Postgame Thoughts

#27
#27
GahLee said:
I thought the offensive play-calling was almost terrible. How many times can you get the ball in plus territory and not get points? Do we have any other run plays other than the Dive?
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Worley showed some improved ability to tote it. I'd like to see more of that.
Need to keep those DE's honest.
 
#28
#28
GahLee said:
I thought the offensive play-calling was almost terrible. How many times can you get the ball in plus territory and not get points? Do we have any other run plays other than the Dive?
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Play calling was fine. Players have to execute or it doesn't happen. It's a young team and a different o-line. just the way it is right now.
 
#29
#29
GahLee said:
I thought the offensive play-calling was almost terrible. How many times can you get the ball in plus territory and not get points? Do we have any other run plays other than the Dive?
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I am more concerned about 30 yard sideline go/slant routs for all receivers and not one receiver/te in the middle. This happened on at least 10 plays. I hope it is because of calling a "vanilla" offense.
 
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#30
#30
GAMECOCK said:
I thought that the running game would have been better if the O line was better. Those backs were doing the best they could with minimal push at times.
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hit the nail on the head.....we have to realize the backs can only be good as the line play....it will get better.
 
#31
#31
Overall a very good first outing, I would say the only concern you can really point to right now is the OL. Lack of any real push in the running game, I thought they did okay in pass protection but were beat on an individually basis from time to time, Worley did an excellent job of escaping or buying time.

The other thing that really stuck out to me was the speed of the DBs to come up support either the run or WR screens. In today's game having the DBs come up and be able to take someone on quickly all alone is a must.

Very good game for the Vols! :superman:
 
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#32
#32
Looked like a bowl caliber team to me last night. Sure there is room for improvement and this team is young but BJ looks to have this team playing disciplined ball. They will add a few more wrinkles next week and hopefully we come to play against OK.
 
#33
#33
P.O.T.S. VOL said:
hit the nail on the head.....we have to realize the backs can only be good as the line play....it will get better.
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Yeah, I don't at all blame it on the RB's. For Lane and Hurd to not be able to do any better than they did tells me the OL didn't give them anything to work with.
 
#34
#34
SeniorDrill said:
Really? You don't see any difference between this year's and last year's team? I do. A whole lot of difference. This is the first time I saw it in a real ball game. Do you realize how close we were last year to being 7-5 instead of 5-7? I was calling 7-5 this year but after seeing South Carolina's performance, I now think we will go 8-4 to include an upset of either Georgia or Florida. Team 118 is already SEC caliber whether you want to believe it or not. JMO.
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My only nit pick from last night, and maybe Utah's defense is better than I'm giving them credit for, but I thought we'd see more dynamic, explosive scoring plays. However despite the 38-7 win, everything felt like a grind last night. If we were playing someone like Georgia or Florida, I'd feel better about things. But against Utah State I just expected us to make it look a bit easier.
 
#35
#35
Speed on the defense was fantastic. First time the defense has looked good in a long time.

The offense has playmakers at WR and I was quite impressed with Worley. The only problem I see (like many others) is the offensive line not generating any significant ground game. That will spell trouble in the SEC where DB's can match the athleticism of the WR's.
 
#36
#36
Brave Volunteer said:
My only nit pick from last night, and maybe Utah's defense is better than I'm giving them credit for, but I thought we'd see more dynamic, explosive scoring plays. However despite the 38-7 win, everything felt like a grind last night. If we were playing someone like Georgia or Florida, I'd feel better about things. But against Utah State I just expected us to make it look a bit easier.
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I thought the same thing too.

But then I thought that we really didn't need them. What we needed was to get the jitters away, and to get in a rhythm, and give Worley confidence, give our OL confidence, get Worley used to getting rid of the ball, and get our RB's used to live action.

I think we did that tremendously. The deep ball isnt Worley's thing, so they only tried it a few times. But 9 Tennessee receivers had plays that were 12 yards or longer. That's pretty darn impressive. We had some explosion.

I just REALLY wish that Young would have caught that reverse-throwback. Dang, what a play.
 
#37
#37
I'm hoping the grind feeling to the game, and some of the uninspired offensive play calling was the staff ironing out timing and execution issues.. And maybe keeping it a little vanilla until we get into the meat of our schedule.
 
#38
#38
TNHopeful505 said:
1. Justin Worley definitely shut up a lot of critics tonight. Can't ask for more than what he did. Only 11 incompletions, and several of those were on the WR's. His only mistakes were the two overthrown deep balls. I'm very happy with his performance. Very efficient. Managed the game well, and Bajakian called a good game to help get him in a rhythm.

2. Loved our tempo in the first half, but noticed we slowed down in the second. If we could keep up that pace we were running for a while, then holy cow. That was crazy fast offense. You could tell we wore Utah State down defensively.

3. Jancek put together a GREAT game plan to contain Keeton. So sick of hearing about him, and we shut him down. He was the only thing about Utah State that was even slightly competitive tonight.

4. Our open field and wrap up tackling was noticeably better tonight. I didn't see many missed tackles at all. Fundamentals have drastically improved. That's big.

5. A.J. Johnson....gotta love that guy. Glad he stuck around. Hoping he has a huge year.

6. Our receivers did a okay job, but there were too many drops and missed opportunities in my opinion. Where was Vic Wharton and Johnathan Johnson? Thought it was odd they both had great camps and yet didn't hear their names at all. Vic got on the field during mop up. Just thought I'd see more of him.

7. I'm so glad that Pig straightened up and got back on the team. Kid is an incredible player.

8. Pearson has got some good moves to him.

9. Josh Smith is going to be a great receiver. He's going to be Mr. Dependable.

10. NINE Tennessee Receivers had long plays over 12 yards. That's pretty impressive as well.

11. Run game has GOT to improve. Was not impressed at all. Hurd and Lane were great on their touchdowns, but average 2-3 ypc isn't gonna get it done in the SEC. They've got another week to figure it out.

12. D-Line played incredible. Loved the push, loved the physicality. Even when we had players like Couch, Sentimore, Smith, McCullers, this line looks like one of the best lines we have had in a while.

13. Not concerned that Medley missed a FG. Kid was in high school a year ago. It's Neyland.

14. "Third Down For What" is kind of annoying EVERY third down....

15. I just notice something about this team. They have swagger. They just have confidence. They have a physicality to them. Watching the defense tonight, it's like the commentator said, "This is the NEW Tennessee defense." I sure hope so.

Great game. Now let's get ready for Arkansas State. One game at a time.
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If you noticed it got the players fired up,got the crowd loud and they seemed to make alot of the bigger plays when it happened so if that's what it takes then it's well worth it!
 
#39
#39
Tokeup69 said:
If you noticed it got the players fired up,got the crowd loud and they seemed to make alot of the bigger plays when it happened so if that's what it takes then it's well worth it!
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I agree, it did. But I wonder if it'll still have the same effect by the time we play Kentucky.

Would have loved to have been there. It did pump everybody up, I agree.
 
#40
#40
I like to look at the teams some of our key opponents play before us. Ole Miss and Mizu play at Texas A&M the week before us. We play Chattanooga and UK. I think we will get one or outside shot at both of them.
 
#41
#41
Wilson27 said:
I like to look at the teams some of our key opponents play before us. Ole Miss and Mizu play at Texas A&M the week before us. We play Chattanooga and UK. I think we will get one or outside shot at both of them.
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I'm hoping they overlook us....but then again, I'm hoping that we are playing so incredibly well, that they can't afford to.
 
#42
#42
TNHopeful505 said:
I just REALLY wish that Young would have caught that reverse-throwback. Dang, what a play.
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I wish Pig hadn't underthrown that ball. Just a slightly better throw and that's an easy touchdown. It was great play design helped out by having shown Pig on the end around/ WR sweep earlier.
 
#44
#44
Has anybody noticed that we seem to have a real knack for injuring team's best players? Pretty sure we did it to Florida and Georgia last year....we did it to Utah State last night with their LB...

Hide your wife, hide your kids, we hurting everybody!
 
#45
#45
TNHopeful505 said:
Has anybody noticed that we seem to have a real knack for injuring team's best players? Pretty sure we did it to Florida and Georgia last year....we did it to Utah State last night with their LB...

Hide your wife, hide your kids, we hurting everybody!
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YES! Said that same thing to friend last night. We seem to be really physical and tough.
 
#46
#46
GLDunlap said:
I completely agree on this but on the flip side Utah State has been extremely good against the run for a couple of years now. I'll be surprised and very concerned if we don't rush for 175-200 next week.
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Yes. They didn't allow any team to average more than 4 a carry last year, including holding Boise State to 2.8 and Fresno State to 1.7, and only one the year before, which included holding Wisconsin to 3.5 on 45 carries.
 
#47
#47
papatomany said:
Yes. They didn't allow any team to average more than 4 a carry last year, including holding Boise State to 2.8 and Fresno State to 1.7, and only one the year before, which included holding Wisconsin to 3.5 on 45 carries.
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Okay, now bringing stats into the conversation does make me feel better.

Hopefully Hurd and Lane both have breakout games next week against ASU. Would love to see Scott come back and provide some depth as well.
 
#48
#48
We were too high tempo in the first half, and did better in the second when we slowed down. We are not the Denver Broncos. If you want to run a very high-tempo offense, you'd better be pretty good at stringing first downs together. If we try to rush to the LOS and run plays against our SEC opponents, it will backfire and our defense will be back on the field in two minutes.
 
#50
#50
GahLee said:
I thought the offensive play-calling was almost terrible. How many times can you get the ball in plus territory and not get points? Do we have any other run plays other than the Dive?
Click to expand...

I agree the running game did not pop like we will need it to as we go into conference play, but don't forget, this game we pretty much under control and they don't want to show more than they have to with OU, GA, UF..coming up after AR ST.

I think they will be as vanilla as possible next week also, but hopefully they can execute the base plays well enough to get 150-200 yds rushing next week.
 
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