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Gameday mistakes... sure...

But I still see a VERY weak OL being very weak in that game.  That was the difference.

I thought the playcalling on offense was conservative and scared for the entire game. He didn't help his OL out at all with that crap.

Yeah, the OL remains weak, but as coaches you can do much better than what we saw on the offensive side Saturday.

prevent pressure on Dobbs once OU decided to come at him hard nearly every play, BUT Butch's failure to adjust to OU's adjustments to our offense is inexcusable IMO. I'm not saying fire him by any means, but I don' t know how you can watch them begin to have success and do nothing to counter their adjustments?  :confused:  I think a lot of folks are forgetting that we're really just getting the ship turned and we are still very thin in experience and depth...IMO we're at least 1, probably 2, years away from being where we want to be and that's on Dooley but Butch needs to grow as a coach too.    :patriot:

Yeah, there are two things at play here. Obviously in terms of total team/player development we are getting there-- we looked about even with OU in terms of talent-- but may not be quite there yet. Maybe 2016 is the year.

But there are serious red flags with Butch's in-game coaching and it doesn't make much sense to excuse or deny it IMO. I'm not ready to fire him either, but I have gone from giving him the benefit of the doubt with some of his odd choices to now being in serious need of him showing me something. The good news is there will be several more chances this year for him to do that.

Good coaching maximizes your advantages, and minimizes weaknesses. I haven't seen that.

1) A veteran OL and pathetic rest of team go to Oregon. We play fast instead of milking the clock. We were going to lose badly, but that tactic assured swift destruction.

2) Peterman starts in Gainesville, and plays almost a half.

3) We're still trying to redshirt Dobbs through all this.

4) Worley is busy running read-option stuff.

5) Ferguson wisely realizes his future is on the bench and bolts.

6) Peterman makes his ill-fated 2014 appearances.

7) Jones is bailed out by Worley's injury.

8) We play fast in the 4th quarter against OU.

I'm not quibbling with play calls. Jones has done a brilliant job recruiting, but has mismanaged fundamental elements of sports...a lot...in just two years. I hope he learns, but that's not typically how it works.

Speaking of Peterman, ...........

http://www.knoxnews.com/govolsxtra/football/former-vol-qb-peterman-in-mix-to-start-for-pittsburgh

Pitiful...pitiful...pitiful coaching. Making any excuse otherwise and you have lowered to Vandy fan status.

Right now we have MAC coaches trying to win in BIG BOY football. Until they prove different.....they have failed.

Bottom line for me...I am very happy with the energy Jones has brought to the program. But whatever quibbles I might have above I agree that the pressure is increasing on Jones and that it should be.

you do realize but for the stress fracture he had just before the bama game 2 years ago Feruson plays instead of Dobbs?
It was Ferguson who travelled to Uf for that I'll-fated UF appearance, Dobbs stayed home because he was the one who was red shirting.

Btw, the pace wasn't the issue against Oregon, jancek's defensive scheme was downright weird (family board)

The squad we took to Oregon was so slow, I don't blame anyone for losing. Pace of play was about all we could control, and a power running game may have helped some. Damage mitigation was the best we could hope for.

I thought the same thing, but at the end of the day it didn't matter.  My take was that Jones decided to go ahead and run the base hurry up offense because we needed the practice.  I would have preferred he didn't though.

And speaking of pace of play, what in the cowboy hell were we doing in the 4th quarter with a lead snapping the football with the clock running and 20 seconds left on the play clock? We did that way too many times, and that isn't the QB or players' faults - that is coaching.  Period.  Got to shorten the game at that point. 

200,000 plus UT fans have figured this out.....and the guy making millions to win games can't. That's a big problem VOL fans.

  :clap: :clap: :clap:

lol.  And yet, trying to run the clock out on a big lead is exactly what most people are criticizing Butch for.  Too funny.   :laugh:

As if OU didn't have all three timeouts left at the end of the game.....they easily could have scored that TD with 2 and half minutes left had they actually tried to manage the clock.  Instead, they deliberately wasted time on that drive so we couldn't answer.

How many total offensive plays did we have in the 4th quarter anyway?   Hold on....five.

Didn't make a  difference at all, but whatever makes you feel better.   :naughty:

If you're going to play conservative, you need to do it right. That means milking the clock and making OU use timeouts. Plus, it's doubtful they would have burned them early in the quarter.

Snapping it early showed a huge disconnect. It also allowed them to take the tying drive at their leisure.

Two score lead in the 4th quarter?  Yes, you try to run clock and shorten the game.  That doesn't necessarily mean that you are conservative with the play call.  You just don't snap the ball with 20 seconds left on the play clock.  

That's football coaching 101, Bandit. And don't even try to spin it.    

I would say the concern for a lot of people is that the play calling was conservative, trying not to make a mistake, while the clock management did not match that strategy.  If you are going conservative, you go all-in imo.  That means that when you have possession, you burn as much clock as you can while calling those conservative plays.

There is no way that you know, before the fact, how many plays you will run in the quarter.  If you are being conservative, you hope that you run many plays and burn a ton of clock.  Even if you don't, though, you use all of the time that you can to fit that strategy.

Would it have mattered?  We will never know.  To me, however, the two did not match up and that is a problem.

I am not calling for Butch to be fired!  Far from it.  He has been great for our program in many ways and I look forward to hopefully watching his future success in winning big games for us.  That said, his game time decision-making seems to be a weakness so far in his tenure.

We only had two drives in the 4th quarter not counting the last one-play drive where we (against my desires) ran out the clock.  And the first drive continued from the third quarter.

Of the two, we only had a two TD lead on the first one and it was a continuation from the third quarter. On that drive the clock was stopped on the first play in the fourth quarter, then we ran, and then there was an incomplete pass.  There was only one play to run the clock on, and it was the second play of the 4th quarter.  On the second drive, we managed three offensive plays but were only ahead 7 points at that point.  That is not the time to get conservative and run clock!  There were about 7-8 minutes left.  I don't think you try to stretch the clock there without a few first downs and then only maybe.

There was a lot to criticize the coaches for in this game, but how long we let the clock run or not in the 4th quarter was a complete non-factor in this game.

I was not pissed at Butch until i read the headline "Negativity will not be tolerated in this program". The negativity is all focused on him and he has the cojones to say this. He lost the OU game with his chicken-shizzle coaching. No arguments. He is losing his luster on me. Right now he is a great recruiter and a terrible gameday coach. Anybody want to argue the fact? If he loses to UF, I'm ready for a new coach. I don't care how good of a recruiter he is. Talent is wasted on bad coaching. He needs to beat a good team.

Ask Eli about how running the clock doesn't matter. Besides, not running the clock, the offense did nothing against their adjustments. That is on Jones and staff. Period.

OK - read this slowly. 

It's not the plays you call, it's snapping the football while the clock is running and you still have 20 seconds left on the play clock with the lead in the 4th quarter.

What don't you understand about that?  That's football 101 and it is ALL on the coaches. 

As if an NFL game was relevant in this case.  Yes it mattered with Eli!  What on Earth does that have to do with our game?

And again, the big criticism of Butch is that he didn't have the "balls" to play wide out football.  Which is exactly the opposite of milking the clock.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.  Pick a criticism and stick with it.

I completely understand the concept of milking the clock.  What I am saying is that your argument is reduced to saying there was one play in the 4th quarter where we didn't do this, and for that matter it was in the beginning of the 4th quarter.  If you really want to pretend that mattered you are welcome to your delusion.

You could add in two more plays on our second drive, but then you have to argue that milking the clock up only one TD with 7 minutes left is a good idea. 

What we did with the clock in the 4th quarter was irrelevant.  We needed first downs and scores, not time management.  :nod:

No, it was more than one occasion.  Happened 4 or 5 times late 3rd/4th qtrs. 

Well if you're going to throw the late third quarter in, you have more of a point.  But I still disagree.  Up only 14 against a team like OU, you don't manage the clock starting in the middle of the 3rd quarter, you keep trying to score.  Which is exactly the criticism leveled at Butch...that he didn't do enough of this.  We had a third and very long in the late third quarter...should we have tried a quick kick?  Johnny Majors probably would have.

The classic case of this to me is Auburn 1990.  After consecutive butt kickings at their place in 1986 and 1988 we were leading by 14 in the middle of the third quarter and Johhny went into a shell.  They came back and tied us 26-26 (but it felt like a loss).  Because of that and other numerous examples, I'm a firm believer that with a lead as relatively small as 14 points, you don't start "running the clock" until there are about five minutes left in the game.

If on the other hand you are up 5 TDs, might as well, but then the second string might already be in the game also.

Again, I did't say you go conservative.  I said you have to manage the play clock more efficiently and shorten the game with a lead at that point in the game, and especially having trouble moving the football.

Do you not understand the difference or are you just being an #badword# on purpose?

You can do both, no?

To me, though, it seemed that we went conservative in the play-calling and made no attempt to manage the clock. I can't see how that makes any sense.

When did Ellis drop the sure TD, or the fumble after the interception, or the badly missed field goal? The fourth quarter seemed especially bad because it flipped in the last half of the quarter. It was truly a team loss. It doesn't get any easier either. I still think we'll have a nice possibly very good year.

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I think mosely, or Jones are about ready on OL, and surely McKenzie & Tuttle are close on DL. Kirkland at MLB & Smith outside. Bates? Still so, so young, but talented. O'Brien & McNeil will be back. It ain't over yet :)

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It's idiotic to manage the clock beginning in the middle of the third quarter.  And EVEN IF YOU FREAKING DID, YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT FIVE PLAYS AT MOST!!!

Omg...I guess you majored in communications for  a reason.   :dielaughing:

And I'm not worried about the name calling.  Pot, kettle, etc.   :naughty:

Goodness what a shizzlety thread.

It isn't idiotic to manage the clock if you've gone into an offensive shell. In fact its the only strategy that makes any sense at all in that scenario, imo.  To go conservative in play-calling and continue to run the hurry-up offense, up 14 points, is the idiotic strategy, at least as I see it.

As for the number of plays called, would the conversation between the coaching staff have gone something like this?  "We are only going to be able to run five to eight plays offensively for the remainder of the game, so there is no reason to try to use up the play clock."  There is no way that you know, before the fact, how many plays you will get to run.  You would hope to be able to run many, many more than that - and therefore be able to use a substantial portion of the clock.  

Of course, as my wife says, you could color me dumb and maybe explain my thinking.

I think I've made my opinion on this very clear and it isn't changing, so....

As someone who doesn't post very often (but who lurks almost daily), I understand that it may seem that I am just in this thread to be argumentative.  That is not really my intention - although I do enjoy a good debate and will at times even argue a viewpoint that I don't really believe in order to keep a debate going.

I got involved in this thread because I was sickened by the loss last weekend and feel that a great deal of the reason for the loss was coaching error(s) - a view which is not shared by everyone (and that's OK).  I also believe that this staff has made similar mistakes in previous seasons, and this concerns me. 

How much time was left when Oklahoma scored to tie the game in the 4th? 

What happens if on 3 or 4 of those plays UT doesn't snap the football until there are only a couple of seconds on the play clock instead of 20 to 25?  Worse case is that Oklahoma has to speed up and maybe do something they don't want to do in desperation instead of doing what they were more comfortable in doing. 

It's not rocket surgery, Bandit.  You can't be that stupid. 

 :moon:

Which is exactly how one responds when he has no logical, reasonable, or rational defense of his argument. 

Game, set, match.   :dielaughing:

No here is the readers digest.

Butch has been accused of "playing not to lose", of being too conservative, "playing scared" and his manhood has even been questioned.

Given that, the LAST THING anyone should complain about is that he didn't run the clock enough!

Simple.