Is it mostly us or them?

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

The mutts had there best team since 1980.

The mutts had their best results since 1980, but I'm not convinced that was actually the best team they have had since then. I mean, look at that wussy schedule they played for starters.

 

[bke1984]

The mutts had their best results since 1980, but I'm not convinced that was actually the best team they have had since then. I mean, look at that wussy schedule they played for starters.

Maybe...it's strange though...their team last year was a lot like ours in 2014. At the beginning of the year they weren't even close to a playoff team. By the end of the year they could play with anyone...funny how that works sometimes.

They had a great season. I hope they enjoy those "We're #2!!!" t-shirts, LOL

 

[bke1984]

As said many times I totally disagree. Marcus Marshall was a bigger loss. Also Benson had more yards on less carries than Mills had. Go back and watch the Miami game. We lost Benson in the 3rd quarter and the offense was not the same. Also in 2016, We beat Va Tech, Duke without Mills, he was suspended.

This argument will never be resolved, so it's silly that we keep bringing it up. FWIW though I think the difference in stats is misleading. Marcus was explosive, but we could (and did) lean on Dedrick a lot more than we could Marcus. When we needed 2 yards he was going to get it...period (especially at the goal line). There's something very attractive about that with what we do

 

[bke1984]

This argument will never be resolved, so it's silly that we keep bringing it up. FWIW though I think the difference in stats is misleading. Marcus was explosive, but we could (and did) lean on Dedrick a lot more than we could Marcus. When we needed 2 yards he was going to get it...period (especially at the goal line). There's something very attractive about that with what we do

Side note. I just saw Dedrick was offered by Nebraska. He should do well there

 

[stech81]

Bingo. If we had had Mills last year (and the coming year) we would have won at least 3 more games and probably 4. I say that not because I don't think Benson stepped up to the plate, but because Mills was the main thing we needed to beat Miami, UVA, Puke, and, maybe Clemson: a back who could run really well (remember the BC game in '16) in the slop. This is especially the case in the Miami game, imho; we were playing ahead of them and Mills playing instead of Quaid or, even, Benson means we keep the ball most of the second half. And don't even ask me what I think our record would have been with Jordan and Mills (spoiler alert: much better).

This isn't intended to say that TaQuon and Benson didn't do a great job last year. They, especially Benson, did much better then most of us (i.e. me) thought they would. But Mills would have been another The Real Adrian Peterson and would have made a humongous difference in our performance on O. Let's hope TM and Benson make us forget that this coming year.

I have no idea if we could have won 3 or 4 more games with Mills or Marshall , is the QB not the one who reads to hand it off to the B-back or keep it ? As for Puke unless they could have also played defense 43 points would have hard to over come. ( my opinion that this was the game CPJ made his mind up about CTR , I know I did )

 

[bobongo]

As said many times I totally disagree. Marcus Marshall was a bigger loss. Also Benson had more yards on less carries than Mills had. Go back and watch the Miami game. We lost Benson in the 3rd quarter and the offense was not the same. Also in 2016, We beat Va Tech, Duke without Mills, he was suspended.

I was a big fan of Mills, but Benson filled his shoes quite well. Indeed, the dive behind Cooper at center was our best offensive play last year. Our biggest problems are on each end of the OL.

 

[jgtengineer]

I have no idea if we could have won 3 or 4 more games with Mills or Marshall , is the QB not the one who reads to hand it off to the B-back or keep it ? As for Puke unless they could have also played defense 43 points would have hard to over come. ( my opinion that this was the game CPJ made his mind up about CTR , I know I did )

We often wanted the read with Marshall on every play because of how electric marshall was with the ball. If we had had mills its likely we would have had more called dives.

 

[takethepoints]

This argument will never be resolved, so it's silly that we keep bringing it up. FWIW though I think the difference in stats is misleading. Marcus was explosive, but we could (and did) lean on Dedrick a lot more than we could Marcus. When we needed 2 yards he was going to get it...period (especially at the goal line). There's something very attractive about that with what we do

Yep, that's it alright. Marcus had great speed and that helps, but what a BB is supposed to do is get that 2 - 3 yards every single time. Mills did that better then Marcus.

And now we find out that Nebraska gets to watch him make their I-bone work. Rats. Rats, rats, rats, rats.

 

[jgtengineer]

Yep, that's it alright. Marcus had great speed and that helps, but what a BB is supposed to do is get that 2 - 3 yards every single time. Mills did that better then Marcus.

And now we find out that Nebraska gets to watch him make their I-bone work. Rats. Rats, rats, rats, rats.

Need to change our substance abuse policies fix it. If it had just been academic he coudl have come back but "weed" = bad still. Weed = stupid yes but not really any more so than binge drinking.

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

Maybe...it's strange though...their team last year was a lot like ours in 2014. At the beginning of the year they weren't even close to a playoff team. By the end of the year they could play with anyone...funny how that works sometimes.

They had a great season. I hope they enjoy those "We're #2!!!" t-shirts, LOL

Except that, other than the regular season game with Auburn, they really didn't play anybody at the end of the season until they got to the SECCG

 

[Skeptic]

Good questions, all. Seems fair to conclude that yes, teams are defending us better, and after 10 seasons and maybe half a dozen games against the offense, that's to be expected. What seems to have changed is that while our defense seems predictably bad, in the past we could just outscore the other guy. Not by a lot mostly, but enough to overcome some frightful defensive experiences. (TOP means little when you consume seven minutes to score and immediately give up the equalizer inside of three.) The difference on offense I think I've seen is the lack of options on the edge. You can win with the QB doing most of the shoveling -- Navy and last year Army particularly just stuck it off the tackle with hard-running QBs -- but I don't think we're built that way. Marshall got a lot of yards for sure, but W-L slipped. A cheap guess for me is the lack of the option pitch, particularly the triple option which deprived us of our best athletes on the edge, made more problematic because teams are defending us better with exposure, and defense. I still think if Marshall can get at least passable running the option, and if the new defensive guy comes through with a serviceable scheme, we can have a great year in 2018. (Nailing some of those vertical passes is kind of an annual pilgrimage, but you never know.)

 

[jgtengineer]

Good questions, all. Seems fair to conclude that yes, teams are defending us better, and after 10 seasons and maybe half a dozen games against the offense, that's to be expected. What seems to have changed is that while our defense seems predictably bad, in the past we could just outscore the other guy. Not by a lot mostly, but enough to overcome some frightful defensive experiences. (TOP means little when you consume seven minutes to score and immediately give up the equalizer inside of three.) The difference on offense I think I've seen is the lack of options on the edge. You can win with the QB doing most of the shoveling -- Navy and last year Army particularly just stuck it off the tackle with hard-running QBs -- but I don't think we're built that way. Marshall got a lot of yards for sure, but W-L slipped. A cheap guess for me is the lack of the option pitch, particularly the triple option which deprived us of our best athletes on the edge, made more problematic because teams are defending us better with exposure, and defense. I still think if Marshall can get at least passable running the option, and if the new defensive guy comes through with a serviceable scheme, we can have a great year in 2018. (Nailing some of those vertical passes is kind of an annual pilgrimage, but you never know.)

This is pretty true. The one thing that i would add is that familiarity also helps our offense. Look at how we have done against VT these past couple years. CPJ is starting to get into Foster's head and always has som wrinkles specifically for him that we add in. I would argue that the coach turnover in the ACC might have actually hurt us slightly in that CPJ had not faced those d cooardinators so he did not know exactly how to attack them.

The lack of option pitch was sometimes a missed read but often last season opposing defenses were flying out to defend the pitch because that was where we had our more known athletes.

 

[MikeJackets1967]

I’d say that we have more influence over our success than our competitors. I don’t think they have us figured out based off a few things I read about last year.

1. We lost to Tennessee but Butch said he devoted a large percentage of the Spring practice preparing for our offense.

2. We lost to Duke but they had a bye week and they played Army in the two weeks before they played us.

3. Of course, UGA killed us last year partly because of their talent and depth but Kirby also devoted time every week to prepare for our offense - very, uh hum, Smart.

The common thread in the three items above seems to be the amount of time they devoted to preparing for our offense. If they had our O figured out, they wouldn’t spend so much time getting ready for it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

GT should have beaten Tennessee Botch Jones could have a year to prepare for an opponent and still lose and probably be humiliated..............................................................just sayin

 

[slugboy]

IT's kind of hard for me to decide what your question actually is. We're not showing up and out-talenting the other team, so in large part it's how the other team prepares for us. VT, Miami, UGA, UT, and the others prepare something special for our offense. I'm not sure how much we prepare differently for Duke vs preparing for UNC.
There were some surprises from us the first couple of years. They've been fewer and farther between of late.
For CPJ's first couple of years, we could show up, and it was brutal for the opposing defense to prepare. It hasn't been the same for them to prepare for our defense. The other staffs know how to align their coaching effort to prepare. If we could be as disruptive on defense and special teams, they'd be overtaxed.
I do think, if we had a 5-star player or two, we could really go places, and it would be up to us instead of what the other team is preparing.

 

[TromboneJacket]

It irks me to hear that uga spent extra time all season prepping for us because I think that spending extra practice time on us is a luxury. Since our offense is so different, prep against us doesn’t really carry over to other games, whereas prepping for a spread offense or pro-style offense has a lot of overlap from one opponent to the next. I think the reason we’ve had better luck against VT post-Beamer is that the extra time spent preparing for us was causing them to lose games elsewhere, and Fuente couldn’t afford to lose two games as the price for beating us, so I think he told Foster to treat all ACC games equally. The dwags, unfortunately, didn’t have to pay a price for cutting into their preparation for their other opponents. I really hope Mullen and Pruitt (and maybe even Muschamp) step up their game and punish georgie for prioritizing Tech over their other opponents.

 

[jayparr]

I agree. But in CPJ's and TStan's defense, they have taken steps to address these things, albeit small ones. I still think the biggest key for our success is keeping depth high and attrition low. Much of that has to do with luck, unfortunately.

Agree totally; like ball bouncing off 2 helmets!

 

[jayparr]

I have no idea if we could have won 3 or 4 more games with Mills or Marshall , is the QB not the one who reads to hand it off to the B-back or keep it ? As for Puke unless they could have also played defense 43 points would have hard to over come. ( my opinion that this was the game CPJ made his mind up about CTR , I know I did )

The Vol's game! If Mills had been with us and taken the last pitch out of the game we win no doubt!

 

[lv20gt]

What's changed imo is Johnson. Or maybe the issue is that he has refused to change and adapt.

When we hired him, and I thought he was a phenomenal hire at the time, it was because of the belief that the offense he brought made up for weaknesses in other areas to the point that it could carry us to where we wanted to go. And initially it did. In 2009, despite a bad defense we won a lot of games. We won 4 games that year where we gave up more than 28 points. In comparison we have the same number of such victories in the last 6 years combined. Our offense is good, but it's no longer capable of covering up our other weaknesses, and under Johnson both special teams and defense have been consistent weaknesses and it's been too long to write it off as issues with coordinators and assistants. It won't happen but imo we need Johnson to step away from play calling duty and take more of a personal role in both the defense and special teams. Time to be a head coach, not an OC.

But I don't see him doing that so I don't think the change we need will come until we part ways with him. Until then we'll keep blaming fans for not donating enough, DCs for not having good enough defenses, and rotate scape goats until the natives catch up.

 

[bke1984]

It's a bit of both. Teams are getting better at forcing our weakness, but then there's years like 2014 (mid-season on) when we don't seem to really have one so we look unstoppable.

I think from our standpoint there's one key difference between our incredible offenses and our good/OK offenses...a big, dynamic receiver that can beat man coverage and make plays. I think 2014 looks a hell of a lot different without Smelter...he bailed us out a few times (4th down at VT comes to mind). Bottom line, when we are able to come up big in the passing game we are so much harder to stop.

 

[TampaBuzz]

The Vol's game! If Mills had been with us and taken the last pitch out of the game we win no doubt!

It never should have gotten there. Make the field goals; don't fumble on the 5-yard line, etc. Just gave that game away.