Two Views Reviewed – Week 12

November 22, 2011 No comments

Alabama’s win was less triumphant, so we’ll save the best for last.

Georgia Southern vs. Alabama

What Steve said:

This game presents a dilemma for Coach Saban.  Blake Sims is the fourth string running back, so he’s in line to get a lot of carries, but he’s also effectively the third string quarterback (assuming Phillip Ely redshirts as expected).  The Eagles shotgun spread option offense will serve as the scout team in preparation for Gus Malzahn’s Auburn Tigers next week.  Score: Alabama 55 – 3

What Mike said:

Auburn pre-game week starts early. Not much to say here other than Alabama 42-0

What actually happened:  

Ummm….very little good.  Who would have thought that facing a triple option team without your top three defensive tackles would be a problem?  The Eagles managed to capitalize on an inexperienced true freshman who had not taken the field outside of garbage time and slipped up the middle repeatedly for big gains, including an 82 yard touchdown.  The offense actually did fine, never punting on the day and with Trent Richardson topping 170 yards for the third time this season, with three TDs.  Richardson not only leads the SEC in scoring, but he’s 30 points ahead of the next closest player, the only non-kicker in the top five, and has scored more than double the points of the next closest non-kicker (132 to 62).  Let that sink in for a minute.  Keep in mind, he’s done this while facing four top 35 rushing defenses this season, more than any other player in the country, and with every team loading the box to stop him.  But that distracts from this game not being what it should have been, an utter blowout.  GSU was never closer than two scores, but the Tide didn’t really pull away until the third quarter either.  That triple option is a killer.  The Tide won 45-21.

continue reading…

Uncategorized none

Vanderbilt: The Good The Bad and The Ugly

November 21, 2011 4 comments

The Tennessee Volunteers got off the SEC schnide Saturday with a 27-21 overtime victory over in-state “rival” Vanderbilt. It was full of good, bad and ugly things.

The Good

Tennessee ran the ball with effectiveness! It was amazing, and the first time all year this has happened. (Frankly I didn’t think we’d see this until 2012).  Tauren Poole had 19 carries for 107 yards and a touchdown. That’s a solid 5.6 yards per carry.  Rajion Neal also had 6 carries for 29 yards at a respectable 4.8  yards per carry. A shout out also goes to Dallas Thomas, Marcus Jackson, Alex Bullard, Zach Fulton, and Juwuan James for finally allowing Poole and Neal to spring free.

Tyler Bray’s presence. The Vols played with a rediscovered swagger with Bray in the huddle. He wasn’t his best, but he was the spark UT needed.

continue reading…

Uncategorized

An Emotional Rollercoaster!

November 19, 2011 10 comments

The highest of football highs, the lowest of football lows, irrational confidence, irrational non-confidence (if that’s even a word). I experienced it all. Thank you Eric Gordon, for ending that ride on a positive note.

Uncategorized

Vanderbilt

November 18, 2011 6 comments

Lots of folks are saying that this is the defining game of Tennessee’s season. I can see that argument. The Vols now need this win to stay in the hunt for a bowl, and extra practices are surely a luxury that this young team can use. What I don’t know is this: How good is Vanderbilt?

Jordan Rodgers leads one of the more talented Vanderbilt teams in recent years.

They’re 2-5 in the SEC, with wins over Ole Miss and Kentucky. Those teams have a combined 1 SEC win, and that came when Kentucky beat Ole Miss. Tennessee has played none of those teams. Vanderbilt has played most of the common opponents better than Tennessee has, so that is definitely a strike against Tennessee.  But, depending on whose chart you want to believe Tennessee has played one of the hardest schedules in the country.  And it has done so with injuries to key people. The pain of getting LSU and Bama back to back, bookended by Georgia and South Carolina is brutal. It’s difficult to measure the physical and mental toll that takes on a team, especially a young one.  So, is Vanderbilt really better than Tennessee? I don’t know. I don’t THINK so. What say you?

Uncategorized

La La Land

November 16, 2011 1 comment

Today we get Dooleyisms part 2: You have to at least watch through the 8 minute mark. You will not be disappointed.

Uncategorized ,

The Orange Dog, Red Shirts and Austin Johnson

November 15, 2011 4 comments

Yesterday I struggled with finding positives in the Arkansas game. I still don’t think there are a lot of positives from that particular game. But, I am an orange homer, and all I needed to get my mind right, was a good dose of Dooleyisms. This week did not disappoint.

On Tyler Bray:

I guess the question this week is going to be Tyler (Bray) and he has been cleared to go ahead and start practicing, which is right on schedule with what we expected. I would probably list him if I had to say a word as questionable. I really won’t know until we start practicing to see how he can take a snap, how accurately he can throw it. He’s going to have a little learning curve coming back because he has been out of ball. What has it been, five, six weeks? Which is a little bit of time. We will see. We still have to get the other guys ready to play and we will just kind of take it day by day… I’ll watch him. We’ll put him in some plays. It’s just a little premature for me to say he’s going to take all the one reps. We are just going to see what he can do in individual, see how we go, throw some seven-on-seven and then take it from there.

Bray not be very good this week, I have to keep reminding myself this. But it still feels like an early Thanksgiving present.

Here's hoping that this is a pain free, explosive experience for Tennessee this week.

On not watching the Arkansas film:

It didn’t look like us in so many respects and we’ve been coaching much of the same stuff for 10 weeks now. I just felt like it was better that we closed the door on that game, regrouped and got our thoughts right going into this week. They watched it on their own if they wanted to; I’m sure they did. They all had their grade sheets. There was no sense in going and beating on them another two hours because they got beat on pretty good.

Well said. So much of coaching is knowing when to harp on things, and when to just let it go, and move on.

On the Orange Dog:

Who said that? Did they say that publically or off the record to you? The whole deal is you have a choice when you wake up on what you are going to feed your mind. You really have a choice; we all do. We get so emotionally invested in results in our country that it can really just sabotage your thinking, sabotage your performance, and it has our team. I don’t think there is any question. Those teams that say, `Well, we didn’t get the breaks. We just didn’t have the breaks and, oh, we were close.’ You are missing that juice, missing that confidence and every day you wake up, you’ve got one side that wants to be negative and wants to feel sorry for yourself and make excuses and blame others. Then you’ve got another side that thinks good thoughts and has a lot of encouragement. It’s a little more solution oriented and isn’t so emotionally drawn to the results. That’s the side we need to feed ourselves. It’s hard to do. It’s hard for all of us. It starts with the coaching staff, and then everybody in the organization – I’ve told the trainers and the equipment guys. The last thing we can do is just stick our head down and get all down because it will only get worse when you do that.

I doubt this is the Big Orange Dog Dooley was referring to, but I hated all the other options in Google images.

I have no idea what the Orange Dog is, and apparently it’s a team secret, and I am ok with that. However, the rest of this paragraph is an apt description of our society. So often we want to know “How does it end?” We don’t enjoy the process. Statistically this team is better than last year’s team. With arguably less talent. More on this later..

continue reading…

Uncategorized ,

Two Views Reviewed – Week 11

November 14, 2011 2 comments

How did we get to week eleven already?

Tennessee vs. Arkansas

What Mike said:

Another road hiccup, Fayetteville’s November winds wreak havoc on Tennessee’s passing game. Tauren Poole struggles. Biggest disappointment of the season as Volunteer fans get supremely irrational. Final Score Arkansas 28-13

What Steve said:

Did you catch the part about “fifth ranked team in six weeks?” I forgot to mention that four of those teams are in or near the top ten in practically every poll. When saying, “yeah, but Knile Davis …” don’t forget that he was third string last year before they lost their top two running backs, both of which return this season. Coach Petrino can handle broken running backs (thus spake Michael Bush). This schedule is just brutal. Score Arkansas 34-25

What actually happened: 

Nothing good. I mean nothing good. 49-7.

Mike’s reviews, retractions, and/or mea culpas:

Another road hiccup, Fayetteville’s November winds wreak havoc on Tennessee’s passing game. Tauren Poole struggles.Biggest disappointment of the season as Volunteer fans get supremely irrational.

Compared to some of my predictions, this one is spot on. I wasn’t close on the score.

 

Steve’s reviews, retractions, and/or mea culpas:  

At no point in writing these back during the preseason did it occur to me that I was actually predicting Tennessee would start the season 0-6 in SEC play.  I was dramatically off on the score this week and given UT’s difficulties with the Arkansas defense, I’m no longer bullish on the Vols chances against Vanderbilt.  I won’t go so far as to predict a black and gold win right now, but I won’t be surprised by one, either.

Alabama vs. Mississippi State

What Steve said:

I’m just not buying all the talk about the Bulldogs.  For all the praise Chris Relf has received, he hasn’t really done much to deserve it.  Facing this Tide team won’t help much either.  Like last season, this game is over by halftime.  Score: Tide 31 – 10

What Mike said:

There is no shortage of joy in the short 88 mile bus-trip home from Starkville. The Tide cruises. Pre-game there was a lot of hype for Mississippi State, some bulldogs even chirp that the Tide will be 0-for Mississippi in 2011. No such luck. The Tide run right by the Bulldogs. Chris Relf’s jersey is so dirty that even that dark maroon is stained Starkville green. Alabama 28-10

What actually happened:   The defense was absolutely dominant.  If Alabama could find a way to get all special teams play banned from football, they would be the undisputed number one team in the country, but alas, that’s a glaring weakness.  Miss State’s only score came on a drive that started on the Alabama 22 yard line due to a short kickoff that also involved the kicker missing a tackle on the return.  Miss State had their own special teams woes, however.  Like the Tide, they missed two field goals.  The Bulldogs also added a muffed punt.  Had Alabama not missed the field goal attempt after the punter fumbled, I would say MSU had the rougher night on special teams, but Alabama’s gaffe cost points.

AJ McCarron had an off night, repeatedly missing targets, and getting picked off once.  It didn’t help that Barrett Jones didn’t play, leaving Alabama to start with it’s third string left tackle.  Alfred McCullough played well in his stead, but McCullough is needed elsewhere and wasn’t available to fill those roles.   That allowed the Bullies to load the box all night against Trent Richardson and it showed.  He had trouble getting loose early in the game, but took over in the second half.  Alabama never trailed, and the game was never really in doubt.  Tide rolled, 24-7.

Steve’s reviews, retractions, and/or mea culpas:  I nailed the Chris Relf thing, but that was pretty much a season-long prediction of his performance, which has also been fairly accurate.  On the night, he failed to complete a pass, and ran for negative three yards.  In fact, the Bulldogs used three different QBs, none of which found much success.  The game was not over by halftime, but the writing was on the wall. Miss State just couldn’t move the ball.  I wasn’t too terrible on the score, giving each team an extra score they didn’t earn.

Mike’s reviews, retractions, and/or mea culpas:

I was pretty close. Especially for me. I was just off by a few points. Since I was dreadfully wrong about Ole Miss, I will again bite the bullet on that one, since I referenced it again.

Uncategorized none

Arkansas- The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

November 14, 2011 5 comments

Tennessee went to Fayetteville Saturday. I think that may have been the highlight: The fact that there was a game on.

 

The Good

The top 6 tacklers on Saturday were first-year guys, and all have at least 2 more years of eligibility left: Izauea Lanier, Curt Maggitt, Justin Coleman, Brian Randolph, Mo Couch, and AJ Johnson. This is a good sign for the future.

D’Anthony Arnett also showed a couple of flashes of potential.

That’s it. That’s all I have. Normally I am a pretty optimistic guy. I even waited until Monday morning to write this to allow some perspective, and let the silver linings shine through.  I am having a hard time. Please feel free to add some good things in the comment section.

continue reading…

Tennessee football

The Newest Vol

November 8, 2011 6 comments

It’s been a few weeks since Tennessee’s latest commitment. Wait no further. Tennessee has offered Three star corner back Daniel Gray of Lauderdale Lakes, FL.  Gray also had offers from Nebraska, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Ole Miss and Kansas.

Gray is the 19th commitment of Derek Dooley’s class of 2012, and the 3rd cornerback, joining Kenneth Crawley of Washington, DC, and LeDarrell McNeil of Dallas, TX. Welcome to Big Orange Country Daniel!

 

Uncategorized , ,

Kicking muscles, working like heck, and the future

November 8, 2011 No comments

It’s Tuesday, so that means we have some Dooleyisms to deal with today. He started slow this week, but he put it into high gear.

Without further ado:

On Game Balls:

We gave players of the week to two guys. On offense, Justin (Worley) and Da’Rick (Rogers). Justin really played well and played like we’d hoped he’d play a week ago. He just was real confident in the huddle, confident in taking the snap, and pulled the trigger throwing the ball the way we thought he could. That allowed Da’Rick to make a lot of plays. We gave it to the whole defense. Any time you pitch a shutout in today’s game, everybody really played well. More than anything, they executed the plan against a fast-paced offense. Special teams, we gave it to Brian Randolph and we had to give it to Derrick Brodus too for the job he did

The Brodus story is great, likely his 15 minutes are nearly up, so I figured I’d give him another shout-out

I hope we see this soon. But let's not rush it.

On Tyler Bray’s thumb:

We have to look at the X-ray, feel his strength levels and if both of those things check out, which the likelihood is they won’t, and then we go to a CAT-scan, which I think is the final determining factor. The pain is not the issue; the pain is what he can tolerate. The issue is the bone has to be healed, because we aren’t going to put him out there and the bone is almost there but it’s not. The bone has to be healed, he has to be able to tolerate the pain and he has to be able to perform. If he can’t go out there and throw it like he’s used to throwing it, then why play him?

Bray wants to play, and who can blame him. He and Hunter both have to think the record would be different if they were in the lineup. You have to think we’d have won at least one extra game.  But Dooley’s is right on about not rushing Bray back.

On kicking muscles:

Here is what happened. At the end of practice Thursday morning Mike Palardy felt a little something, which a lot of kickers always say that. Some muscle in my somewhere, they feel everything that happens to their body. So I was a little bit concerned, but there was no swelling and it was just a little pain issue and we had a lot of time before kickoff. It was about noon on Thursday and we aren’t kicking till 7 on Saturday. Usually that is a lot of time. Then I got a little nervous on Saturday morning when I could tell he wasn’t there yet. We had (Chip) Rhome and that is why Brodus looking back we should have dressed him. I thought Mike would be OK and at worst case he could kick field goals and Rhome kick off… He (Rhome) is hurt. He pulled something, you know. Kickers have muscles we don’t know about. They pull this: (gesturing to his leg)

 

This slayed me. Dooley pretty much called every kicker out.

continue reading…

Uncategorized ,
Powered by WordPress Web Design by SRS Solutions © 2012 3SiB Design by SRS Solutions