Good Day, My Friends,

I love this time of the year…football and basketball… recruiting. Tons of things to watch and think about before the Holidays kick in and all the family fun begins.

BASKETBALL:

Lady Vols… their defense is ahead of their offense. given the number of new players that may not be a bad thing. On Offense the one thing that concerned me was the 3-point Shooting… One player hit 2 for 4 and the rest of the team was 0 for 16. First game and a good crowd… jitters I can understand but I was expecting more from several of the new players that had reps as 3 Point Shooters.

Vols…. WOW!!! They shot 50% from the field, 40 % from 3, held the other team to less than 30% in both areas, 24 ASST. Scored 107 … the only concern was the 18 T/O’s. I was concerned about some players productivity numbers until I looked at the number of minutes they played. Rick played the entire roster and many “starters” only played 10 minutes. There was bad news with the transfer front yesterday with 7’1” Center having to sit this year. But looking at the new kids and former Bench Players we will still put more length on the floor with depth than last year. I think that the Vols will be O.K.

FOOTBALL:

What a game. There were problems, UAB created some. They had two huge SEC + size DT’s that were more than a handful and they had big LB’s that blitzed. That gave them some sacks and several tackles for a loss on run plays. At the same time the Vols had to sub several times on the OL. Those big DT’s and ILB’s took advantage of those subs to make some good defensive plays with tackles for a loss on runs and sacks. Early in the game we had to settle for FG’s because of mis-ques on our part and good plays by UAB, but the Vols put the game away with runs and passes for TD’s in the 2d and 3rd QTR’s. Those big guys won some snaps but not every snap. A point that we should remember is that the Vol’s staff and players adjusted and made corrections as the game progressed.

On the QB’s, there appeared to be one mis-que due to the injury to JG’s hand. Both QB’s made throws that really tripped Jeremy’s “Hot Switch”. JG’s resulted in an INT and the other in a lot of bench time.

On the OL, I think that the staff did not play everyone that could play in order to have as many starters able to go as possible for the road game next week at KY. We played OL on Saturday that had not played on a regular basis at any point earlier this year. As I mentioned earlier UAB took some advantage for those players.

The VOLS won 30-7. Now we had a bunch of FG’s and did not score a lot of TD’s. Look at the scores of the 1937 and 1938 teams. How many of those teams scored 30 points? Winning was driven by defense and field position as was this game.

A key note for us as “Real Vol Fans” is that unlike many of the former “un-named and soon to be forgotten” Vol Coaches, in the 3rd and 4th QTR, Jeremy and his staff cleared the bench and played everyone that had “earned the right to play”. They gave up one TD, but their learning experiences will benefit the Vols later this year and next year, and in some cases two years out.

KY has a point to make with us due to win last year and they have some upset wins this year. They are a “different type of team” to defend. This has always been a tough game and I think that it is key to the rest of the Vol’s season. A challenge…???

Go Vols!!

TnBill