I really enjoyed some of the knowledgeable football discussions before the game. And almost equally, I appreciated some of the good natured ribbing. My last post here (of which I only had a few), I mentioned that I'd pop over after the game, either way.
First off...like my few previous posts, this is an obviously biased opinion (from a UT fan), but it's also intended to be honest. No trolling, but no false praise. In no particular order...
1) Where was Vitale? I expect you are all supremely frustrated by that question as well. Was he hurt? Seems like the prototypical feel good college football player type guy to route for, and yet I barely saw him today. I expected a few big plays out of him.
2) I was disappointed (but secretly relieved) when I read that Van House (sp?) was out for today. In the highlight film, that dude looked like a player. His backup today though (Watkins I think?)...I watched him. Played a hell of a game. Our WRs/passing game is nothing to write home about, and while he did get beat on occasion, so does every corner in the history of the game. But to step in like he did, I'd feel solid about that position if I were an NU fan. Some of his covers were not because of a lack of UT talent, but because he made great plays. Impressed.
3) QB. Not sure what to think. Can tell he was a freshman. In the first half particularly, when the game was still close and you weren't so predictable, he extended some drives and made some plays with his legs. Think about how old this kid is and what kind of record he led you to this year. I like him as the future of your program, though I know there is some controversy there. FWIW, the backup quarterback is the most popular player of any fanbase. He had some poor throws, sure. But I don't think we respected the deep ball and game planned to jump on the short game. Give him some time (i.e, 1/2 a season more), and I think he's going to be solid. Again, he's got the build, running ability. Just needs some mental reps. He was a top 10 type kid from high school for a reason. As I said from the highlight vid, kid can run and I expected him to give us some problems there. When the game was close, he did.
4) Re us: Our punter was again an unsung hero. Anyone who didn't watch the game will have no idea, but our non scholly punter once again flipped field position for us all night. Our coach puts some kind of emphasis on special teams, and while the KR and PR get the points and the comments, our punter has been lights out this year. Tonight again, I think it really helped us, particular given your poor punter play. We had 4 punts....2 inside the 20 and 2 50+ yards. I think the average was about 15 yard in our favor (your punt yardage vs. ours). Minor in the grand scheme of things, but it makes me proud of our special teams unit, that only gets highlighted for the big returns.
5) Speaking of special teams, neither team gave up big ST plays tonight. You could see good coaching on both sides of the ball. (P.S. WTH was that fake field goal thing we did?! Worst attempt of anything I've ever seen. And did we throw the ball away on that play?! Which was 4th down?! WTH?! Did we understand the concept of "throwing it away" and how that applies in a 4th down situation?!
6) Speaking of good coaching, easily the most disappointing stretch of the game for me was all the penalties on us early in the 1st quarter. Those were some garbage plays, and not something we're used to seeing from the UT under Jones. I'd say we can chalk it up to being overaggressive in a big bowl game, as we're typically not very penalized at all. Anyway, I couldn't give a crap about the worthless celebrating without a helmet calls towards the end of the game, but the late hit crap at the beginning was embarrassing to most of us and not representative of our play. If you can accept apologies from a random message board poster, please consider this an attempt.
7) I thought Hurd wasn't going to play based on pregame reports. I was extremely nervous based on that report. Coaching changes, other injures, etc...whatever, I wasn't concerned, but when I heard Hurd wasn't going to play, I was very worried and I think you can see why. The guy is a stud. I understand why James Franklin was pissed when he didn't sign with Vandy (though I still can't understand why a coach would post such a rant on Twitter). Still don't understand the "I need to see how hot your wives are before I hire you" comment from him. Oh yeah I do...he's a huge douche of a human being. Please, oh please, beat the crap out of him, always.
8) As many of you have said, I think your D just got gassed tonight. They were solid early. Very solid. Bama's LBs didn't run down Dobbs the way you guys were, early. I don't understand why you didn't continue to pound the rock. I think maybe it's still an unsuccessful strategy, as I think our O vs your D is still a more favorable matchup that your O vs. our D, buy you guys were still having success running the ball. As I said pregame, I was looking forward to watching JJ run the ball, and honestly he didn't disappoint. Almost no negative plays, and he actually played similarly to Hurd but he just didn't get the carries. He led FBS in attempts this year, right?! Hurd averaged 5.4 yards per carry....JJ averaged 5.3 tongiht. Hurd had 1 TD, JJ had 1TD. Biggest play from Hurd was 24 yards, biggest from JJ was 17. I think Hurd is clearly better, but point is JJ had success on us, but he only had 14 carries to Hurd's 24. And then you add in Kamara had 11 and your backup only had 3 or 4, I think the running game was just given up on. Both QBs (Hobbs and Thorson) had 12 rushes, I think. I fully understand you were playing from behind, but when you aren't built for that, just don't do it. I say keep playing to your strengths, keep running the ball, and maybe the game is closer, you can get a TO, etc.
9) Passing (or lack thereof), is what really killed you I think. The score was bad, but as I said pregame, you guys aren't built to win big. Run, run, run. Get behind, I say still run, run , run , run pass, then run, run, pass, etc. Thorson forcing throws in there is what really caused the score to get out of hand tonight, methinks. But I'm not sure that's on him as much as the play calling. Again, this is only from an opposing fan so take that FWIW.
10) Bottom line, again I don't think the final scores reflects that much. We won, you lost. But you're built for low scoring ball control winning games. I figure we win big or lose close tonight. It's just the way these two teams seem to be built. In all 3 losses for you, it seems that's what happened. But in the end, you finished with a 10-3 season. That's nothing to sneeze at, as you know.
You've just got to get more athletes on offense, IMO. It crushed you tonight. We aren't that good on D (though as I predicted, our front 4 was underrated). And your D got worn out, but had your O been able to put up more of a fight and kept your D off the field, maybe it's a completely different game. Certainly, our 45 points on O was a little bit exaggerated (though to your credit, you completely negated our return game....albeit by sacrificing some punt yardage). I don't think our offensive points was reflective of the game. But your 6 (7) on offense seemed normal. I didn't feel threatened. To take the next step, you clearly have got to get more going on offense. With another year developing the O line, whom I heard was young, and maybe with some more consistent receivers, you can make progress next year. My big concern with you next year (for you) is your schedule. Skipping MSU and OSU this year and having to face them next year....going to be tough sledding. But I'll be routing for you. As I've seen some of your fans post, I enjoy following bowl opponents and cheering for them. Plus, I despise Urban Meyer. Douche level extreme. You guys have Franklin, Harbaugh, and Meyer. Competing against us for worst human beings in a conference award.
11) For us, I don't think tonight really proved a whole lot for us. No disrespect, but we had a similar bowl game last year against Iowa (though I will say the Iowa game was over by halftime, this year was not)...and heard all the same expectations for this year, and while we improved, our 2015 play was no where near our level of play against Iowa. That said, it's good to see us with this kind of play against a stout defense. Our O was inconsistent this year, and I really think we had a nice gameplan and execution tonight (with an assist from a tired NU D late in the game). But 2016 is going to be tough with our road SEC schedule. I'm not sure we'll be able to improve our record next year unless we develop some sort of a passing game. It's our biggest weakness, IMO.
In the end, I really enjoyed my time on the board the past few weeks. Glad we won, but obviously one team had to. I'm curious what the results would have been had we played Michigan and you played Florida. I honestly think it could have gone 2-0 B1G or 2-0 SEC, and yet with the games as played, I think most people got the results as expected.
Best of luck next year, and I forgot to say my most important comment. I truly like both coaches, and I can't say that very often anymore. Fans of both schools get frustrated by their loyalty and PC statements from coaches, but both Fitz and Jones seem to be very genuine good guys. Which is tough to find anymore these days. For that alone, I'll cheer for NU in any B1G game in the near future. Also, my dream after retirement (which is not so close) is to travel around and watch college football everywhere. If one of you could please take a mental note of my username, I'll be inviting myself to an NU tailgate at some point over the next 15 years.
Best of luck, Cats.
First off...like my few previous posts, this is an obviously biased opinion (from a UT fan), but it's also intended to be honest. No trolling, but no false praise. In no particular order...
1) Where was Vitale? I expect you are all supremely frustrated by that question as well. Was he hurt? Seems like the prototypical feel good college football player type guy to route for, and yet I barely saw him today. I expected a few big plays out of him.
2) I was disappointed (but secretly relieved) when I read that Van House (sp?) was out for today. In the highlight film, that dude looked like a player. His backup today though (Watkins I think?)...I watched him. Played a hell of a game. Our WRs/passing game is nothing to write home about, and while he did get beat on occasion, so does every corner in the history of the game. But to step in like he did, I'd feel solid about that position if I were an NU fan. Some of his covers were not because of a lack of UT talent, but because he made great plays. Impressed.
3) QB. Not sure what to think. Can tell he was a freshman. In the first half particularly, when the game was still close and you weren't so predictable, he extended some drives and made some plays with his legs. Think about how old this kid is and what kind of record he led you to this year. I like him as the future of your program, though I know there is some controversy there. FWIW, the backup quarterback is the most popular player of any fanbase. He had some poor throws, sure. But I don't think we respected the deep ball and game planned to jump on the short game. Give him some time (i.e, 1/2 a season more), and I think he's going to be solid. Again, he's got the build, running ability. Just needs some mental reps. He was a top 10 type kid from high school for a reason. As I said from the highlight vid, kid can run and I expected him to give us some problems there. When the game was close, he did.
4) Re us: Our punter was again an unsung hero. Anyone who didn't watch the game will have no idea, but our non scholly punter once again flipped field position for us all night. Our coach puts some kind of emphasis on special teams, and while the KR and PR get the points and the comments, our punter has been lights out this year. Tonight again, I think it really helped us, particular given your poor punter play. We had 4 punts....2 inside the 20 and 2 50+ yards. I think the average was about 15 yard in our favor (your punt yardage vs. ours). Minor in the grand scheme of things, but it makes me proud of our special teams unit, that only gets highlighted for the big returns.
5) Speaking of special teams, neither team gave up big ST plays tonight. You could see good coaching on both sides of the ball. (P.S. WTH was that fake field goal thing we did?! Worst attempt of anything I've ever seen. And did we throw the ball away on that play?! Which was 4th down?! WTH?! Did we understand the concept of "throwing it away" and how that applies in a 4th down situation?!
6) Speaking of good coaching, easily the most disappointing stretch of the game for me was all the penalties on us early in the 1st quarter. Those were some garbage plays, and not something we're used to seeing from the UT under Jones. I'd say we can chalk it up to being overaggressive in a big bowl game, as we're typically not very penalized at all. Anyway, I couldn't give a crap about the worthless celebrating without a helmet calls towards the end of the game, but the late hit crap at the beginning was embarrassing to most of us and not representative of our play. If you can accept apologies from a random message board poster, please consider this an attempt.
7) I thought Hurd wasn't going to play based on pregame reports. I was extremely nervous based on that report. Coaching changes, other injures, etc...whatever, I wasn't concerned, but when I heard Hurd wasn't going to play, I was very worried and I think you can see why. The guy is a stud. I understand why James Franklin was pissed when he didn't sign with Vandy (though I still can't understand why a coach would post such a rant on Twitter). Still don't understand the "I need to see how hot your wives are before I hire you" comment from him. Oh yeah I do...he's a huge douche of a human being. Please, oh please, beat the crap out of him, always.
8) As many of you have said, I think your D just got gassed tonight. They were solid early. Very solid. Bama's LBs didn't run down Dobbs the way you guys were, early. I don't understand why you didn't continue to pound the rock. I think maybe it's still an unsuccessful strategy, as I think our O vs your D is still a more favorable matchup that your O vs. our D, buy you guys were still having success running the ball. As I said pregame, I was looking forward to watching JJ run the ball, and honestly he didn't disappoint. Almost no negative plays, and he actually played similarly to Hurd but he just didn't get the carries. He led FBS in attempts this year, right?! Hurd averaged 5.4 yards per carry....JJ averaged 5.3 tongiht. Hurd had 1 TD, JJ had 1TD. Biggest play from Hurd was 24 yards, biggest from JJ was 17. I think Hurd is clearly better, but point is JJ had success on us, but he only had 14 carries to Hurd's 24. And then you add in Kamara had 11 and your backup only had 3 or 4, I think the running game was just given up on. Both QBs (Hobbs and Thorson) had 12 rushes, I think. I fully understand you were playing from behind, but when you aren't built for that, just don't do it. I say keep playing to your strengths, keep running the ball, and maybe the game is closer, you can get a TO, etc.
9) Passing (or lack thereof), is what really killed you I think. The score was bad, but as I said pregame, you guys aren't built to win big. Run, run, run. Get behind, I say still run, run , run , run pass, then run, run, pass, etc. Thorson forcing throws in there is what really caused the score to get out of hand tonight, methinks. But I'm not sure that's on him as much as the play calling. Again, this is only from an opposing fan so take that FWIW.
10) Bottom line, again I don't think the final scores reflects that much. We won, you lost. But you're built for low scoring ball control winning games. I figure we win big or lose close tonight. It's just the way these two teams seem to be built. In all 3 losses for you, it seems that's what happened. But in the end, you finished with a 10-3 season. That's nothing to sneeze at, as you know.
You've just got to get more athletes on offense, IMO. It crushed you tonight. We aren't that good on D (though as I predicted, our front 4 was underrated). And your D got worn out, but had your O been able to put up more of a fight and kept your D off the field, maybe it's a completely different game. Certainly, our 45 points on O was a little bit exaggerated (though to your credit, you completely negated our return game....albeit by sacrificing some punt yardage). I don't think our offensive points was reflective of the game. But your 6 (7) on offense seemed normal. I didn't feel threatened. To take the next step, you clearly have got to get more going on offense. With another year developing the O line, whom I heard was young, and maybe with some more consistent receivers, you can make progress next year. My big concern with you next year (for you) is your schedule. Skipping MSU and OSU this year and having to face them next year....going to be tough sledding. But I'll be routing for you. As I've seen some of your fans post, I enjoy following bowl opponents and cheering for them. Plus, I despise Urban Meyer. Douche level extreme. You guys have Franklin, Harbaugh, and Meyer. Competing against us for worst human beings in a conference award.
11) For us, I don't think tonight really proved a whole lot for us. No disrespect, but we had a similar bowl game last year against Iowa (though I will say the Iowa game was over by halftime, this year was not)...and heard all the same expectations for this year, and while we improved, our 2015 play was no where near our level of play against Iowa. That said, it's good to see us with this kind of play against a stout defense. Our O was inconsistent this year, and I really think we had a nice gameplan and execution tonight (with an assist from a tired NU D late in the game). But 2016 is going to be tough with our road SEC schedule. I'm not sure we'll be able to improve our record next year unless we develop some sort of a passing game. It's our biggest weakness, IMO.
In the end, I really enjoyed my time on the board the past few weeks. Glad we won, but obviously one team had to. I'm curious what the results would have been had we played Michigan and you played Florida. I honestly think it could have gone 2-0 B1G or 2-0 SEC, and yet with the games as played, I think most people got the results as expected.
Best of luck next year, and I forgot to say my most important comment. I truly like both coaches, and I can't say that very often anymore. Fans of both schools get frustrated by their loyalty and PC statements from coaches, but both Fitz and Jones seem to be very genuine good guys. Which is tough to find anymore these days. For that alone, I'll cheer for NU in any B1G game in the near future. Also, my dream after retirement (which is not so close) is to travel around and watch college football everywhere. If one of you could please take a mental note of my username, I'll be inviting myself to an NU tailgate at some point over the next 15 years.
Best of luck, Cats.
