Good Morning, My Friends,
I think some of you are in the same shape that I am in… recovering from our first weekend of real FOOTBALL! I watched High School, College, and Pro Games the last four days. It was great.
On to a review of the Vol’s game. The first note was that 14 Freshmen played and with that they had made the 70-man travel squad. That they made the travel squad and played reflects upon those kids’ talent, playing gave them experience which is the second major factor in player development.
I have watched both the Sunday Coach’s Show and Jeremy’s Monday Press Conference with some replay footage as well. That in mind, I looked at the pre-game VOL NOTES.
Unit by unit, they all had good some great plays, but they also left plays on the field. Great catches and then drops, great throws and “What was THAT??”. JG was not consistent with his throws, but he ran well and had no sacks. Def Sacks and then no outside run contain on sweeps that allows USCe to get critical first downs. Most of their run yardage came on outside runs on their right. Dumb uncalled for penalties by a key player who was playing a great game. One for eleven on Third Down conversions for multiple reasons. Another note, while our Freshman long snapper’s first snap was terrible there were no problems the rest of the game. I think Special Teams were good in all phases other than that one bad snap.
Other than the Special Teams the defense had no turnovers. It appears that the DB’s were the group most impacted by COVID followed by the OL. Hopefully, that will pass. USCe really went after the Freshman playing the Star Position for almost all the passing game. This is an example for a player with a lot of talent that needed more experience to fill his role. He received several painful experiences last weekend.
Best things to note, two RB’s at 6 yards per carry and with pass receptions, no turnovers, other than Banks basically no penalties, and good handling of substitutions. This team was better prepared to play this year for a game on the road then they were last year for a home game.
Things to look for. This week we literally will have the team intact for practice all week. Last week there were returning players that normally would have played/started that did not travel because they had not practiced enough to be ready to play. One of the things we have all heard for years is the Maxim that teams improve the most in the week from the first to the second game.
I am ready for this coming Saturday. I think that USCe is better than Mizzou. Bama played the backups the second half and called off the dogs on the new Mizzou coach, that gave the Vols Staff some good film on Tiger’s play on both sides of the ball.
Time to go.
Go Vols!! Beat MIzzou!!
TnBill
