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back in Knoxville according to VQ.   :biggrin:

Huge

If he does, in fact, join the team, he will have a position coach this year that knows what he is doing, just fewer big macs

That's a big win.

Nice!

Been a lot of mixed info out there as to why he's back in Knoxville other than rejoining the team....Who knows. Guess we'll see if he shows up at Spring practice.

Ready for his drama to be over with one way or another....it's been going on since back in Jan.

As of this morning he was still in the portal
He has to remove himself from the portal to rejoin the team
Also, more recent reports indicate less confidence of him actually rejoining the team

At this point my view is to issue a doorknob warning and be done with it

My guy says to cut him loose. My heart wishes we could have him on the field this fall.

Having coached for years, I know that sometimes situations like this can be far more detrimental to a team than a particular player is worth. He hasn’t been doing conditioning and team building with this group - he’s been in California doing who knows what. I just think there is a decent chance that the team could likely be better off without him and the drama.

Absolutely you tell him adios unless he removes himself from the portal. Do not allow him to practice or work out with the squad until he’s out of the portal.

Just my $0.02 worth.

Yep....And crap or get off the pot.

Why you guys always assume everyone knows the numbers is beyond me.  :laugh:

But I am pretty sure this is Tu'o.  If so, I want him back.  No need to be butt hurt just because he considered his options. After the debacle of last season, I don't blame him at all.

Go have a conversation wit his dad
He has CHOSEN to not join "his" team in winter workouts
He refuses to leave the portal

The end result is we chose not to support his "return"

Well if he's avoiding winter workouts, that's not good.

Then again, he is talented enough he doesn't need them.  Besides which, I have heard he has a great work ethic. I doubt he's just taking time off?  Would be to his determent if he did, I can't imagine he is.

Given the state of our team, I will be glad to have him back.

Honestly, I don't have the time to follow all these details in order to get butt hurt about them.   :naughty:

I'll just be happy to see him in orange this fall. And if not, good luck to him!  He made a lot of plays for us while he was here (but does kind of suck at coverage).

I can't speak for anyone else, but I am definitely not butt hurt.  What I do have experience with is sports teams where some players are allowed to skip out on activities that are required by other players.  This is almost never a good recipe for a "team".

Nobody is talented enough to just skip workouts.  That's one way for a coach to breed absolute dissention on any team.  In addition to workouts, the coaching staff has been having team building activities (according to what I'm reading).  He hasn't been a part of any of those.

I tell my kids: Life is one choice after another until you die.  Making the choices is the easy part - living with the consequences of bad choices is sometimes very difficult.

Henry has made choices.  Tennessee's coaching staff will have to make some choices if he decides that he wants back on the team.

However it ends up, I want what's best for Tennessee's football program and Henry.  We have to trust Heupel to make decisions that ensure that both sides benefit to the highest level possible (and Coach Heupel's ultimate responsibility is the team).

He also regressed hugely last year, to the point he was a liability in pass coverage and Crouch was out playing him and it wasn't close

110% correct....You can't have a player decide he'll do what he want's but all the others have to follow the 'Team' rules'.....What would happen if 90% of the team decided to just take the Winter workouts and team building events off and say I'll just show up when I'm ready...BS! Might understand it if it's a few days....a week but he's been gone since early Jan. He's not that good nor is he above The Team. And as Pirate posted he regressed last season...he can be easily replaced.

I spent 34 years in the game of football....And as a new coach like Heupel and his staff trying to get his players to 'Buy in'...the best way to destroy that is to give a player treatment you don't afford the rest of the team. Unless there is something that was agreed on....I hope he's gone.

Agree that skipping workouts is not good for the team.  Already said that.

Agree that talent doesn't justify skipping workouts.

ALSO SAID that he likely is still working out. If he isn't, that's on him.

So in short, not being a good team player, I agree, but I think the part about missing workouts and getting out of shape is much less of a concern for me.

IN YOUR OPINION he regressed.

He was in fact the teams leading tackler with 76.  He had 47 solo tackles.  Crouch had 30.

It isn't even close!

You do this all the time Pirate.  You start disliking a player for some reason, and then in your head that player is playing poorly.

Actual evidence however, says you are incorrect.

Show me a statistic where he improved.
Missed tackles, far higher
Passes defended far, far worse,
Flat out of position like he had no clue, far higher
Setting the defense in the wrong set, far too often
Other than those he had a great year

I bring receipts, you bring uninformed opinion

Given what the LB position looks like I hope he makes amends and returns to the team, if the team agrees. What he may see that if he wants to play in the SEC the easiest path to do that is to stay in Knoxville. Going to another SEC school means waiting for the NCAA and the SEC to approve the transfer which could take months. What his dad may be doing is reaching out to non-SEC schools for other options.

If he does, he needs to find a different weight zone - he was too light last year, lost his impact ability at the point of tackle.
I wish I could do cuts to show the (night and day) difference in him filling the hole as a FR and last year
Pruitt seemed all about speed behind the lines
I suspect the new weight scheme would be more in tune with his needs but who knows. 

Looks more and more like Henry T is formally left the building

Oh well. Hopefully things work out for him.

His stuff of Rodriguez on 3rd down was a thing of beauty.

PS - That stand was probably the high water mark for me with Pruitt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW29CRHL600

this

Those are all subjective OPINIONS based on you watching the game.  There are no official statistics for "missed tackles", "flat out of position" and certainly not "setting the defense on the wrong foot" (how can you possibly even pretend to know this?).  Even "passes not defended" is not a stat anyone tracks, at least not with publicly available information.  You can find that stat for NFL players sometimes, but typically only for DBs.  Who knows, it might be out there, but I couldn't find it. I agree this is a weak point for Henry as it is for many LBs, but he was just as bad at it last year.

Every single thing you state is just a subjective opinion.

Its easy to make a star player the whipping boy when the team is not playing well. Apparently you don't realize this is what you are doing.

His total tackles went from 72 to 79.  His solo tackles went from 33 to 47.  His sacks went from 0.5 to 1.  His int's went from 0 to 1 (which incidentally was only 3 less than the entire DB corps, sadly).

No other non-DB had an int.

He improved in every category and was the team's leading tackler by 13 tackles.  

What are those "receipts" written on?  Ganja smoke?   :laugh:

https://utsports.com/sports/football/roster

You know who doesn't care about any of this....UGa, UF and Bama. Heupel doesn't need these type of headaches when trying to get a roster together. We need all the help we can get on D. But if he was serious about transferring, then he doesn't really want to be here. Hope he does well whatever he does.

Glad Alontae is coming back.  Might be our best guy on D overall at this point. Definitely the best CB (assuming he isn't moved to safety).

Agreed

Bandit

Sorry I must disagree with you.  I watched last year and noticed the Henry was out of position on many of the "slant routes" where the LB is that 'secondary coverage' person that hits the receiver if the CB/Safety whiffs on the tackle or is actually involved in the coverage.  Was this Henry's fault or was this something in the coverage scheme.  I was frankly very "unnerved" that he Pruitt moved the TE Coach over to coach LBs last year.  The regression of the unit as a whole was in Stark contrast to the previous year.  This was a very bad decision to move Neids to the LB coaching arena in my estimation due to chronic failures in many ways at the position (and not just by Henry).   Overall I would have to give the LB corp a D or a low C- last year for their continued missed tackles, missed opportunities and general lack of 'being in the right place at the right time'....I would bet Al Wilson would tell you the same thing because you could tell when he was interviewed a couple of times he seemed to be not commenting on LB play with the team. 

Why would Pruitt put Neidermeyer as a linebacker coach when he had never coached that position before?

Back in the early fall I read a suggestion on the changes that Pruitt made to his defensive coaching staff last year.  I can't remember where I read it (perhaps it was here, but more likely was a web site or on Volquest).  It was a pretty detailed hypothetical and made some sense to me at the time.

The short version of that suggestion is that Pruitt likely thought that he could coach both the linebackers and the new linebacker coach during spring and summer workouts to get them ready for the season.  As we now know, there were no workouts and both the players and the new LB coach (especially the LB coach) were lost when the season started.

Of course I have no idea whether this was indeed Pruitt's thinking, but it is at least feasible.

One of the great mysteries of UT football.....Why did he have more coaches on offense than defense and as you said put Neids on defense who had never coached defense and put another one over on defense that had 1 year prior experience on defense and that was at Akron.

The point of discussion was not whether he could cover last year. He was awful at it.  The discussion was that Pirate said he REGRESSED.  He didn't.   He sucked at coverage in 2019 and he sucked again last year. 

Yes the entire D played worse last year, but that was a team effort.  As I point out, if you go by actual statistics, Henry played better. 

Just another indication that Pruitt was in over his head as HC

BTW, after a cup of coffee, Henry T returned to the land of fruits and nuts

Hope the coffee wasn't on UT's dime. Hope he's gone for good now. 3 months of drama is enough. If I'd been Heupel when hired I've given him 1 weeks to decide then decided for him.

Don't understand what all of the Gnashing of teeth about him is. 

Did anybody actually watch him play last year?  Decent player, yes, but not the superstar that some are making him out to be.  He's too small to play ILB and not fast enough to play OLB or SS. 

He was back in Knoxville to satisfy requirements of a class he needed and to collect his stuff. 

I have laughed at the talk of his transferring to Bama.  With his having SEC tape now, if Saban were going to offer him he would be at Bama.  Bottom line, he's just not all that.  Time for UT to move on from him and Crouch both. 

I have a feeling he'll end up somewhere on the west coast, Oregon, Cal, or UCLA. 

You'll note that the bamer talk got real quiet, real quick
I think his dad got an "awakening" from Saben

The more recent O'cryo state "interest" died quickly as well

I tend to agree with your synopsis

I think the gnashing of teeth is because he is the best we had--when the sad thing is, he is the best we had.  I agree that he needs to gain about 20-25 pounds of muscle to play inside, and cannot play outside with his lack of speed.  He has starter talent at middle of the road schools, but not elite talent by any measure. 

Based on info out there he is visiting Ohio State this weekend.

Agree that he is not no. 1 draft potential, and maybe not draftable at all.  Having said that, he doesn't just flat suck either.  I'd say he would start at a majority of SEC schools, not just UT.  Probably not at bammer and maybe not at LSU or Uga, but pretty much anywhere else.  IMO.

But if you are meaning to imply that UT is middle of the road, sadly that is true. In fact, if anything it's an overstatement.   :banghead:

His chance to continue playing in the SEC is slim at the very best. His "leadership" is looking for non-SEC options after causing him to miss out on winter conditioning and spring practice with any school.  :dunno: