Basketball team needs to play all the players we have unless

[scotteagle]

and until the NCAA tells us not to. However, if we are going to lose 20 anyway....might cut our losses and show some goodwill with the NCAA and just ride it out. Tyndall reassuring the Vol faithful means less than nothing, he might just be whistling past the graveyard. Or, perhaps he feels he has covered his trail/tail sufficiently.

Football:
I have waited to post until I could further digest what we have witnessed the past few weeks. I think offensively we will be outstanding next year. We lose only 2 seniors, and neither will be missed. The line will be seasoned, and lack of experience shows up most on the line and at QB. We will be super experienced at every position except back-up QB and I hope the kid from TCU will be the answer there. Experience really makes a huge difference. Folks here must know we are playing a lot of 18, 19, and 20 year olds....we have precious few 21 and 22 or 23 year olds.
Defensively. Well damn. We have 6 seniors who play a good bit. Oddly enough, they have shown some really good play in streaks this season. And next year we will have some talent back, like at corner. But we if we don't find two safeties, and a linebacker who can run, and a defensively tackle who can step in and play right away then it's hard to see huge improvement. We have a lot of holes to fill and I think we need to raid the JUCOs as much as possible.
But overall we return 60 or so letter winners so at least we have something to build upon.

 

[BR Eagle]

I think Casey Martin will be missed...but you are right, we'll be much better offensively, especially if we can keep Nick healthy. The OL has, for the most part, improved greatly this season. We're playing lots of young DBs but we'll need to find some linebackers.
Looking forward to Thursday night.

 

[scotteagle]

Rivals, this sight I mean, had Casey listed as a senior, but the USM website has him as a junior. I am pretty sure he has one more year. I hope so. Our corners are very young and skilled. I don't know what we'll have at safety next year.

 

[NueDaeEagle]

Originally posted by scotteagle:
and until the NCAA tells us not to. However, if we are going to lose 20 anyway....might cut our losses and show some goodwill with the NCAA and just ride it out. Tyndall reassuring the Vol faithful means less than nothing, he might just be whistling past the graveyard. Or, perhaps he feels he has covered his trail/tail sufficiently.

Football:
I have waited to post until I could further digest what we have witnessed the past few weeks. I think offensively we will be outstanding next year. We lose only 2 seniors, and neither will be missed. The line will be seasoned, and lack of experience shows up most on the line and at QB. We will be super experienced at every position except back-up QB and I hope the kid from TCU will be the answer there. Experience really makes a huge difference. Folks here must know we are playing a lot of 18, 19, and 20 year olds....we have precious few 21 and 22 or 23 year olds.
Defensively. Well damn. We have 6 seniors who play a good bit. Oddly enough, they have shown some really good play in streaks this season. And next year we will have some talent back, like at corner. But we if we don't find two safeties, and a linebacker who can run, and a defensively tackle who can step in and play right away then it's hard to see huge improvement. We have a lot of holes to fill and I think we need to raid the JUCOs as much as possible.
But overall we return 60 or so letter winners so at least we have something to build upon.

I believe that Martin does have one more year. The Oline is improving and loses one backup. Add experience and a couple of JC players and we should see a much better one next year. We are already seeing a better Oline now than what we saw the first of the year. Sat night there were several times we had incompletions where the Olilne gave Weeks good protection. Didn't see that at the first of the year. We have seen so much improvement over last year. Our QB doesn't go down and we go bowling this year. We should continue that improvement next year so make plans for the bowl game. That said, we really need to find those safeties.

 

[usmstud]

Monken said earlier in the year that safety was a big need in recruiting. Said we didn't have any safeties on the current roster to replace Cotton and Johnson next year.