Anonymous OP 9h

I’m not a Tennessee fan but yes… you gotta rally behind him and support him. Show him some love and show him that the university has his back. So many people complain about NIL because players aren’t being loyal but fans have also stopped being loyal to players. Why would a guy want to stick around when the fan base is calling for his head?

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Anonymous #1 9h

100%. Imagine being Faizon and seeing the attitude some people are giving him right now. He busted his ass in practice, was reported by all his coaches to have stayed later than ANYBODY else on the team to get extra reps in, didn’t even do anything like throw a pick during the game, and THIS is the thanks he’s receiving rn. I wouldn’t want to stay if I were him either. He seems like a pretty well grounded person though, so I don’t think it’ll get to him too much. Can’t give in to the haters

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Anonymous OP 9h

The way he puts in work, you’d think he’s fighting for a backup spot or to be a walk on. He’s putting in that work as a 5* talent given the starting QB spot at Tennessee while being paid $2 million. The discipline he shows is honestly worth every penny that he’s being paid. That type of mentally is extremely rare to find in players in this new era. He knows he’s going to be a star, but he doesn’t slack off or freak out if things don’t go his way during a game. I’ll support him all the way

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Anonymous OP 9h

And beyond anything else… He is 18 years old. Plus he lost to the number 1 team in the country by THREE POINTS, hardly the end of the world. Like you said, it’s complete delusion. If I was a Tennessee fan I would be pumped to see him grow. It’s crazy that people are hating on him

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Anonymous #1 9h

Dude I’m starting up the Heisman campaign train in my head 2-3 years early. Shit if he grows exponentially, maybe even next year. That’s the kind of delusion I wish other people had instead of expecting an 18 year old to make perfect reads against Texas. Texas has in my opinion a top 3 defense in the country. The reason we lost was also not because of QB play at all, it was because we didn’t take 2 kicks we should’ve

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Anonymous #1 9h

Also yeah losing by 3 to Texas honestly made me go like “dang, somehow even with how young our guys are, we are STILL a playoff contending team. Imagine where we’ll be in a year or 2.” Dunno why some other people knee jerked to wanting to run him out of Knoxville. I hope that everyone can just ignore that loud minority and let them drink themselves into sadness like usual while everyone else props the team up and supports their growth

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Anonymous #1 8h

It was also literally his first actual game. I don’t mean to be disrespectful to KSU, Furman, or GT since those guys are all D1 athletes too, but you know what I mean. I went into the Texas game thinking “if we don’t have any turnovers this game, that’s an good feat that we can be happy about” and I am in fact proud of them for never turning over the ball. Obviously there were things to work on that cost yardage (sacks, penalties, etc), but no turnovers against a top 3 defense? Big W

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Anonymous OP 8h

Faizon, as an 18 year old freshman QB, didn’t throw a pick, and despite getting sacked 10 times, had 0 fumbles. Didn’t even get close to fumbling even once. He did a great job of taking care of the ball

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Anonymous OP 8h

Ya he even had a better QBR than Manning. It was a more than serviceable performance. Absolutely something to rally behind… gotta get him ingrained in the culture because then it just means more. I’m an Utah fan… Cam Rising was never going to be an NFL QB and we all knew that. But we treated him like he was a hesiman and he responded by just finding a way to win when it mattered. He’s coaching high school now but will always be a Utah legend

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Anonymous OP 8h

Honestly kinda crazy he ended up with positive rushing yardage on the day with how many times he got sacked. It’s only 2, but hey I bet if a lot of other QBs got sacked 10 times they wouldn’t have positive yards

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Anonymous OP 8h

Side note, it will always be hilarious to me that college QBs get negative rushing yards for being sacked

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Anonymous #1 8h

Exactly. I think a lot of people forget what era Tennessee only recently escaped from. We were ASS. 3-7 or something in 2020 before Heupel came. 15 years straight of losing to Alabama. None of that mattered though, we still filled the stadium and gave praises to our players for trying their hardest to make us proud to be Vols fans. I think people need to humble themselves instead of acting like they’re entitled to a playoff appearance every year and flaming players for a bas game. Ruins the vibe

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Anonymous #1 8h

True lol, it’s mostly on the O line the majority of the time. Sometimes just good defensive plays too, can’t fault the QB for being the victim of another dude balling out

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Anonymous OP 8h

And it’s not even intended to be a rush. I feel like we are advanced enough to know when there’s a designed QB rush or RPO which are different than a pass play. In baseball someone will determine whether it’s an error or a hit… I think college football could do something similar with way more accuracy

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Anonymous #1 8h

I agree. I’m surprised stat tracking and some other aspects of the sport are still so archaic. Same goes for soccer, crazy how they’re just now adding replays and reviews to the sport

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Anonymous OP 8h

I am a baseball fan first and ya it drives me nuts. Baseball has a stat for EVERYTHING. Soccer kills me as someone trying to get into it. I have no idea how to know if a defender is good

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Anonymous #1 7h

Same. I don’t even know where to begin to look to judge who has the advantage in a match that’s 0-0. There’s time of possession and shots on goal, but that’s pretty much all I feel like I can reliably understand. I honestly should start looking at baseball stats more. I’ve been fascinated by them as I’ve looked more into them a bit over the past couple years even though I’ve spent my whole life rooting for the Braves without paying much attention to stats before

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Anonymous OP 7h

Ya and I know barely enough about hockey to know that time of possession and shots don’t necessarily mean much haha. Baseball stats are a rabbit hole but even the basic ones give a pretty food understanding of a player. Surface level is finding percentage for defense, batting average for offense, and earned run average for pitchers but it gets crazy beyond that

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Anonymous OP 7h

Soccer needs to have like a Defensive Clears stat or stolen balls or something like that

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Anonymous #1 7h

I also like how it’s easy to track someone’s performance throughout their career in baseball with year to year stats. Everything is catalogued in a way that you don’t necessarily have to dig too deep to find and analyze whatever you’re interested in. It would feel like a chore if I wanted to go and analyze some specific stat for most other sports. The best thing football has in that regard is probably QBR, and that only covers one position

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Anonymous #1 7h

Agreed. As someone who doesn’t follow it outside of the World Cup, it’d help me feel a lot less uninformed while watching since I really do want to watch during those times

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Anonymous OP 7h

Plus I have a little cousin who’s working his way up and actually doing well enough that he could be on the US team one day. I’d like to be able to follow it better for his sake too

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Anonymous OP 7h

Fuck ya that’s so cool. Good luck to him! And yes I had such a fun time with the World Cup so I’ve gone to some MLS games since and they are so fun. It really is such a good live sport because it doesn’t stop. The atmosphere is also great. I just don’t understand who is good 😭

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Anonymous #1 6h

Same 😭 I was just really excited to have Spain’s base camp be practically right down the street from me. Apparently the best player (Lamine Yamal) on the team that won the World Cup shopped at my local walmart that I’ve been going to my whole life, so that’s a nice fun fact I can give people now lol

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Anonymous OP 6h

Kinda crazy that they chose Chattanooga as their base camp, but the school they selected has pretty good facilities. Peyton Manning’s son even plays QB there and even got his first touchdown in high school the other day. Hoping he’s a future Vol lol

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