Sorry for the late thread, I would have liked to have posted before the bowl game and I know I promised a write up with suggestions a few weeks ago but I just got busy with work and the holidays. Overall, this was a decent season but there are a number of areas for development for the coaching staff. If they can work on these items I feel like we have a very promising future, but if the coach keeps making the same blunders we might have some real issues. The first issue is one that every educated football pundit that covers the Vols have noted. WE HAVE TO PLAY OUR YOUNG GUYS. For some crazy reason we refuse to play our young players. Why did it take so long to get Nico on the field during blowouts? Why have the freshman DBs played so little? Why did Matthews and Conyer barely play yesterday? Are we even trying to develop our young OL? AP, Hubbs and Basillio have brought this up often. If you don't play the young guys, in the age of the transfer portal, they might transfer. And AP said our NIL strategy is to spread the money around but why are we paying a bunch of players to just sit on the bench and just transfer? What is the point of depth if we don't use it? What good does it do for us to play Jeudy Lally and Tank all game long in a bowl game? The second one is related to player evals. I'm worried that given the choice in the future, Heupel is going to choose a Joe Milton over Hendon Hooker. Does he realize that he made the wrong decision his first year when he went with Milton over HH and that he just got lucky that Milton got hurt? Has he learned from that so that in the future he looks for characteristics other than just arm strength? Mental make up matters for a QB too. We also need a QB that has escapability in the offense. Milton might have good straight line speed, but we need a guy that has more wiggle. So note to Heupel, when recruiting QBs, try to find a guy more like Hooker than Milton. The last point also has to do with evaluations. There are times where I see us recruiting lower ranked guys for some reason and it seems like the coaches trust their evals over the recruiting sites and what other teams think. However, we have whiffed on all of our OL, and bunch of our lower ranked commits the last couple of years have been whiffs. Look as us this year in the transfer portal, apparently we like the Temple kid more than the Harris kid from UGA. Harris is a former 5 star that everyone wants. Is it really likely that everyone else is wrong? Why did we not go for the #1 ranked kid in state this year while LSU and other pursued? While rankings are not the end all be all, the coaches need to take a hard look at why these guys are ranked high and try to stack as much elite talent as possible. Getting too cute with player evals is a fast path to the Dan Mullen career track.
On another subject, I still have nightmares from last year's SCar game and this year's 2nd half Bama and against Mizzou. Our DBs have struggled really badly at times and a lot of times we are getting beat in the middle of the field. I think we should go with a scheme change. This is something I do on my team and it makes it really really hard for a defense to throw at all. I think we should start playing press man with a single high safety and corners playing inside leverage. This way, every receiver is locked up and can't catch any balls short or over the middle. Instead, the CBs give up outside leverage, so the only way to completely passes is by throwing over the DB to the outside. This is a really long throw to the sideline and I don't think QBs can consistently make that throw, most guys lack the arm strength to throw that far. The one issue is getting beat deep, so it's important to have an eraser at S. So I think we need to get a Deon Grant or Eric Berry type and physical CBs and we are going to be impossible to throw against.
We need to be loud as a fanbase and these this information to the staff to save them from themselves. A number of times the coach has been saved from himself (not my words, this is from Basillio), like when Milton got hurt and the bowl opt out. But if Heup would just learn and change a bit I think we can go from fringe playoff contender to elite.
On another subject, I still have nightmares from last year's SCar game and this year's 2nd half Bama and against Mizzou. Our DBs have struggled really badly at times and a lot of times we are getting beat in the middle of the field. I think we should go with a scheme change. This is something I do on my team and it makes it really really hard for a defense to throw at all. I think we should start playing press man with a single high safety and corners playing inside leverage. This way, every receiver is locked up and can't catch any balls short or over the middle. Instead, the CBs give up outside leverage, so the only way to completely passes is by throwing over the DB to the outside. This is a really long throw to the sideline and I don't think QBs can consistently make that throw, most guys lack the arm strength to throw that far. The one issue is getting beat deep, so it's important to have an eraser at S. So I think we need to get a Deon Grant or Eric Berry type and physical CBs and we are going to be impossible to throw against.
We need to be loud as a fanbase and these this information to the staff to save them from themselves. A number of times the coach has been saved from himself (not my words, this is from Basillio), like when Milton got hurt and the bowl opt out. But if Heup would just learn and change a bit I think we can go from fringe playoff contender to elite.
