There is no doubt that this guy is about to have a great senior campaign. And he deserves it, has put in the work.
As he proved last year, it has all finally "clicked" or come together for him in terms of experience, physical development and technique. If he was playing on almost any other team in the East, he would be a guy you'd expect to have 8-9 sacks and 40 tackles by the end of the season (an outstanding effort), and who knows, maybe he still gets those stats on our team this year. BUT @ Tennessee he is having to outperform several other guys capable of getting those exact same stats just to earn his game reps in 2016. Will be a weekly battle to just stay on the field more than 25 snaps a game.
What is also true is that if Corey Vereen was an incoming freshman today he would be a surefire redshirt. Just throw him in the weight room for a few years and see what we have by the time he is a junior. A shame he/we didn't have that luxury 3 years ago when he had to play right away as a true freshman, and back up ineffective guys like Jacquez Smith and M Walls...and look at the expectations some had of Butch even then.
What is again also true is that even the Corey Vereen of 24 months ago still wouldn't be in line for any game reps on the current team. Yet going into and during the 2014 season he was a vital member of that rotation, when he couldn't even average a third of a sack a game or play the run and was still very young. And we STILL had NOTHING AT ALL behind him....Yet we still lost our sh-t when we weren't beating UF and UGA.
Now in 2016 we have a Corey Vereen that is twice as good and twice as experienced as he was two years ago. He also has had to beat out two other guys who are just about equally awesome, just to earn his time. And he is playing alongside 10 other studs when he is on the field...
This entire roster has gone through this exact same progression. With all due respect to a lot of well-intentioned kids, the Daniel Hoods, Raijon Neals,Mack Crowders and Dontavis Sapp's of the world have had their time and moved on.
What Corey has done to become an effective player is impressive. Congrats to him. But one way or another, Butch has also effectively done this with probably 75 other roster spots. It is absolutely comical to get out the 2012,2013, 2014 depth charts and compare to what we have right now.
If the 2016 team somehow played the 2013 team today the score would be something along the lines of 50-20. And I am being generous because of that O line we had back then.
Much like Corey, all of our roster spots have had a humongous improvement.
As he proved last year, it has all finally "clicked" or come together for him in terms of experience, physical development and technique. If he was playing on almost any other team in the East, he would be a guy you'd expect to have 8-9 sacks and 40 tackles by the end of the season (an outstanding effort), and who knows, maybe he still gets those stats on our team this year. BUT @ Tennessee he is having to outperform several other guys capable of getting those exact same stats just to earn his game reps in 2016. Will be a weekly battle to just stay on the field more than 25 snaps a game.
What is also true is that if Corey Vereen was an incoming freshman today he would be a surefire redshirt. Just throw him in the weight room for a few years and see what we have by the time he is a junior. A shame he/we didn't have that luxury 3 years ago when he had to play right away as a true freshman, and back up ineffective guys like Jacquez Smith and M Walls...and look at the expectations some had of Butch even then.
What is again also true is that even the Corey Vereen of 24 months ago still wouldn't be in line for any game reps on the current team. Yet going into and during the 2014 season he was a vital member of that rotation, when he couldn't even average a third of a sack a game or play the run and was still very young. And we STILL had NOTHING AT ALL behind him....Yet we still lost our sh-t when we weren't beating UF and UGA.
Now in 2016 we have a Corey Vereen that is twice as good and twice as experienced as he was two years ago. He also has had to beat out two other guys who are just about equally awesome, just to earn his time. And he is playing alongside 10 other studs when he is on the field...
This entire roster has gone through this exact same progression. With all due respect to a lot of well-intentioned kids, the Daniel Hoods, Raijon Neals,Mack Crowders and Dontavis Sapp's of the world have had their time and moved on.
What Corey has done to become an effective player is impressive. Congrats to him. But one way or another, Butch has also effectively done this with probably 75 other roster spots. It is absolutely comical to get out the 2012,2013, 2014 depth charts and compare to what we have right now.
If the 2016 team somehow played the 2013 team today the score would be something along the lines of 50-20. And I am being generous because of that O line we had back then.
Much like Corey, all of our roster spots have had a humongous improvement.
