Interesting game preview from a poster on the Bama board

#76
#76
knox-townVOL said:
This must be the only intelligent human in the state, but he makes some really good points. Shut down our run game, and we tend to fold.

Now that being said, they are talking like Alabama’s D-Line is a different level than what we have played. LSU’s D-line was also supposed to be world beaters, but we cut through them like butter. It’s quite possible our O-line is much better than we are giving them credit for.

So, Tennessee obviously has a very good offensive system under Josh Heupel. They play fast, and they run a ton of plays. Hendon Hooker deserves his praise and rightfully so. He is the best QB Tennessee has had since Josh Dobbs, and he does a nice job within their offense. However, I think people are missing what actually makes their offense successful and I'm not so sure it's solely Hendon Hooker's ability to throw the football as most people believe.

What I have found is Tennessee's offense functions really well when they are able to run the football at a good clip and when they cannot run the football, their offense reaches a certain threshold. So far this season, Tennessee has faced the following rush defenses: Ball St (115th), Pittsburgh (42nd), Akron (116th), Florida (110th), and LSU (55th). Tennessee ran the ball for 218 on Ball St (59 Pts), 238 on Akron (63 Pts), 227 on UF (38 Pts), and 263 on LSU (40 pts). However, when they played Pittsburgh, they were held to 91 total rushing yards. Guess how many points they scored in regulation? 27 PTS.

Now, I know what you're thinking, "But that's one game." It is one game so far this season, so let's do some digging from last season.

Last year's Tennessee team, when Hooker officially became the full-time starter, had 2 games where their run game was held severely below their rushing average. Guess what two games those were? Georgia & Alabama. The results? Against UGA, they were held to 55 total rushing yards, and recorded 17 total points. Against Alabama, they were held to 65 total rushing yards, and only recorded 24 total points.

So, we have 3 games (UGA 2021, Bama 2021, and Pittsburgh 2022) where Tennessee's offense, when they faced a fairly good-elite rush defenses, hit a ceiling of about 27 points at most. The point of this post is Alabama currently ranks top 3 in terms of power 5 schools in rush defense this year in terms of YPC allowed. Pittsburgh held Tennessee to 91 total rushing yards, and they are allowing 3.90 YPC on the year. Alabama is a whole other tier better than that. We are allowing 2.39 YPC on the year. So, if Alabama's rush defense is truly an elite unit, and I truly believe it is, this Tennessee offense has a ceiling of 27 points at most. There's not a world where Tennessee throws for a country mile and doesn't even eclipse 100 yards rushing. Hendon Hooker cannot operate that offense against elite teams when he does not have an effective running game.

Hookers entire passing attack is predicated on play action/screen game.

According to PFF,

True drop back passing yards this season: 302 yds

Screen Yardage: 189 yds

Play Action Yardage: 941 Yds

If Hendon Hooker requires that much play action to be successful, our pass rush aka Cheetah Package, will have a field day. There simply won't be enough time every time to get quality plays off being that play action reliant against the best pass rush in CFB. This is not a good matchup for Tennessee, imo and I have not even mentioned them trotting out the 128th ranked pass defense in football either.
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There is some flawed logic in this post. You can say that Bama holds teams to under 3 YPC and that their run defense is on another tier but they are basing this on teams they have played up to this point. They haven’t seen a team that runs an offense with 11 players spanning 53 1/3 yards across the field. It’s easier to stop a team running the ball on you when the offense only uses 60-70% of the field. That allows you to bring your LB’s closer to the box and allows your safeties to fit up into the run game. They aren’t going to be able to have 7 guys near the box to stop our run or they will find themselves in tough spots having to play man coverage which is what you don’t want vs this offense. If they want to play man vs Hyatt, I say let em do it. Stopping our run game is a lot easier said than done. Because in order to stop our run game, you have to partially stop our passing game.
 
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#78
#78
knox-townVOL said:
This must be the only intelligent human in the state, but he makes some really good points. Shut down our run game, and we tend to fold.

Now that being said, they are talking like Alabama’s D-Line is a different level than what we have played. LSU’s D-line was also supposed to be world beaters, but we cut through them like butter. It’s quite possible our O-line is much better than we are giving them credit for.

So, Tennessee obviously has a very good offensive system under Josh Heupel. They play fast, and they run a ton of plays. Hendon Hooker deserves his praise and rightfully so. He is the best QB Tennessee has had since Josh Dobbs, and he does a nice job within their offense. However, I think people are missing what actually makes their offense successful and I'm not so sure it's solely Hendon Hooker's ability to throw the football as most people believe.

What I have found is Tennessee's offense functions really well when they are able to run the football at a good clip and when they cannot run the football, their offense reaches a certain threshold. So far this season, Tennessee has faced the following rush defenses: Ball St (115th), Pittsburgh (42nd), Akron (116th), Florida (110th), and LSU (55th). Tennessee ran the ball for 218 on Ball St (59 Pts), 238 on Akron (63 Pts), 227 on UF (38 Pts), and 263 on LSU (40 pts). However, when they played Pittsburgh, they were held to 91 total rushing yards. Guess how many points they scored in regulation? 27 PTS.

Now, I know what you're thinking, "But that's one game." It is one game so far this season, so let's do some digging from last season.

Last year's Tennessee team, when Hooker officially became the full-time starter, had 2 games where their run game was held severely below their rushing average. Guess what two games those were? Georgia & Alabama. The results? Against UGA, they were held to 55 total rushing yards, and recorded 17 total points. Against Alabama, they were held to 65 total rushing yards, and only recorded 24 total points.

So, we have 3 games (UGA 2021, Bama 2021, and Pittsburgh 2022) where Tennessee's offense, when they faced a fairly good-elite rush defenses, hit a ceiling of about 27 points at most. The point of this post is Alabama currently ranks top 3 in terms of power 5 schools in rush defense this year in terms of YPC allowed. Pittsburgh held Tennessee to 91 total rushing yards, and they are allowing 3.90 YPC on the year. Alabama is a whole other tier better than that. We are allowing 2.39 YPC on the year. So, if Alabama's rush defense is truly an elite unit, and I truly believe it is, this Tennessee offense has a ceiling of 27 points at most. There's not a world where Tennessee throws for a country mile and doesn't even eclipse 100 yards rushing. Hendon Hooker cannot operate that offense against elite teams when he does not have an effective running game.

Hookers entire passing attack is predicated on play action/screen game.

According to PFF,

True drop back passing yards this season: 302 yds

Screen Yardage: 189 yds

Play Action Yardage: 941 Yds

If Hendon Hooker requires that much play action to be successful, our pass rush aka Cheetah Package, will have a field day. There simply won't be enough time every time to get quality plays off being that play action reliant against the best pass rush in CFB. This is not a good matchup for Tennessee, imo and I have not even mentioned them trotting out the 128th ranked pass defense in football either.
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I appreciated sharing this OP. I think the Bama poster points out some good info too relative to our yardage breakdown. I do think Pitt is the best possible example to guess how this game will go, and that outcome was a coin toss. I do expect their defense to suppress us and we may have our lowest output of the year. Their defense front is legit.
I genuinely wonder if our defense can help us win like they did against Pitt. With their Young out or hurt l like the odds better.
 
#79
#79
FLVOL_79 said:
What makes the offense good is that its actually really simple RPO. They only run about a handful of plays that have a few variants. QB learns it then makes the adjustments during the game. Just run it quick and it is hard to defend.

Correct me if I am wrong UT hasn't gone all gimmicky yet this year have they?

Also, correct me if I am wrong. I played soccer.
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I thought Huepel opened the playbook a lot against FL
 
#80
#80
TexasVolfan1 said:
In the Pitt game we stopped ourselves more than they stopped us. We’ve improved, wouldn’t even be a close this point in the year. Not saying bama can’t stop us but that game isn’t a good example.
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We dropped a couple TDs that game as well
 
#81
#81
Daniel_Lincolns_Foot said:
I mean, I can't be positive, but I'd like to think that Heupel and the offensive staff have taken into account that they'll be facing a stellar defensive unit--the best we've faced all season--and are trying to figure out a way to adapt the game plan accordingly.
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the numbers stated by the positive alabama researcher do add up to what i've seen and that's hooker getting a read on play/action. No way are heupel/golesh not aware of this coming into this type of game. Bama's front 7 are coming on every damn play,imho. I'd adjust my plays to some quick-hitters to Hyatt, a screen pass or 2 that UT rarely sets up, QB draw. Then have good protection blocking if you have to use TE in the backfield. Bama doesn't want Hooker having any time to read and we need to adjust during practice. No secondary in college football can cover UT's receivers......there are no secrets. UT needs to block well to score and we don't need to get behind in score because that will favor Bama too.
 
#83
#83
Allvols1996 said:
If UT wants to run successfully, they need to spread out. Use that options toss. Let Hooker throw some short stuff in the flat. RPOs. Don’t allow Bama to stack the box. Get them going one way and create space. Don’t think your Oline can just plow holes. Bama has a different kind of athlete on the D line.
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Well, that must have seemed incredibly reasonable when you wrote it... and couldn't have been much more wrong.
 
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