Who Are We and Where Are We Going

Gentleman, we are extremely fortunate. This isn't news to anyone here but it would be doing an extreme disservice to Heupel & Co. that we ignore and not emphasize what we were facing just a handful of months ago. We were dead. DEAD. We easily could have made a foolhardy hire that was par for the course for what we've seen in our exercise in futility. Yet, we lucked in to Heupel.


We are extremely fortunate.


It's Florida week. Here is were we have crumbled. Better teams than this outfit have fallen to the jinx but those teams weren't guided by the same competency of this squad.


My question to you, fellow message board poster, is this year's Florida matchup a referendum on Josh Heupel and his ability to "git it dun"?

 

If you lose it doesn’t blow the season so I wouldn’t go as far as calling it a referendum. But with this team against what Florida has in what should be the rowdiest Neyland crowd in a long time, stomping a mud hole in their ass might be what gets you to escape velocity in leaving the black hole that was Tennessee football 2008-2020 behind for good.

 

@HCKevinSteele I hope so, buddy. Don't take this as me setting the bar too low for who we've got and the matchups that are in our favor but until the clock hits 00:00 with Tennessee on top, I'll be scared ****less. Saturday is not a deal breaker for me, but this game stands out as being a crossroads for the program.

 

If you want to show me you're a championship caliber coach, win Saturday.

 

I don't know that a win will convince me that he's a championship caliber coach, but a loss will definitely make it harder to see him as one.

 

This is about where I’m at. Football is a weird game, and shit happens sometimes, but if you’re a championship coach, you have to regularly win high-pressure games when you have the better team. This is the chance to start doing that.

A win doesn’t crown him, and a loss isn’t the nail in the coffin, but this is the sort of game you play four times a year in the SEC, and you’ve gotta start winning them. Beat Florida and go 8-4, and we’re not feeling great. Lose and go 9-3 and we are. But winning makes 9-3 look a lot more doable.

 

Yeah, I can't ever imagine Heupel winning the SEC if he can't beat this Florida team. A win keeps that dream alive for me

 

I am a big believer in the year two coach. If you don't win something major in year two, you will not win at a place.

When this and going 9-3 would be a major victory

 

Certainly an exit ramp off the highway to hell.

 

Our flaws: thin at running back, inconsistent in the secondary, and we have lapses in focus a couple of times a game (punt block against Pitt, Calloway snapping, throwing high, dropping balls occasionally, and just looking a little stiff-- very transient, but it happens). Nothing unusual or terribly alarming.

Our strengths: they have shown real confidence in each other and the plan (Pitt game). There is depth on the d-line that seems to have ended the late game wilting we saw last year on defense. The rotation keeps them fresh enough. We may have one of the most dangerous overall offenses in the country and it isn't dependent on any one player. They can play fast. They can score fast. They can attack down the field and they can finish short yardage. They react well to pressure (3rd down conversions, 4th down conversions, close game against Pitt). The coaches know when to slow it down to end games.

I believe, in all sincerity and no intentional homerism, that this may be a top 10 team in the country. Certainly among the top 5 SEC teams. Were we not in the SEC, we might run the table. We are a flawed team. We do have some obvious weaknesses and are not built like Georgia or Bama as to render injuries largely meaningless. But if we are hungry enough and focused enough, we might be the only challenge Georgia and Bama sees during the season. I now think we have an outside shot at clipping one of them, despite their high level of play so far.

This could be a special season. We have no reason in the context of 2022 to believe we will lose to Florida. Their offense is beatable. Their defense is talented but thin-- we can tempo them into submission.

 

I think in a lot of ways it is. They're on a first year head coach who has a middling roster, especially for where Florida usually is. We have a highly rated QB and 2 possible future 1st Rounders at WR running a high-powered offense but lingering questions on Defense.

This sounds exactly like 2012 and I can't shake that. Tyler Bray alongside Cordarelle Patterson and Justin Hunter coming off a strong conclusion to 2011 when Bray took over. Everything up to and including the hype behind the game... also including College GameDay being on campus for it.

 

We don’t have a dead man walking head coach that tried to quit the year before or a DC who couldn’t speak English like we did in 2012

 

Same. Year 2 almost always tells the tale

 

Uh, you're misremembering details here. Bray had an awful end to 2011.

 

Bray missed a month in 2011 and Hunter tore his ACL in the first of the Florida game that season.

 

Still not sure what they do, but that offense was fire before hunter got hurt.

 

Heupel will have the better team, the loudest, rowdiest home environment in the country, and a national stage to elevate his program and secure a Top 10 ranking.

Championship-caliber guys don’t piss opportunities like that away.

It’s not fair to assess his ceiling in games against Georgia and Alabama right now…but it’s more than fair to expect him to seize this particular moment on Saturday.

 

You're right. I do remember a lot of fluff from national and even media in Alabama of all places leading up to the Florida game.

 

That’s why I’m nervous. It’s not about the individual game. It’s about what this game says about our coach and whether he can be the guy long term. A loss on Saturday probably means he’s not the guy, and that’s a terrifying, depressing thought.

 

I had that fear with Pittsburgh. Him at least splitting Pittsburgh and Florida makes me not have that same fear.