I’m looking back now and looking at TN now…it looks more like 2018 which was great. 2019-2021 was the direct reason our Defense suffered. That offense was unimaginative trash. Was it DG? I doubt it but I’m sure his skill set may have contributed to Heupel calling those plays. I think Heupel has a guy Hendon Hooker is is awesome and great skill position guys. He definitely learned and adapted, something he couldn’t do here it seemed.
Heupel runs the fasts paced offense in the country. Barely run up tempo. Lol
No Huepal added a few things to offense and slowed it down also added more throws in middle of field. More passes to RB. He also has more control over defense and gave more control to coaches running offense line. With Tennessee he is more of a coach. With UCF he tried to please the fans by running fast pace offense. In Tennessee he is more his own man. Don't have to worry about recruiting because Tennessee bag man control that it's a better place for him then here.
Opinion:"Never really understood why some fans dunked on Heupel"
You obviously didn't attend the horrible boca bowl against byu and it shows.
A couple of those got in trouble. A couple more left on Gus and Mack was never going to be full time starter.
Lets face it, during those years the pace worked well because our athletes were far superior to any defense in the aac. In the sec you cant always do that so it seems he has modified it
And half of them boiled down to Randy Shannon. The team always reflects it’s leadership.
I don’t know why people ever called his offense a gimmick. Every place he has been an OC or head coach, the offense is dominant (and that’s with 4-5 different QBs since being at Mizzou). You can say what you want about him but you can’t rag on actual results, and the fact is his offenses are top notch statistically.
And where have the defenses ranked statistically? His offense is a direct detriment to his defense.
Depends what you call a gimmick. They actual formations and plays aren’t a gimmick, but the strategy to never allow the defense to sub certainly leads to more opportunities to catch a defense out of position or unready for a play due to the pace at which the offense goes. I wouldn’t call it a gimmick, but it is not a common strategy across college football. So it often catches defenses off guard early. It’s why his offenses tend to start off on fire and come back to earth as the game settles in.
I tend to think he tried to match the skill set of the players we had. That skill set really didn't match what he wanted to do. I never thought he was a bad coach, but not a great recruiter. I think we today are closer to what he would have wanted player wise. Frost to Nebraska was a horrid fit, I never thought it would work, and it didn't. Heupel to Tenn made sense.
Tennessee Defense is 6th in SEC by points given up. Not bad really.
Because he was a first time coach. HE followed last coaches schemes Scott Frost Because the personnel was there for it. Also defense was led by another Coach which split team up. Hype was never truly allowed to Coach the way he wanted. He had no say in defense and followed last regime offense Now he us running the offense the way he wants. He is actually incorporated some plays from his Oklahoma days as a Sooner. And has added a few Scott Frost wrinkles. With plays from Mike leach his ex Off Coordinator at Oklahoma. It's a good scheme Plus he now has say in Defense Also recruiting just got easier with bagmen by your side. Hemay well win a championship there. Good luck to him. He needed to leave UCF in order to grow.
LOL…ok. I guess from the outside you can project that from your own experience at UCF. The issue with our defense is that we have been terrible since 30+% of the team left when Pruitt was canned - and a lot of defensive players. Our secondary is bad - no other way to put it - and are not going to win any games. We recruited decently on the line this past year but have no difference makers after losing all our best talent in the backend. The incoming class will address the DB situation and expect it will be 2 more years before that really pays off.
Very happy UT is having success, I’m not mad at all, they are doing well. I’ve watched several games of theirs, even going to the UF game in Knoxville and enjoyed it. But I was talking from Heupel’s experience, not just UCF. He was run out of OU and went to Utah St, their defense went way down when their offense went up. He went to Missouri, same thing. UCF, yup, our defense had to stay on the field 3 quarters of the game b/c we’d either score in a min or give it back within a couple mins. We didn’t have the depth for the style of play he called, and he was too stubborn to adjust.
Garbage personality? The players, fans and recruits love him and his personality.
Fans here felt going undefeated in 2017 should have led to riches on the recruiting trail. Also people hated the “trajectory” of going from undefeated to 12-1 then 10-3 and 6-4 in the Covid shortened year. It’s tough to meet fan expectations when they are expectations of maintaining a nationally ranked conference championship winning team every year with 50-70 rated recruiting classes.
On one hand its impossible to keep up that level of production we had, but on the other you would think with a strong offense and QB friendly system we would have had better options than Keene and Navarro coming out of high school, for example. Keene definitely got boned by the situation though. Also a reminder to the fanbase how quickly you can fall back into the pack with everyone else. I think the fanbase will get another rude awakening the next few years with the B12 transition as well...
Very true, expectations too high.
I agree and unless you are an elite team, you also don't win many games with that many turnovers. ECU clearly wanted this one more than we did.
Heupel needs a QB who can make a presnap read and make an accurate throw to a one on one situation or a receiver schemed open. Also one who can limit turning the ball over. He has shown he is capable of coaching up QBs (like 5 straight) to have pretty successful offensive performances. He took DJ Mack in an impromptu appearance and rolled up 56 points in a CCG. Even if his option at QB was Keene, I don’t think his offense is getting limited to 14-24 points over and over and over again.
I appreciate that even though I disagree about his personality. He’s been nothing but gracious and open so far and possibly another chapter in his growth.
