Why The Concern?

[CNCVol88]

I didn't catch a lot of"bench Milton" cries nor did I hear a lot of declarations of him being a failure. I didn't care much for some of his throws but overall I believe he wins a lot of games for us. There were some drops that affected his stats, bit I'm not calling to bench some of the WRs.

See here's the thing. Its not the explicit saying "he's a failure." Its the completely ignoring the facts and the stats and nitpicking and using 4 or so bad throws in the first half of game 1 and being "concerned." We had 499 yards of total offense to their 201 which mostly came during garbage time. Joe didn't throw a pick ("well he almost..." Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades and that's part of the nitpicking 4 bad passes) and in True Tennessee fashion we did it while losing TOP. Joe was 21-30 on his passes. I saw someone say he was 67% but t hen I realized 21-30 is literally 70%. Can we criticize the bad throws? Sure but to say you're "Concerned" when he had a monster day statistically is just asinine.

 

[VAVol85]

Agreed. I must have missed those posts

The “bench Milton” posts were mostly in the game thread and should probably be dismissed for lots of reasons -

 

[Nerwen Aldarion]

I didn't catch a lot of"bench Milton" cries nor did I hear a lot of declarations of him being a failure. I didn't care much for some of his throws but overall I believe he wins a lot of games for us. There were some drops that affected his stats, bit I'm not calling to bench some of the WRs.

Obviously you weren’t in the game thread

 

[TnVol!]

Great first game. This game was a scrimmage game. They didn't use all the playbook. Special teams especially punting needs to cleaned up. Other than that I don't see a whole lot to complain about. Go Volunteers!!!

 

[vegasvolfan]

36 point win over a Virginia team, Cooper Mays was out, and pretty much everyone expected us to win this game single handily.

Milton wasn’t Tom Brady out there but he was mostly efficient throwing the ball.

I’m not seeing the whole “sky is falling” by some of you.

I think it’s comical to watch people make any sort of judgement after that game. We have people saying we should win the natty or it’s a failure while others are super concerned. I was at first, but as the game progressed, it seemed everyone settled down.

I called a 9-3, 10~2 season this year anyways with a low of 8-4 and high of 11-1. I think we played just about how I thought we would play against Virginia. The drop by Keyton was unexpected.

 

[Vol in Buckeye Land]

My only concerns are punting and kicking. Encouragingly, the last few kickoffs went through the endzone iirc, and Ross’s last punt was a 50 yarder.

 

[RDU VOL#14]

I think many have forgot that we didn’t start out elite last season either. The same way Milton was high on some throws, you got a lot of that early with Hooker too.

If we look at the past 2 years, we play our best football October 1- November 15. We really tend to get rolling in weeks 5 or 6.

 

[OldVolMan]

It reminds me of my past when a friend would have the sweetest and hottest chick around, but he always found something wrong with her to complain about. I would have traded “his”
for “mine” anytime.

 

[Chippo]

Every throw that Milton doesn't make will be scrutinized. He had one bad drive, no reason to panic. Keyton needs to get rid of the drops

At least Milton isn't JG,, he's much improved
Over last year.

 

[Pride85]

might want to not discount fl too much. their biggest problem was untimely penalties. while they didnt run the ball very good, they did throw for 333 yards. penalties are easy to clean up. we will need to be at our best to beat them at home. i have faith we will.

That was far from their problem

 

[swampfoxfan]

See here's the thing. Its not the explicit saying "he's a failure." Its the completely ignoring the facts and the stats and nitpicking and using 4 or so bad throws in the first half of game 1 and being "concerned." We had 499 yards of total offense to their 201 which mostly came during garbage time. Joe didn't throw a pick ("well he almost..." Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades and that's part of the nitpicking 4 bad passes) and in True Tennessee fashion we did it while losing TOP. Joe was 21-30 on his passes. I saw someone say he was 67% but t hen I realized 21-30 is literally 70%. Can we criticize the bad throws? Sure but to say you're "Concerned" when he had a monster day statistically is just asinine.

See here's the thing.I replied to did mention bench Milton and did mention complete failure. So I'm saying quit making stuff up

 

[jsc1973]

Great first game. This game was a scrimmage game. They didn't use all the playbook. Special teams especially punting needs to cleaned up. Other than that I don't see a whole lot to complain about. Go Volunteers!!!

This. That was a Power 5 opponent, not an FCS team, and Tennessee won the game by 36 points with a totally vanilla gameplan. Virginia probably isn't going to be all that great this season, but it was a solid first-game performance against a team that was capable of resistance. Now it's time for another live scrimmage and get ready for the one game of the season where the Gators will show up to play.

 

[barney]

I think the vibe in the stadium was concern for most of the first quarter but then we got things figured out and played much much better.

 

[CNCVol88]

See here's the thing.I replied to did mention bench Milton and did mention complete failure. So I'm saying quit making stuff up

Not saying you in particular. Just in general.

 

[KeyVol14]

might want to not discount fl too much. their biggest problem was untimely penalties. while they didnt run the ball very good, they did throw for 333 yards. penalties are easy to clean up. we will need to be at our best to beat them at home. i have faith we will.

Utah was giving them the underneath routes all night long. If UF can't run the ball, it may be a long season for them.

 

[NighthawkVol]

36 point win over a Virginia team, Cooper Mays was out, and pretty much everyone expected us to win this game single handily.

Milton wasn’t Tom Brady out there but he was mostly efficient throwing the ball.

I’m not seeing the whole “sky is falling” by some of you.

I liked what I saw from the OLine. And they’re going to get better as Mays come beck and they gel.

 

[advancedrescue27]

Because there are some of this fanbase that have gone from hopeful to spoiled in two seasons.

Or perhaps there’s a large population of the fans that got burned too many times by the over eager sunshine pumpers that get worked up after UT beats what’s equivalent to a JR college.


Not saying I’m concerned this time, or too concerned atleast. But to act like people are out of line to have concerns is ridiculous.


Even teams that go undefeated have areas to improve(or you can say areas of concern).
Do you think the bulldogs last year were perfect?


Perhaps that’s the difference around here. Some are so eager to be happy and want to see the team relevant again that you don’t want to see anything negative that can ruin your hopeful viewpoint, and look down on anyone who sees an area of concern.


It’s like a battered wife saying it’s her fault, and he truly loves her after beating her for the 100th time all because she didn’t have a fresh beer for him when he finished his last one.

 

[BJWeeks]

It says we only had 4 sacks on defense but there was a lot more. Omari Thomas had the first one but was not credited

 

[vavolfan6]

I think it is perfectly fine to have a healthy dose of concern after yesterday's performance.

You do not win games like we did yesterday in the SEC by bullying the other team running the ball as much as we did. Maybe against Vandy, but we do not have the star power on OLine to do that against top teams. You have to spread out the defense and hit some intermediate throws.

What was most concerning is that Milton couldnt quite pick himself up when he did miss one or two downfield throws. It felt like Huepel had to abandon the passing game late into the 2nd quarter and just run it down UVAs throats. Granted we did, but it is concerning Huepel had to make that decision against UVA. At the sane time UVA has a solid defense too. But to act like there is nothing to be concerned about is a bit ignorant in my opinion.

 

[J C Higgins]

If we look at the past 2 years, we play our best football October 1- November 15. We really tend to get rolling in weeks 5 or 6.

Few teams perform well the first game so there's no reason for concern at this time. But if we don't win game three it might be a much longer season than we had hoped for.

 

[vols 30]

I knew who started this thread before I opened it.

 

[Sivad]

36 point win over a Virginia team, Cooper Mays was out, and pretty much everyone expected us to win this game single handily.

Milton wasn’t Tom Brady out there but he was mostly efficient throwing the ball.

I’m not seeing the whole “sky is falling” by some of you.

Don’t get it myself. Was scrutinized last night for defending our vols on their so called “rough start”. Sure Milton had a rough series early but did we not see the same thing last year from Hooker? It was the first game. We won by more than 4 touchdowns. We dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. You could tell on Joe’s long balls he’s intentionally put more air under the ball so not to overthrow. Also showed us he was willing to take a hit running the ball. Absolutely mashed one defender. But it’s not enough for some. Gonna be a great season. Go Vols!!!!

 

[VolDaddy61]

Or perhaps there’s a large population of the fans that got burned too many times by the over eager sunshine pumpers that get worked up after UT beats what’s equivalent to a JR college.


Not saying I’m concerned this time, or too concerned atleast. But to act like people are out of line to have concerns is ridiculous.


Even teams that go undefeated have areas to improve(or you can say areas of concern).
Do you think the bulldogs last year were perfect?


Perhaps that’s the difference around here. Some are so eager to be happy and want to see the team relevant again that you don’t want to see anything negative that can ruin your hopeful viewpoint, and look down on anyone who sees an area of concern.


It’s like a battered wife saying it’s her fault, and he truly loves her after beating her for the 100th time all because she didn’t have a fresh beer for him when he finished his last one.

What, if anything, did You see concerning ?! I've been watching Tennessee football since 86 and that's about solid start to a season as I can remember. Every team is unique, and this is this teams baseline. If they regress, sure, be concerned..... the problem lies in expectations. Folks are "concerned", because thier expectations weren't met, and what did You have to base those expectations on ?!?! Enjoy the win.

 

[Pride85]

might want to not discount fl too much. their biggest problem was untimely penalties. while they didnt run the ball very good, they did throw for 333 yards. penalties are easy to clean up. we will need to be at our best to beat them at home. i have faith we will.

That was far from their problem. 333 yards passing doesn't look so good when they only rushed for 13.

 

[VolForLife83]

36 point win over a Virginia team, Cooper Mays was out, and pretty much everyone expected us to win this game single handily.

Milton wasn’t Tom Brady out there but he was mostly efficient throwing the ball.

I’m not seeing the whole “sky is falling” by some of you.

BVS is real and may take another year to subside for most.


There is a lot of hype surrounding Milton this year and there for most of the first half, it looked like it could be the 2021 Milton instead of the orange bowl Milton. I'm willing to bet a majority felt that way for some part of the game yesterday.

Virginia is a pretty bad team and while we humiliated them, and it was the first game, we left a lot of points off the board too.

Verdict is still out for me, but we'll know what we got here in a couple weeks either way.