And @Paul Strelow, @Larry_Williams, @NorthStateTiger chime in here.
I get challenges. I get it. But what I don't understand is how Tennessee is THIS bad on defense. One wonders ... are you missing on virtually every one of these guys? Are at least 50-percent of them terribly overrated out of high school? A combination of misses in evaluation, overrated and just terrible player-development? I'm just not understanding how Tennessee is sitting here 11 games in ranked 100th nationally in total defense and 130th nationally in pass defense.
I'm not sure Tennessee has ever been this bad defensively in the modern era. If you're Tim Banks and Willie Martinez, how do you walk into Josh Heupel's office and remotely defend this? What kind of rationalization could you possibly make at this point?
It's borderline bizarre IMO.
Here are the defensive starters for Tennessee for South Carolina's game (from Tennessee's published game notes for the SCAR game):
DE: Byron Young (5.7)
DT: Da'Jon Terry (5.4)
DT: Omari Thomas (5.9)
DE: LaTrell Bumphus (5.8)
LB: Juwan Mitchell (5.5)
LB: Jeremy Banks (5.8)
NB: Tamarion McDonald (5.8)
CB: Christian Charles (5.6)
CB: Kamal Hadden (5.6)
S: Jaylen McCollough (5.8)
S: Trevon Flowers (5.5)
I get challenges. I get it. But what I don't understand is how Tennessee is THIS bad on defense. One wonders ... are you missing on virtually every one of these guys? Are at least 50-percent of them terribly overrated out of high school? A combination of misses in evaluation, overrated and just terrible player-development? I'm just not understanding how Tennessee is sitting here 11 games in ranked 100th nationally in total defense and 130th nationally in pass defense.
I'm not sure Tennessee has ever been this bad defensively in the modern era. If you're Tim Banks and Willie Martinez, how do you walk into Josh Heupel's office and remotely defend this? What kind of rationalization could you possibly make at this point?
It's borderline bizarre IMO.
Here are the defensive starters for Tennessee for South Carolina's game (from Tennessee's published game notes for the SCAR game):
DE: Byron Young (5.7)
DT: Da'Jon Terry (5.4)
DT: Omari Thomas (5.9)
DE: LaTrell Bumphus (5.8)
LB: Juwan Mitchell (5.5)
LB: Jeremy Banks (5.8)
NB: Tamarion McDonald (5.8)
CB: Christian Charles (5.6)
CB: Kamal Hadden (5.6)
S: Jaylen McCollough (5.8)
S: Trevon Flowers (5.5)
