Time for Change

It’s Arkansas week, and by now I should be getting depressed. I don’t think I’m in the minority when I say that I think we don’t stand much of a chance of winning this Saturday. And lets face it, what’s even worse than watching your team lose a game is watching a game already thinking they have no chance to win. But you know what, events like those that have been brought to light this week up in State College have a way of bringing with them some perspective. After all, this is just a game, these are just kids, and college football is supposed to be fun. It sure as hell isn’t more important than the lives and the well-being of young people.

I’ve spent a lot of time this season complaining about what’s wrong with UT football, and I don’t apologize for speaking my mind and speaking from my heart as a fan. But I’m tired of wallowing in the disappointment that is this season of Tennessee football. Yes, we have had some terrible losses. And yes, we have made some questionable coaching decisions. And yes, we have had some underwhelming player performances. And yes, we seem to have had more than our fair share of bad luck. It’s certainly true that we could very well finish this season with 5 wins or less and be sitting at home during bowl season and that will absolutely stink because it means we will have lost to Vandy or Kentucky or, dare I say it, to both. It’s been a disappointing year.

But its time to step back from the ledge and put things into perspective. We are a young team, we have suffered setbacks that most teams have not, and an already thin roster has been depleted, including the loss of our best two offensive players and several key defensive players. So instead of thinking about this week and the butt kicking that may or may not be awaiting us in Fayetteville this Saturday, I’d rather choose to focus instead on what could be in III AD (Anno Dooley. . .The Year of the Doolander). Maybe next year will be more of the same, with bad luck, key injuries and more losses, but I choose to believe otherwise and here are a few reasons why:

Reason 1: Derek Dooley
Who knows how long Dooley is going to be here. It could be 3 years or it could be 30, but dad-gum-it I like the guy. Sure, he’s stumbled out of the blocks a little, but he’s proven he can bring in solid players, he can bring in some solid coaches, and he’s a riot when it comes to doing interviews and press conferences (any doubt just check this out). He created the Vol For Life program, which by all accounts has been a huge success and you know he has to do well with parents. Oh, and his hair is perfect and his pants are kick ass.

Reason 2: Tyler Bray
Throat slashes and similar antics aside, we had one of the best QBs in the SEC before he lost his best weapon and broke his thumb. Tyler Bray has the kind of arm that will have pro scouts falling all over themselves once he decides to leave. Pressure situations don’t seem to phase him. If he decides he wants to get serious about really understanding defensive schemes over the spring and summer and if he and his receivers stay healthy, Tyler could have an incredible junior season next year, and I’m talking Heisman contender type of season.

Reason 3: Wide Receiver U Part Deux
Justin Hunter – What a difficult way for Justin Hunter to go out this year, first play of the Florida game when he was poised to have an All SEC and maybe All American type of season. Something tells me he will come back next year with a vengeance and be stronger and a better route runner. Just think if he is the same or better than the Justin Hunter we saw in the first two games, we will have the best two receivers in the SEC and likely in the country.

Da’Rick Rogers – If you think he’s having a great year (and he is) just imagine what he would be doing if Justin Hunter were out there with him. Da’Rick is going to be even better working the middle of the field, the sidelines, and in the Orange Zone when Hunter is out there drawing his mandatory double coverages. He’s a beast, and don’t forget both he and Justin Hunter were incredible gets by Dooley right after Kiffin was seen leaving on a jet plane.

Reason 4: Improved Defense
Herman Lathers, who was second on the team in tackles last year should be back to play alongside the two talented freshman who have been studs. The line will be anchored by Smith, Miller, Mo Couch, Hood, and Bohanan. Our defensive backfield should be much better with Brewer and Waggner anchoring a group that will include a much more experienced Randolph and Coleman. Combine this with the fact that Dooley and Co. are having a good year filling some need areas on the recruiting trail and this should make for a solid defense that is far better than this years version (a thin defense that played with LSU and Bama for a half).

Reason 5: Offensive Line
I’ve not given up on these guys yet. I think there is talent there and I think at some point its going to come together. Another offseason together in the weight room and on the practice field will help these guys and they could be the line everyone expected to see this year. They’ve already done a good job pass blocking, and if they reach their potential, the running game will have to improve.

Reason 6: The Schedule
This year’s schedule has been brutal, there are no two ways about it. Who the heck knows what’s going to happen with next years schedule now that we’ve super-sized the SEC, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say its going to be more favorable since we won’t be playing LSU and get Florida and hopefully BAMA at home.

Reason 7: Next Year is Our Year
Of course it is, we are Tennessee fans. And you know what, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Go Vols, Beat the Hogs!

At a Loss – Again

I’m going to admit something to you now that both my wife and my mother have been trying to get me to own for years: I am a know-it-all. I think I know everything, and if I don’t know something, I’m going to do my damnedest to convince you that I know it anyway. It’s fair to say that normally I think I have all the answers. But we are now eight games into Derek Dooley’s second season, sitting squarely at 3-6, and all I have is questions. I’ve seen a lot of highs and lows in my 35 plus years of cheering for the Vols. . .from the Sugar Bowl win in 85 and the National Championship in 98 to witnessing loses to Duke, Vanderbilt and Wyoming in once feared Neyland Stadium. But in all my years, I have never witnessed anything as perplexing as the current brand of Tennessee Volunteer football.

Are our struggles partially due to the fact that we have a depleted roster do to attrition and injuries? Absolutely no question about that. But they are also due to the fact that we consistently and repeatedly get stupid penalties, drop key passes, miss key kicks, fail to convert key fourth down conversions and every game we experience critical substitution errors resulting in poor use of our time-outs. These unforced errors cannot be blamed on a lack of talent; they fall squarely on the shoulders of our players and our coaching staff. As I sat there in the stands this past Saturday (which were depressingly empty), witnessing a series where we jumped offsides on fourth and one, then again on fourth and six, and then duck-hooked a field goal attempt on fourth and 11, I caught myself thinking ahead to the rest of season, and how bad things could get for Dooley if he loses this team. Things are bad now, they could get much worse.

There is no question that Dooley should be given time. Those few fans calling for his head now have no idea the kind of damage another coaching change would have on this program. Part of the reason we are where we are is because Fulmer’s players and Kiffin’s players are not here. Another coaching change in the near future would only further deplete a terribly thin roster. And in fairness to Dooley, he only has one full class of his guys in the program. There is no debating that he deserves a chance to turn this ship around, IF he can keep it afloat.

Dooley has thus far only lost games that he was expected to lose, and so for the most part he is still going to be judged by how much his team improves from year two to year three. Most fans understand that its not fair to expect him to win games without Bray and Hunter against teams as good as Georgia, LSU, Bama and South Carolina. But at this point you would hope to see improvement in discipline and in execution and its concerning how much this year’s team has regressed. Our running backs and our offensive line have taken big steps backwards. Our kicking game is putrid and that is being nice. But more concerning than either of those is the decline rather than improvement in game management. We have burned more timeouts this season due to substitution errors and mass confusion than we did last year, in a season where we lost a game SOLELY BECAUSE of substitution errors and mass confusion on the sideline. Its been worse, when it should be much better.

I say all that to say this. . .Dooley’s next year starts this year, because now he has one must win, a MUST WIN, that once seemed like an afterthought. If he wants to keep this already apathetic fan base from dashing to the local BP to buy up all the Gator and Bama hats they have left, he HAS to beat Vanderbilt.

If you told me at the beginning of the season I would be making that statement, I would have told you to lay off the crack pipe. At that point, Vandy was already in the win column just like MTSU and Kentucky. But I think we all agree now that Vanderbilt is anything but a sure win. And if Dooley looses to Vandy, his rebuilding job gets enormously tougher overnight. Recruiting gets tougher, keeping the fan base invested and believing in his vision gets tougher, keeping your good assistant coaches around gets tougher, and keeping your job beyond the next few years gets tougher. Dooley MUST win that game. He and his staff have to prove that they can out scheme and out coach a team with equal or slightly better talent. We all know Georgia, LSU, Alabama and South Carolina have more depth and talent than Tennessee at this point, but you cannot convince me that Vanderbilt will come in here and out talent the Vols. If they win, it will be because they out executed us, which means we got out coached. This is a game Dooley should be able to win, and its a game that he has to win. All year its been Vanderbilt and not Tennessee that’s played with teams that should be soundly beating them. They are going to come into the game confident and ready to play, believing they will win. I just I hope I will be able to say the same about Dooley’s team afterwards.

From where I sit in Y6

Here are my thoughts on the UT/UGA game from where I sit over in the North End Zone.  Again, I don’t pretend to be an expert, just a fan. . .

Most Annoying Fan EVER:  Whoever gave away their tickets to the most annoying human being I have ever been around, thanks!  This guy who sat behind us never, and I mean NEVER shut his mouth.  He apparently was an expert on all topics, from game management, to officiating, to recruiting, to concessions, to the friggin’ UT band and their academic woes.  Now I know the history of the Petro and why the band is down 50 people.  If I heard him scream “Hey recruits, come to UT, you can start right away!” one more time I was going to throw an elbow in his nads.

Time to Trust Lane:  Crompton looked good against an admittedly weak Georgia D, but the thing that stuck out was that the WRs made plays.  Kiffin has been calling them out all season and now we know why, they weren’t helping out our QB.  Sure he hasn’t played well, but they’ve made him look worse than he is.  I can’t help but think that it’s no coincidence that they played much better the week after Warren was dismissed.  What the heck was with that guy?

Kiffin called a nice game, and I liked the roll out calls with Crompton throwing to a moving target.  We get in trouble against good defenses when Crompton tries to throw to a stationary target.  I like the drag routes and the underneath routes off the play action.  If the WRs keep playing like this, and the Defense plays like it has been, all we need is a game manager at QB, not a star.

Recruits:  I sit right next to the recruiting section (see above comment), and from where I sit, the three linemen on their official visits looked impressed.  It’s weird what these kids notice, I saw John Cullen say “wow” when they announced the official attendance.  Of course, there weren’t 103K there, but with the weather, our record, and the fact that a few big high school football games were rescheduled for Saturday, I think the crowd was pretty good.  It was by far the loudest that stadium has been in a while.

A Farewell to Richt?:  Probably not, but I wouldn’t be surprised if his defensive coordinator resigns as early as Monday.  As good as we looked, we owe some of that to how bad Georgia is on D.  Let’s just say we’re not as bad as we looked against Auburn and we’re definitely not as good as we looked today.

Special Teams:  Wow, that was horrible.  We better fix the kickoff coverage stat or we are in trouble.  Bama has a great return man in Arenas, and we are so pathetic in coverage that I get a knot in my stomach every time we score because I know what’s coming.  WHY do we have so many DBs on the coverage team?  We need speed outside, but we need some wedge busters up the middle.  I would complain about Eddie Gran, but he’s a great coach, a great guy, and our running backs look great.  We just need to get this fixed.

That’s all for now, time to watch LSU try to beat the Gators in Baton Rouge. Let’s all take a break and gather our breath, then its on to Bama in two weeks.

Later,

Stickdaddy.

My E-Mail To the Great Tony B

Tony,

I know you’ve been talking all week about how few fans showed up for the Ohio game and how tickets are still available for Auburn and UGA, and by now you’re ready to move on, but I needed to send you my two cents worth.  While I can’t justify missing a game, Tony, it’s not hard for me to understand why some could.  Here’s why:

This fan discontent has been a long time in the making Tony, and it’s not going to be changed overnight, no matter who our new coach is or what we do this year.  The powers that be allowed apathy to slowly work its way into this once great program, to the point where we became an also ran in the SEC.  We went from a national power to a punchline. 

It’s crazy how our situation has mirrored what goes on with those clowns in Washington DC.  As much as they try to convince us otherwise, we’re not stupid Tony, but for years we’ve been fed the same bull*#&$ from our former coach, our Athletic Dept. and University, and the local media.  All of the above just assumed that they could continue to offer the same tired boring old product (at an increased cost mind you) and that we as fans would just continue to show up,cheer like crazy, and buy whatever they were selling.  They took us for granted for far too long, and most of us who have supported this program for a long time were getting to the point of saying that’s ENOUGH.  But anytime anyone pointed out how our program was clearly on a downhill slide, we were ridiculed, talked down to and called idiots.  We were told that as fans we just didn’t understand the intricacies of the game and that we just needed to be thankful for what we had.  In short, we were told to accept a mediocre program and just keep cheering like crazy.  We have been continually asked to pay more for less, and have been told to take it and like it.  Over the past several years, we “moron fans” have been told the following, among other things:
1)  We won a national championship just ten years ago.  How many has Georgia won?
2)  Every program goes through down years, look at Penn State and Joe Paterno.
3)  College football is different these days, there’s more parity.  You can’t expect championships now.
4)  We’re a spoiled fan base, we expect to play for a championship every year.  That’s not realistic.
5)  We played in the SEC championship game 2 of the last 5 years.  Don’t say we haven’t been competitive.
6)  Tennessee isn’t an elite job anyway, it’s just the 5th ot 6th best job in the SEC.  If we fire Phillip Fulmer, who else would we get to come here?
 
All this and more Tony, we have been asked to endure as UT fans and we have.  You want to know why people aren’t showing up, this is why.  You can’t keep giving people less and asking more for it. . .unless you’re Frito Lay. 

Tony, I love UT Football, always have and always will.  They couldn’t take that away from me.  I have season tickets and I have for a while, but I have to tell you that if something wasn’t done last year, I don’t know that I could have continued to fork over hard-earned money to get nothing in return.  People have been burned Tony, for the last 5 to 6 years we’ve been patronized by a coach who played the role of the good ole boy to perfection, played it to the tune of $6 mil.  I think I speak for everyone when I say that we’re still just a little wee-wee’d off that our beloved program was allowed to fall so far so fast.  We’ve been burned, and like it or not, that takes a while to get over.

But come hell or high water I’ll be there Saturday night, sitting there around all of my Y6 family cheering for OUR team.  They can’t take that from me. 

Later,

Stickdaddy

What was Urban thinking? The truth about Meyer comes out. . .

Hey Gator fans, thought your coach seemed a little less focused than usual?  Thought he seemed a bit off in his game management?  Did he leave the game feeling a little less of a man?  Can you blame him?  Meet our secret weapon.

Layla, you got me on my knees. . .

Moral Victories and Bandwagon Flordia Fans

If I hear the phrase moral victory one more time, EVER, I’m gonna choke somebody.  Seriously, I’ll do it, try me.  Don’t get me wrong, I am pumped about what went on down in Gainesville this past Saturday, but its only been a week and I have already grown to loathe those words.  And all it does is remind me how far our once relevant program has fallen.  Sure, by stepping up in the Swamp and punching the Gators square in the mouth we scored a victory with recruits and doubters everywhere.  And I love that the national media just continues to do us a huge favor by hanging on every word Lane Kiffin has to say.  But I can’t wait until we actually beat those punks on the field, repeatedly.  We HAVE to beat them on the field, because these bandwagon Florida fans make me want to puke and I’m tired of them and all their nonsense. 

On the way in to work yesterday morning, I was sitting at a traffic light on Neyland Drive right next to the stadium.  I was behind a car with a Tennessee vanity plate that had a Gator on it.  The chick also had a Gator sticker in her window, and get this, she was a UT student (I saw her parking permit hanging from her mirror).  How is this happening?  My relative is marrying a Florida fan – from Powell mind you, and now she’s starting to think that the Gators are kinda cool, even though she’s been a UT fan all her DADGUM life.  Something has to change in Knoxville, before it’s too late. 

 I think we stuck the first blow this past Saturday, but we need to remember that this spreading of bandwagon fandom in Knoxville is a serious epidemic that did not happen overnight and we will require years of treatment before we can finally rid ourselves of this sickness.

In the meantime, I have made it my personal quest to call out all the bandwagon fans I can.  And in doing so, I came up with a simple quiz that any half-wit Florida fan who has cheered for the Gators for any amount of time should be able to answer.  If they can’t answer these questions, CALL THEM OUT!

A letter to Jesse Scroggins

See Jesse, it's simple math

Dear Mr. Scroggins,

Dude, are you watching this?  I mean you saw the UT-Florida game right?  And you think you want to go to USC?  Jesse, take a bit of advice from me, someone who knows very little about most things but understands this, YOU NEED TO BE AT TENNESSEE NEXT YEAR. 

Look, I know its been your dream to play at USC, but I think playis the key word in your whole dream there.  And come on, I think we both know that your chances of unseating Mr. Barkley in the next two years are slim and no freaking way.  Do you enjoy wearing maroon and gold so much that you are willing to hold a clipboard and waive a towel for 4 to 5 years?  If so, you definitely need to stay committed to the Trojans.  It won’t be a total loss, you will get a world class education and will be proficient at various hand signals, a useful skill I’m sure.

Jesse, before you sign on Pete’s dotted line, let me make a suggestion.  Call Terrelle Pryor or Tate Forcier and ask them what it’s like to play right away for a big time program.  I bet it is the ride of their lives.  Then ask Mitch Mustain if he’s glad he’s out there picking splinters out of his butt in So Cal instead of playing somewhere else.  I bet his surfing skills have really improved, and he’ll probably have a lot of time to do that in a few years.  I see he has his own fan website, but not one start at USC.  I’m not knocking Mustain, but its my guess that he’s starting to rethink that whole transfer thing.  It’s too late for him.

Here’s what I’m getting at, Jesse, we need you at Tennessee.  I know you watched the UT-Florida game, or at least saw the highlights.  We were all over the news, it was all the national media talked about.  Jesse, know this, if we had a decent, much less highly talented QB like yourself, we would have beat the freakin’ Gators down in the swamp.  Beat them with less talent, but better coaches.  You can be a part of something here, you can be our Carson Palmer.  You will play here, Jesse, and you will play with great players around you.  You will be playing for coaches that will make you better and who will send you to the league, and you will be playing at the same school that Peyton Manning once played at.  Doesn’t that sound great?  And best of all, you will be PLAYING! 

No other situation at a major school can match what we have to offer you.  Incredible facilities, insane fan base, the best coaching staff around, a cast of talented young players, and the chance (a REAL chance) to play right out tha’ gate.  Just promise me you’ll think about it.  We’ll be here, rebuilding this thing into something special.

Later,

Stickdaddy