Ay-Ziggy-Zoomba.com

Good afternoon and hello.

As you are all painfully aware, it is the never ending offseason. As such, to fill the football-less, meaningless void in our lives, I wanted to take the time to start a discussion about the closest upcoming game for both of us, the opener at LP Field. I've been reading the discussion on here to get a general feel and you guys seem like you'd be up for a discussion. I don't have time right now (I'm watching the basketball tournaments at work, so sue me lol), but I would love to do a breakdown of position groups for us and perhaps get one in return for the Falcons. I don't know a ton about your team, but due to the weekday scheduling by the MAC last year I did catch quite a few of your games, including the bowl win. When I have time, I will sit down sometime between now and Monday perhaps and do an overall synopsis, offensive units breakdown, defensive units breakdown, and special teams. I started these same conversations with fans our season opener Utah State last year and it turned into some great discussions, so I hope this works out as well, and I look forward to talking with you guys. Cheers

Hi....welcome to the board.. What is this basketball tournament thing you speak of? Is there a way our men's team could perhaps...someday...participate in such an event?

So far as football goes...you're going to want to put a couple of guys on #1 when we're on offense.

I’ll take a shot at a position breakdown. Note, I am wearing my orange and brown glasses today.

First thing to note is that 2015 will be the second year under Coach Babers. He likes to run an up-tempo offense. Defensively he likes to create havoc, although he must have been disappointed in the 2014 results (as we all were) when he replaced his DC with a new guy from the FCS ranks. The previous coach, Clawson, was here for five years and laid a new foundation and built the team from 2-10 to conference title.

Offense
QB
- Matt Johnson was a redshirt sophomore in 2013 and was initially 2nd on the depth chart. The initial starter was a three year starter, and after two series in the first game the starter was benched and in came Johnson. He never looked back and led the team to 10 wins and the first conference title in 20 years. Johnson passed for 25 TDs in 2013 against only 7 picks and completed 64.2% of passes. He’s also mobile and a scrambling threat, adding another 5 TDs on the ground. He was the undisputed leader of the 2013 championship team. He quickly became the starter in 2014 under the new coaching staff and learned the new offense. Then in the fourth quarter of the first game, he injured his hip and missed the rest of the season. The first game did not go well but none of the result was on Johnson; he played great despite an awful defensive performance and many dropped passes including two dropped TDs and several dropped first downs. Johnson was cleared for spring practice and we hope to see him 100% in fall. Note: Johnson was sacked a lot of times in 2013. That’s really the only bad thing I can say about his 2013 performance.
- James Knapke was a redshirt sophomore in 2014 and was second on the depth chart. Then Johnson was injured for the year and Knapke was suddenly the starter come week 2. He quickly learned the new offense. If you look at his stats (58% completion rate, 15 TDs, 12 picks), you’d say he was “serviceable”, but if you look at his results (undefeated against MAC east, won the MAC east, first bowl win in a decade, first win over a big conference team since 2008), you’d be quite impressed with what the youngster accomplished.
- Clayton Nicholas is a transfer from Texas Tech. He was a good recruit out of high school and stuck deep in the depth chart at Tech. He is a complete unknown. On the one side, he was recruited for a very similar system to what we run here so he may be farther along than anybody thinks. On the other side, he hasn’t played any real game time since he was a high school senior. He had to sit out last year and is eligible to play this year as a redshirt junior.
- Cody Callaway played some last year as a true freshman, including nearly leading a comeback win against UT. He obviously did not quite have the system down seeing as he was a true freshman and would have redshirted had it not been for Matt Johnson’s injury. I’ll say he is a mostly unknown, but I have to point out his arm. He has a great deep arm and a very polished release. Lots of potential for this guy. I expect he will redshirt this year.
- James Morgan will be a true freshman so I expect he will redshirt. He was very highly recruited but seeing as I haven’t once seen him on the field, I’ll say he is a complete unknown.

RB
- In 2012, Anthon Samuel was the starter and he had a tremendous season finishing two yards shy of 1000. He opted to transfer to be closer to family, so there was obviously a huge void for 2013. What absolutely nobody saw coming was we actually would improve our rushing with the emergence of Travis Greene. Greene was previously a receiver and converted to running back and started spring training at the bottom of the depth chart, but come fall kickoff he was the starter. Greene was the leading rusher by over 1000 and set the school record for rushing yards in a season in 2013 with 1594 and 11 TDs. I know he fumbled once against NIU in the conference title game. Correct me if I’m wrong ... I think that was his only lost fumble on the season. Greene had another great year in 2014, rushing for 949 while splitting carries and would have had far more had he not missed three games due to injury. He is not an overly big guy but he’s much stronger than you may think and he has breakaway speed. I can’t think of a more fun back to watch in all my years following BG than Travis Greene (and yes Falcon fans, I was around to watch PJ Pope).
- Fred Coppet was a true freshman in 2013 and he got in a few games to get his feet wet. He was a very highly touted recruit and we saw some glimpses but nothing outstanding. Then in 2014 he split carries with Greene and rushed for 764 while also missing playing time due to injury. He has a very similar build to Greene. He had an excellent season and his future is very bright.
- Andre Givens played just a bit in 2012 and impressed with his playing time until he was lost for the season due to injury. In 2013 he was the second leading rusher on the team but again did not get all too many carries. In 2014, he was initially the short yardage back but due to injuries to both Greene and Coppet became the starter for a couple games and rushed for almost 500 and 8 TDs.
I just have to say about this group, I think any one of these backs could start at almost any MAC school, but they all compete for playing time on the same team. Their styles all complement each other nicely. I also have to say that these guys adjusted to the new offense in 2014 incredibly well. The new system is up tempo and allows for some big gains. The three backs combined for 26 TDs in 2014 and stepped up to take away many of the growing pains from James Knapke.

WR / TE
- Roger Lewis is as great of a MAC WR as you could ask for. He finished with over 1000 yards and that was especially of note considering he was the focal point for defenses all year long. He’s not an overly tall guy but has great speed.
- Lining up opposite of Roger Lewis is actually not Roger Lewis’ clone. Robbie Rhodes is very much of the same style as Lewis (and dare I say, may end up actually better?) He was a 5* recruit coming out of high school and committed to Baylor. He had some off field troubles there and transferred here and has committed to putting his past behind him and focusing on his future. He had to sit out last year so we haven’t seen him do anything yet, but we have very high hopes for him.
- Ronnie Moore is one fast, explosive kid. As a true freshman in 2013, he had an integral role in the MAC title game, accounting for over 100 yards and a TD in the first half. He finished 2014 with 690 and often gets a ton of yards after the catch. He is incredibly athletic and is a good complement at slot.
- Another good athletic receiver is Ryan Burbrink. He’s a smaller guy but very quick and makes a lot of catches in traffic. He finished 2014 with 758 yards. Of note, he is our main punt returner.
- Gehrig Dieter missed over half of 2014 due to injury, but when he was in his impact was noticed. Considering all the time he missed, he still finished with 460 yards. He’s a big target (6’3 204) and is good at winning matchups. I’m hoping for him to have an injury free season and show how good he can be because the potential is very high here.
- Chris Gallon is another big receiver (6’4) who also has missed a ton of time due to injury. He missed almost all of 2013 and all of 2014 due to injury, so we’re really hoping for him to finally stay healthy for a year. In 2012 as a redshirt freshman, he led the team with 720 yards and 6 TDs.
- Who will start at TE is anybody’s guess. We didn’t use the TE much in 2014, partly due to the system and partly due to drops by the starter Pohlman. Pohlman has graduated and we just don’t know who will be in place in 2015 and what role the starter will have. I will say this for Pohlman: yes he dropped some big passes, but it seemed every big run play had a massive block by Pohlman on the line. Whoever starts in 2015 may not be targeted very much for passes but he will be blocking a lot.
As you can see, we have some high words and high hopes for our receivers. There are big bodies (Dieter and Gallon), quick guys (Lewis and Rhodes), and slots (Moore and Burbrink). If these guys live up to their potential, this will easily be the best receiving corps since the 2003-2004 years and possibly the school’s best receivers in history.

OL
The offensive line is a unit, so I’ll review them as a unit, not as individual players.
The up tempo offense relies on the offensive line to do all the tasks required of an offensive line and do it quickly. The line probably deserved more credit in 2014 than it received. I was worried going into the season that there would be many times where the receivers are all lined up in formation after a big play and the offensive linemen would be gassed and lumbering down the field between plays, would barely be set and lead to false starts or other offensive line problems. Honestly that was just not a problem in 2014. The line was consistently set up in formation almost as soon as a play was over.
What also helped tremendously in 2014 was lack of injuries to the line. For all the injuries in other units, the line stayed intact. The same 5 starters started all 14 games in the same position. My fear is that good injury luck in 2014 can lead to the opposite in 2015. If the line does not hold up, this offense could be stuck in neutral, which can lead to very quick three and outs and putting a tired defense on the field.
The line in 2014 was up and down. The good is that there were many long runs by the backs. The bad is that there were many runs where the backs were stuffed for 2 yards or less. Part of the problem with the running attack was the system. In order to get plays called fast, we only ran a few simple runs and defenses often knew what was coming. Also in the category of bad on the offensive line is number of sacks. We gave up 28 sacks in 14 games, which although is 13 fewer than 2013 is still a bit higher than we would like. Obviously when you have a new QB learning a new system, there will be sacks.
All of the 2014 starters return in 2015. This line could be very good. Like the other offensive positions, if they live up to potential they could be very good.

The offense has incredible potential this year. We get our star QB back. We return all but one starter on the entire offensive unit. We return depth at every position. We have a receiver corps that should be the top of the mid majors and ahead of many big conference teams. And we are through year one of learning the new system. Babers’ year 2 at Eastern Illinois was when the offense went nuclear and this offense is more stacked than that EIU offense.
I also have to say something about the system. The system is in constant hurry up mode. There were a lot of growing pains in 2014 but when the offense clicked, it was a thing of beauty. While we don’t have the size of Tennessee or the other big teams on our schedule, the pace is an equalizer. The pace can create and exploit matchup problems and can lead to a five yard play becoming a fifty yard touchdown play. Before Babers showed up, if I saw that we were going to Tennessee I would only expect a shot if our defense came up huge. Now, I think we have a shot simply because the offensive system we run is paired with a very talented and experienced set of players. (Note, I say we have a shot. I don’t know how big of a shot that is, but I think we can compete in this one).

Defense
And now defense. The 2014 defense was up and down. They started horribly, giving up record yards and points almost every week. Then things started to change midway through the season early in conference games and the defense culminated against Akron when they forced turnover after turnover and won the game for our team. And then the defense fell apart in the final few weeks (consequently against better competition). The defense played well enough in the bowl game and came up with a late pick to seal the win. If I could sum up the defense in one word in 2014, I would say “disappointing.”
Bowling Green used to never have a defensive reputation. From 2004 to 2011 with few exceptions between, our defenses ranged from serviceable to liability to dreadful. Then in 2012 that all changed. In 2012 and 2013, defense led the way for our teams. In 2012, the defense stunned Florida; if not for a pair of missed FGs, we would have been leading going into the fourth quarter. Then in 2013, the defense held Mississippi State to 21 points including pitching a second half shutout; unfortunately the offense took too long to come to life and a late rally fell short. This defense was at the top of the conference in both 2012 and 2013 and was statistically top 10 in the nation both years.
So for us to go from where we were to literally the worst defense in the nation for the first few games of 2014 was a real disappointment. The 2012 and 2013 defense relied on putting corners on an island for the most part and allowed the safeties a lot of freedom to cover the field, which allowed the front seven to wreak havoc play after play. In 2014, we ran a soft zone far too often and the soft zone was mostly ineffective. Our corners were often lining up nearly ten yards off the line of scrimmage in order to not get beat deep. We blitzed a lot but it was to varying effectiveness. We missed tackles left and right, especially in the opener against WKU. We did have a lot of injuries which certainly played a factor but regardless our defense was not anywhere near par with the previous seasons. The one good thing we could do against other teams not from the Big Ten was stop the run, but even our run stopping plummeted in effectiveness at the end of the season.
We lose starters at every level of the defense and frankly we don’t know who will replace them yet. We also have a new defensive coordinator and we don’t really know what kind of scheme we will be running. To be honest, the best I can really do to cover the defense given all the unknown is point out a few players and their heights, weights, 2014 stats, recruiting rankings, etc, which just is not too useful for analysis. AZZ’ers, if you have any further insights to add to the defense, please add them here because I just do not have much.
What I will say is this: we have a new defensive coordinator who really excites us, we have some talented youngsters who got some good playing time in 2014, we have a high profile transfer from Notre Dame who we have for one year who I hope helps the youngsters a lot, and we have some good size on the defensive line. I’m optimistic the 2015 defense will be fundamentally more sound than 2014. I will not set the bar high on defense and hope to be impressed come kickoff.

Special Teams
Our Special Teams were good in 2014 and they should be better in 2015 as everybody returns.
- Tyler Tate was the kicker in 2014. He went 18 / 22 – and note, two of the misses were blocks (one of them was the infamous bowl game miss from one yard out when the special teams unit looked discombobulated. I hope we never see that look again). He might be the best kicker in the conference.
- Joseph Davidson is our punter. (Note: the announcers call him Joe Davidson, but coach said in a conference once he prefers to go by Joseph. So I refer to him as Joseph on here and I think he appreciates it if we all do). He’s among the tallest players on the team at 6’7 and he has one incredible leg. He replaced a great punter we had from 2011 to 2013 and arguably Davidson is doing better.
- Anthony Farinella will be handling kickoffs for his third straight year. He’s solid and often puts kicks through the end zone.
- We rotate returners around but the primary punt returner is Ryan Burbrink (redshirt senior slot receiver) who has at least two return TDs that I can think of.
- The primary kick returners are Ronnie Moore (junior slot receiver) and Clint Stephens (sophomore corner) who are both very fast. Moore has several returns past the 40 and Stephens has one for a TD.

So there we go. A breakdown of the 2015 team by a Falcon Fan clearly wearing his orange and brown glasses. I look forward to what you have on Tennessee, and I cannot wait for the season to get started!

I was about to give a synopsis but MarkL beat me to it

Welcome. I'll be there in Nashville. Wish we were playing at your actual stadium though.

MarkL wrote:I’ll take a shot at a position breakdown. Note, I am wearing my orange and brown glasses today.

First thing to note is that 2015 will be the second year under Coach Babers. He likes to run an up-tempo offense. Defensively he likes to create havoc, although he must have been disappointed in the 2014 results (as we all were) when he replaced his DC with a new guy from the FCS ranks. The previous coach, Clawson, was here for five years and laid a new foundation and built the team from 2-10 to conference title.

Thanks very much. That is an excellent breakdown. Let me settle in at work, and as promised, I'll try and provide something as detailed.

kdog27 wrote:I was about to give a synopsis but MarkL beat me to it

Welcome. I'll be there in Nashville. Wish we were playing at your actual stadium though.

Thank you. I think it'll still be cool for both of our teams to get to play in an NFL stadium, but I still agree. I wish we would be giving you guys the full Neyland experience. It's truly an incredible venue when 102,000 screaming, orange clad fans get the place rocking.

Flipper wrote:Hi....welcome to the board.. What is this basketball tournament thing you speak of? Is there a way our men's team could perhaps...someday...participate in such an event?

So far as football goes...you're going to want to put a couple of guys on #1 when we're on offense.

Seeing as neither ofmy teams are going to this... "tournament," I am not sure. lol

By that I mean I'm a Memphis fan as well as Tennessee. I was raised on Tennessee football but graduated from Memphis. Both were pretty awful this year in basketball.

Much like you, I too shall be wearing orange shaded glasses for this breakdown.

This will be year 3 under our head coach, Coach Butch Jones. We also like to run an up tempo offense so that will probably lead to a lot of total snaps throughout the game. Defensively we also sound similar. Fun fact. Clawson was once our OC and ran what we have deemed the "Clawfense." It was less than stellar. To give a little background about our recent history, we are coming off of a HISTORICALLY bad stretch. We hired Lane Kiffen (now OC at Alabama) and he brought in talented thugs, most of whom left or didn't graduate due to academics/off the field issues. He literally bailed on us in the middle of the night for a HC position at Southern Cal, where he was fired after a miserable season/loss and told not to get on the team bus. Then, enter Derek Dooley. Seemed like a good man, but not a great coach. Mediocrity continued on and off the field to the point where players weren't even required to work out. Enter Butch Jones. He has changed our program and culture entirely. We are now coming off of (according to which service you use) back to back top 5 recruiting classes. We were one of the youngest teams in the country last year, and are now being talked about as a potential preseason top 25 by many publications (yes, outside of Tennessee lol) and potential dark horse candidate to win the SEC East.

Offense
QB
- Joshua Dobbs Josh is an interesting young man. He aspires to build airplanes and is an aerospace engineering major. He is exceedingly smart and is said to have a photographic memory. In 2013 he was thrown to the wolves when starter Justin Worley went down with an injury against Alabama. He had moments of brilliance, but still what amounted to a less than memorable campaign to close out the season. In the 2014 season, he was again forced to burn an attempted redshirt when Worley went down with a season ending injury behind what might be the worst O line we have ever had. To clarify, Worley had cement feet and Dobbs is deceptively quick, so when the pocket breaks down, Dobbs can make you pay, Worley could not. Worley had some awesome moments and a good arm/accuracy, but our O line simply couldn't protect him. We replaced every single starter on the O line and D line last year, by the way. When Dobbs came in we feared a repeat of the 2013 season. We couldn't have been more wrong. He was not named the starter before the Alabama game, but he should have been. After being declared the starter, we finished the season 4-1, including a thrilling OT victory at South Carolina in which he threw for 301 yards and rushed for 166 (that is now the record for most rushing yards in a game by a Tennessee QB and he is the 3rd SEC QB in the past 15 years to throw for over 300 and rush for over 100 in a single game, along with Tim Tebow and Johnny Maziel). If you want to see what he's fully capable of, I suggest watching the hilights of the South Carolina game or the victory over Iowa in the Tax Slayer bowl.

The Rest We could potentially be one injury away from a terrible season. With Dobbs healthy, there's talk of anywhere from 8 or more regular season wins for us. If Dobbs goes down, who knows if it'll even be a winning season. We took 3 QBs in this past class. All of them 4 star, but all of them unproven. Jauan Jennings, dual threat QB out of TN: by all reports a great athlete, and if he can polish his passing will be a great QB, and he is an early enrollee. Quinten Dormady, out of TX: listed as a pro style QB but his shuttle time would have been top 5 at the combine this year, also said to have a cannon for an arm, also an early enrollee. Finally, Sheriron Jones, out of CA: also listed as a dual threat, he is said to have the highest upside of all three, but he is not an early enrollee so he may be redshirted.

RB
- Jalen Hurd After one season, he has already begun to receive praise from the likes of Eddie George. Hurd was one of the most highly touted recruits to come out of TN in years, and he did not disappoint. Although he did not break 1000 yards his freshman year, he still rushed for 899 yards, third most by a TN freshman RB, as well as rushing for over 100 yards four times, tying Jamal Lewis for most 100+ yard games by a freshman at UT. He has also proven to be a real threat in the passing attack and wildcat formation. What makes Jalen so dangerous, is his combination of size, speed, and agility. He is around 6'3" at about 230 pounds, yet runs around a 4.4 40 yard dash (said to have been timed once at 4.37). Also, he is exceptional at getting yards after contact. He will often drag one or two DBs for 5-10 extra yards. On one play against Georgia it took 3 DBs to bring him down.

- Alvin Kamara Most likely he will be our 2nd RB and hopefully will push Hurd for playing time. Originally an Alabama recruit, he went the Juco route for one year, and now signed with Tennessee as the #1 5* Juco RB in the last recruiting cycle. He is said to have elite speed, elusiveness, and should be a wonderful compliment to Hurd as more of a polished RB and less of a brute force.

-The Rest Again, another area where we lack depth (you'll notice this is a common theme in some areas). We have a couple recruits/transfers incoming to fill the depth needs here, but beyond the two I've listed we really aren't quite sure what we have. Hurd took a large number of snaps last year and proved himself to be a work horse, but it took a toll on his health and we need players to step up so he can rest.

WR / TE
-Von Pearson EDIT: How could I forget Von Pearson. Anyway, coming in as another one of our taller receivers at 6'3", Von is an awesome story. A Juco transfer who ended up working at a fast food restaurant, going nowhere in life. A friend finally convinced him to try out at Feather River College in Cali and he crushed a lot of their receiving records. It's wonderful because he is truly greatful for the opportunity he has received. He has great athleticism, strength, speed, and the ability to juke defenders from their cleats.

- Pig Howard Alton "Pig" Howard is our leading returning receiver, which is funny considering he is 5'8" in a receiving corp mostly comprised of guys who are 6'3" to 6'5" even. He won't get many looks in the red zone, but he is very fast, and sure handed. Receiver may be our most deep position.

- Marquez North Coming in at 6'4" 220 pounds, North is a freakish physical specimen. Semi limited by injuries in 2014, he still proved to be a human hilight reel. He has great athleticism and is simply able to take the ball away from defenders, or out jump them when a jump ball type pass is necessary.

- Jason Croom 6'5" and 243 pounds. Croom is our largest wide receiver and is a beast when he wants to be. He was also semi limited by injuries last year and at times suffered from stone hands. Up until last year, he didn't utilize his huge advantage over most DBs. He is fast for his size, and a beast when he chooses to be. Hopefully this year he reaches his full potential. He is a pretty reliable target with a frame that large.

- Joonathan Johnson Another one of our shorter receivers, at 5'9" Johnson still proved to be a great target. If I recall correctly, he was also semi-hampered by injury this past year (beginning to see a pattern here?), but showed he had very, very sure hands coupled with pretty good speed and athleticism.


- Josh Smith Smith falls in the middle at 6'1" and is a pretty good receiver. He had a hand injury for a while that hurt his 2013 season's performance, and followed it up by saying "I'm white. They didn't bring me here to drop passes." I thought it was pretty funny. He is also a pretty sure handed receiver with decent speed and I hope to see more from him this season.

- Josh Malone A highly touted freshman 5* last year, he underwhelmed, but has the potential and athletic ability to be great.

- Preston Williams A wild card, may be redshirted, another 5* with huge upside, if he plays remains to be seen.

- Alex Ellis/Ethan Wolf These will most likely be our top 2 tight ends. Coach Jones loves to incorporate TE play into our passing scheme and does so very well. Ellis, the senior, has had a decent career and come into his own lately. Wolf, the sophomore, has much higher upside in the long run. Neiko Creamer may also get looks as a TE. It's not what he was recruited as, but he was redshirted and apparently has awesome potential.

-The Rest A very deep position for us, but there are many names on our roster you guys will (hopefully) not see,

OL
I'm going to review this the same way you did, but for a different reason. This unit was HORRIBLE last year. We gave up more sacks than any other OL in the SEC, and were also nationally bad. In their defense, the OL was a revolving door for position play. We had a Senior walk on playing with a torn ACL as our LT (Jacob Giliam is his name and he is, however, a true warrior for what he did). Highly touted Juco LT Dontavius Blair wasn't physically ready, so he could be this year. We also didn't return a single starter from the previous year on the line. We had guards playing tackle, and multiple guys try center and guard. It was a mess. This year, we return continuity and multiple starters. Our offense actually returns an SEC best 10 starters, except for Gilliam. With some improvement here, our offense will be dangerous. We also are bringing in a couple recruits (Jack Jones and Drew Richmond whom we flipped from Ole Miss on signing day) who might be able to contribute immediately. Spring will be interesting so we'll just have to see how this unit develops. From a historical perspective, they should show great improvement. The last time Tennessee's O line gave up an SEC worst in sacks, they improved to almost an SEC best the next year. It appears we return the same amount of starters along this line.

Also, as an edit, despite terrible line play, I will say this, they definitely at least showed disciplined as we were one of, if not the least penalized team on offense in the SEC.

As to your assessment of your offensive tempo, we run the same style. So while I don't think it'll prove to be an issue from a conditioning stance, it'll be interesting to see how well we respond, especially if this does become a shootout.


Defense
The defense was our brightest spot in 2014, and depending on how far along the O line comes, it might be again. I'm simply going to break this down by 3 defensive zones. As a quick aside, we also return 8 starters on defense as well.

- D Line (DTs/DEs) This area will be stacked with talent, maybe not depth, but definitely a laughable amount of talent. In the middle, we bring back a couple very good DTs, but this recruiting cycle brings in a couple guys who may play right away. Shy Tuttle is one of those guys, but the one you will most likely see is Khalil McKenzie. He is a monster. At 6'5" 350 pounds, he moves with freakish speed for a guy his size. He is the son of former Vol and Oakland Raiders GM Reggie McKenzie, so he has been working out with NFL trainers for years. At just over 18 years old he can bench press 500 pounds and can jump higher and run faster than anyone that big should be able to. Now onto the DEs. Hybrid DE/LB Curt Maggitt and pure DE Derek Barnett will be the starters. Although we brought in some awesome talent that might get some playing time, I'll focus on these two. Maggitt (pronounced like "legit," so some of our guys say too Maggitt to quit lol) Moves back and forth from LB to having his hand in the dirt, and along with Barnett they are already being touted as the most fearsome pash rush in the SEC next year. Maggitt finished last year with 48 tackles including a team best/third in the SEC 11 sacks and team second best 15 tackles for loss. Barnett, along with Texas A&M's Myles Garret, is one of two freshmen DEs last year to break Jadaveon Clowney's freshman sack record. Most of, if not all, of Garrett's came against A&M's out of conference schedule, where as all of Barnett's came against SEC competition. Barnett is the first freshman DE starter in UT history, set the record for most sacks and tackles for loss by a freshman in UT history, twice posted the record for most sacks in a game by a true freshman at 3 sacks versus Ole Miss and South Carolina, led the SEC in TFLs in SEC play last year with 18, followed by Maggitt in second, is fifth all time in TFLs in UT history, finished 3rd ever for tackles by a freshman behind AJ Johnson and Eric Berry, and finished the season with 72 tackles, a team best 20.5 for a loss, and 10 sacks. He is only expected to get better.

-LBs We lost star LB AJ Johnson to some unfortunate legal circumstances and he was basically our defensive QB. Replacing him won't be easy, but there is no shortage of talent behind him. Although less experienced, his backups and soon to be starters are much faster. He was a surefire tackling machine, but lacked top end speed. His football IQ may be missed at first. Time will tell. Other than O line and backup QB, this area concerns me as well.

-CBs/Safeties This is a very solid area as well. We add one of the top Juco CBs in Justin Martin, and return shutdown CB Cam Sutton. He will most likely be alongside sophomore Emmanuel Moseley (thankfully he and his family were unhurt in a TERRIBLE car accident this past weekend). Our safeties are proven ballhawks as well, and we return starters Brian Randolph and LaDarrell McNeil. They are proven commodoties, but lack somewhat in speed. Where they lack, backups Todd Kelly Jr and Evan Berry (he and Elliot Berry are both players for us related to Eric Berry) have speed, but not as much experience. This should be a very solid unit.

Special Teams
There isn't much to say here. Field goals were pretty routinely made for us and in clutch time (a FG won our OT game at South Carolina), kickoffs were decent and perhaps subpar (coverage was spectacular, kickoff distance was not), our star CB Cam Sutton was a sure handed punt receiver who barely did anything other than fair catch the ball but did make one TD return (we all cringed at this every time), one of the Berry twins may be taking over at returner, and our punter is being replaced so we'll see about that one, also kickoff returns were decent, especially when one of the Berry twins got the look.

There you have it in a nutshell. Ask specifics if you like, as I may do the same. I hope you enjoy the write up and I look forward to filling the offseason void with some conversation with you all.

Mark-

For the up tempo offense you guys run, do you tend to try to go with smaller, more athletic linemen?

That's what we try to do, which is interesting for us as fans, because Dooley (Jones's predecessor) typically recruited (when he did recruit, the idiot didn't take a single lineman in 2012 which is part of the reason we ended up with such a bad line) large, hulking linemen like Arkansas.

Great writeup! I like Josh Dobbs a lot. He is an easy guy to admire. And I've followed Tennessee's coaching problems. Butch Jones is the perfect medicine for the problems you guys have endured. I'm also a huge Cincinnati Bearcats fan as my parents are UC alums so I'm not surprised at all that Jones is getting things done right at Tennessee.

I'm not sure about the linemen question. Clawson ran more of a traditional offense. Our current linemen were I think all recruited by Clawson. So to answer your question right now I might need a time machine to see what the 2016 and 2017 lines resemble.

MarkL wrote:Great writeup! I like Josh Dobbs a lot. He is an easy guy to admire. And I've followed Tennessee's coaching problems. Butch Jones is the perfect medicine for the problems you guys have endured. I'm also a huge Cincinnati Bearcats fan as my parents are UC alums so I'm not surprised at all that Jones is getting things done right at Tennessee.

I'm not sure about the linemen question. Clawson ran more of a traditional offense. Our current linemen were I think all recruited by Clawson. So to answer your question right now I might need a time machine to see what the 2016 and 2017 lines resemble.

Thank you very much. Your write up was very insightful as well. Dobbs is a great kid. We're all proud of him and excited to see how he progresses this year. The words "Heisman" and "Dark Horse Candidate" have been used in the same sentence to describe him by some publications, but I think he needs to perfect his passing before that could even be a pipe dream. It is being said, however, our new OC has been able to correct some of his mechanical problems already. That being said though, I've seen interviews of all sorts with Dobbs and he generally just seems like a good, likeable guy as well as being highly intelligent in both football and academics. Maybe the lack of eyebrows is due to him requiring extra space for his brain.

As you could tell from the write up, our O line was a mess last year, and while we have some guys that would be considered bigger at other schools, we've moved away from traditional SEC behemoth linemen to more athletic guys, who may not always win the battle up front with someone bigger and stronger, but who can play more downs and move the play/pocket faster.

Will they play that "Turn down" song in Nashville? I watched a Tennessee game and they must have played it 30 times. Even the announcers were starting to get irritated by it. The students sure seemed to love it, though.

mscarn wrote:Will they play that "Turn down" song in Nashville? I watched a Tennessee game and they must have played it 30 times. Even the announcers were starting to get irritated by it. The students sure seemed to love it, though.

There's an entire thread(s) dedicated to this on Volnation. In short, we hope not, it's fun and all after a while, but say the ball is being driven fast and you end up with multiple third downs in quick succession, it gets old fast. It was cool live (especially after a few drinks lol) but it definitely gets irritating to a lot of us. It does fire up the players, but to be honest since it doesn't really make the crowd cheer, it leaves the opposing team the ability to call audibles. 102,000 people yelling at the top of their lungs is louder than our speaker system, and I wish it would stay that way. I'm younger, by the way. 25 in April to be exact so I'm not just some old guy getting upset at this "new fangled music dagnabbit." So if we're lucky, they won't play it at LP lol.