VTTW Board Index

It has been 2 steps forward and 3 steps back for so long now it is just unreal. We finally get one of these 6' 5" top shelf wr's like everyone has had in the conference here lately and ours gets hurt.  :banghead:  We all suspected that any chance we had at an 8-4 season was going to rest with our offense. Now that has been taken away from us.

I think we will see uf lose 3-4 games this year. Outside of rainey and demps they dont have much on offense but they matched up against our biggest weakness (of course). I just don't think we are very good defensively but that is no big surprise, we just dont have the players right now.

No choice but to just roll with it and keep recruiting. Players are coming and it isn't Dooley's fault, but my problem is and many I think are just tired of waiting. We have been waiting for years now for us to get well. Yesterday was a dose of reality of just how bad our roster had been gutted before Dooley came in. We all pointed toward 2012 as the year we would make a comeback but I don't know if that is doable now. Again we will likely be better and the offense will be better still or should be, but what about the defense? We will still be woefully thin with talent and experience if not numbers on the dl and at lb.

For  a program like UT this has been and will continue to be for a couple more years at least a rebuilding job of epic proportions. We are trending up but we still have a long long way to go.

I like Dooley I think he's a good guy but I saw the same problems yesterday that UT was having in Fulmers last yr and during the Kiffin mess and last yr and still lingering and it doesnt seem to be addressed after all this time...I think he will correct them,maybe with another good recruiting class,maybe just lack of quality players especially in the kicking game but here's the list you decide...    
1.They still cant run the ball
2.They still cant kick the ball passed the damn 10 yrd line on a kick off,let alone put it in the end zone for a touch bk
3.They still cant return a punt or a kickoff more than 5 yrds,special teams looks more like special olympics
4.They still cant protect the qb
5.They still cant tackle or wrap up..trying to knock a player down instead of wrapping them up
6.Way too many penalties,stupid lack of disappline penalties...how many face masks did they have and personal fouls?

The day the bad luck stops is the day when the dropoff from our 1st team guys to the 2nd team guys isn't like falling from a plane at 35,000 feet to the floor of the Grand Canyon.

CW

I might have been watching a different game, but I don't share the pessimism that we are completely fizzleed just because Justin Hunter got hurt.  Is it a huge blow?  Yes, absolutely.  Can we recover from it?  Hell, we already did, to a large extent!  You do realize that Arnett caught  or 8 passes Saturday, right.   And that we scored all three of our TDs after Justin was injured?

I do agree we could or should have thrown to the RBs more, but even then they caught three total including a TOUCHDOWN by Lane!

We had many problems, but adjusting to the loss of Hunter with our passing offense was just not one of them.  Do not agree.

I don't think Hunter's injury is as costly as UT fans are making it out to be. I really hate it for him, but I don't think UT is doomed...not because of the injury, anyway. We might be doomed because of our lack of a running game. 8-4 would still be obtainable without Hunter in the lineup. With the running game we've seen so far, it won't be.

That's pretty much how I feel.  Our passing game is not nearly as strong without Hunter, but it seems to have done well enough.  The lack of a running game and inconsistency of our D are much bigger factors IMO.

Hunter's loss completely changed our offense.  With him out, UF was able to roll a safety over the top on Roger's side, and effectively remove him from the equation.  And when he did beat them, they just held him and took the 15 yard penalty rather than getting beat deep.  That's going to be life without Hunter this year-, our passing game is now reduced to the dink and dunk variety, rather than being a home run threat on every play.  It's a credit to Bray that he was still able to accumulate those kind of numbers, but make no mistake- he just lost his silver bullet. Yes, the running game is weak, but we knew that coming in.  The lack of a dangerous passing game is only going to weaken it further. 

I'm with BDV, the high flying, big play ability of our offense is gone.  Sure, we're still not awful on offense but teams will now take Rogers out of the equation and we'll have to chip our way downfield.  And without a running game, it's going to be very difficult to do even that against SECOND defenses.  I think we're in big trouble and I don't feel good about this season at all.  Hope I'm wrong.

Hm, well the staff is just going to have to adjust.  Brees never had a single reciever he depended on at Purdue, the ball went all over the field.  Losing a deep threat big play receiver like Hunter hurts.  He did have a lethal combination of speed and size.  We are just going to have to find another burner of the remaining recievers.  But I have every confidence that we will still be able to throw the ball very well, and I want to see how our running game does when we don't immediately fall behind 2-3 scores.

One other thing...I may be in a minority, but I am confident that Hunter can come back next season.  So we have that going for us.

I'll be happy with an 8-4 record for 2011 and I think Tennessee will improve even more in 2012 say 9-3 or 10-2. Things will get better as our talent level gets deeper.