VTTW Board Index

Most important...Trey Smith is healthy.  1/5th of an All America line  :thumbup:

Also a big deal...Chance Hall is back, and we can hope he returns to his early form which flashed a lot of potential early.

Drew Richmond also was highly rated coming out of HS, and seems to have played well at times.

Next, we got a few transfers....they can't all be busts, can they?  One has played in the 2-deep at bammer.  That HAS to be good.

Finally and also critical...can they stay healthy?  This was a bigger deal last year than many realize.  We were simply devastated.  Even given the Butch Jones era tendency to get injured, last year's OL was special, to say the least. We barely had five healthy OL for Mizzou  :banghead:

You give me a healthy Trey Smith, Chance Hall and Drew Richmond, and a good OL coach, and I'm confident that this line can eventually be really good. I just wonder how long it will take them to mesh and gel. I worry our OL play may continue to be subpar for at least the first half of the season.

Agree.  It probably will take them awhile to gel, but we may be pleasantly surprised.  I read that WVU's DL is light compared to our starting OL, and their run D suxed last year with only 5 starters coming back on D.  Looking forward to see if we can run on them. 

Of the three you mentioned:
Trey Smith = huge upgrade at LT
Drew Richmond - not sold at all that he will perform at a SEC level, even at RT - expect Tatum to be there by the time we get to SEC play
Chance Hall, I don't think we will see appreciable time on the field till October and I hope he is close to where he was a FR, which was darn good.
I think the bammer grad Xfer is an upgrade at Center
Also, no matter who ends up at the Guard positions will be an upgrade over last year.  
SEC level?  Probably not but could be coming off the open date.
Notwithstanding how good WV is or is not on their front 7 we have three games to get our act together before UF comes to town.  We need the OL to gel, reach an end state on personnel by then

This is Tennessee football. NEVER ask if things can get worse. Because the answer is always an emphatic YES, no matter what position you're talking about.

I would remind you that this time last year we were saying the defense couldn't get any worse, and Bob Shoop subsequently told us to hold his beer.

False statement - Shoop had no device/defence that could hold a beer
Our defence was so bad matadors were coming from the world over learning how to "Ole" Tennessee style ... :eek:

You need to stay in America. You're falling victim to those British tendencies of putting Cs where the Good Lord intended Ss to be. Soon you'll be spending your Saturdays on a "pitch" instead of a gridiron and yelling GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL like the rest of those communists.  :laugh:

Sorry, typing on a foreign computer that will not allow me to change to a US keyboard/dictionary - for example, the @ & " are switched. the shift 3 is the pound sine and the # & ~ are in a wierd place next to the return key.  Where the ~ key should be is ` & ¬ keys
I bought a laptop for home and was able to remap the keyboard to US as well as using US dictionaries.  Here in the office, not so much

Hope coaching will make a big difference. Unfortunately, good coaching can't overcome a lack of depth. Especially when it comes to SEC OL's and DL's.

 :dielaughing:

Yeah.  More of your superstitious clap trap.  I'm going to go ahead and say the OL will improve.   :dance:

Hard to sink lower than 0-8 in the SEC.  :frown: :hurl:

BDV has a point. We thought last November that 0-8 was as bad as it could get. That's when most fans were looking forward to hiring someone like Scott Frost or Jeff Brohm or (lol) Jon Gruden. Then Currie goes and tries to hire Greg Schiano.

We thought 0-8 was as bad as it could get, and we were looking forward to a new season to get that taste out of our mouth, and then the iconic Voice of the Vols died.

It can always get worse. Would any of us be surprised to wake up tomorrow morning to news that Neyland Stadium is on fire?

O.M.G.  You guys.   Don't break any mirrors or walk in front of black cats, or whatever other superstitions y'all practice.  We will be better this year.  Period, dot.

I'm not afraid to say it.  Don't believe in that mystical curse/luck/fate BS.   We will be much better this year, and you can take that to the bank.   :dude:

Gotta say I agree... to much battered Vol syndrome going on in this thread.

After nearly two decades of hard evidence, at what point does it stop being "superstition"?

I said back in November that I would remain skeptical of Pruitt until he gives me reason not to. And no amount of good staff hires or 5* recruits was going to convince me- I have to see on-field results. Many of you who agreed with me then seem to have been orange-pilled now. I don't blame you- it's that time of the year, everyone's undefeated, and hope springs eternal. But I refuse to set myself up for disappointment again.

The difference is we have a real coach. He's coached at every level and been successful at every level. He's coached on championship teams....he's just not been a head coach. I'm confident he's the right guy and the reason we've had "bad luck" is because we had bad coaches. We're gonna be fine BDV.....trust me.  :-)        :powert:         :patriot:

No negative waves.

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmm.

(http://home.mindspring.com/~wbalford/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/stud-fbtime.jpg)

Holy hell, this singular post has fired me up for the season! Stud Squirrel returns!

It also makes me sad too, I miss the old regs. Tango, Guido, Holler, Bayvol, Allvol, Pops just to name a few

Granted it could go bad quickly.... But THIS is certainly different than years past.

@Volquest_Rivals:
Vols will bring full roster to Charlotte. No players unavailable.

I wondered at the end of the year if some of the "injuries" weren't really mild, and players were so disgusted with the season they just didn't want to practice or play anymore.  Or at any rate, they weren't motivated to try and "play through the pain" of minor nagging injuries.   :frown:

But forget last season.  This IS very good news.   :thumbup:

First time in at least three seasons without a preseason injury, let alone have a key player go down.   :clap:

Two decades?  Two decades ago we were defending national champs and we were a perenial top ten program through 2004. 

I think you are greatly exagerating the optimism, at least coming from me.  My expecations are still that 6-6 is a slight overacheivment, though I may be a shade more optimistic about that this week.   

All I am saying is that I expect the product on the field Saturday to show instant improvement, and that I am confident we don't go 4-8 again.   That's not blind optimisim at all.  I still think if we barely make a bowl it's a great first season for Pruitt.  I will of course expect more...lots more....next season.

NEARLY two decades. Specifically, the 2001 SECCG.

One more thing, and then I'll stop raining on the parade. If you had polled Big Orange Nation in midseason last year on the prospect of Pruitt as our next coach, I dare say it would have been nearly unanimous disapproval. People seem to forget that we only ended up with him because our admin completely fouled up the search, and we whiffed on approximately 297 other guys. Pruitt's been a successful assistant, I know, but from the time it became evident that Butch was a dead man walking, we expected to finally get it right with his replacement. And by "get it right", I mean hiring a someone with P5/NFL head coaching experience. I can probably search the VTTW archives and find where most of you said as much. Unfortunately, we greatly overestimated our leadership's ability to conduct a simple search, and here we are.

That's not to say that Pruitt can't be successful. I like the staff he's hired. I'm less enthused with his first recruiting class, but this current one's looking better. But for anyone to say right now that they KNOW he'll win here- sorry, but that's just the orange koolaid talking.

Okay, I'm done with the negativity for now. Go Vols. :powert:

Maybe I missed it, but I haven't seen anyone say they know Pruitt is the guy.  Just that based on spring and fall practice and everything in between and since Fulmer was named AD, I expect it to be better than Butch.  Not really a stretch honestly... and even though I was in full blown dream coach mode as you refer to last year I don't think my optimism of it being better contradicts that either.   :dunno:

I expected us to be able to attract a proven winner -- a guy we knew would step in and win, no questions asked. This time last year, I would've been disgusted if you'd told me Jeremy Pruitt was going to be the head coach in 2018. But by the time we actually got around to hiring Pruitt, I didn't give a flip one way or the other. I had completely checked out. Our administration completely bungled it. From Currie to Bev, they wrote the book on how NOT to conduct a coaching search.

Early on, I said I was doubtful Pruitt is ready to be the head coach at a major college program. I'm still not sure he is. But I like most of what I've seen and heard from him. He's going to have to show me he can win before I'm really buying in, but so far I haven't really disagreed with any of his approaches. That's another reason why I'm cautiously optimistic about this season.

This is exactly my point.  Whatever Pruitt's ceiling or long term prospects, he is going to be a better Xs and Os and player prep guy than Jones.  Jones in game coaching ability was IMO by far his biggest weakness.  I don't see that happening with Pruitt, he often made good defensive adjustments on the fly as a DC and has a much better gut feel for the game than Jones. And though I think it's exagerated by some, Jones was at best an average developer of talent and Pruitt will be better IMO. (some say Jones was the worst ever at player development...I disagree, and so do Cam Sutton, Dobbs, and Derek Barnett among others...plenty of UT players were not busts under Jones).

But yes absolutely Pruitt as a football coach, setting aside recruiting and program management, will be a step up from Butch and that will help us.

And so far, though his recruiting is not setting the world on fire, it seems on par with Jones' last couple years, and may well improve.

Since I brought up recruiting, Rivals has us at #8, basically tied with Auburn and LSU.   Of course, Uga, bammer and Tamu are all in the first three slots, but 8 is a big improvement over the last couple of years.
 :thumbup:

https://n.rivals.com/team_rankings/2019/all-teams/football

And yeah, I know it's going to change multiple times between now and December and February, but as of today it's heading in the right direction.   :nod: