Did Pruitt not play Simmons and Baron more last year? How the hell do you not get Jimmy Calloway on the field more?
Getting Garner back in Knoxville is going to pay a lot of dividends for Heupel if he sticks around. Matthew Butler graded a 90.9 on PFF yesterday. Above 90 is considered “elite” performance
Every defensive position group has multiple guys who are playing better than any defender did last year.
I was struck by the number of times Pickett had to hold the ball because coverage was good. Didn’t always end well but still
The defense was great. I know 41 points, but the 3 TO really hurt them and with how fast the offense is playing they’re going to give up some #s. That was my main concern for this team. Seeing the offense be the problem gives me hope as even without solid QB play, we should have put up 41 on them and taken them to overtime barring that terrible spot. Much encouraged after last week.
What did Simmons grade out at? He's one of the biggest reasons the linebackers are able to go make plays, teams are paying him a lot of attention
The dline stunts extremely well. They play aggressively along the line of scrimmage, which Pruitt never did. He wanted two gappers and linebackers running free but didn't attempt to confuse the oline.
That didn’t happen…at all last year. We still gave up 41 points, so there’s obviously room for improvement, but it feels like there’s a little more of us making plays and a little less counting on the opponent to mess up
You know, I was going to say that the defense made some plays but had a bad day overall just with the point total, but they held Pitt to 4.8 yards per play. Only 16 teams in the country held opponents to 4.8 yards per play or less last year. So that’s actually really good. But, as you say, we were killed by two turnovers deep in our own territory, and their QB just made a lot of clutch plays on third and fourth down. For reference, we gave up 5.0 in the year that we thought we might have something with Pruitt and 5.7 last year.
They have to cause a few turnovers. That's the one big thing they haven't done. What's funny is that they'll have more opportunities to do that against Florida than most anyone else on the schedule
