DiderotsGhost
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Call me crazy, but I have a good feeling about the South Carolina game.
* Revenge game. We're coming off a beating by them last year and I think that's still on the minds of our players.
* Home. We sucked in Gainesville, but a lot of the O-line stuff probably wouldn't have happened in Knoxville. That's not an excuse; we need to get better, but I think the pre-snap penalties will be less of an issue in Neyland.
* Found our groove. The UTSA game may not have been the most important game, but it did at least feel like we found some rhythm for the first time this season.
* Milton. He's hot/cold, but I feel like this is one of the games he's going to play very well
* SC's secondary sucks. Sure, ours hasn't been great either and Rattler probably does pretty well against it, but if it's a high scoring game, I like our chances.
* Our D has also been hot / cold. It's not like the D has always been bad. Even that Florida game, the D played extremely well in the 2nd half. So our D does "figure it out" at times, but struggles at other times. They were terrible last season against South Carolina, but I feel like they have a better plan this year.
None of this is to say I think we're an elite team or an SEC East contender. I still think we have major issues:
* Thin O-line. Losing Darnell Wright from last season is a bigger blow than people have realized and Cooper Mays' injury is also a huge blow. I don't think VN has fully groked how young this OL is. We had great talent on the OL the past 2 seasons, but now we're at a "reset" of sorts from the "dead recruiting year" when Pruitt was fired. To some extent, I think this was inevitable.
* Secondary. The secondary annoys me more than the OL, where we simply lack depth and talent right now. Secondary has just played poorly at times. I find the secondary to be, by far, the most frustrating performance this year.
* Milton is a "B" Quarterback. I think Milton has improved immensely from where he was in 2021, but HH was basically a Heisman-level QB before his injury last year and Milton is not on that level. He's not bad, but he's not Hooker. His strong suit is that he can hit the "home run" at any time, but the flip-side is that he "strikes out" a lot and struggles with picking up some of those 1st downs that Hooker would've gotten. I'm not down on Milton at all --- I'm just realistic. He's better than Worley in 14 or JG; I think he's better than Crompton in '09 as well, but he's not Dobbs or Hooker. My hope is he can have an Erik Ainge 06/07 type season.
I think we're a 7-8 regular season win type team that's capable of pulling off a big upset or two. At the very least, I'm much less pessimistic than VN is right now (though was considerably less optimistic than VN was pre-Florida!)
I could easily be wrong, but I like our odds this coming weekend.
* Revenge game. We're coming off a beating by them last year and I think that's still on the minds of our players.
* Home. We sucked in Gainesville, but a lot of the O-line stuff probably wouldn't have happened in Knoxville. That's not an excuse; we need to get better, but I think the pre-snap penalties will be less of an issue in Neyland.
* Found our groove. The UTSA game may not have been the most important game, but it did at least feel like we found some rhythm for the first time this season.
* Milton. He's hot/cold, but I feel like this is one of the games he's going to play very well
* SC's secondary sucks. Sure, ours hasn't been great either and Rattler probably does pretty well against it, but if it's a high scoring game, I like our chances.
* Our D has also been hot / cold. It's not like the D has always been bad. Even that Florida game, the D played extremely well in the 2nd half. So our D does "figure it out" at times, but struggles at other times. They were terrible last season against South Carolina, but I feel like they have a better plan this year.
None of this is to say I think we're an elite team or an SEC East contender. I still think we have major issues:
* Thin O-line. Losing Darnell Wright from last season is a bigger blow than people have realized and Cooper Mays' injury is also a huge blow. I don't think VN has fully groked how young this OL is. We had great talent on the OL the past 2 seasons, but now we're at a "reset" of sorts from the "dead recruiting year" when Pruitt was fired. To some extent, I think this was inevitable.
* Secondary. The secondary annoys me more than the OL, where we simply lack depth and talent right now. Secondary has just played poorly at times. I find the secondary to be, by far, the most frustrating performance this year.
* Milton is a "B" Quarterback. I think Milton has improved immensely from where he was in 2021, but HH was basically a Heisman-level QB before his injury last year and Milton is not on that level. He's not bad, but he's not Hooker. His strong suit is that he can hit the "home run" at any time, but the flip-side is that he "strikes out" a lot and struggles with picking up some of those 1st downs that Hooker would've gotten. I'm not down on Milton at all --- I'm just realistic. He's better than Worley in 14 or JG; I think he's better than Crompton in '09 as well, but he's not Dobbs or Hooker. My hope is he can have an Erik Ainge 06/07 type season.
I think we're a 7-8 regular season win type team that's capable of pulling off a big upset or two. At the very least, I'm much less pessimistic than VN is right now (though was considerably less optimistic than VN was pre-Florida!)
I could easily be wrong, but I like our odds this coming weekend.
