Bigger Concern: Offensive Line or Defensive Speed?

Discussion in 'Vols Football' started by tvolsfan, Sep 18, 2011.

  1. VOLinDAWGland

    VOLinDAWGland Contributor

    When AJ moves to the middle it will be an upgrade in speed and size and I'd hope he'd be replaced with a faster OLB. This is a work in procress.
     
  2. bigpapavol

    bigpapavol Chieftain

    I don't think you're way off at all. Bullard's penalty yesterday was the first time I saw any disdain for the bad guys. Hell, I was madder than our line.
     
  3. volfanjo

    volfanjo Chieftain

    Their entire off-season weight-training strategy would verify this.
     
  4. FlowingAway.

    FlowingAway. Banned

    We look bad ass in pictures, though!
     
  5. bigpapavol

    bigpapavol Chieftain

    Jacques do, but he still be fast.
     
  6. tidwell

    tidwell Chieftain

    That play right there was probably the second most demoralizing moment of the day after Hunter going down. Rainey just flat ran by pretty much the entire defense behind the defensive line. Almost as if they were just standing still.
     
  7. cotton

    cotton Stand-up Philosopher

    I'll play the minority and vote team speed on defense.

    The OLine is a young, talented group that is underperforming in one area. There is hope of fixing that with the people we have on campus.

    On defense, linebacker is a mess, DBs are patchwork, and the DL is just lacking enough good players. It's been a common theme for the past few years, but we are simply undermanned. That's tougher to get fixed, and it is impossible to get fixed in a hurry.
     
  8. Beechervol

    Beechervol Super Moderator

    OL

    The D is still a bunch of mismatch pieces and youth.
     
  9. tvolsfan

    tvolsfan Chieftain

    This is what I was thinking about when I started this thread. How many of Tennessee's defensive starters have SEC caliber talent?
     
  10. IP

    IP Super Moderator

    The starting defense includes a converted wide receiver, a converted fullback, and a converted guard. And those are also a good chunk of the upperclassmen.
     
  11. IP

    IP Super Moderator

    Friend who is not an SEC fan laughed and said we had an arena football team defense, when I was talking about all the guys.
     
  12. Lexvol

    Lexvol Guest

    Defensive speed for me.
     
  13. kptvol

    kptvol Super Moderator

    We did just face one of the faster teams you'll ever see, with two of the fastest men in America at tailback. Hopefully things will look a tad better through the rest of the season.
     
  14. IP

    IP Super Moderator

    This was likely the best team in the East (just my opinion at this juncture.) Just as expectations were way too high before this game, some folks in the fan base are over-reacting to a 10 point loss without our best offensive weapons, and with a TON of mistakes (punt blocked, the blown LB assignment on the 83 yard pass for a TD, missed field goal, at least 10 terrible snaps from center).

    I don't think this forum needs a pep talk as much as some others, but that was not an awful showing for a team young all over.
     
  15. justingroves

    justingroves supermod

    Maggitt, Jacques, maybe Teague, Malik, Walls and Brewer.

    Austin Johnson is a slow mlb and AJ Johnson really is out of position.
     
  16. bigpapavol

    bigpapavol Chieftain

    I think some of the youngsters are too. I'll give Coleman, Randolph, Miller, Couch, CHarris and some of the other frosh the benefit of the doubt. I do think last recruiting class was stout by almost any measure.
     
  17. justingroves

    justingroves supermod

    I didn't mean to leave Couch off the list.

    Coleman is a good ball player but his confidence is down. We haven't seen too much of the rest but Randolph and he has looked good in limited time.
     
  18. kptvol

    kptvol Super Moderator

    I think Austin Johnson would be a little better in a more conventional 4-3 defense. All this nickel stuff doesn't suit him.
     
  19. IP

    IP Super Moderator

    I'm confident we have 4 to 6 more wins left on the schedule, which where we thought we were this year.
     
  20. cotton

    cotton Stand-up Philosopher

    And the two bolded really aren't ready to hold down the positions by themselves.
     

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