Recruiting Forum Football Talk III

[KPT_VFL]

Josh Heupel goat.

 

[zidanefan]

This may be the nicest piece Pete Thamel has ever written about Tennessee - while still taking shots at the fan base

In his defense, our fan base brings it on ourselves.

 

[jp1]

I hate to use a basketball analogy because we are struggling but Barnes took some mid-level talent guys as far as he could now he’s getting McDonald’s All-Americans and five stars. If a coach can really coach he’ll maximize the talent he has that will raise the profile of the program then the high level talent takes notice.

5 players versus 22. Pretty big difference, but some coaches do more with less. We can't drop off in recruiting if we want to be successful though. At least at the level of success that I want to achieve.

 

[KB5252]

Top In-State Recruits React to Hiring of Josh Heupel at Tennessee

Recruiting is about relationships and potential for a player. Going to be tough to establish and beat out existing relationships these kids already have. I expect we will likely miss out on the majority but that isn't an indictment of this coach just yet. Tough to sell right now and for the foreseeable future.

 

[COOKEVOL]

I'll help Haynesworth here. Let's end racism together guys.. Here we go...
View attachment 346292

Ugh.. Fk.

Kiffin sucks at basketball.

 

[05_never_again]

Funny, because my beef with Wolken is personal. He should be writing articles about the 17 and under Girls Croatian Tennis Open than writing about sport he tried to keep from being played this past season.

Ol Dan was making a business decision too. He was hedging. If CFB wasn't played, then he could write months of "I told you so" columns (which I think he gets greater enjoyment out of anyway). If he was wrong, then most people forget (except VolTwitter) and he has the actual games to write about. I really think that many of these sports journalists are 1) people who got bullied on the playground by the athletes as kids and 2) people who wanted to go into "hard" news and cover stuff that is actually important, but for whatever reason it didn't work out. It is negative personal experiences from their past that drive those kinds of articles. Poor Christine Brennan said that the day the Big Ten said football would be played was "the darkest day in the history of the Big Ten," and this is the same conference that had a child raping monster on the loose at Penn St for 30 years. What a miserable person.

Clay Travis is obnoxious and will say anything for clicks, but at least he put his money where his mouth was. He was adamant that sports be played and always predicted that they would be played. He had a lot more to lose than someone like Wolken did if he was wrong.

 

[FBtime]

This may be the nicest piece Pete Thamel has ever written about Tennessee - while still taking shots at the fan base

That's actually a great article that has some ugly truth about us Vol fans and some good insight into Heupel from his former bosses. We deserve the shots he took. Just look at the responses to the story on Twitter.

 

[Ten_Titans]

We can also now hate James even more for attempting to Gundy us (even if it may not be true).

In short I do like that the biggest worry with our new HC is "can he recruit" which honestly will always be the worry for any incoming coach from a G5 or coordinator role.

As Pruitt didn't learn until after he accepted the job (because he's a moron) HC's don't actively recruit anyway.

I'm not worried about JH having to build relationships with recruits and constantly sell the program because HC's don't do that anyway.

If he's a good coach, he can sell that to recruits and do just fine. His staff is a different story though.

 

[tnhunter 10]

Getting excited

 

[Ulysees E. McGill]

Yeah, the thing I can’t get past is recruiting. Look at the list of head coaches who have won NCs this century. It’s a pretty short list. Nick Saban, Dabo, Urban Meyer, Bob Stoops, Mack Brown, Pete Carrol, Les Miles, Ed O Jimbo Fisher off the top of my head. The one thing they all have in common is a reputation for being great recruiters. Chizik may be the one outlier, but he also had a qb that was unstoppable at the college level and then quickly crashed and burned once that qb was gone. The fact that Heupel has a reputation as a mediocre recruiter has me feeling like we’re going to continue to be stuck in neutral.

Improvement is the goal now..that is all. Get us to 8.5 wins a year and then we can see what happens.

Like I posted earlier, a few schools have a green light to do whatever they want and get away with it. They stack up 4-5* three deep and just overwhelm you with waves of bigger, faster, stronger and more athletic players at every position. I don't know what anybody can really expect till that monopoly on cheating is broken up.

It is rigged right now, it is not a real competition with integrity, it is the truth and it is a joke. So I just want a good coach to do the best he can with the players he gets, and win against the other schools in our position...make football fun again and then see what happens.

 

[CoalVol2020]

If we do all this and keep Chaney
View attachment 346322

Chaney isn't going anywhere.

He'll no longer be the OC, but is being promoted to team chef

 

[Sleegro]

He’s bringing the entire offensive side per UCF...

And why wouldn’t he? They have done very well.

That's a smart move. Those aren't scrubs at all. Some really good coaches and will help the team hit the ground running.

 

[Helton1]

Can Jim Schwartz be our DC? :] pay him $2M and tell him he never has to recruit

 

[govols24]

That's actually a great article that has some ugly truth about us Vol fans and some good insight into Heupel from his former bosses. We deserve the shots he took. Just look at the responses to the story on Twitter.

Hi, Pete.

 

[ndubvols]

He’s bringing the entire offensive side per UCF...

And why wouldn’t he? They have done very well.

A few SEC ties there at least. Elarbee was at mizzou for a few years and the WR coach just went there from Auburn.

 

[Weezer]

Do we expect to sign anyone Wednesday?

Roc Taylor still shows as committed to us, but he didn't sign in the early period. Previous staff was supposedly going to git shirt him. No idea about what JH will do. Andison Coby, JuCo WR, is already enrolled so I'm not sure if he still has to sign or not.

 

[SoilVol]

Recruiting is about relationships and potential for a player. Going to be tough to establish and beat out existing relationships these kids already have. I expect we will likely miss out on the majority but that isn't an indictment of this coach just yet. Tough to sell right now and for the foreseeable future.

Thankfully, as I understand it Hayden has built a relationship with all the recruits in the class and he seems to be pretty high on the hire. If Heupel makes it a priority he can catch up because that class seems pretty tight.

 

[ptclaus98]

Who is the S&C coach at UCF? Looking at their film they look way bigger, stronger faster than our guys do.

Maybe stronger and faster, but they are certainly not bigger

 

[AppStVol]

I don’t know what sort of malpractice has to occur for you to end up paying Kevin Steele a cool mil to work here for less than a month. But it has to be something.

This is UT we are talking about here. Trying to quantify our leadership making one bad financial decision after another is maddening.

 

[daugag02]

He’s bringing the entire offensive side per UCF...

And why wouldn’t he? They have done very well.

I don't love the Matt Merritt at RB coach move.

UCF just hired Merritt three weeks ago from James Madison:

Report: UCF hiring JMU's Matt Merritt to coach RBs

JMU didn't play last season and this guy has virtually no recruiting history.

It's not like Merritt was part of the UCF machine - he has literally never coached a practice for them.

To bring him on when someone like Jay Graham was an option isn't the best move.

 

[ChattaTNVol]

Okay, I've got the opponent offensive rankings added to my tables. I have 3 tables, the first is where UCF and UT ranked by year for scoring offense and scoring defense (repost for reference). The 2nd and 3rd tables are identical - the only difference is the 2nd table is sorted on the opponent's offensive ranking and the 3rd table is sorted on the opponent's defensive scoring (which I also posted earlier only without the offensive rankings). It gives a glimpse of what kind of matchups each team has faced. Though no reminder is likely necessary, I think it is important to keep in mind that there's a significant difference in talent and strength of schedule. UCF is one of the most talented teams in the AAC, we're a mid-tier team in the SEC. The takeaway might be that UCF mostly did extremely well except when facing the best defenses and we mostly only did well if the other team didn't have an offense.



Sorted on opponent's offensive scoring ranking:


Sorted on opponent's defensive scoring ranking:

 

[johnfnkelly]

Maybe stronger and faster, but they are certainly not bigger

We have better athletes. The difference is UCF's players know which direction to run in. Our players are just out there running around.

 

[Ulysees E. McGill]

In his defense, our fan base brings it on ourselves.

I get aggravated at some fans stupidity, but this is utter

 

[UTMVol76]

He’s bringing the entire offensive side per UCF...

And why wouldn’t he? They have done very well.

Forget names on offense. I want a staff that works well together. Period.

 

[Nuctech777]

so i'm gonna go positive slant on all the "don't know him" comments....

the good news...there's no preconceived notions about the man....so he has an opportunity to start fresh w/out any biases or prejudices from previous relationships or impressions...he gets to sell from a clean slate.

I thought it was interesting that most of those “don’t know him” comments were from defensive players.