Tyler Bray: "I may have stayed at TN, if I known that I wouldn't be drafted"

[99gator]

The thing that I find funny is that the posters who want to blame Dooley or Chaney for Bray's inconsistent play won't afford the same luxury to Worley. If Bray played badly or didn't get drafted, they blame the coaches. If Worley played poorly, they say Worley's no good.

it's a complicated thing. it's not a "coaches only" thing. they just are responsible for the overall product.

every individual is different and every individual needs certain things to succeed. some guys need a pat on the back, others need a swift kick in the rear.

what tyler bray needed to succeed was not at tennessee while he was in school.

how different would things have been if he had an upperclassman qb to learn from and not be the man virtually from day 1?

how different would things have been if there was another hot shot qb on the roster to press him for playing time?

how different would things have been if there was a culture of winning in the locker room with seniors who commanded the respect of the team?

how different would things have been if there was a coach that wasn't a walking punchline to the players and members of the staff?

again, some players could have overcome that. some players would have had a better attitude in trying to overcome that. most guys are going to be influenced by their environment.

 

[1972 Grad]

Little bit different. Bray had plenty of moments of excellence to go along with the times he struggled, so people could see the potential to be great was there. Worley has never even looked so much as halfway competent.

Versus MTSU in 2011, Worley completed 23 of 32 for 291 yards with 1 TD and no INT.

 

[VOLorNuttin]

Gruden does. Watch the QB Camp episode with Bray. It's obvious he has problems with awareness and protections.

Really? From a brief clip with Gruden? :loco: He criticizes practically every prospect. He diagnoses a few plays that went bad for Bray. What about all the ones that worked? He criticized Bray for throwing to ZRo (the one where he burned Amerson for the TD), instead of Hunter on a crossing pattern. Guess what genius? THAT WAS THE FREAKIN PLAY!!! He told Gruden that it was what the coaches called for....to attack Amerson.

Gruden criticized Bray for not throwing to his check down. Problem is, Bray is throwing the ball before his check down ever gets clear of the LOS...and the safety just made a good play on the ball. It was not double coverage. The slot WR was on a LB and had him beat. Bray made a good call except, as he told Gruden, he should have thrown a dart instead of putting air under it.

On both calls Gruden is FOS. Go back and watch the clip. Pause the play as soon as his check down (RB) get's clear. He didn't have time to wait on that route.
So, take you

 

[marcusluvsvols]

quit being a hater. If the defense was ranked in the top 50 the Vols would have won 9 or 10. And Butch Jones is not a fool . He would have known that Bray was absolutely his best chanch of winning. When Bray was injured and Worley started and played he sucked 100 times worse than bray ever did in one game he was like 7 of 26 for under 90 yards, We VOL fans praise a single player ala Manning and berry to much and dog players like Bray to much .he is still a vol for life. maby he read what UT fans thought about him and that might be the reason he did not try his best and why he quit in a few games. When I was in high school I quit after playing as a freshmen and sophomore I did not play as a junior and my senior year we had a new coach and I joined the team two days before the first game and they started me out at mlb against the first team offense and in 25 plays run I made 3 sacks 9 tackles for loss and 5 other tackles including smashing the wide receiver on the other side of the field after he cought it and made a move and the db missed but I hit him so hard he got a concussion. I went 100 % while I was on the field and I expected everyone else to do the same but there were only 6 or 7 player on my high school team out of 39 team members that was talented enough to play at a schppl like webb or Maryville.SO I PLAYED A FEW GAMES WE BEAT CLAIBORNE COUNTY 6-0 AND LOST TO WEBB 13-7 AND LOSS TO GP 42 -6 AND SEYMORE BEAT US . and I realized I did not like to lose and I could not play qb,rb,wr on offense and de and lb on defense and kick all by my self and maby bray felt a little like that cause his defense couldn't stop people and they lost even if the offense got 40. it is common knowledge if you average 30 pts a game most of the time you will win almost every game but UT couldn't. because I hated playing on a losing team cause football takes 22 players unlike basketball

A highschool graduate..or at least someone who made it to their senior year wrote this. Wow.

 

[82_VOL_83]

They should be a rule that no college football player can get an agent till after draft and is still eligible to play in college if not drafted or can decline offer if late pick. Just sounds like a good ideal but ncaa does not get it!

Good idea but how to enforce?

 

[82_VOL_83]

Not a good IDEA at all...the mass amount of "flip-flop, wishy-washies" would be unmanageable. You would get these sophomores and juniors who think they are NFL material declare for the draft, go undrafted, and then return to a team they wanted to leave to begin with...what would that do for team chemistry and morale???

The whole point behind getting an agent is that person you are paying a percentage of your future incomes too is SUPPOSED to know where you would rank in terms of talent being drafted...doesn't always work out that way though.

So take the above suggestion of having to come back to the same team, and then prohibit them from entering the draft again until they have been on an active NCAA roster for 4 years or their eligibility is completed (for red shirt sophomores). That way, they test the waters, they see how much they need to improve and then they either come back and play the rest of their NCAA time and improve, or they suck and get cut. The down side is if they just come back and loaf, the up side is that they either realize they aren't what they thought they were, get their degrees and function in society or they improve and get drafted.

 

[82_VOL_83]

I agree a 1000 percent.

I would have been a Bray fan except for two incidents:

1. The 2011 Kentucky game
2. The Jet Ski incident. Shows absolute disregard for people in a situation where a small accident gets someone dead. And this after he claimed to have matured and was working on character and being a leader.

He tried to make the beer bottle incident right. He got intoxicated, but he was at his apartment and not on the strip starting fights and getting arrested. I gave him a pass for that one.

He showed he was a quitter and that quitting attitude never went away. He showed that he wasn't "matured" like he said he was and that immaturity never went away.

 

[Oskie Volum]

I read that article too, but I've also read where JC credited Kiffin as well...as to what degree or how much, I don't remember, but I do remember that he praised Kiffin for his efforts with him.

As for Dooley, I don't completely blame him for Bray's faults, the lion's share of responsibility lies on Bray, but DD's culpable, in at least a small portion.

While the roster Dooley inherited may have been devoid of a wealth of talent, for Dooley to allow (allegedly) a player like Rogers to repeatedly and without regard, disrespect a coach set a precedent that those with enough talent had free-reign and were all but untouchable....

I believe that set into motion a series of off-the-field events involving Bray & Rogers that ultimately culminated in the dismissal of Rogers from the team and stunted the maturation of Bray as a player and a person. Bray is an adult, so he's accountable for his actions, but Dooley was accountable for the growth of his football players on--and off--the field.

....something that he preached on, on more than one occasion.

So yes...Dooley shares some responsibility.

Think how many players of any kind of talent Dooley would have had for year 2 and 3 if he would have been stern with every player from day 1. He had to deal with Brown, Oku, J Jackson. I'm sure the last thing dooley wanted to have is this type of locker room but when u have no actual threat of competition and players that will take advantage of the situation (ie Bray and DR) its hard to have it any other way. Just imho opinion that's all...

 

[1972 Grad]

Think how many players of any kind of talent Dooley would have had for year 2 and 3 if he would have been stern with every player from day 1. He had to deal with Brown, Oku, J Jackson. I'm sure the last thing dooley wanted to have is this type of locker room but when u have no actual threat of competition and players that will take advantage of the situation (ie Bray and DR) its hard to have it any other way. Just imho opinion that's all...

And a good opinion, IMHO.

 

[allvol9]

Good luck Tyler. If he does mature and focus.....he could be a very good NFL qb. Wishing him nothing but the best!

 

[thebjd]

Keep on defending Bray if you want and make yourself look silly.......:salute:

Bashing him makes you look so much better

 

[ob79]

Think how many players of any kind of talent Dooley would have had for year 2 and 3 if he would have been stern with every player from day 1. He had to deal with Brown, Oku, J Jackson. I'm sure the last thing dooley wanted to have is this type of locker room but when u have no actual threat of competition and players that will take advantage of the situation (ie Bray and DR) its hard to have it any other way. Just imho opinion that's all...

Good point and I agree to an extent.

I'm not saying he had to all a harda** from day 1, but he handled the stars as if they were untouchable. Allowing a kid to work out some personal problems or addiction problems is one thing, but allowing them to (allegedly) berate coaches is incomprehensible to me.

If half of what has been rumored to happen with Rogers actually happened, it set a precedent that stars were beyond reproach....and (again, allegedly) lost Baggett because of it.

Whether he was a good coach or not is immaterial, you can't allow the players to force coaches into a corner to where their only choice is to either accept that their boss (Dooley) is allowing this to happen and deal with it or retire/quit.

When Baggett left, it was pretty clear to the players that Rogers had won.

It's one thing for that to happen in the NFL, another to happen in the NCAA. I know its become more of a business but c'mon...

 

[Oskie Volum]

people bashing bray here, need to step back and think of things from his perspective.

so, let's start with work ethic and attitude. very few people maintain a positive attitude and work hard when things are going poorly. it's rare. it's why neyland has his maxim of "putting on more steam". it's a natural instinct to lose enthusiasm when bad things happen. you have to fight through that.

most people work hard only for the reward, not the sake of doing a good job. people work hard at their job to get a raise, a promotion, fear of being fired, etc, etc, etc. most people aren't out to be the best damn plumber they can be for the sake of being a great plumber.

so, having said that, let's look at this again.

people will say he did not work hard at film study and other aspects of the game. he had a wr who didn't run routes worth a damn. the entire defense was clueless. now, people blame bray for whatever work ethic he had, but everyone blames sal for the defense being clueless. so, position coaches and sunseri working with these guys for an entire year and no one knew what they were doing is all on the coaches. is it possible that no one on the defensive side of the ball had the personal pride to know what they were doing?

my guess is that bray showed the amount of effort and hard work that everyone else on the team put into the program. heck, maybe even more. the coaching staff never demanded more and they never got more. the players didn't put forth that effort for the coaches or themselves.

it would take an extraordinary individual to behave in a manner different from the rest of the group. especially, considering that this particular individual was actually performing his individual task better than the vast majority of other individuals in the group.

sorry, for those who think it's just an excuse, but the effort that people put into the team and the disfunction that existed is the fault of the individual in charge of the team. if bray had played for nick saban, i guarantee he would have had a different attitude. that's the reason why i was shocked bray wasn't drafted. i don't know if he's a good kid, bad kid, whatever. i do believe that he was placed in an environment where there was little chance for a single individual to change that environment. i also believe that very few would have performed any better when placed in that environment.

Do what?? First he was the QB at UT. A position of top leadership. So if he wasn't cut out for that than he should have moved on. Second, Sunsuri wasn't at UT for a year for them to have the system in place. I, not many, saw the D work their tails off. Were they the most talented...no. Were they fully prepared in such short period for the new scheme...no. But they worked hard and gave the O plenty of opportunities to put games away. Even versus ur gators...they stopped the fake punt gave us the momentum and what did Bray and the O do??? 3 and out and here comes the tired young/inexperienced D. Same happened in the 4th qtr of the mizzou game where the D gave the O 2 shots to put the game away with the score 28-21, and they didn't. Took a last play made up by a player in the huddle to tie it up. Why would Dooley have faith in the O to put the game away in the last min when they couldn't the whole qtr??

My pt is that the Bray and the O were given the responsibility to make up for the inefficiencies on the D. They were suppose to be high power and high scoring. That was put on his shoulders from the start of the season and he failed. Got bratty and acted like he hadn't failed the D his first 2 yrs. I.e. KY loss. My final draw with Bray was the Vandy game when he clearly gave up and he put it all on the D to win that game.

 

[MikeVol44]

Bashing him makes you look so much better

not bashing him....just sharing my opinion....just like you!:salute:

 

[MikeVol44]

1. i did not say there were not exceptions. i basically was trying to say that most people have trouble fighting through adversity, especially if they are basically fighting alone.

so, the crompton example has some differences. first, whatever you may think of phil fulmer and lane kiffin, they had the respect and attention of the players they were coaching.

second, he had teammates that were giving a complete effort themselves.

in addition, for the most part, crompton was the one failing to do his job as well as the other individuals on the team he played for. this is a huge difference from bray.

2. i understand and have even argued that bray did not light it up against quality competition. however, it would also not be fair to acknowledge the reality that the offense, led mainly by the right arm of bray, was the main reason tennessee had a shot to win any ball game.

i still will stick with what i said and it even happens in the professional game. a lot of people have a hard time pushing themselves to excel in a hopeless situation. you see teams in week 13 that aren't going to the playoffs not play with the same effort that they did in week 1. and those guys are mature adults who are getting paid.

bray needed to be pushed by a competent coach. he needed to be pushed by other players at his position challenging his spot. he needed to be pushed by quality upperclassman who commanded respect.

he had none of that. some may not need it. he did and i think a lot would have been different if he received any of that.

no problem with any of these statements...but what marks mature players is the ability to discipline themselves and make the most of their opportunities. You seem--most of the time--to be a level-headed guy. Do you really believe Bray did that?

For me, CHARACTER is the issue--that was my point in countering your original statements. Crompton demonstrated his character--and so did Bray. The blame game will never cut it with the NFL guys--and the lack of being drafted PROVES this point. It's popular on here to blame CDD and Cheney--blame the defense--blame, blame, blame everyone but Bray.

Bray has no one left to blame at Kansas City. His play will be scrutinized and he will be out of a job if he doesn't grow up, develop the ability to think under pressure, and adjust. I hope he does. GO VOLS!

 

[thebjd]

not bashing him....just sharing my opinion....just like you!:salute:

You aren't the only one bashing him but you definitely are. If he wasn't mature or any good then why didn't Dooley play someone else? If he had trouble with certain things on the field the coaches have a job to coach to his strengths. Crompton is a good example but he also had a competent back to hand the ball to every year he played. The bootlegs and reading one side of the field helped bring him along as well.

 

[ScornedPapaVol]

Do what?? First he was the QB at UT. A position of top leadership. So if he wasn't cut out for that than he should have moved on. Second, Sunsuri wasn't at UT for a year for them to have the system in place. I, not many, saw the D work their tails off. Were they the most talented...no. Were they fully prepared in such short period for the new scheme...no. But they worked hard and gave the O plenty of opportunities to put games away. Even versus ur gators...they stopped the fake punt gave us the momentum and what did Bray and the O do??? 3 and out and here comes the tired young/inexperienced D. Same happened in the 4th qtr of the mizzou game where the D gave the O 2 shots to put the game away with the score 28-21, and they didn't. Took a last play made up by a player in the huddle to tie it up. Why would Dooley have faith in the O to put the game away in the last min when they couldn't the whole qtr??

My pt is that the Bray and the O were given the responsibility to make up for the inefficiencies on the D. They were suppose to be high power and high scoring. That was put on his shoulders from the start of the season and he failed. Got bratty and acted like he hadn't failed the D his first 2 yrs. I.e. KY loss. My final draw with Bray was the Vandy game when he clearly gave up and he put it all on the D to win that game.

Pretty much, minus the excuses of course.

 

[82_VOL_83]

not bashing him....just sharing my opinion....just like you!:salute:

For those Bray worshipers, your opine is not welcome.

 

[MikeVol44]

You aren't the only one bashing him but you definitely are. If he wasn't mature or any good then why didn't Dooley play someone else? If he had trouble with certain things on the field the coaches have a job to coach to his strengths. Crompton is a good example but he also had a competent back to hand the ball to every year he played. The bootlegs and reading one side of the field helped bring him along as well.

Okay--please take your panties off and put on your big boy pants. The SEC competition exposes people--and Bray got exposed--it's as simple as that.

I played the game but didn't have the size or ability to play at the SEC level. I had some D-III offers MANY years ago--but I just LOVE the game of football. Athletes get there performances analyzed and critiqued in front of their peers EVERY week--it's all part of it. Bray's stats are a matter of public record and so are the films of his games.

It's obvious that he has an NFL arm but makes extremely poor decisions--and has admitted on his own that he gave less than his all in preparation--that is lack of maturity and respect for the opportunity!

Color it anyway you want--it is what it is--and it's obvious to the NFL!

 

[thebjd]

Okay--please take your panties off and put on your big boy pants. The SEC competition exposes people--and Bray got exposed--it's as simple as that.

I played the game but didn't have the size or ability to play at the SEC level. I had some D-III offers MANY years ago--but I just LOVE the game of football. Athletes get there performances analyzed and critiqued in front of their peers EVERY week--it's all part of it. Bray's stats are a matter of public record and so are the films of his games.

It's obvious that he has an NFL arm but makes extremely poor decisions--and has admitted on his own that he gave less than his all in preparation--that is lack of maturity and respect for the opportunity!

Color it anyway you want--it is what it is--and it's obvious to the NFL!

You, who admittedly was not good enough to play at the SEC level, get your panties wet by taking shots at a player who was good enough. He may never start in the NFL but he was picked up by an NFL team and has a shot at playing at the highest level.

 

[1972 Grad]

You, who admittedly was not good enough to play at the SEC level, get your panties wet by taking shots at a player who was good enough. He may never start in the NFL but he was picked up by an NFL team and has a shot at playing at the highest level.

I don't think that prior SEC playing experience is a requirement for giving one's opinion. If it was, then there would be few sportscasters and writers. I come down on the side of that poster in that he is entitled to his opinion, just like you are entitled to your opinion of him. You two just disagree. Learn to live with it.

 

[thebjd]

I don't think that prior SEC playing experience is a requirement for giving one's opinion. If it was, then there would be few sportscasters and writers. I come down on the side of that poster in that he is entitled to his opinion, just like you are entitled to your opinion of him. You two just disagree. Learn to live with it.

I am living fine. This is a message board so I understand differing opinions. My opinion is that fans bad-mouthing former players and reveling in their failures is classless. Thanks.

 

[overseasorange]

I am living fine. This is a message board so I understand differing opinions. My opinion is that fans bad-mouthing former players and reveling in their failures is classless. Thanks.

And it is great for recruiting that young HS kid trying to decide which school to play for...lol:

 

[bleedorange0037]

I am living fine. This is a message board so I understand differing opinions. My opinion is that fans bad-mouthing former players and reveling in their failures is classless. Thanks.

This is what I find so pathetic. There were actually people on this board who's day got better when the final pick of the draft came and went, and Bray remained unselected. That really must be a sad kind of life.

 

[thebjd]

This is what I find so pathetic. There were actually people on this board who's day got better when the final pick of the draft came and went, and Bray remained unselected. That really must be a sad kind of life.

Pathetic is the right word.