'25 UT OG Douglas Utu (Oregon commit)

#851
#851
KingVFL said:
Glen is a really good offensive line coach.

He’s a bad recruiter and we have unfortunately created basically no depth in 4 years on the offensive line. I’m optimistic about our freshman and high school kids (although Utu would’ve had a shot at being a day 1 starter) but we have gotten 0 solid contributors from the first two classes and that’s a real problem. We’ve had to rely on Covid years and Spyre carrying water for the portal to have a semblance of an offensive line. It’s not that offensive line is a developmental position as many here will argue.. it’s not that we were hamstrung with initial classes as many here will argue. I will tell you it’s a bigger issue than that and if you want to believe differently, agree to disagree.

I don’t know if you can make $900K and be our 2nd highest paid assistant and do only the coaching on the field part of the job well forever. We need to find a Chop to support him or figure something out because offensive line depth is the biggest problem on this team and I think the biggest problem in the program.

It’s definitely not fixed because the freshman seem good and we have David Sanders coming in. There is a bigger problem than that.. maybe it doesn’t matter this year and Heard and Campbell play and were fine, but just because it doesn’t happen, doesn’t mean there aren’t concerns.
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Fahr Elarbeeeee 😄

But also I’m fairly confident the dude being paid $9M/ yr will figure it out. Smart one, that guy
 
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#852
#852
KingVFL said:
First I acknowledged I liked the freshman class. You listed 3 true freshman who have played no important minutes. Not depth.

Lang and Sham have shown nothing to make us believe they are real players. Hopefully they are but nothing to date.

Larry Johnson is not a guy you want out there right now in important periods.
I think you want to believe something, which is fine and we’ll agree to disagree.
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Larry didn’t give up a sack, and he actually graded out well in the Oklahoma game although PFF is not the most trusted source.

I think an honest discussion can be had over the fact it’s almost unreasonable to expect great depth at a position like OT due to optics…OG is a different story. As you know every teams NIL works under a budget
 
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#853
#853
GoodTimeVol said:
Larry didn’t give up a sack, and he actually graded out well in the Oklahoma game although PFF is not the most trusted source.

I think an honest discussion can be had over the fact it’s almost unreasonable to expect great depth at a position like OT due to optics…OG is a different story. As you know every teams NIL works under a budget
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Let’s agree to disagree.

We changed our entire game plan because he was one of the guys out there.
 
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#854
#854
KingVFL said:
Let’s agree to disagree.

We changed our entire game plan because he was one of the guys out there.
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Yeah he (along with Davis) were reasons that it made much more sense to go to an exclusive running attack in the 2nd half. I would say that might also be why when you look at a PFF grade it looks good for him. That because he is a capable run blocker but is a huge liability in pass protection. So PFF looks good because we did not ask him to do something that he can't do very well. We protected him. Him pass protecting for a full game with 30+ pass attempts would result in a much different PFF grade.
 
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#855
#855
Idk Hubbs and AP both have stated that the OT position in terms of depth is very rare to have at the college level, most teams in college football would change their gameplan if one of their starting OT’s goes down. We had two essentially go out for the Oklahoma game pretty much. Not ideal but im not going to pretend that 98% of teams in college wouldn’t have the same problem
 
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#856
#856
Two Scenarios scare me regarding the O Line Depth

2024: Heard/Campbell/Mays go down for the year. This one pretty self explanatory, for any team its going to hurt but I would just hate for that to be the reason to ruin this type of season
2025: Need an unexpected development from one of our freshman + Transfer Portal sucess to keep Nico safe next year. I would hate to have Nico playing at a Heisman Level with full confidence his junior (and probably last year) and we cant keep him upright.

Both of these scenarios might never materialize which would be great, but if they do I think we as fans will be kicking ourselves for a long time of what could have been
 
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#857
#857
allamericanfulk said:
Two Scenarios scare me regarding the O Line Depth

2024: Heard/Campbell/Mays go down for the year. This one pretty self explanatory, for any team its going to hurt but I would just hate for that to be the reason to ruin this type of season
2025: Need an unexpected development from one of our freshman + Transfer Portal sucess to keep Nico safe next year. I would hate to have Nico playing at a Heisman Level with full confidence his junior (and probably last year) and we cant keep him upright.

Both of these scenarios might never materialize which would be great, but if they do I think we as fans will be kicking ourselves for a long time of what could have been
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But you could literally say that about any roster in college football…Georgia lost Tate Ratledge for the year, he was one of their best blockers. They barely have what I would consider a run game.

Point is Injuries happen, the hope is it doesn’t happen to your OT’s. Depth is hard to come by at that position let alone finding talent. It’s not any surprise that position is one of the most sought after in the NFL and also why it gets paid the most on the line.
 
#858
#858
GoodTimeVol said:
But you could literally say that about any roster in college football…Georgia lost Tate Ratledge for the year, he was one of their best blockers. They barely have what I would consider a run game.

Point is Injuries happen, the hope is it doesn’t happen to your OT’s. Depth is hard to come by at that position let alone finding talent. It’s not any surprise that position is one of the most sought after in the NFL and also why it gets paid the most on the line.
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Ratledge is not out for the year… he will be back before we play them
 
#860
#860
GoodTimeVol said:
But you could literally say that about any roster in college football…Georgia lost Tate Ratledge for the year, he was one of their best blockers. They barely have what I would consider a run game.

Point is Injuries happen, the hope is it doesn’t happen to your OT’s. Depth is hard to come by at that position let alone finding talent. It’s not any surprise that position is one of the most sought after in the NFL and also why it gets paid the most on the line.
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Difference is Georgia filled Ratledge spot with another 5 Star. Tennessee is going to Dayne Davis
 
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#861
#861
KingVFL said:
Glen is a really good offensive line coach.

He’s a bad recruiter and we have unfortunately created basically no depth in 4 years on the offensive line. I’m optimistic about our freshman and high school kids (although Utu would’ve had a shot at being a day 1 starter) but we have gotten 0 solid contributors from the first two classes and that’s a real problem. We’ve had to rely on Covid years and Spyre carrying water for the portal to have a semblance of an offensive line. It’s not that offensive line is a developmental position as many here will argue.. it’s not that we were hamstrung with initial classes as many here will argue. I will tell you it’s a bigger issue than that and if you want to believe differently, agree to disagree.

I don’t know if you can make $900K and be our 2nd highest paid assistant and do only the coaching on the field part of the job well forever. We need to find a Chop to support him or figure something out because offensive line depth is the biggest problem on this team and I think the biggest problem in the program.

It’s definitely not fixed because the freshman seem good and we have David Sanders coming in. There is a bigger problem than that.. maybe it doesn’t matter this year and Heard and Campbell play and were fine, but just because it doesn’t happen, doesn’t mean there aren’t concerns.
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Pardon me- but if Sham, Lang, Duncan, Lampley and I’ll Addison from Arkansas as well, didn’t develop any according to “having depth” then it sounds like - you’re saying he’s NOT a really good coach.

We can agree to disagree, but we’re still one of top rushing teams in America. That counts for something. Nico also can help his line out by getting rid of the ball faster…

Something he willl improve on, but he runs too much instead of operating in the pocket and manipulating the defense from it.
 
#866
#866
GoodTimeVol said:
Blind trust? Lol do we really need to show the advanced stats of our Oline the past 3 years to shut you up?
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It’s like @KingVFL said, we are relying on super seniors/covid seniors and transfers for our ol, and have been for the past several years. Not a single hs recruit that Elarbee has signed has contributed. Heard/Campbell/Mincey/Crawford/Karic were all transfers, Mays/Spraggins/Carvin/Lampley/Davis were all here prior to CGE. And I hate to bring up our scheme, but it really does help our run game
 
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#867
#867
JCVol00 said:
It’s like @KingVFL said, we are relying on super seniors/covid seniors and transfers for our ol, and have been for the past several years. Not a single hs recruit that Elarbee has signed has contributed. Heard/Campbell/Mincey/Crawford/Karic were all transfers, Mays/Spraggins/Carvin/Lampley/Davis were all here prior to CGE. And I hate to bring up our scheme, but it really does help our run game
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You’re right. I mean you do know more about OL and OL coaching than Heup after all.

You want a coach gone based off of hypothetical problems. So far, it’s working. Let’s see if it keeps working in the future.
 
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#868
#868
KingVFL said:
Sam is as good as anyone’s that done it.

I bet he just retires or goes back to Georgia but we’d be lucky to have him in whatever capacity we could get him to show up to Knoxville.

But again, I’m not calling for Glen to be fired. Can’t let perfect be the enemy of very good.. but we do need to figure out how to fix this problem.
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Adding another guy to help with Oline can’t hurt imo. You keep Elarbee and have someone that can maybe connect with recruits as well.
 
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#873
#873
JCVol00 said:
It’s like @KingVFL said, we are relying on super seniors/covid seniors and transfers for our ol, and have been for the past several years. Not a single hs recruit that Elarbee has signed has contributed. Heard/Campbell/Mincey/Crawford/Karic were all transfers, Mays/Spraggins/Carvin/Lampley/Davis were all here prior to CGE. And I hate to bring up our scheme, but it really does help our run game
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except for maybe RT with Davis, which of those guys "should" have been replaced by now? Coaches are fools if they are replacing upper classmen with tons of experience who are playing at a high level with new guys just because the new guy was specifically recruited by the coach.

Mays, Spraggins, Carvin play at a high level, and have gotten various recognition for it. SEC O line of the week, All SEC, All American. and really only did so under CGE's tutelage.

There aren't very many O-linemen out there who play at a high enough level as true freshman to take jobs. even the guys who do start, like Proctor at Alabama, were topped ranked guys who stepped into an open position after the previous guy left. they didn't beat out a 4th year starter All-SEC quality player to take the job. they may have battled some older player who had sat on the bench, but not one who had established himself as starter quality.

under this standard, the recruiting at Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, and Texas all suck. they haven't replaced any of their guys with freshmen, but instead relied on transfers to fill open spots. even the topped ranked classes aren't doing it, why is it expected that CGE should?
 
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#874
#874
JCVol00 said:
Blind trust imo, they’re apparently best friends and have been for a while
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Then I'll blindly trust the man who has won as many games here in his first 4 seasons as anyone; and, who has us currently sitting at #4 in the nation. Oh, and ill also blindly trust him to score points, because now I see that he can...while trusting the man who has coached the guys that have paved the way for said points.

Really don't care who his friends are. Glad they're along for the ride.
 
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