Hats off To UAB if they win today they deserve it. They have domininated UT. I bet they are close or over 500 yrd offense on UT. Not to take away anything from UAB but UT seems lost or something.
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Hats off To UAB if they win today they deserve it. They have domininated UT. I bet they are close or over 500 yrd offense on UT. Not to take away anything from UAB but UT seems lost or something.
Poole went out with the injury and they're not the same team. It's been that way all year. If he's in they're much better.
Agreed on that. Poole is a stud. UAB whipped UT in every aspect but the final score. UAB had some good players
the passing yards given up and the sacks allowed has to scare UT.
and Lung, why no Bray yet? Simms has been less than spectacular to say the least.
but Poole is the best offensive player aside from Stocker, him going out really killed their mojo on offense.
They started 3 freshmen on the OL today. That's a big reason for the sacks. I was confused as to what in the hell was going on on defense a lot today. They looked completely lost. They need a major talent upgrade in the secondary and at LB. Art Evans and Anthony Anderson are a joke and should never see the field at a place like UT. Teague I think will be good, but he had a month to learn to play DB after playing WR last year. Gordon will be good, but he's a freshmen and is too agressive sometimes. The DL got plenty of pressure and I thought it was a matter of time till they knocked the qb out of the game. They beat him to death and he'd throw lolipops up and the DB's would sit there and watch the ball land in the receivers arms not making a play until the the receiver touched the ball.
They put Bray in against UTM and he struggled badly. He'll be fine but Simms is just better now. Simms wasn't bad today I thought. He doesn't have any kind of touch on his passes and needs to take a few 100 miles off some of them, but I thought he played decent today. Rogers dropped a couple easy ones, Moore dropped a sure TD, Hunter dropped a first down, Stocker had a TD go off his fingertips (it would have been a hell of a catch). Simms isn't going to do a lot to win games, he just needs to manage games. He's a stop gap till next year I think.
i think the depth of UTs defense is what is keeping teams in the game.
Gordon played excellent vs. UF last week, he is very young but really talented.
once teague gets more comfortable and gets his groove he will be the best DB UT has, he has all kinds of talent.
the DBs looked really bad today tho, its not like UAB has andre johnson and greg jennings on the outside at wr but they were still able to consistently complete passes and racked up 400(? it was close) passing yards.
UTs LBs were not great today either, they let way too many underneath passes and open guys go unchecked. out of position a lot too, that surprised me a lot.
Evans was bad today, really bad. I doubt he starts next week.
He will. I don't know how, but he will. The last couple of years have been the weakest (talent wise) that I've ever seen UT's LB corp and I've been watching them since the early 80's. No talent. Reveiz plays his ass off, he's just not fast, not athletic. The same could be said for Thompson. They're both 5'8"-5'10" guys. I don't think Frazier is bad, it'll just take him a while to recoup from the shredded knee. Hopefully, Askew can finally have the light come on and be a player next year. If AJ Johnson sticks as a commit, he's a starter from day 1.
U.T.'s defense is on the field just entirely too long and that wears them down. Although, I did like what I saw in them. They are young and talented, now if they can just get the offense to get some kind of rhythm, they will get better. Give Dooley time and he will turh that team around. Remember, most of these players are Fulmer/Kiffen recruits. Give Dooley's recruits time to come into the picture.
UT is probably on the phone with AJ right now Lung, if he chooses UT he will start I agree.
Revis plays really hard and with passion, but the physical tools are not there. He is very small and just cannot make all the plays a SEC team needs their best LB to make.
UT used to eb LBU as well in the 90s, its weird to see a UT team with their biggest weakness the back 7.
The only crap kicking I saw was UAB's kicker. UT still won at least they were not playing JMU or Jacksonvillie St.
Evans didn't even play against UAB. He was hurt. Jackson, Wagner, and Teague all played over 90 snaps. Gordon would have but he was terrible and they put Anthony Anderson in for him but he was even worse. But.....
The problem with the defense is the front 4. We can't get any type of pressure on anyone. It has been that way all year. We did hit Ellis several times against UAB but if you really watched it was on delayed blitzes and he still had time to complete the passes. For Christ sake we played Greg Ayers last week at DT. (I think that is his name). He was on the scout team the week before. We played J. Smith and Corey Miller at DT this week along with Thomas and Hughes. But still couldn't really disrupt anything.
I haven't been impressed at all with Wilcox. We are terrible on 3rd down. And that is when you have to mix up what you are doing and be creative. We haven't stopped anyone on 3rd down.
All that said. It basically comes down to we just don't have much talent or depth. We have like 65 kids right now. This is going to take time. And it is going to take longer than a couple of years. If we miss on some kids evaluations in the next few classes. This could take a decade. The future doesn't look to bright right now. The recruiting better pick up and we can't miss on all these 3 star kids evaluations or we are going to continue to see the same.
UT put out a dvd a few years ago called decade of dominance. I think we are staring at maybe decade of insignificance, the desire is there but the talent is so lacking it may be ten years before we can compete with UF and Alabama again. The only thing that keeps it from being a bigger story is the downhill slide of Georgia, which is mind blowing considering their talent. 7 or 8 wins maybe the norm for a long time in Knoxville, hope I am wrong but unless every 5 star player wants to come help it may be awhile for a better day to come
Is Evans not #36? I thought that was him.
Its the depth that kills UT, esp on defense. I said that earlier. They play great for a half, then the guys just do not have the quality depth to keep players fresh.
UT has a great tradition of winning and bringing in good players. I dont see all the gloom and doom just yet.
Remember, in 2007 Alabama was 7-6 and lost to ULM. All it takes is a good coach to turn the ship around, and I really like CDD. He will run the team the right way, and will eventually be back to the top of the East. UGA is in worse shape than UT right now IMO. UGA prob has the better team this year, but they are on a serious slide, whereas UT is on the way up. Yall can even steal all of UGA's big recruits, except one.
Stay the hell away from Isiah Crowell!! lol
Evans is 25. I assumed you were talking about Anderson when you said that. Evan's is just awful though. He can tackle, but can't cover for ****. When he commited to UT I was really excited because he looked great. He came from Florida and was making kids look stupid on film. I found out months later he played for a Christian school and mainly against other Christian schools.
I wont disagree with you there Biggin. I have been saying the same thing ( other than Crowell). No Evans is 25. 36 is Anderson. TN has to get its cupboard restocked. Its as empty as its ever been. Honestly, Saban walked into a much better situation than Dooley did from a depth/talent perspective. It definitely will not hurt UT that UGA is struggling when it comes to trying to raid the state of GA. That will help come NSD.
Dooley isn't Saban. I like Dooley. I like the way he is going about this. But the fact is there are not many Saban's out there. Bama was lucky to get the guy. If they hadn't they could very well still be in a funk. But the truth is even if Saban would have taken this job. I don't think we would be in much better shape right now.
If you listened to Dooley's press conference yesterday. Out of the 60 or so that will travel to LSU only about 30 had ever been on a road trip at UT. That says it all. I mean we are in a place that is somewhere we have never been in my lifetime. And honestly this conference isn't set up very well for teams that are rebuilding. I mean we eat our young in this leauge. It is going to be a very tough job.
I think Saban had a 10# ranked class in his first year then followed with two back to back #1 classes. That is why Bama is where they are. I think we had a great class last year and I think this class so far is a little weak. That worries me. You have to be in the Top 5 if you are going to compete for championships in this leauge. I do think this class will be very heavy on linemen which sometimes hurts your rankings. But We can't miss on many kids. If we do this could take awhile.
Evans isn't that bad. Besides Wagner he is probably our best DB. Which is sad. I admit that. But Jackson hasn't played well at all. Gordon can't even get lined up right and has bust after bust. Teauge is starting to come on but he has struggled as well. He is still learning and can't play up on a reciever at all. We are hurting everywhere.....
Please don't get me confused with trying to compare Dooley to Saban. I am just saying Bama was in much better shape overall when Nick took over versus what Dooley inherited. What you mentioned above is evidence of that. I did watch yesterdays presser and it is amazing that UT is goign to take 65-68 kids and almost half have never made a road trip before with UT. This going into Death Valley one of the toughest places to play in America. Its a tall order. I just hope patience is given to Dooley, especially if Hamilton is replaced in the near future. I dont want the program jerked around anymore.
what i was saying is that at a tradition rich school with the right coach in place, success will come with time. and i believe CDD is a good coach, that he will turn the ship in the right direction.
and what is the deat with J. Jackson? I expected him to be UTs best player by far and be All-SEC caliber but he has been less than stellar so far.
He got roasted by the coaches after the Oregon game. Graded out a 95 against UF. Did nothing against UAB. I think it's just a consistency thing.
Jackson is the most talented player back there. I really don't understand it. Maybe it was more to do with the tempo or the spread offense they ran. I know UF ran alot of Pro style stuff with Brantley. Oregon and UAB both ran more of a true spread. Oregon had more talent but honestly we slowed them down more than we did UAB.
Hopefully we can be competitive this week. I think we will play better. I think the offense is going to have alot of problems moving the ball on that defense. But I think the defense will play better. We will see...... At least we get Jones back... Maybe that will help on 3rd down.... Who knows....