Recruiting Football Talk VII

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#131,951
#131,951
Night before March Madness thoughts/ramblings:

My F4: UCONN, HOUSTON, ST MARYS, CREIGHTON

My Cinderellas (defined as seeded 9 or deeper and going to the sweet sixteen or farther: Nevada and UNM.

I see no true bracket busters. Unless you’re picking zona to win it all. I can’t imagine picking someone with confidence other than UCONN, Houston, Purdue.

I have an upset (10 seed or deeper) winning their first game in 3 out of 4 regions. To me the east and Midwest are filled with tremendous teams. The south is a hodgepodge. The west clearly is most flawed. I probably should have more upsets in my bracket given how competitive the entire landscape has been this year.

I really like Iowa St. I don’t like that they get UConn. Same with auburn. I also like Illinois, but I have them losing to byu. Don’t know why. That uconn/isu game Id think would be worthy of the final four. I really like UNC. I only have them losing to st Mary’s because I didn’t want 3 1-seeds in my final four and they and Purdue are most likely to get got imo. I had UF going to a rematch with UK until I factored in them losing their starting center. Depends what mindset they come out with. They could easily lose to Marquette. Creighton is the one team I didn’t want to play and if we don’t trip against Texas, our game against them could be a great one (elite 8 worthy coming a game early). I don’t like zona (despite their ratings) or Baylor. Zona might have the best numbers, and I fully expect them to blow it early. I had them winning it all last year. Turds.

I love the Vols. Love this team. Their best effort is final four material. This might be the best chance they’ve ever had outside of the one Bruce pearl year that fell way short. As is such, I have us losing to Creighton. I’d love to be wrong and get a second shot at Purdue.

Teams I’ll be rooting for: Tenn, Jmu, mich St, unm, Nevada, st marys, Vermont, Marquette, Iowa st, Long Beach st.

Each year my bracket is busted by sweet 16/elite 8. I also pick the first round horribly. Take that for what it’s worth.

Flame away
 
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#131,952
#131,952
UTSuave’ said:
If you were drinking malt liquor back then,you were the party 😭😂😂 only people that was drinking them with me were the boys.that was our thing and they’re all married now and some have passed away.so I still drink 40’s till this day as a tribute to the good times…good to know someone else was enjoying them as much as me.
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Mickey’s Big Mouths still my poison.
 
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#131,954
#131,954
PlanetVolunteer said:
Saw a post on Facebook about Bob Suffridge and the 1938 orange bowl.

But this comment caught my eye:

"In 1938 I started listening to Vols football on the radio. What a great year to begin! I was 13 years old!"

😳
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Cheers to all the nanogenarians out there
 
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#131,959
#131,959
Volunteer821 said:
Did you watch any hee haw? Me and my wife both grew up watching it every Sunday after church. I bought the 4 disc set when my kids were toddlers and they used to fall asleep to it. Made my son a Waylon fan so it worked out even better than expected. My daughter, not so much. She don't like grandpa music, only 90s alt and grunge. Her favorite is Alice in Chains as is mine, but I love the Allman Bros and the Gourds too. Can't get her to understand good is good no matter what genre.

Dukes of hazard are a favorite of ours too.........but only Bo and Luke like you said, none of that coy and Vance stuff.

We watched hogans heroes on me tv when the kids are vacation too, used to come on at 10 and 1030. I must say you have excellent taste in cartoons and tv shows. 👍
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Man!!

Do you remember 'Real People'?

Friday nights as a kid

Fantasy Island, then Dukes of Hazzard (think my first ever crush was Daisy Duke), and if we kids were good mom would let us stay up for Dallas. Who shot JR?

I have two labs: names are Dallas and Sue Ellen

IFKYK
 
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#131,962
#131,962
MARCH 2024

March 21, 2024: In a dream I saw a fish bowl with one fish in it, then I saw a cat trying to catch the fish with its paw. So, I put a lid on the bowl to protect it, and the next day the fish had suffocated. I believe the dream means that we can protect those we care about, but not to the point of suffocation. We all need to have the room to grow and breathe. Luke 6:31 And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.
 
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#131,966
#131,966
vol_in_ga said:
Night before March Madness thoughts/ramblings:

My F4: UCONN, HOUSTON, ST MARYS, CREIGHTON

My Cinderellas (defined as seeded 9 or deeper and going to the sweet sixteen or farther: Nevada and UNM.

I see no true bracket busters. Unless you’re picking zona to win it all. I can’t imagine picking someone with confidence other than UCONN, Houston, Purdue.

I have an upset (10 seed or deeper) winning their first game in 3 out of 4 regions. To me the east and Midwest are filled with tremendous teams. The south is a hodgepodge. The west clearly is most flawed.

I really like Iowa St. I don’t like that they get UConn. Same with auburn. I also like Illinois, but I have them losing to byu. Don’t know why. That uconn/isu game Id think would be worthy of the final four. I really like UNC. I only have them losing to st Mary’s because I didn’t want 3 1-seeds in my final four and they and Purdue are most likely to get got imo. I don’t like zona (despite their ratings) or Baylor. I had UF going to a rematch with UK until I factored in them losing their starting center. Depends what mindset they come out with. They could easily lose to Marquette. Creighton is the one team I didn’t want to play and if we don’t trip against Texas, our game against them could be a great one (elite 8 worthy coming a game early). Zona might have the best numbers, and I fully expect them to blow it early. I had them winning it all last year. Turds.

I love the Vols. This might be the best chance they’ve ever had outside of the one Bruce pearl year that fell way short. As is such, I have us losing to Creighton. I’d love to be wrong and get a second shot at Purdue.

Teams I’ll be rooting for: Tenn, Jmu, mich St, unm, Nevada, st marys, Vermont, Marquette, Iowa st, Long Beach st.

Each year my bracket is busted by elite 8. I also pick the first round horribly. Take that for what it’s worth.

Flame away
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I think this is a fair bracket. You’ll probably get skewered by some because you don’t have TN going all the way, or at least in the final 4. But realistically, I just don’t feel good going into the tournament. Both the UK and ST games left sour tastes in my mouth, more so the latter. Thus, I don’t feel comfortable with that TX game. It has all the makings of a classic 2-seed upset.
 
#131,967
#131,967
BigOrangeTrain said:
SIAP but I just saw this. And some of you wondered why Saban retired. I think it’s because of this BS right here. This is ridiculous.

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So the narrative is, Alabama can not afford to pay NIL so they outsource it to other schools. Those punks are always thinking outside the box. Lol
 
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#131,969
#131,969
ChattaTNVol said:
It’s infuriating –

Statistically, if you suffer a negative yardage play on offense there is an 84% probability that drive is DEAD and you will have to punt. Penalties, TFLs, and sacks are the second most potent drive killers, only behind turnovers.

The games I often care about the most are the games we lose. I was impressed with the A&M win last year. It took all three phases of the game to come out ahead. Anyway, I’ve been mostly studying the 4 games we lost plus the bowl game as that suggests where we came up short and how we may be moving forward.

View attachment 628280

The Florida game we beat ourselves. It was Spraggins killing two drives, Lane killing two drives, Crawford killing a drive, and Castles killing a drive.

Historically, Napier is a ball control fanatic. I think for two years running now his games have featured the fewest drives among SEC teams. Generally, you’re only going to get 10 possessions in a game with Napier. It doesn’t really much matter who the opponent is – that’s Napier’s style of football.

When the offensive line basically kills half of your total possession opportunities in a game you have to ask yourself, what’s going on? Are they scared? Are they not well coached? Are they not paying attention? Do they even freaking care?

The same thing happened in the bowl game. On the drives where we punted we had negative yardage plays. On the drives where we scored we didn’t have any negative yardage plays. It’s really pretty simple. What is almost impossible is overcoming negative yardage plays.

I think maybe sometimes we beat our chests when we blow out teams that we have a significant advantage over because we’re bigger, faster, and stronger, but unless you’re Kentucky you measure yourself based on your performance against the big six of the SEC. At least that’s the way it’s been in the 60 or so years since I became a fan.

Anyway, what I’m bitching about are the false starts. It hurts us most against the big boys. I understand there’s a number of causes behind false starts, mostly (and obviously) having to do with the snap count. On the road the guys have to deal with crowd noise. There’s the QB shifting protections or mixing up the cadence so the defense can’t easily time up the snap. There’s thinking about your assignment, reading the defense, and figuring how you’re going to get leverage on your guy for the upcoming play.

This and more is all happening in maybe 10 seconds or less. They say sometimes it’s easy to get distracted, like thinking about what you did wrong on that last play or wondering if Crawford is going to puke again, any number of things could pop into your head. There could be movement on the defensive side of the ball that distracts you because some of that movement could change your assignment on the play.

I think playing offensive line they say generally requires a minimum of three years development. Many times we may think that’s so the guys can get bigger, faster, stronger, but it might also mean that they need to do their drills, work on technique, form, and leverage, and practice their plays so they can do it, essentially, instinctual. Going against inferior competition may allow you to dominate, almost like back in high school, but when you go up against peer competition, well, that’s when you find out what you’re made of.

It is widely accepted that the measure of returning experience on the offensive line is on average across all FBS teams the single most weighted metric for projecting improvement or regression of an offense from year to year. Experience is the best teacher and relative to some of the better opponents on our schedule we’re fortunate this year to have quite a bit returning on our offensive line.

I also think it’s likely we will have more power and athleticism on the line this year and that is what we need desperately if we are going to impose our will on even elite defenses when we get into the redzone.

My speculative lineup is LT Heard, LG Umarov, OC Mays, RG Spraggins, RT Campbell, but we’ll probably get Davis, Lampley, or Karic at LG, or maybe not.

Eric Cain said in his report on practice #2 that Umarov was running at LG with the twos. 247 had Umarov as a 94 rating and their evaluation had him as a prototypical left tackle so I see him similar to Kirby moving Ratledge from OT to OG. It may be risky with two 19 year olds manning the left side of our line but these two aren’t your typical 19 year old offensive line recruits. 247 reassigned Sham to its IOL rankings and he was #4 in the country in 2023. Lance was the #3 OT in the country in 2023.

I understand there’s a lot that goes into a coach’s decision on which players to put out on the field. It may not be simply a question of who may be able to help you the most; there’s likely some consideration on who may hurt you the least, so it’s probably a bit more complicated from their perspective vs from a fan’s perspective. jmo.

One thing I noticed in one of the early practice videos was Lance Heard coaching Gage Ginther in one of their drills. That was for me a big highlight because my sense is that it shows a measure of buy-in to the team, meaning Lance is a Tennessee Volunteer. jmo.

I think since the new staff took over they have demonstrated a high level of development for the offensive line group even though in some cases there wasn’t a lot to work with. I think it takes at least a couple years to get established relationship-wise on the recruiting trail and based on the recent and ongoing recruiting this staff is doing, and their demonstrated ability at development, we’re being set up to only get better in the near future with this position group and that will only make our offense that much more formidable. jmo.
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This Is the best written article I have read about Tennessee in years. It blows my mind the quality that the beat reporters put out most of the time.
 
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#131,973
#131,973
Rewatching the bowl game and it’s got me really excited for this season’s defensive line.

There’s a play near the start of the 2nd quarter where every DL wins their matchup and it makes it look like they were running a slip screen because our entire DL is in the backfield at once (Including Simmons dragging the guard he bull rushed behind him as he continued running through their H-back.)

If our rebuilt defensive backfield works out, this line will absolutely feast on 4 man pressures.
 
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