2023 Week 8 Game Results

I move that we temp-ban the Miami and Texas fans for a week so the rest of us can sulk.

Some notes:

• Both of our #17 ranked teams lost this week.
• Both of our ranked North Carolina teams lost this week.
• Of the top 10 teams, #1 Oklahoma, #3 Washington, #4 Ohio State, and #8 Texas all won their games by just one score.
• Only two of our fallen ranked teams lost to unranked teams. The other four lost to teams ranked above them in our poll.

Yeah I know I said I'm spending some time away but like an abusive relationship I'm back for more. You've probably seen/heard some spicy takes from vols fans after last night, so here's some more:

• Milton is good enough to take care of the rest of the season, but his biggest issue isn't his arm accuracy (which is more than fine it's even great when he can set his feet), it's his decision making. Hendon would let it rip and pray, and we had good enough receivers to make it work. You can see this especially in garbage time this week, taking 5 seconds to get to a checkdown play in the middle of the field.
• Our receivers are not as good at creating separation or catching the ball, this MUST be fixed if we want more teams like 2022
• Oline will be our biggest question mark in the offseason, and say it with me "SEC games are won in the trenches". These guys need to be able to operate at light speed and do so cleanly, but they've been just alright this season and we're about to lose major pieces. A team as efficient as the 22 team can overcome a hold, this team can not. At least not consistently.
• Turn holding into a 5 yard penalty. This does two things, one it means it won't kill our drives. But two it means officials will actually be able to call it every time
• Heupel was asked about the officials, his official response was 21 seconds of silence. I'm just not sure how the premier league of this sport still has these issues.
• Good golly miss molly our secondary is woeful. Any run that gets past the line is going for 20 yards and if we can't sack the qb then anything coming through the air has the chance to score.
• With that being said, I am very pleased with our dline. Easily the best development for us this season hopefully we keep that trendline going because last year's offense with this year's defensive front would create an elite team, even with the week secondary.
• I really like our running game, and I like the way that Milton runs downhill. I know that modern football thinking says protect the qb and I understand why, but damn do I like seeing Joe lower the shoulder and essentially tackle the defender.
• The 4th and 1 call was a good call. I agreed with it before the snap and I don't like the outcome but it was the right call. Any vol you see questioning this call will also say that Heupel got conservative in the 2nd half. You can not have both of those be true.
• We are just sandbagging georgia and took our 2 losses so far just to make uga's inevitable loss look that much worse
• God fuck if we wind up back in the jones/pruitt pattern of the big 3 losses I will be so sad
• Closing thoughts: Heup is still the guy and I like his teams. Our passing game needs help and that's frustrating. We're still not out of range of what I would consider a successful season (8-3) but I really wish we hadn't lost the games we did.