Category Archives: Today on Gameday

 

Hello Darkness, my old friend

One of the side benefits of having to endure all of the nonsense about Butch Jones actually thinking positive thoughts is that it has distracted us from the old habit of rehashing for the thousandth time the misery of the last decade. It’s kind of too bad that Dave Hooker didn’t post his Top 10 reasons for Tennessee’s slide over the past decade last year sometime, because it’s actually one of the better treatments of the issue even if it is, hopefully, old news. Me, I’m side-stepping the blame-game and just trying to identify the first domino to tip, which I believe was Fulmer’s hiring of Dave Clawson at the wrong time. Lots of action set in motion by that ill-fated decision.

Quick Hits

• From the Knoxville News Sentinel, Dan Fleser has a piece rounding up all of the latest on the Vols’ new emphasis on toughness, and John Adams says Team 121 could use a bit of the 2007 team’s resourcefulness. Side note, KNS has like the messiest-coded pages on the internet. This has been a public service announcement.
• SB Nation’s Bill Connelly ranks every SEC team using all of his fancy numbers, charts, and stuff. Spoiler: Tennessee is in “Tier 3” with six other teams, after a Tier 2 consisting of Auburn and LSU and Tier 1 consisting of the team you think is in Tier 1.
• 247Sports has a nice feature on Jajuan Jennings, who they rank as No. 4 on their ongoing list of Tennessee’s most important players in 2017. And Scout, which is now showing up on 247‘s page, has a similarly nice feature on offensive lineman Marcus Tatum, who’s trying to work his way into significant playing time, largely by gaining weight. I didn’t follow it all the way to the end, but I think the article concludes with a slideshow documenting Tatum’s weight gain. Incidentally, my Facebook page shows basically the same thing.
• Defensive tackle Kendal Vickers is making me cringe by admitting that “every D-lineman hates to be cut-blocked” when asked about the challenges of playing Georgia Tech. Are you worried about injuries to defensive tackles in the very first game of the season? Join the club!
• Butch Jones has attached “Quarterback Leadership Cameras” to the QBs, and they record every single little thing they do so it can be subjected to criticism by the coaching staff later. Woo!
• New punter commit Paxton Brooks says he “just felt like Tennessee was my home.” Missed opportunity to use “home sweet home” there, but that’ll come.
• High five to hoopster Grant Williams, who lobbied John Currie to open Smokey’s Sports Grill in Anderson Training Center for summer sessions so the athletes didn’t have to bulk up on Gus’ Good Times Deli. I mean, Gus and his seasoned fries are partly responsible for some of the aforementioned images on my Facebook page, but I’m not an athlete and “offensive-lineman-shaped” does not equal “offensive lineman,” so good call, Currie.
• If a lawn mower company is going to sponsor a bowl game played on artificial turf, it had better at least be named the “Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl.”

Football

Hey, y’all. We’re under three weeks to football:

https://twitter.com/Vol_Football/status/897442767768506368

GoVols247 has slideshows predicting the Vols’ offensive and defensive depth charts. Their projected starters aren’t much different than ours, except that 247 has Marquez Callaway starting instead of Tyler Byrd, Jack Jones starting instead of Coleman Thomas (because he’s the backup for Jashon Robertston at guard, who would move to center in place of Thomas), and Justin Martin starting instead of Emmanuel Moseley at corner. They’re probably right about that last one, so I’ve updated our chart accordingly.

Vince Ferrara goes down the list and updates how he feels about each position group now compared to how he feel before fall camp started. The answer is “better” about the receivers, tight ends, defensive line, and defensive backs, and “worse” about the offensive line and linebackers.

Butch Jones said some things about Jajuan Jennings the other day, and now every site has an article on Jennings’ leadership. Representative samples:

• Jones, Vols ready to ‘go to battle’ with new-and-improved Jajuan Jennings
• Tennessee football WR Jajuan Jennings getting used to new label: leader

Jennings isn’t the only receiver in the news, though. Marquez Callaway, who’s in the running for a starting spot at wide receiver and as the team’s primary punt returner, also threw the shotput and managed the girls track team in high school. I’m guessing there was a girl involved. Tyler Byrd, too, is competing for a job with the ones at receiver and has the added challenge of transitioning to the position from his high school position at DB.

Quinten Dormady is not a “rah rah’ guy, but coach Canales says he reminds him of Phillip Rivers, so who needs rah rah?

Defensive coordinator Bob Shoop says it was a mistake to not get more guys on the field earlier last year and is excited about fixing that this fall.

On the other side of the ball, offensive coordinator Larry Scott is in the weird position of not having to live up to the expectations of his predecessor but having to live up to his numbers. John Adams points out the following, which is sobering:

UT scored 473 points last season. That was second only to the 1993 team (484 points).

Tennessee’s 1998 national championship team scored 431 points. In 1997, UT had All-American Peyton Manning at quarterback, offensive guru David Cutcliffe calling the plays and an offensive depth chart manned mainly with future pros. And it scored 45 fewer points than it did in 2016.

Mike Debord was oft-criticized despite coordinating an offense that was pretty darn good.

Hoops

The bracket for the Battle 4 Atlantis is set, and the Vols open against Purdue.

Grant Williams was only two rebounds short of three consecutive double-doubles during the team’s trip to Europe, but his coaches are still wanting him to play with more of a chip on his shoulder.

An anonymous NFL scout insults Ethan Wolf from the shadows, Chick-fil-A is sold out, you’re going to love Will Ignont, Hoke’s focused on stopping the run, another offensive lineman will miss the entire season, and Josh Dobbs will start for the Steelers tomorrow night. All this and more in today’s Vols link roundup.

Anonymous NFL talent evaluator says Ethan Wolf isn’t tough enough

Mike Griffith with SEC Country last night published a post quoting an unnamed “NFL talent evaluator” as saying that the draft-eligible players on the 2017 Vols roster are soft. That’s likely brewing into the storm of the day, particularly in light of the fact that some players, particularly senior tight end Ethan Wolf, were specifically called out.

I’m no anonymous NFL talent evaluator or anything, so I don’t know whether that’s true or not. My guess is that it’s not, and my money’s on Wolf in a fight with any anonymous NFL scout, particularly this one. But if it makes our players more mad and more tough, thanks for the fuel, anonymous NFL-dude.

The Chick-fil-A Kickoff is sold out

Tennessee’s season-opener against Georgia Tech in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff at the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium is officially sold out. Kickoff is on Monday, September 4 at 8:00 p.m. and will be televised by ESPN.

Playing Georgia Tech and its out-of-the-ordinary offense poses problems, but it’s not something the Vols can’t overcome with sufficient preparation. And John Adams reminds us that Tennessee would do well to get an early lead because run-first teams like the Yellow Jackets don’t overcome early deficits well.

You’re going to love Will Ignont

Linebacker Quart’e Sapp is apparently “still very limited,” according to Butch Jones, who went on to say good things about Darrin Kirkland Jr., Cortez McDowell, Elliott Berry, and Dillon Bates. Colton Jumper, having proved himself a reliable guy already last season, is also still improving:

The big news in the linebacking corps, however, is freshman Will Ignont, who is apparently already poised to really make some noise this fall. According to Jumper, Ignont has “gotten everybody’s attention,” and he’s an especially physical guy who’s also ahead of the game from the neck up:

“Will’s a lot, I mean, head and shoulders above like, when any other linebacker has come in here,” Jumper said. “He knows the game really well. He’s a smart guy. You can tell he’s really smart. I mean, like, when I came in, my first camp, it was just, you know, setting up the front, knowing where to line up. He’s way, way past that. He’s starting to get coverages down, pass patterns down.

“I think he just recognizes the game really well, and I think that just, right off the bat, can help him a lot.”

Run defense

Defensive line coach Brady Hoke says that “We’ve got to be a unit that this team counts on.”

https://twitter.com/vol_football/status/895315933748633607

See? I told you so. Hoke also elaborated to Jimmy Hyams:

“Stopping the run, to me, is always the No. 1 thing you have to do (on defense),’’ said Tennessee defensive line coach Brady Hoke. “And you’re not going to stop the run unless everybody understands where the fits are and what different strengths and weakness each defensive call may have.’’

Fits in my house are generally somewhere in the vicinity of my six-year-old, but I’m not sure how that helps, to be honest. I do know, however, that stopping the run was a problem for the Tennessee defense last season and that they need to be better at that this fall.

 

Injuries

Freshman offensive lineman K’Rojhn Calbert, who reportedly was destined for a redshirt season anyway, will now definitely miss the season to undergo surgery to repair a pre-existing knee injury. Speedy recovery, young man.

Football – General

• Will compared ESPN’s FPI and Bill Connelly’s S&P+ numbers for Tennessee and says that you can make a case for anything between 7-5 and 9-3 for the Vols this fall. He’s landed on 8-4 himself.
• Butch Jones says that freshmen wide receivers Josh Palmer and Brandon Johnson are really stepping up this fall camp, even going so far as to say that they are challenging for starting positions. That could be good news or bad news, largely depending on whether it’s actually true, whether they’re actually really good, and whether Jones simply felt he needed to get the attention of Jajuan Jennings, Josh Smith, Tyler Byrd, and Marquez Callaway.
• Punter Trevor Daniel, who’s lost 30 pounds in the offseason, is focusing on improving his hang time, saying that he sometimes tended to outkick his coverage.

 

VFLs

Josh Dobbs is going to start for the Pittsburgh Steelers versus the Giants Friday night, mostly because neither starter Ben Roethlisberger nor backup Landry Jones are available. Head coach Mike Tomlin is wondering whether his early assessment of Dobbs will survive under pressure:

“One man’s misfortunate is another man’s opportunity,” Tomlin said about Dobbs getting the opportunity to play in place on Jones. “I know he’s excited about it, I know I’m excited about watching him.

“He’s a bright-eyed willing worker that appears to be willing to learn from his mistakes. He also appears to learn by watching the mistakes of others. But we won’t know until we get him into a stadium. It will be good to get him into the stadium on Friday night.”

I love that whole “vicarious learning” thing, and I also love that Dobbs is keen on making sure that his mind overcomes his muscle memory:

“19 seconds left, and as a quarterback, it’s third and eight so you’re thinking I want to get a first down, but at the college level you’re thinking I want to spike it so we can call another play. But in the NFL, if you get the first down in bounds the clock doesn’t stop as we all know. So as the receivers are running back you change your whole mindset to ‘I gotta take a shot at the endzone’ because this could be our last play and we need to throw it into the end zone and then get a play after that.”

Also, if you’re interested in how people actually paid to crunch numbers rate the Vols in the NFL, GoVols247 has a slideshow of all of their Madden rankings.

Also, UTSports has a nice catching-up feature on VFL Jarnell Stokes. Always liked that guy.

Play with intentness, speed, and personality, and just go out there and be like Peyton Manning, okay? This and more in today’s Vols link roundup.

What a coach wants

Offensive coordinator Larry Scott seems to me to be quiet strength kind of guy. When he speaks about what he expects from his players, his speech is best characterized as low-volume, high-intensity, like your mother speaking through clenched teeth:

“Everything is done with intentness and purpose,” Scott said. “Everything you do – whether it’s your step, whether it’s your hand placement, whether it’s being 15 minutes early for a meeting, whether it’s your preparation, whether it’s hydrating when you need to hydrate, being places when we need you to be there – all of those things speak to being able to have a hard edge, having some toughness, and having the ability to focus in times when I need you to focus. All of those things go into play from on the field to off it.”

I’m pretty sure that “intentness” is not a word, but there is no way in Hades I’m telling Larry Scott that. The text alone in that quote probably doesn’t get the point across, but if you heard him say it, you’d actually hear the seething seeping through. I think he’s going to have his guys ready. I know that my intentness is currently dialed to 11 just from listening to him.

What is quarterbacks coach Mike Canales looking for out of his quarterbacks? Oh, he just wants them to be like Peyton Manning and Tom Brady is all:

“It’s getting guys to feel your energy, to feel you,” Canales said. “There’s a great example with Tom Brady on leadership, with Peyton Manning on leadership. You watch how they play and you watch clips of their highlights. Watching Peyton Manning, his offense felt him, his players trusted him and they felt his presence. That’s what I’m trying to generate in the meeting room, what I’m trying to generate on the field. Your players have got to be able to feel you, your energy, your enthusiasm and your passion. When they get that and they trust you, they’ll play their butts off for you, and that’s what we’re trying to do.

“A lot of the intangibles are going to be different things – their work ethic, how they come out. Are they on the field when they step across the white line? Are they ready to go every single day? That’s what we’re looking for. We want those guys to set themselves apart, be an example and never a distraction, understand it’s all about us because it’s going to take all of us to get this thing done.”

So, you know, just be Peyton is all.

And what does defensive backs coach Charlton Warren want out of his guys? Speed, even if they have no idea where they’re going:

“I’m looking for ballhawks,” Warren said. “And if you make a mistake, I guess I want you to make it going 100 miles an hour. I don’t want the guys to hesitate. I don’t want the guys to throw their hands in the air and say, ‘Coach, I don’t get it.’ I want you to figure it out on the run. When in doubt, run fast and we’ll figure it out from there.”

Play, with personality

Senior cornerback Justin Martin has ditched the purple hair but not the attitude that caused him to dye his hair purple in the first place. He is learning when to play and when to mean business, but it is good to hear that the team has vocal leaders at most positions. With John Kelly at running back, Jajuan Jennings at wide receiver, and Martin at cornerback all jawing at each other, it’s making one wonder whether there’s a bunch of Al Wilsons running around out there. Jennings, by the way, is apparently every bit the beast he was last year, but has learned to channel his natural rage into productive things like blocking receivers.

Speaking of rage, Tennessee offensive lineman commit Cade Mays has goals, yo, namely to make his opponents hate football so much they want to quit.

Quarterbacks

So, I wonder how many different ways we can report between now and the first game that the coaches are willing to play both quarterbacks. The latest iteration is, “If it takes two, it takes two,” which is what Canales recently said when asked the question for the billionth time.

John Adams, though, is on to something else, pointing to the passing game as the potential surprise of the season. I like that idea. Let’s do it.

Um, linebackers?

Is anyone else worried to learn that Darrin Kirkland Jr. and Daniel Bituli are “very, very limited?” Especially when the coaches seem to be going out of their way to remind us that they consider Colton Jumper a starter and that Cortez McDowell is looking good. I believe that Jumper and McDowell are both good, but we really need Kirkland, and Bituli is important as well.

Mmmm. These hooks are tasty.

Yeah, so everybody’s up in arms about CBS’s Dennis Dodd saying that Butch Jones is a “realistic candidate” to replace Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss. Pffffffft. Resist the clickbait, as the whole thing rests on the assumption that Jones tanks and is on the market, not whether he’ll leave Tennessee voluntarily to go to Ole Miss. Deep breath.

 

Oh, kickers

Also from John Adams comes this important public service announcement:

“In three seasons at Tennessee, [kicker Aaron] Medley never has made a field-goal attempt longer than 47 yards. While he has made 43 of 48 attempts from 20 to 39 yards, he’s 9-for-25 on kicks longer than 39 yards.”

That’s not necessarily a terrible knock on Medley, but it is important to know what to expect of your weapons.

Life in the Shadows

One thing that Tennessee’s best teams have always had in common? Great offensive lines. Call it necessary but not necessarily sufficient, and wonder whether Team 121’s OL will be “great,” but it could be, and if it is, check that box.