Time for reflection

[a vol n tears]

The season is over. Even though the majority on here don’t like evaluating how the season has gone and who are valid contributors (players & coaches) going forward, I feel it needs to be done. Fans don’t like the negativity but coaches do this with players at the end of every season.
OL - Either talent evaluation or coaching is sorely lacking. In 4 years CJH has not had 1 HS signee start on the Offensive line. Even more alarming is the portal guys have not been that reliable. Living in the portal for any team group is playing with fire and OL is the worst. It never allows to build depth because nobody good is coming to play behind someone else, and many times you only get 1 or 2 years max.
WR - Here I think it is more coaching than talent evaluation. Speed is not the issue. There are probably 2 or 3 WRers faster than Hyatt was. The signees are sought after by many top schools so I think the talent is there to be coached. The starters this year had a bad case of drops. Why were players like Matthews and Staley not playing more and at least given a game chance. They preferred playing injured players over these guys.
QB - Where to start? Again coaching or talent evaluation? They are paying a reported $2M per year (current $4M invested) for a QB who averages a tad over 200 ypg passing. Can’t throw an accurate deep ball. All this after 14 starts, playing mop up last year, and has been through 3 bowl / post season practices.
Head coach OC - Why has the offense slowed down and why continue to play the wide splits? Considering 22 was the best season of his tenure, why slow down. They were not just winning, they were dominating foes. Defensive depth is better, WRers are faster with more system experience, RBs have experience, but stats are down. While use the splits if you are playing a slower pace and not taking advantage of confusing the defense.

My opinion is talent evaluation. I think Nico is over rated. He is probably a better QB for a pro style system. Problem will be not being able to play the current and incoming QBs due to the money invested. High school O linemen are apparently not SEC ready even after 2 years in the system.
Many are bragging arguing about winning 10 games this year. Of those 10 wins, I believe only 3 teams had a better than .500 record and Ala lost 3 games and is a shell of their former self.

 

[207 others]

(no refunds included)

 

[KnoxRealtorVOL]

The season is over. Even though the majority on here don’t like evaluating how the season has gone and who are valid contributors (players & coaches) going forward, I feel it needs to be done. Fans don’t like the negativity but coaches do this with players at the end of every season.
OL - Either talent evaluation or coaching is sorely lacking. In 4 years CJH has not had 1 HS signee start on the Offensive line. Even more alarming is the portal guys have not been that reliable. Living in the portal for any team group is playing with fire and OL is the worst. It never allows to build depth because nobody good is coming to play behind someone else, and many times you only get 1 or 2 years max.
WR - Here I think it is more coaching than talent evaluation. Speed is not the issue. There are probably 2 or 3 WRers faster than Hyatt was. The signees are sought after by many top schools so I think the talent is there to be coached. The starters this year had a bad case of drops. Why were players like Matthews and Staley not playing more and at least given a game chance. They preferred playing injured players over these guys.
QB - Where to start? Again coaching or talent evaluation? They are paying a reported $2M per year (current $4M invested) for a QB who averages a tad over 200 ypg passing. Can’t throw an accurate deep ball. All this after 14 starts, playing mop up last year, and has been through 3 bowl / post season practices.
Head coach OC - Why has the offense slowed down and why continue to play the wide splits? Considering 22 was the best season of his tenure, why slow down. They were not just winning, they were dominating foes. Defensive depth is better, WRers are faster with more system experience, RBs have experience, but stats are down. While use the splits if you are playing a slower pace and not taking advantage of confusing the defense.

My opinion is talent evaluation. I think Nico is over rated. He is probably a better QB for a pro style system. Problem will be not being able to play the current and incoming QBs due to the money invested. High school O linemen are apparently not SEC ready even after 2 years in the system.
Many are bragging arguing about winning 10 games this year. Of those 10 wins, I believe only 3 teams had a better than .500 record and Ala lost 3 games and is a shell of their former self.

You had some valid points until that last part about 10 games and only 3 being over .500

That's a silly argument. We beat some solid teams that we definitely would not have beaten under previous regimes. The SEC notoriously cannibalized itself this year, and a lot of those teams would have had better records if they hadn't had to play us.

10 wins in the SEC is never something to dismiss.

 

[a vol n tears]

You had some valid points until that last part about 10 games and only 3 being over .500

That's a silly argument. We beat some solid teams that we definitely would not have beaten under previous regimes. The SEC notoriously cannibalized itself this year, and a lot of those teams would have had better records if they hadn't had to play us.

10 wins in the SEC is never something to dismiss.

Not trying to argue firing the staff and starting over, but the past 2 years my ranking of SEC coaches put CJH no higher than mid pack.
Give Tenn the schedule Fl had this year, do they win 10, 9, 8 games?

 

[KnoxRealtorVOL]

Not trying to argue firing the staff and starting over, but the past 2 years my ranking of SEC coaches put CJH no higher than mid pack.
Give Tenn the schedule Fl had this year, do they win 10, 9, 8 games?

Uhh.. yeah probably

 

[stolitonic]

This week has not been very fun guys. Luckily the holiday has brought some much better cheer and respite from the doom and gloom.

I'm sure ALL of us will feel much better about the season in March than we do 4 days removed from a thorough butt whooping.

Thankfully, there are about 7 Playoff games left if my math is correct Odds are that at least one of those seven is going to be bigger spanking than we received a few days ago. Pretty good odds of it anyway and I'll take those odds. What do we have to lose at this point? Lol.

 

[Bloodrunsorange27]

We have a talent gap from us and teams like GA and OSU.
This was known going into the game but glaringly obvious.
We don’t seem very agressive in the portal and not sire how competitive our NIL is compared to those top teams.

The more concerning issue is the gap in coaching.
Offense has been stale and predictable all year. The articles showing OSU and also Arkansas knew what plays TN would run based on what the defense showed is very concerning.
We were severely out coached in some games this year.

Heupel to me is at a point where he has to decide if he is willing do what it takes to compete at the highest level.
This would mean some staff changes (OL and OC) and a hard look himself to wonder why he’s running a predictable easily shut down offense

 

[Cartervol]

I'd say the reason those freshman receivers didn't play a lot is because they were so reliant on the run game.. They're not going to insert freshman and focus more on passing.. They don't run block well straight out of high-school most of the time. I think Heupel had pretty much settled on being run heavy before the season started.