University of Tennessee Athletics
Inside The T Mailbag - Building A Season
September 16, 2015 | Football
Welcome to another edition of the Inside the T Mailbag! Each week this is your opportunity to send in your questions about Tennessee Athletics or anything else to me, Brian Rice, the fan that gets the inside look on your Volunteers.
Serious questions are good, questions with a little personality are better. I take questions all week long on Twitter: @briancrice or via email: UTSportsMailbag@gmail.com.
This week, keeping it professional, wide receivers making moves, replacing Curt Maggitt on defense and more:
Claire: As a journalist that works directly for the school, a job that I’m sure means you need to stay positive, is it ever hard doing that after a loss?
It is very hard in some ways, but very easy in others.
First and foremost, I’m always looking for the story. There is always a good story about one or more of our student-athletes in every game that is played, even those that don’t go Tennessee’s way. Last year against Georgia, it was the story of Justin Worley’s return from the locker room to lead a comeback. Against Missouri, it was the Patrick Ashford to Alex Ellis touchdown, the first of each player’s career.
As a journalist, my obligation is to be fair to all sides, and all points of view. I have to be objective in evaluating the performance of players, coaches, and everyone else that's involved in the football program. Because of that, I never get too negative to either side, because I try to remove myself emotionally from it. It's that classic coaching statement, things are never as good as they seem or as bad as they seem. That is the viewpoint that I really have to look at games and players with.
Sometimes it is very difficult, because I am still a fan, and working for the school allows me to be that fan, while also being professional and doing my job. Believe me, I get mad when things don't go our way, I always have. Even before I started doing this full time last year, I contributed post game features and worked in both the home and visitor press conferences at various times. When games didn’t go our way, I wanted to go be mad somewhere with the rest of my fellow fans. But I still had a job to do, and I did it. I know that no matter what happens in the game, I will stand next to Coach Jones in his post game press conference while he goes over what happened at the game. I can't still be mad about the result or happy about the results. I have to be a professional to do what I do.
In some ways, it makes it easier that I am a fan, one who's been given an incredible amount of access as a journalist. That helps give me perspective on what my fellow fans would like to know. That's where I have to find my balance, being fair to my profession, but also being fair to the people that I cover on a daily basis. It hurts me when we lose, not just because I'm a fan, but because I watch every day the level of dedication and work that goes into every snap, every game, every week. I get extra excited when I see a play or a technique that a player worked on in practice pay off in the game. I still get frustrated when it doesn't pay off, because I know how hard the player worked on it, and how much work the coaching staff put in to make that player successful.
At the end of the day, I am very fortunate to do what I do to connect the fans to the program. That's what I'm here to do. I'm always going to be fair, but I am always going to be positive. Part of that is because that's in my job description, but the biggest part is I want to be I want our programs to be successful, and I want to share the journey to success with all of the fans.
James: What is the status of Marquez North? I thought he would be more involved in the offense.
North was slowed in the preseason by an injury, which drew much attention at the time. He was able to return to practice in a couple of weeks, but I think people forget that he missed a very important period of time, something that has shown early on. That is not to say he cannot make a big impact, because he definitely can, and has in his first two seasons at Tennessee. I look for that to continue the season, the fact that he hasn't contributed thus far as much as people would have hoped should not be seen as a sign one way or the other.
Butch Jones had this to say about him at today's media briefing:
"I love his work ethic, love everything. I think he's just going back to getting into that rhythm, you know, the route running, winning in transition, being able to create separation. And his time's going to come. As a wide receiver - I've coached the wide receivers most of my coaching career. They want the football and you want them to have that mentality. But also they understand the different things that they need to do.
“And Marquez is going to catch his share of footballs. And I appreciate Marquez because he's selfless. He doesn't allow that to affect him, just like all the wideouts. And I understand what they've been through because I've been a receiver coach so I understand they dynamics.”
This team wants to go down field, as Jones also mentioned his press conference today. But they're not going to go down field just for the sake of doing so, it has to be the right time and the right place in the game. They taken some shots, as you saw with Josh Malone in the opener. I think that is one of the parts of the offense that is still very much a work in progress, something we will see develop as the season goes on. The way things have gone over the first two weeks is not necessarily an indication of how things will look over the entire 12 game regular-season schedule.
BrickSquad: What is your assessment overall on the Tennessee passing attack? Who SHOULD be our best big play threat at receiver?
Like I said in the last question, I think the passing attack in general is still a work in progress. I don’t see many offenses anywhere in college football being a finished product. Auburn looked like a well-oiled machine at times against Louisville, then could not move at all against Jacksonville State. Without preseason games like you have in the NFL, it takes a few games fro any team to establish and then polish its identity.
During training camp, so many of the receivers were out at various times with injury, it was hard to get the timing in a flow down with all of the different combinations that were out there. As guys get healthy, which they are slowly doing, it will get much easier to develop a good balance there.
I think all of the guys have the ability to be a "big play" guy. The difference in their games is substantial, the different players can do different things and have different abilities, but they are all capable of making the big plays. Whether it's Marquez North going in the air to make a spectacular catch, Alton Howard, Johnathon Johnson or Josh Smith making a catch over the middle and taking it for a big gain, or Jason Croom, when he comes back from injury, using his size to make plays in traffic. I don't see this offense as ever being one we are one player is the "primary" threat like when you had a Donte Stallworth, Robert Meachem or Justin Hunter.
This Tennessee system is dangerous when it is well executed, because defenses have to pick who they are going to key on and make other players beat them. By using different types of receivers in different ways, Tennessee is able to gain an advantage in those one-on-one match-ups. Winning those is the key to winning football games. Sometimes, that means North or Howard won't have a big game, but it will free up Smith or Johnson to have a big day on short passes. Ethan Wolf can make big plays in the middle of the field all day. You make a defense pick their poison, and that's an advantageous spot for Tennessee to be in.
Flip: Faced with a similar situation in the Florida game, do you think Butch goes for it on 4th down, inches to goal?
It is hard to say what decision would be made in any given moment because of all the variables that are out there. I think a coach is always going to lean towards taking the sure points. Now, being at home was certainly a part of that, to be sure that Tennessee seized the momentum (and the lead) early.
If you're in the same situation in a road game, it's a completely different gamble. If you've taken the ball down the field, you want to get something out of it regardless. But, there is the temptation to play for the touchdown in that situation, knowing that if you do not convert the opposing offense will be backed up to the 1-yard line.
That is one thing I've seen this week that has caused me conflict to a certain extent. I don't see there being a right and wrong answer here.
Certainly, because you're talking about a game that went to overtime, the difference between three and seven points comes into play. But at the beginning of the game, if you don't take those three points, and you look at it the opposite way. Without those three points, the game would not have been tied at the end of regulation. Tennessee wouldn't have been in that situation. It's easy to make a judgment one way or the other now, because we know how the rest of the game unfolded from that point.
We don't know how would've unfolded had Tennessee not picked up the field goal in that situation. That's why coaches usually lean towards taking the points, because you can never get those back.
Danny: I was really excited about the contribution Kyle Phillips was going to make after hearing about him in fall camp. Why has he not had more of an impact?
Phillips is another guy that has been slowed by injury, not a big injury that is kept him out an extended period time, but small, nagging injuries that have limited his ability to develop day-to-day.
People see a star rating next to a guy's name, and expect him to contribute immediately. Phillips has that ability, but you have to consider what immediately really means. Are we talking week one? Because that's rare. It's much more common that an impact freshman develops slowly over the first half of the year, and explodes in the second half of the year. That's were Derek Barnett found himself in this same position last year.
Barnett played in the first four games last year, but did not have his first sack until the Florida game, which was the fifth game. He built towards that with a good performance in the fourth game at Georgia with eight tackles, but really came on starting with the game at Ole Miss, when he recorded a Tennessee freshman record 3.0 sacks and 4.0 tackles for loss. His numbers only got better from there, with 3.0 more sacks against South Carolina and 4.0 tackles for loss against Kentucky. When thinking about his all-star freshman year, those are the games we think about, not the first two games were he had a total of six tackles.
Now, Barnett’s season was the best ever by a freshman defensive lineman at Tennessee, so expecting Phillips or any other player to repeat it is a tall mountain to climb. But Phillips is a player with a great deal of talent and the drive to maximize his talents. He will certainly have a big opportunity with Curt Maggitt out.
Brian Rice is the writer for UTSports.com. You can contact him on Twitter @briancrice or via email: UTSportsMailbag@gmail.com.
