Rocky Top Talking Points: a faint whiff of football edition

by Joel Hollingsworth on Jul 19, 2007 8:39 AM EDT in Rocky Top Talking Points

Hey, people are starting to talk about football. A small sampling:

The FanHouse's Ryan Ferguson recently completed a three-part series on the best QBs in the SEC. Ainge in Orange came in at No. 3, which is fine, especially when you consider that Ryan seems to be accounting for his entire college career. But it's pretty hard to hold the LSU and Arkansas losses against Ainge when he played only a handful of snaps injured against the former and not at all against the latter.
But then you see that Tim Tebow is No. 2 despite the fact that his entire college career consists of only one season. To his credit, though, Ryan makes a decent case that that one season (and Tebow's showing in the spring game) is all you really need to know. Still, until we see Tebow manage an entire game for a few games in a row, I'm going with Ainge over Tebow. Kentucky's Andre Woodson, by the way, is No. 1, which is a real credit to former Vol offensive coordinator Randy Sanders.
Coach Fulmer's optimistic about Ainge this season. He's excited about the depth at linebacker. He likes the team attitude. The defensive tackles? Not so much.
David Cutcliffe says that he mismanaged the running game last season. Should we expect better from Foster, Coker, and Hardesty this year? Probably, yeah.
Don't get too excited about the new receivers, says Mike Strange. History shows that with the exception of Kelly Washington, first year receivers don't generally set the field on fire. Maybe so, but have we ever been so desperate at that position than this year?
The Vols have three games on ESPN.com's Mark Schlabach's list of marquee match ups for each weekend this season. Cal, Alabama, and Vanderbilt as an "upset alert." Yikes.
Tennessee has "tweaked" Bruce Pearl's contract. It's for six years and is worth $1.3M next season. He gets $100k raises annually through the 2012-13 season and longevity bonuses of $500k after 2009-10 and after the 2012-13 season. The best part? Pearl didn't even negotiate the thing. Hamilton just made it better for Pearl (and arguably for UT as well), and Pearl essentially said, "Cool. Thanks," and went back to work.
Travis-Stephens-esque Dennis Rogan has been admitted. Everybody's on the bus now.

Until later, then.

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I agree

There is no rational way to rank Tebow ahead of Ainge at this point. He has yet to show game management skills against live SEC competition, which is as important (if not more) for a QB than just talent. We know he is talented and athletic, but how will he fare reading defenses, etc? He'll have to handle more than just the 'run it up the middle' play this year. And a young, inexperienced defense could mean a few mental mistakes cost the team dearly. Could he turn out to be better than Ainge or Woodson too? Certainly, but it is irrational at best to put him there merely on spring practice and speculation from limited playing time and responsibility in his freshman season.

by rulessn on Jul 19, 2007 11:02 AM EDT reply actions

Wait a minute...

We're talking about real-life, right?! Because Tebow is one tough SOB to deal with in NCAA 08! Thank goodness for the new "gang tackle" feature that EA added!

Back to real-life...I concur with the consensus.

by Aerobab on Jul 19, 2007 11:11 AM EDT up reply actions

Have cake and eat it, too?

Is it just me, or are many folks dreaming big by wanting, err, expecting 400 yds through the air and another 250 yds on the ground? Like most things in life, the game of football is a game of trade-offs. Last year, there was no question that we were a "pass first" offense...because it worked! That was our strength so Coach Cut and his staff tailored the offense to exploit such. If our ground game returns to that of the glory days, and we can run for 300, then chances are that we'll only pass for 150. Would that necessarilly mean that the passing game is once again "broken"? Of course not (although it could...see 2006 Arkansas).

My point is that VERY few offenses can put up huge "FedEx" numbers simultaneously. What you give to one corps, you must detract from another, and this is true on both sides of the ball (see UF's Reggie Nelson in the 2006 MNCG...1 tackle. Doesn't mean that he had a sucky night, it just means that his front-7 did the work that night.)

With that said, the last several years our ground game has been less than pitiful. Plenty of attempts with poor production. Pass the blame as you may (poor effort, poor OL, poor coaching, etc.)

by Aerobab on Jul 19, 2007 11:48 AM EDT reply actions

I wonder

I wonder if Cutcliffe's quote was part of a larger conversation. He might have meant that even though the passing game was working last year, it also kept our less than impressive defense on the field longer and that had he focused on the running game more, it might have worked, too, and accomplished both scoring and keeping the other teams' offense off the field. Wow, was that one sentence? Okay, two.

Go Vols!

by Joel Hollingsworth on Jul 19, 2007 11:55 AM EDT up reply actions