Well, nice rebound game. I'm not sure how we gave up 63 to South Carolina a week after they get beat 38-6 by Florida, then shut out Vanderbilt, a week after they beat Florida. But such is college football.
-The defense came to play. I really like Wesley Walker at Safety. He's a big upgrade over Flowers. Honestly, I thought Slaughter was better than McCollough at Safety when he played there. I'd like to see those two grab the Safety spots next year. I'm cautiously optimistic that we'l see improvement at the Safety spots with another year of development for those two and others. Nice job by the DLine getting pressure as well. Vandy never got much going on offense.
-All the RBs played well, but Dylan Sampson is starting to show what I've been hoping he would. He's easily got the most upside of the group. As in, star potential. The knock of course has been his ability in pass pro...and he answered that with two HUGE blitz pickups. I think he'll be the starter next year and that he and Wright will make a great 2-headed monster. This offense will be more run-oriented in 2023. Still explosive, just a shift in strength. The offensive line looked very good.
-Joe Milton was disappointing. I'm not saying he can't get it done, but I had hoped he'd show more last night. He looked all year like he'd fixed the overthrow issues, but then regressed back to his old habits against Vanderbilt. A few thoughts on Joe: 1) The deep ball to Hyatt he hit on the 1st drive was beautiful. Great arc that hit him in stride. When Milton misses, it's usually because he has no arc on the ball. Then, when the rain started coming down, it was like Milton was trying to drive the ball through the rain instead of putting arc on the ball. He did throw a perfect deep ball to Keyton later on, but Keyton dropped it. 2) Milton's issues remind me of some others I've seen with great arms in college....Anthony Richardson, Will Levis, and Josh Allen. In fact, Milton's throws sometimes look JUST LIKE Josh Allen's throws at Wyoming. Allen eventually got his issues fixed in the NFL and became a star. Levis is subpar and Richardson is inconsistent, but good. But I do think it's fixable. He's shown that he CAN make the throws, but he has to make them consistently. It needs to become habit. The questions are, will it be fixed at UT? Or at all? The bowl game, after a month of prep, should be interesting. Fortunately, we have a QB whisperer as our head coach.
-Loved seeing Dee Williams finally get a punt return for a TD. He's come close all year. He's our best punt returner since Cam Sutton. I hope he can make a jump at CB next year.
-I think Aaron Beasley can be a star next year. He's always been a see-ball/hit ball-carrier guy, but he's making more and more plays in pass coverage now.
-If you had told me before the season that we'd go 10-2, beat Florida and Alabama, and be on our way to a NYs 6 game, I'd be over the moon. Let's not let the disappointment of what got away in the SC game get in the way of enjoying a GREAT Year 2 under Heupel. College football is the best game on Earth, largely because the regular season means so much more. Beating your rivals means so much more. We have bragging rights over Alabama and Florida for a year. They can't take that from us. I want Clemson in the Orange Bowl. And I wanna whip them.
-Yes, it was just Vanderbilt, but this was a big gut check game for Tennessee. Vandy came in with a lot of momentum, confidence, and motivation to become bowl eligible. As Heupel said, this game showed the strength of our culture. We didn't fold after the bad loss like Butch's teams did. We had even more reason to do so with Hooker's injury. But this team showed what they're made of. We should be proud of this group.
Until the bowl game, we have a month of recruiting...ESD and the transfer portal. We're going to learn a lot before the bowl game about what our 2023 roster will look like. Should be fun.
