'22 TU Transfer WR Chris Brazzell (Tennessee)

[csprig9]

Don't blame Dayne. Blame Elarbee for being in Year 3 and not developing or finding more talented guys to pass a walk on...

Yeah this is what’s frustrating
Can’t find anyone capable of being better?

 

[LouderVol]

I guess you don't watch many games. Looking at just stats is not the same. The only time we really rotate WR's is injuries and blowouts. This season they probably actually rotated WR's more than they ever have. Because they were trying to get Thornton in and then BRU got hurt and the rotations really started. I bet you this if BRu is not hurt Webb/Nimrod never sees the field outside of blowouts. In 2022 there were 39 receptions made in regular season games during blowout time. Most of those went to Squirrel white. Adn the tale was not even close to similar in 2023. We were actually throwing to running backs this year. 2022 we completed 17 passes to rb's. 2023 we completed 46. We spread the ball around a lot more this year because of the issues at WR. Of our top 5 receivers this year only 3 were WR's and number 5 was Chas Nimrod. Bru and Thornton were hurt much of the year and we had nothing else.

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I honestly think we don't rotate because we can't. If we had the depth I think they will.

We had more WRs (9)catch passes than 5 of the 10 top 10 passing offenses. the same number as 3 others. Heck LSU only completed passes to like 5 WRs. Arizona only completed to 6 different WRs.

we don't seemingly rotate guys because we don't throw the ball that much. again going back to the Top passing offenses we were completing 135 fewer passes than the top one Oregon, thats 10 per game. and for what its worth Oregon only completed those 397 passes to 8 different WRs. IF we threw it more, we would rotate more.

EVERY school rotates due to injuries and blowouts. We aren't the only one who gets hurt, talk about not watching the game.

Bama completed passes to 4 WR against Michigan.
Michigan completed passes to 4 WR against Alabama
Texas completed passes to 3 WR against Washington
Washington completed passes to 4 WR against Texas

get out and actually watch these other games to know what you are comparing us to.

what's the point of rotating guys if you aren't throwing to them, except to HURT our tempo? If you want them to get experience in our offense stopping the tempo every 4 downs to switch somebody out is a TERRIBLE idea. that's not our offense. its Butch Jones level of coaching. I bet you loved his coaching style, he rotated guys after every catch.

 

[LouderVol]

What we do isn't any different than what the rest of the league does. It was the same last year and 2021 as well.

do you mind me asking where you got that info? I would love to add it to the stats I pull.

 

[Vols410]

do you mind me asking where you got that info? I would love to add it to the stats I pull.

That’s all from PFF. Out of curiosity, what stats do you pull now? I’m currently getting most of the data I work with from CFB Data and PFF.

 

[pimo1]

That’s all from PFF. Out of curiosity, what stats do you pull now? I’m currently getting most of the data I work with from CFB Data and PFF.

I do the same but always put it against the actual game. Sometimes stats can lie if you don't know the context. One stat I haven't been able to reliably find for college football is targets.. I think thats a better stat than just catches. Especially when trying to see where the problem is.

Context
when we were healthy at WR we actually did rotate some (Thornton)
at a certain point, Joe noticed guys were not getting open and dropping balls and started A. running more B hitting rb's more. Jaylen Wright and Dylan Sampson had more catches individually than all RB's in 2022 for UT.
injuries played a huge role in what happened at WR for us this year more so even than last year. How many games did we even have Bru Squirrel, Keyton and Thornton all healthy? It felt like most games at least one was out.
@louder the games you mentioned were all big time games where teams are not gonna take chances. That is not really indicative of the overall offense for the year.
your examples for the playoff teams in playoff games are interesting but I would argue on paper we are deeper than those teams at WR.
Bama outside of Burton im not taking their guys over ours they are super thin at WR depth and are a running team
Texas has Mitchell and Worthy...and neyor gave them 1 catch...statistically the most comparable to UT as far as run/pass
Michigan throws as much to tight ends and rb's as to WR's 133 completions to WR's 117 to TE's and RB's.. they are a running team
Washington is a PAC-12 team....they pass the ball.. period. Would I take their WR squad over ours.. probably

But any of those teams you take their top guy out and it gets rough.... the difference is they didn't have that problem. Their top guys stayed healthy and produced. I don't want us to rotate WR's for the sake of rotating. I want us to have the depth to be able to between series give guys a blow. Because our pace is hard on WR's

 

[LittleVol]

Don't blame Dayne. Blame Elarbee for being in Year 3 and not developing or finding more talented guys to pass a walk on...

We signed Addison and he could never grab a spot.

He turned Darnell Wright from undrafted into a top 10 pick.

We were tops in rushing. I don't think he's the problem.

 

[Vols410]

I do the same but always put it against the actual game. Sometimes stats can lie if you don't know the context. One stat I haven't been able to reliably find for college football is targets.. I think thats a better stat than just catches. Especially when trying to see where the problem is.

Context
when we were healthy at WR we actually did rotate some (Thornton)
at a certain point, Joe noticed guys were not getting open and dropping balls and started A. running more B hitting rb's more. Jaylen Wright and Dylan Sampson had more catches individually than all RB's in 2022 for UT.
injuries played a huge role in what happened at WR for us this year more so even than last year. How many games did we even have Bru Squirrel, Keyton and Thornton all healthy? It felt like most games at least one was out.
@louder the games you mentioned were all big time games where teams are not gonna take chances. That is not really indicative of the overall offense for the year.
your examples for the playoff teams in playoff games are interesting but I would argue on paper we are deeper than those teams at WR.
Bama outside of Burton im not taking their guys over ours they are super thin at WR depth and are a running team
Texas has Mitchell and Worthy...and neyor gave them 1 catch...statistically the most comparable to UT as far as run/pass
Michigan throws as much to tight ends and rb's as to WR's 133 completions to WR's 117 to TE's and RB's.. they are a running team
Washington is a PAC-12 team....they pass the ball.. period. Would I take their WR squad over ours.. probably

But any of those teams you take their top guy out and it gets rough.... the difference is they didn't have that problem. Their top guys stayed healthy and produced. I don't want us to rotate WR's for the sake of rotating. I want us to have the depth to be able to between series give guys a blow. Because our pace is hard on WR's

Just a heads up, the data I provided was actually routes run - even more granular than targets. I also didn't include RBs/TEs and limited my analysis to conference games only to avoid the massive rotations you see in the non-con games.

Re: injuries, all teams deal with that, yet we're still squarely within normal ranges for the conference.

 

[pimo1]

Just a heads up, the data I provided was actually routes run - even more granular than targets. I also didn't include RBs/TEs and limited my analysis to conference games only to avoid the massive rotations you see in the non-con games.

Re: injuries, all teams deal with that, yet we're still squarely within normal ranges for the conference.

the problem with leaving out backs and TE's is it overlooks the offensive scheme. Some offenses target TE's and RB's a lot others not so much. UT for instance was very WR-heavy last year but hit backs and TEs a lot more this year. Other schools like Iowa, Michigan ND target TE's a lot. Just saying context.

 

[allvolrecruiting]

We signed Addison and he could never grab a spot.

He turned Darnell Wright from undrafted into a top 10 pick.

We were tops in rushing. I don't think he's the problem.

His coaching isn't. They need to step up the focus on the LOS recruiting overall and they're off to a solid start of that in 2025 at least. Will have to wait and see how it pans out

 

[LouderVol]

That’s all from PFF. Out of curiosity, what stats do you pull now? I’m currently getting most of the data I work with from CFB Data and PFF.

NCAA NCAA College Football FBS Stats | NCAA.com gives me the school totals, but I have to either the schools or ESPN to get the individual player total stats I am looking for in one place. I prefer the school, but some of them are difficult to navigate or incomplete so I will use ESPN.

the actual game results I typically just use ESPN, as its much faster than trying to find the schools numbers (even UTs) for an individual player in an individual game beyond the best players.

I then do any math (percentages) myself.

 

[Vols410]

NCAA NCAA College Football FBS Stats | NCAA.com gives me the school totals, but I have to either the schools or ESPN to get the individual player total stats I am looking for in one place. I prefer the school, but some of them are difficult to navigate or incomplete so I will use ESPN.

the actual game results I typically just use ESPN, as its much faster than trying to find the schools numbers (even UTs) for an individual player in an individual game beyond the best players.

I then do any math (percentages) myself.

Got it, makes sense! I spend a good bit of my free time building out player/coach analytics for football/basketball, so I've got scripts pulling/transforming stuff from PFF / CFB Data / ESPN / Bart Torvik pretty much daily.

 

[LouderVol]

I do the same but always put it against the actual game. Sometimes stats can lie if you don't know the context. One stat I haven't been able to reliably find for college football is targets.. I think thats a better stat than just catches. Especially when trying to see where the problem is.

Context
when we were healthy at WR we actually did rotate some (Thornton)
at a certain point, Joe noticed guys were not getting open and dropping balls and started A. running more B hitting rb's more. Jaylen Wright and Dylan Sampson had more catches individually than all RB's in 2022 for UT.
injuries played a huge role in what happened at WR for us this year more so even than last year. How many games did we even have Bru Squirrel, Keyton and Thornton all healthy? It felt like most games at least one was out.
@louder the games you mentioned were all big time games where teams are not gonna take chances. That is not really indicative of the overall offense for the year.
your examples for the playoff teams in playoff games are interesting but I would argue on paper we are deeper than those teams at WR.
Bama outside of Burton im not taking their guys over ours they are super thin at WR depth and are a running team
Texas has Mitchell and Worthy...and neyor gave them 1 catch...statistically the most comparable to UT as far as run/pass
Michigan throws as much to tight ends and rb's as to WR's 133 completions to WR's 117 to TE's and RB's.. they are a running team
Washington is a PAC-12 team....they pass the ball.. period. Would I take their WR squad over ours.. probably

But any of those teams you take their top guy out and it gets rough.... the difference is they didn't have that problem. Their top guys stayed healthy and produced. I don't want us to rotate WR's for the sake of rotating. I want us to have the depth to be able to between series give guys a blow. Because our pace is hard on WR's

we also have a new OC and QB from last year. even with it still being Heupel's offense there are going to be different tendencies.

Previously, not ITT, I had referenced the SEC Championship, UT vs Bama, UT vs Georgia, Bama vs LSU, Florida vs GA, Auburn vs GA, Ole Miss vs Bama, because previous arguments had been about meaningful snaps, so I went and looked at meaningful games and pretty much always our numbers were in line. there were games where our WR caught more passes, fewer passes, and the same. the overall trend was a little lower than the averages I had done, but based on us not throwing the ball very much I think it was well within reason.

targets would be interesting to see, but I have yet to find anyone that tracks that consistently. I hadn't even seen the routes that @Vols410 uses. PFF is behind a paywall, and I don't care THAT much.

 

[miket4god]

Yeah this is what’s frustrating
Can’t find anyone capable of being better?

I think unfortunately that Elarbee needed to prove himself before recruits started believing in him.
His first couple classes are full of projects, but once Darnell Wright got drafted, this last year has multiple blue chippers.
Hopefully his projects start to develop, but in the mean time.........

 

[kamoshika]

Christopher Brazzell II said he had quite of bit of interest in the transfer portal but ultimately was drawn to the tradition of Tennessee, which plays at Neyland Stadium and its seating capacity of 101,915. The stadium sits alongside the Tennessee River, where fans tailgate on boats during games and are referred to as the Volunteer Navy.

"They have in my opinion the best gameday atmosphere in the SEC, daytime or nighttime...Neyland Stadium has a grass field which is my favorite type of field to play on, a nice grass field. It’s just a beautiful stadium. You’ve got people on the boats right by the game, tailgating. And then watching the games from their boats. And then you’ve got the Navy themselves, they fly over every game with their helicopters and their planes. It’s so special to be a part of that.”
https://www.mrt.com/sports/college/article/midland-s-brazzell-brothers-get-chance-play-18611116.php