We Weren’t Good This Year

#27
#27
Giving Ohio its second ever win (or is it three?) over an SEC team stings but it is what is. They were going to break their losing streak to UT one day.
 
#28
#28
The Vols offensively haven't been it all year. They really haven't since Hooker left. That high scoring, high paced offense left with Hooker. We put up big points on teams that we were expected to crush but struggled in the SEC slate. OSU was a top 5 team all season, playing for their coaches job, at home, with more talent all around the roster. I'm not surprised we lost. I expected a loss but not a rout like it was.
 
  • Like
Reactions: walkenvol, 08Vol, BeardedVol and 2 others
#29
#29
Well our offense essentially lost almost all of our big play pieces. Sampson, White, and Donte played a combined 15 snaps. If Ohio state didn't have their top 3 guys, their offense probably isn't the same.

Defensively, I don't know what happened. Just mental lapses from the secondary. Defensive line didn't dominate like they needed to.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 08Vol
#31
#31
Tennessee lost to a vastly more talented team. I'm proud of the players and coaches for their 10-win season, especially the wins against Oklahoma, Florida, and Bama. Sure, I wish they would've run the table but GO VOLS ANYWAY!!! Go Big Orange!!!
 
#32
#32
VolCalls said:
I agree, but at some point we have to raise our expectations. I’m proud of my children for being polite and courteous human beings, but don’t think I won’t put a foot in their ass when they’re lazy or give a half-assed effort at something. Life is about continuous improvement, and we’ve regressed in the last two years.

We have to get out of this mindset of comparing ourselves to five years ago and start using 25 years ago as the barometer.
Click to expand...
I agree. At some point the days of "well at least we dont outright suck anymore" can no longer be good enough and the program needs to take another step. CJH has gotten us to 10 wins twice now and got us in the playoffs. Great. Now he needs to take another step. What is that step? Well it can be several things...

1. Win 11 or more regular season games.
2. Host a round 1 playoff game
3. Get to the SEC CG
4. Win the SEC and get a 1st round bye in the playoffs
5. Get a top 5 recruiting class
6. Get to the NCG
7. Win the NC.

There are a lot of things to achieve still.
 
  • Like
Reactions: VolCalls and marvin616
#35
#35
Cartervol said:
Record was better than the team was. Deficiencies in the Oline, passing game, and QB at times did them in. Plenty of deficiency on the sidelines too. They're simply not good enough right now.
Click to expand...
A metric needs to be developed that doesn't simply look at the record. The record is a story, not necessarily "the" story.

**Edit** The best teams need to be in the playoffs that doesn't always translate to the best record being the best teams.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 08Vol
#39
#39
Sara Clark said:
A metric needs to be developed that doesn't simply look at the record. The record is a story, not necessarily "the" story.

**Edit** The best teams need to be in the playoffs that doesn't always translate to the best record being the best teams.
Click to expand...
SOS is it. Vols were a gritty team but turned into something else on the road. Need tougher players. We earned our spot, but the lack of effort and fight last night isn't a encouraging sign for the future.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Doberman, VolCalls, marvin616 and 1 other person
#40
#40
rdk4121 said:
Well our offense essentially lost almost all of our big play pieces. Sampson, White, and Donte played a combined 15 snaps. If Ohio state didn't have their top 3 guys, their offense probably isn't the same.

Defensively, I don't know what happened. Just mental lapses from the secondary. Defensive line didn't dominate like they needed to.
Click to expand...
They lost two all American offensive lineman for the year. Our Dline was suppose to shred their OLine, and they ran for over 150 yards and gave wil Howard all day to throw

All American lineman. They scheme better than most teams we play, and there ya go
 
  • Like
Reactions: 08Vol
#41
#41
Tzettler87 said:
The Vols offensively haven't been it all year. They really haven't since Hooker left. That high scoring, high paced offense left with Hooker. We put up big points on teams that we were expected to crush but struggled in the SEC slate. OSU was a top 5 team all season, playing for their coaches job, at home, with more talent all around the roster. I'm not surprised we lost. I expected a loss but not a rout like it was.
Click to expand...
Offense has been pedestrian and predictable since Alex Golesh left, scoring piles of points against inferior defenses, but plagued with poor schemes, lack of focus, lack of discipline and piss poor coaching/play calling since. Plenty of dropped balls the past two seasons, lack of Nico development and we are looking at 8-4 or 10-2 depending on where the Alabama and Florida games are played. Did not have to play Texas, Ole Miss or South Carolina this year. Heupel hasn't won an SEC game on the road against the better teams since brunch at LSU in 2023. Oklahoma game this year was against a mediocre team that improved over the season.

Heupel has a hard limit to what he can do here and the trash that was Tennessee football from 2010 - 2020 does not excuse it, just makes the limit more tolerable, given the historical difficulty attracting coaching and player talent to Knoxville.
 
  • Like
Reactions: marvin616, 08Vol and BeardedVol
#43
#43
We had a favorable schedule - and still managed to lose one that we shouldn’t have (Arkansas), costing us a chance to host a first round playoff game.

Next season, we have to travel to Bummer and Florida. And we can’t beat Georgia anywhere. So, the chances of being 0-3 against those teams is higher. Oklahoma will probably be improved. We, on the other hand, are likely to be worse on the O-line and defensively.

It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 08Vol
#45
#45
joevols89 said:
We definitely had a favorable schedule to get us to 10 wins and a playoff spot… but I’ll still take it any way we can get it. Most years I think this is an 8-4 type team.
Click to expand...
Next years schedule is a cake walk. Unless SOS is given greater weighting we will be back in CFP.
 
#46
#46
VolCalls said:
I agree, but at some point we have to raise our expectations. I’m proud of my children for being polite and courteous human beings, but don’t think I won’t put a foot in their ass when they’re lazy or give a half-assed effort at something. Life is about continuous improvement, and we’ve regressed in the last two years.

We have to get out of this mindset of comparing ourselves to five years ago and start using 25 years ago as the barometer.
Click to expand...
The problem is we had that 15 year drought and losing seasons and that has become the standard...the bar you might say that folks remind us about whenever anyone offers any criticism of the team or coaches. We get put in this category of being a Nega-vols or other names. I wonder what decade in the future will we be allowed to not be reminded that we sucked pretty bad before JH was hired ? I agree the team and play seems to have regressed in the last 2 years other than the defense improved some
 
  • Like
Reactions: VolCalls and marvin616
#47
#47
VolCalls said:
I agree, but at some point we have to raise our expectations. I’m proud of my children for being polite and courteous human beings, but don’t think I won’t put a foot in their ass when they’re lazy or give a half-assed effort at something. Life is about continuous improvement, and we’ve regressed in the last two years.

We have to get out of this mindset of comparing ourselves to five years ago and start using 25 years ago as the barometer.
Click to expand...
You mean we aren’t as good of a football team w/out our 25 year old Senior QB, who is probably one of the top 3 QBs of the last 35 years on the hill? We are a different football team that’s evolving from a team that needed to outscore teams, to a team that played defense and field position all year bc we were starting a RS freshman QB.

We lost 3 games total. 2 of those losses were to the consensus preseason #1 and #2 teams in the country on the road, at night, coming off of devastating losses. UGA and Ohio State have been recruiting at a much higher level than anyone other than Bama for a very long time . When those teams are highly motivated and play at a high level they will win most times . We were exposed at linebacker and safety.. again. We dont have the horses there yet. This is something that has to be addressed, but we’re moving in the right direction. We were 1 of 3 SEC teams that made the Playoff and I don’t consider this season to be a bad one at all.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TrojanVolFromOC, walkenvol and McDad
#48
#48
loosecannon said:
I am appreciative of this team and season. We weren’t world beaters in the end, but this team of questions marks really came together and fought. We had severe limitations as a team and those were exposed today. Our over reliance on Sampson to bail us out and for pressure with four to let us sit back and play with a numbers advantage finally caught up with us. Touché OSU. It is just reality. We have some serious holes still in scheme that have to be answered as well as personnel. My goodness our LBs are bad.

Teams with any offensive creativity are able to scheme is into horrible matchups. Napier did it but was severely limited by his players. Tonight Kelly had us so twisted that Arian Carter was covering Megatron 2.0 on man coverage repeatedly.

Offensively we have been bad at tackle all year long. We have at times struggled against teams to move the ball even with a favorable box. The wide split offense is dead if you cannot run on a soft box as are most offenses. If we cannot get better OL play, this is the ceiling. I hate this offense but I pray it keeps working. But, if you can’t block, it’s all just squiggles on a chalkboard.

I am thankful that we have had great individual and team defensive performances but I hope Banks is hired elsewhere as a HC. His system is a liability. We have been good defensively because we out talented people. Our front is really good and some of our dbs are too. When they are better than the opponent, we have been really good. In even or unfavorable matchups we are toast and have been. We are outsmarted and it is obvious. As the season has worn on, it has been even truer. Presnap motion is into unfavorable conditions and isolate our slow LBs.

In tournaments all but one ends with an L. I think we ran into a buzz saw tonight. We saw the best roster in CFB operating at 100%. Nobody was going to beat OSU today.

Go Vols. I hope we can use this to adjust and improve for next season. I will be cheering. A lot of this team was young or from the portal. Another year will do us good. I will hate not seeing the same DL guys out there. I have enjoyed watching them play and grow.

Merry Christmas everybody
Click to expand...
So you wrote an entire novel that acknowledged personnel limitations, especially at LB, but you blame Banks? Critical thinking needs to be taught in school. As a society, we're cooked.
 
#49
#49
volfeeva said:
The problem is we had that 15 year drought and losing seasons and that has become the standard...the bar you might say that folks remind us about whenever anyone offers any criticism of the team or coaches. We get put in this category of being a Nega-vols or other names. I wonder what decade in the future will we be allowed to not be reminded that we sucked pretty bad before JH was hired ? I agree the team and play seems to have regressed in the last 2 years other than the defense improved some
Click to expand...
It's called critical thinking skills. If you follow recruiting, you would know that our roster is limited. There's a drop-off from RB1 to RB2. There are deficiencies at LB, especially in coverage. There are speed issues at Safety. If any "fan" thought that it would be fixed in 4 years, those fans are delusional. As a fan, I hope to win every game. When we don't, I'm disappointed but I know what we have. The people that only follow practices and games don't understand what we need. Their answer is to fire coaches, which isn't going to fix the roster. Consistency and recruiting will fix the roster, elite recruiting. There is a big difference in a good LB and an elite LB.
 
#50
#50
Vols weren't as good as their record indicated, OSU was better than theirs. The talent gap was as painfully obvious as the last decade of recruiting rankings would show. Heupel's scheme on offense and Banks' scheme on defense were completely exploited by the OSU coordinators. Overall, a 10-win season with a playoff berth will get people raises - not demand changes be made.
 
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top