Well, I feel good about the program.

#26
#26
mudhen said:
All of this talk about the playoffs and all, I think that we should be grateful for where our program is, and is going. After decades in the wilderness, Tennessee has retaken its seat at the table of the great football programs. We are relevant again, talked about by the media in a good way (for the most part), and even Finebaum is lauding our success. Hell, we even beat Florida and Bama in the same season. I'm hopeful that the future sees us continue to accelerate until everyone we play fears us.
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I'm with you.
 
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#27
#27
Golfprovol said:
Jesus, let the play calling complaints go! We have a FRESHMAN QB and you are comparing him to a 2022 QB who was a red shirt SENIOR. I know most on here anointed Nico the second coming before his first play, but that was totally unfair. The play calling is the same, what is different is the vision of the QB.

The game is still fast for him, he still doesn't see the field totally, he needs a little more time to read the defense.

Here I will explain what happens:
After each play, we line up fairly quickly, Nico calls the play and then looks over to the sideline at this point CJH is talking to Nico telling him what to look for and how to adjust the play and the pass blocking.

Then Nico passes the info along to the OL and everyone else, and we snap the ball.

Hendon didn't have to do this, he could see it for himself, so we were able to go faster and run more different types of reads
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YankeeVol said:
*cough* REDSHIRT freshman buddy
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Who's been in the program for almost 2-1/2 years with 11 starts under his belt now. Sorry but I don't buy that bull$hit excuse. Look at what Florida's TRUE freshman QB is doing right now.
 
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#28
#28
Brave Volunteer said:
Who's been in the program for almost 2-1/2 years with 11 starts under his belt now. Sorry but I do
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Brave Volunteer said:
n't buy that bull$hit excuse. Look at what Florida's TRUE freshman QB is doing right now.
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He is 9-2 as a starter. I believe your expectations are a bit unrealistic. Which stats below would you rather have? 8-2 or 5-5 - which record would you rather have?

YDS
1,297
TD
7
INT
5
QBR
62.8
----------
YDS
2,046
TD
11
INT
4
QBR
67.0
 
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#30
#30
mudhen said:
All of this talk about the playoffs and all, I think that we should be grateful for where our program is, and is going. After decades in the wilderness, Tennessee has retaken its seat at the table of the great football programs. We are relevant again, talked about by the media in a good way (for the most part), and even Finebaum is lauding our success. Hell, we even beat Florida and Bama in the same season. I'm hopeful that the future sees us continue to accelerate until everyone we play fears us.
Click to expand...
The Attaboys coming out early I see.
 
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#32
#32
mudhen said:
All of this talk about the playoffs and all, I think that we should be grateful for where our program is, and is going. After decades in the wilderness, Tennessee has retaken its seat at the table of the great football programs. We are relevant again, talked about by the media in a good way (for the most part), and even Finebaum is lauding our success. Hell, we even beat Florida and Bama in the same season. I'm hopeful that the future sees us continue to accelerate until everyone we play fears us.
Click to expand...
Also, we haven’t taken a seat anywhere until we make the playoffs, period. This program has done nothing in 20 years. I’m sick of this attitude of aww shucks maybe next year. Maybe next year we get 8 wins. If that happens is it aww shucks maybe next year again,
 
#33
#33
Rocky Top T said:
No, most I watched had us around 9 wins. Everyone had us beating Arkansas, which is a really bad loss
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Maybe not as bad as they like to make it look. Ark has lost some really close games. They are not horrible, but they lacked the ability to close out some close games they may should have won.
 
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#35
#35
Golfprovol said:
He is 9-2 as a starter. I believe your expectations are a bit unrealistic. Which stats below would you rather have? 8-2 or 5-5 - which record would you rather have?

YDS
1,297
TD
7
INT
5
QBR
62.8
----------
YDS
2,046
TD
11
INT
4
QBR
67.0
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You know darn well a HUGE portion of our success this year is due to Sampson and our defense.
 
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#38
#38
mudhen said:
All of this talk about the playoffs and all, I think that we should be grateful for where our program is, and is going. After decades in the wilderness, Tennessee has retaken its seat at the table of the great football programs. We are relevant again, talked about by the media in a good way (for the most part), and even Finebaum is lauding our success. Hell, we even beat Florida and Bama in the same season. I'm hopeful that the future sees us continue to accelerate until everyone we play fears us.
Click to expand...

I'm going to play devil's advocate here.

I don't think 99.9% of people are upset or ungrateful with where the program is. I think that same 99.9% would agree Heup is the best thing to happen to Tennessee since Peyton.

Now that being said, 2 out of the last 3 years we have had the playoffs in our grasp and lost it for a bad reason. This loss to Georgia was squarely on the coaches and that's why people are frustrated. Ole Miss didn't just show us the blueprint for beating Georgia, they mailed it to us. Then they sent us an e-mail about it in case the mail ran slow... our coaches did NONE of it.

So it's not a "state of the program" issue nearly as much as it's a "Quit blowing it at the last second" issue. The loss to Arkansas was on the players, but the loss to Georgia was poor coaching. That's where the frustration is coming from.
 
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#39
#39
Brave Volunteer said:
Overall I do too. However there are some things I see under Huepel that he has GOT change/address if we are ever to take that next step. Starting with cleaning up how sloppy/undisciplined we are at times. We make a LOT of unforced errors. Also, our playcalling has got to get more creative. I dont know what's happened to our offense, but compared to the first two seasons under Huepel, out offense has regressed so much.
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Play calling is fine, although I wish we would run it more
 
#40
#40
mudhen said:
All of this talk about the playoffs and all, I think that we should be grateful for where our program is, and is going. After decades in the wilderness, Tennessee has retaken its seat at the table of the great football programs. We are relevant again, talked about by the media in a good way (for the most part), and even Finebaum is lauding our success. Hell, we even beat Florida and Bama in the same season. I'm hopeful that the future sees us continue to accelerate until everyone we play fears us.
Click to expand...
You make a good point. I remember when 10-2 was a great season (we have to beat a decent Vandy team yet) and possibly get to 11 wins with a bowl or playoff win.

I was a kid when Doug Dickey rebuilt the program in the mid-60's and got us back to the top 10 with 1 & 2 loss teams - it was a great era followed by some very good Battle years until his recruiting caught up with him.
Then Coach Majors took awhile to rebuild, but his mid-to-late 80's teams were great including 3 SEC titles, followed by Fulmer's run which took 6 seasons to win the national title after several very good years.

One erroneous comment you made was the "decades in the wilderness". It was one decade in the wilderness, which every blueblood program suffers through at different times.
 
#41
#41
KnoxRealtorVOL said:
I'm going to play devil's advocate here.

I don't think 99.9% of people are upset or ungrateful with where the program is. I think that same 99.9% would agree Heup is the best thing to happen to Tennessee since Peyton.

Now that being said, 2 out of the last 3 years we have had the playoffs in our grasp and lost it for a bad reason. This loss to Georgia was squarely on the coaches and that's why people are frustrated. Ole Miss didn't just show us the blueprint for beating Georgia, they mailed it to us. Then they sent us an e-mail about it in case the mail ran slow... our coaches did NONE of it.

So it's not a "state of the program" issue nearly as much as it's a "Quit blowing it at the last second" issue. The loss to Arkansas was on the players, but the loss to Georgia was poor coaching. That's where the frustration is coming from.
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Can't really argue with that. It's like they didn't watch any of that game. 4 down linemen and about half way through the second quarter Banks should of been trying something else. It wasn't working and we just kept running it all day.
 
#43
#43
We're in a good spot . I think a lot of people that use our 90s teams as a baseline somehow forget how badly we were slapped around by the Georgia and Alabama of those days. We were a juggernaut until we ran into Nebraska . We got clowned by Kansas State. We almost lost to Syracuse in 98 , had to have a miracle keep us alive against Arkansas , got lucky that we faced Marcus Outzen ( which I didn't even know he died in April this year :( RIP dude ) rather than Chris Weinke . We haven't been a totally dominant program since the 30s and people seem to expect us to return to something we just haven't been in almost 100 years. We aren't top tier , but I doubt many people want to play us.
 
#44
#44
BernardKingGOAT said:
Play calling is fine, although I wish we would run it more
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You really think so? We are SOOOO damn basic now! We never run any end arounds or jet sweeps. We never throw to our backs. Hell, we don't even run off tackle. Every one of our runs are between the guards. No pitches. We barely utilize our tight ends. Hardly any designed QB runs. I dont see our WR's line up in any unique sets anymore. We don't even go fast anymore. No trick plays whatsoever either. The offense we are running now looks nothing like the one we ran in 2022. It has zero creativity. The difference between what we ran the other night vs Georgia's playcalling was pretty jarring. It almost reminds me of the Pruitt offenses with Guarantano.
 
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#46
#46
Brave Volunteer said:
Overall I do too. However there are some things I see under Huepel that he has GOT change/address if we are ever to take that next step. Starting with cleaning up how sloppy/undisciplined we are at times. We make a LOT of unforced errors. Also, our playcalling has got to get more creative. I dont know what's happened to our offense, but compared to the first two seasons under Huepel, out offense has regressed so much.
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Amen to this. We are a good program. Sometimes we field a very good football team. And yes we are miles away from where we were just a few years ago. Thanks to Heupel and his staff for that. It feels great.

But we are nowhere close to being a championship contender. Not based on the games I watched this season. As you said, we are terribly undisciplined…again and again and again. Yes, we beat AL and FL…in a down year for both their programs. We were outcoached in several other games, including our last one. We are not recruiting at a championship level. We are not rebuilding through the portal at a championship level. We are not coaching at a championship level or developing players at a championship level. I admire Heupel’s loyalty to his coaches but that stubborn loyalty could be holding us back.

I’m done comparing our program to what Pruitt left us, to our worst years. With success comes expectations for more and higher success. We are Tennessee, for Pete’s sake. We want and expect championships. But it looks like that might take a bit longer than we’ve hoped. This program needs to be led to the next level. Not sure this coaching staff can do that. Time will tell.
 
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#47
#47
Hank Bukowski said:
Amen to this. We are a good program. Sometimes we field a very good football team. And yes we are miles away from where we were just a few years ago. Thanks to Heupel and his staff for that. It feels great.

But we are nowhere close to being a championship contender. Not based on the games I watched this season. As you said, we are terribly undisciplined…again and again and again. Yes, we beat AL and FL…in a down year for both their programs. We were outcoached in several other games, including our last one. We are not recruiting at a championship level. We are not rebuilding through the portal at a championship level. We are not coaching at a championship level or developing players at a championship level. I admire Heupel’s loyalty to his coaches but that stubborn loyalty could be holding us back.

I’m done comparing our program to what Pruitt left us, to our worst years. With success comes expectations for more and higher success. We are Tennessee, for Pete’s sake. We want and expect championships. But it looks like that might take a bit longer than we’ve hoped. This program needs to be led to the next level. Not sure this coaching staff can do that. Time will tell.
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Like I've said before, what we know about Huepel is he has a high floor. He's going to always get us 8-10 wins. So there IS comfort in knowing we are never going to be a complete embarrassment under his program But at SOME point, he has to break the ceiling. Otherwise we are just treading water. It's frustrating that we can ALL see the pain points of his program that's holding it back. They are so obvious. But it seems like nothing is being done about them.
 
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#48
#48
Brave Volunteer said:
Like I've said before, what we know about Huepel is he has a high floor. He's going to always get us 8-10 wins. So there IS comfort in knowing we are never going to be a complete embarrassment under his program But at SOME point, he has to break the ceiling. Otherwise we are just treading water.
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Very good point. High floor and hopefully a little higher ceiling.
 
#49
#49
Brave Volunteer said:
You really think so? We are SOOOO damn basic now! We never run any end arounds or jet sweeps. We never throw to our backs. Hell, we don't even run off tackle. Every one of our runs are between the guards. No pitches. We barely utilize our tight ends. Hardly any designed QB runs. I dont see our WR's line up in any unique sets anymore. We don't even go fast anymore. No trick plays whatsoever either. The offense we are running now looks nothing like the one we ran in 2022. It has zero creativity. The difference between what we ran the other night vs Georgia's playcalling was pretty jarring. It almost reminds me of the Pruitt offenses with Guarantano.
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It's about execution. Our running game is elite. Our passing game has been all about execution and finishing a play. Play is unsuccessful = bad play calling as far as you're concerned. Successful play = great play call.......

We abandon the run too quickly like even the best teams in the NFL. OCs get too cute when running for first downs leads to big pass plays. Nothing wrong with running it 7 times in a row, getting two first downs in the process and throwing on 2nd down to an open receiver down field. That's how you eat up the clock in a big game. We should have had a pass/run ratio of 2 to 1 in the second half
 
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