's probably going to be something we deal with all year, but with the week off, he should be better against the Vols than he was against Miami.
So, I think it would be more fair to your defensive coaches to withhold judgment about our O until a later point. You'd hate to see an angry mob of Vol fans calling for the coordinator's head if previously unheralded players like Robinson, Fulwood, Jones, Taylor, etc. make some big plays, because those kids are all going to be legit playmakers. You would have seen them make plays already in the first two games if a.) we didn't have a ton of injuries on the O line and in the backfield, and b.) Muschamp wasn't trying to control the clock due to our depleted depth.
