The Good:
- Coaching adjustments. If I'm going to call out the lack of coaching acumen, it is only appropriate that I laud it when it goes well. The half time adjustments were good. The second half play calling was very good.
- Special props to the call on Crowell's second TD run. In the second half, almost every run was to the left side of the line, presumably to protect against him losing the ball out of his sprained right wrist. We went back to the play that we ran at Mississippi from inside our own 5 that gained 25+ to the right side. It was as well blocked and well executed Saturday night. As a bonus, Tennessee's defense was completely expecting him to cut left when he cut right.
- Energy. Loved going for it twice on 4th down on the first drive. Crowell kept answering the bell. The defense kept hitting hard. It was a nice change after the last two trips to Knoxville.
- -20 yards allowed rushing. I've seen some people pointing to this being a product of how bad the Vols rushing offense is. To that, I'd answer that those guys didn't just fall down behind the line on their own.
- Keeping Bray off kilter enough that he never got into a rhythm.
- Walsh getting his mojo back.
- The defense not falling into super prevent on the last drive. Yes, they only had :18 seconds, but we still came after them very hard.
- 4th and 56. Damn. I know you could call a hold on nearly every play (and the first one against Aron White was particularly tictac), but damn. Although you could make a case that you'd rather get all of your holds for one game out of the way in one drive.
- An 8 minute, 12 play, 28 yard drive. I am not sure how you do that. Wait, you end up 4th and 56.
- Not getting that last first down. The game is on the line. Finish them.
- Murray's long passes. Give Bobo credit, he kept giving Murray chances to work it out (which he did with the long Mitchell pass), but they were there all night and he just isn't in sync on the long ball right now.
- I miss Orson Charles in our passing game.
- The long 3rd and 4th down conversions allowed in the first half. I started having flashbacks.
The Ugly:
- The first half.
TD
7 comments:
I'd like to see Orson in our passing game more too -- but not forced. I think a lot of Murray's picks have come from trying to force a throw to Orson. USC comes to mind.
-- RF
I was amazed at how uninvolved Charles was during this game considering the hype he gets. I actually looked up his stat for each game and it wasn't as bad as I thought, although he didn't have any stats against SC after having a huge game against BSU.
I get that some, but it isn't as if Murray didn't have the same thing last year with AJ. Part of that is getting some plays called that allow Charles to be part of a multiple receiver set or play. I'd love to see more zone floods or crossing patterns with Orson running the deep sideline route.
On 3rd and 56, we would have ended up with a better option had we sent 4 WRs deep.
An interception downfield would have been far better than the poor punt coverage and subsequent personal foul call. By electing to give up with a TB dive, we netted about 10 yards of field position.
Granted we forced a 3 and out, but we let Tennessee start on our side of the field.
But it's things like this that causes people to continue to question the coaching staff and whether or not they are thinking critically, or if they are just trying to prevent something bad that might happen.
I think it's realistic that fans can be upset about this type of mentality but not want wholesale firings in the coaching staff.
Thinking the same thing. It's really hard not to get positive yards on 2nd/3rd and 50 plus. The defense is playing super soft and you can't gain one yard. At least a couple of bombs might have resulted in a auto first down penalty.
Well you burn another half minute off the clock running the ball. Actually a full minute, you get the 30 secs to get the 3rd down off and then you get 30 secs before the punt.
And you hit on something we've got to remedy. Playing clock management with nearly a whole quarter to play is losing football long term.
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