Locker Room Post Vandy Win...

You're not necessarily wrong, but this argument has little to do with either Dooley's qualifications or future as a head football coach. It really doesn't have much to do with expectations, either. I expect excellence on the field for Tennessee football. This team has not achieved it, not even close. That Saturday night was the pinnacle of success for this team is certainly an indictment on the 2011 football season. Does that mean the team should not celebrate in their locker room after a senior night overtime win? I sure don't think so. Successes in the yearlong grind of collegiate football merit celebration. And I hardly think their excitement over winning has any relation to our prospects against future opponents.

 

Correct. If I had to put money down, I would go with "duck" all the way. However, I'm going to allow blind optimism to force me to tell everyone that will listen Tennessee will be a badass team next year.

 

It's hard for me not to be optimistic. The defense seemed to turn the corner a bit down the stretch, minus the Arkansas debacle. If the D can hold their own, the offense should bury 7 or 8 teams alone. I think they have potential to be a 9 or 10 win team depending on how the schedule shakes out.

 

I think they can be, but stupid ass mistakes like not being able to get in place after a time out or the inability to play football during 3rd quarters temper my expectations.

I do think Tennessee can ride Bray's arm to 7 or 8 wins even if everything else falls apart.

 

You become what you are expected to be. Programs that celebrate wins over Vanderbilt don't beat Alabama.

The problem is that we have been so awful that we have lowered the standard for achievement. Whether our head coach was knocking out ceiling tiles because we beat Vandy or because we won't go 0-SEC or some other construction, we didn't do anything Saturday night. We avoided total disaster, I guess, but that isn't usually reason to make up a song.

I hope you are right and that they will be badass. I can't take that position, but that's OK. What I can't tolerate is the standard for badass falling every year. 8-4, .500 in the conference, 4th in the east and a Peach Bowl won't be badass, and there is a segment that is so starved for a badass team that they will name it such.

 

Exactly. Winning 8 games and still getting beat by UF, Bama, UGA and another SECW opponent is not a season to be celebrated. It's mediocre.

Bama loses a lot on D and Bray may be able torch them because of it. I don't expect that to happen until but it could. UF literally has no offensive weapons returning. Tennessee had better beat them. UGA is nothing special and Lattimore probably won't be healthy enough to carry Columbia again.

A 10 win season would be great a welcome change. An 11 win season would be badass.

 

Translation: We looked good down the stretch against everyone except the one good offense we played. They obliterated us.

 

I was going to respond with something similar. There are a few reasons to hope for a better overall defensive performance next season, but there really has been no improvement this season on that side of the ball. Or on the other side, for that matter.

 

Wilcox has enough of a gameplan to keep us competitive for a half before any team with a brain figures out to play the edges, move our guys out of the box, then once that happens, gut us up the middle. Or, spot the one on one coverage and just chuck it. That worked for teams about 3/4s of the time.

 

Unfortunately, football games usually have a second half, and Wilcox is going to have to start accounting for that in his strategy.

 

Having an offense of our own will help. Not only did exhaustion take a toll on our D this year, but so did the realization that giving up any more than 7 points would result in another defeat. Without Bray, this team was hopeless.

I know it's no coincidence that the defense was improved against the weaker competition, and I almost mentioned that in my original post....but I think we'll see them continue to develop into a solid, not great, unit in 2012. Could just be seeing what I want to see though.

 

I think everyone will agree that the defense, while not totally inept, is not a shut-down elite SEC defense, and certainly is not equipped to continually stop people after 3-and-out after 3-and-out after 3-and-out. IMO this has had something to do with the way games have gotten out of hand.

 

That's true. Combined with what JT5 said, having the Bray-Hunter offense intact would cover for those shortcomings in most games.

 

This makes perfect sense to me.

 

POST MORE, Tullius. Too funny.

 

If Tyler Bray shows as much improvement from this year to the next as he showed last year I think 9 is possible. From the outside looking in, I think we need a little more investment from Bray to make it happen. I don't know if he will be up for it or not. I have complete faith in Wilcox. If we can get more than 1 check down at the line of scrimmage from our offense, we should give opposing defenses some real problems.

 

Sometimes I learn about football in a post, and sometimes I just learn about people. Either way I have plenty to take from this thread.

 

Elaborate please.

 

Nothing wrong with that philosophy. Of course, if one follows that course, they can't be upset when they realize their life has become a steady stream of 5s.

 

I'm of the same mind set JT. Dooley has had pretty much two free years with little to no pressure, next year is nut-cutting time.