Kentucky did a better job of avoiding 4th and short. Florida was 0/1 against UK on 4th and less than five. They kicked on 4th and 5+. OTOH, against us, UF was basically game-planning for four downs, trying to run on third and long to get within striking distance to go for it on fourth. Which was actually pretty smart, but it’s high-risk—they knew they needed something special against us. They thought they could get by playing conservative against UK
And Tennessee won! It's almost like the gameplan was to let Richardson throw and not let him run wild and the scoreboard says it worked!
Huge. Do all non-RS seniors have the ability to return with a Covid year? Same for Juniors after next year?
Yep. We followed the game plan, and it worked. But we still have weaknesses that make us vulnerable to the second tier of our schedule (LSU, UK, UF, Pitt). We’re good enough to win those games. But we can be had. I think LSU will be the toughest, and may be a toss-up. We should beat Kentucky, but we’ve let teams hang that we could’ve beaten more handily.
I’m not sure if this is supposed to be an argument against the claim that we should win these games but we’re still vulnerable. If it is, it’s not a very good one. If it isn’t, I’m not sure what we’re arguing about.
I don't know why I feel this way but I honestly think if we beat LSU we are going 10-2 but if we lose to LSU then someone that shouldn't get us at all will somehow get us because our offense will sputter and our defense will kill us - (USCjr, Mizzou, or Kentucky). A win against LSU will keep the team sharp enough not to have a huge letdown and still get us to the Sugar Bowl.
Safeties absolutely stink in pass coverage. I know people say we don’t have skill but I see them playing passive and bend but don’t break. We are easy to pass the ball on. This year and last, have we had a safety break on a ball and bat it down or pick? All I see are safeties way to deep and guarding grass
We’re up to #8 and #9 in the polls. I expect that a win at Auburn next week will launch LSU into the 20s and set up our third ranked clash of the season. Willing to bet it’ll have the shortest line so far. If I had to guess right now, I’d say Tennessee -2.
I haven't felt this confident in an offensive staff since Cutcliffe revamped and improved our offense overnight in 2006 and into 2007. WRs are so disgusting we can be missing a future 1st Rounder and still have our QB throw video game numbers. We also didn't use Squirrel White or Sampson who are our 2 burners. I feel like the staff felt they could coast to a win against Florida and were mostly right, especially at the 8:00 left in the 4th mark. Hopefully Heupel learns to not take his foot off the gas even up 17 on Florida. DL played well. Garner is a stud on recruiting and coaching. Everyone else has thus-far not impressed except against the run, which I thought the D did well against. Don't know if the staff was just overly confident that rushing 4 would be enough to pressure AR into mistakes or not. We did a good job limiting the run but clearly AR was able to pick apart our pass coverage.
McCullough led the team interceptions last year. Flowers' pick against Pitt was a big reason Tennessee won. They aren't good, they're the weakest part of the defense and Tennessee needs to upgrade there.
It’s just the secondary. We are making extraordinarily clear strides everywhere else. If we lose another game against an opponent outside the top three, it’ll be on the secondary.
They neither stood out as good like the DL or bad like the DBs did. They did a good job against the run but without them being green-lit for blitzes, they were just kinda .... there. Florida didn't destroy us with slants, so perhaps just an absence of their responsibilities in pass coverage not being exploited is a key that they did their job.