Pre-Package: Heupel ain’t skeered, bet on McCollough playing for the Vols, Alabama is not Ball State

Ed. Note: Thursday JP’s have been getting far too lengthy, derailing the amount of attention people can direct on one page, at any one time. So, for the third straight week, we’re gonna’ break this up. The Pre-Package is the media appearance stuff from Wednesdays, while the the rest of the JP will be up shortly. I’ll probably continue this throughout the season.

In a week that has seen a lot of locker room material fired out for Alabama to feast upon, Josh Heupel has thrown down the gauntlet...while also sort of pretending he didn’t.

When you say that you prepare for No. 1 Alabama the same way you do for a team like Ball State, I simply don’t believe you. There’s damning with faint praise, then there’s lumping the Crimson Tide into the same camp as Ball f’n State.

In fact, that may make for a pretty good poll!

On how quickly Alabama was mentioned after you were hired…

“Alabama was the first one that got mentioned. Similar to what I was just talking about, different people have who their biggest rivals is inside our yearly schedule. This is a big game. It’s a game that I grew up watching, and we’re looking forward to the opportunity that we have this week. But for our fanbase, this is certainly one that they point to. Looking forward to it.”

Yeah, really sounds like Ball State to me, Great Value Phil Fulmer-ass, high off Cheeto dust-ass, double chin with its own double chin-ass...

God, I hate these buffoons. All of them. Ever. For any reason. And for no reason at all.

Felon assault arrestee, Jaylen McCollough, is almost certainly going to play on Saturday for the Vawls: Heupel has already started placing the blame on UT admins:

On if a decision has been made on defensive back Jaylen McCollough (arrest)...

“No, we have not done that yet. Our administration is handling most of that, and we’ll have conversations with them here as they continue to gather information and make a decision on that here on the back end of the week.”

You had to expect that though. The Fulmer Cup exists for a reason — Tennessee specifically.

Knox News has an entire article about how Neyland is smoke-free...but will it stop the Vols from lighting cigars on Saturday?

One more for the bulletin board.

With some disgust, the Vawl faithful are also having to admit that Henry To’oto’o is having his best season to date.

Hate to see it

Kermit sip dot jpg

Here was Nick’s weekly presser:

For those who prefer to read it, as usual Potter has his “Everything Nick Saban Said” column up. This one in particular caught my attention, given Alabama’s iffy road play the last two seasons.

On if a team gets better at playing on the road as the season progresses…

“I think the first time you do it, it’s probably a little bit of a challenge for players that have never done it before, especially at certain positions where being able to communicate and hear, whether it’s snap count, whatever, inability to communicate on defense if it’s loud, those things probably affect inexperienced players a little bit more than they do the guys that have done it before. But I think by this time, we’ve played a couple road games, you hope that that experience has enhanced the guys on the team’s expectations of what’s going to happen, how it’s gonna be, what they have to overcome, how they need to play, how they need to focus in that kind of environment.”

This seems like an insufficient answer to me. It’s not just on the players. This staff — Bill O’Brien in particular — call a very different game on the road. I miss YOLO Alabama. Teams know that YOLO version of Alabama does not exist in this offense, and they have defensively shortened to field and compacted Alabama’s already-cramped spacing near the LOS.

That is when BoB isn’t calling the worst analytical plays possible: second-and-long runs.

We’ll be back in about an hour with the regular JP. Dig into this for now.