Evergrenevol
Lux et Veritas
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It’s “were.”Just like the last coaching hire, that's how we ended up with JP. I don't think any good coaches was interested so we had to settle.
Nice progression chartBased on everything we've heard from reliable sources (mainly AD DW, CJH, and Chris Low after his conversation with White and others), we can have a pretty good picture of how the hiring process played out.
Graphically, it looks like this (arrows are real offers...boxes without arrows are conversations that never progressed to an offer, colors are redlight-greenlight indicators of how interested each candidate was in the conversation...the rainbow boxes mean we will probably never know how interested each of those guys were):
View attachment 354343
We know the Franklin conversation went longer than White expected, which threw a wrench in the discussions with Elliott as the backup plan. Elliott soured, probably over feeling like the second-run that he was, to Franklin. Through all of that, Danny was exploring possible Plan Cs...that's where the conversations with guys like Fleck and Dykes came in. Never deep conversations, apparently, just looking at other options.
Then, in the final hours of the effort, a light bulb came on for White: short of Franklin, what he was looking for was right there at the place he just left, Orlando. So his Plan C which may already have become Plan B or even Plan A, was the guy we eventually got.
Kinda fun to reflect that all this happened in just 5 short days, two of them a weekend. 120 hours. I bet White and some of his closest lieutenants didn't sleep more than 3-4 hours a night, 15-20 hours total, over those five days.
I think Dan did a great job. Excited to see what Josh can make of his time as a Vol, and hoping it's a very long, successful time.
Go Vols!
...it is sad UT has fallen so far that we can no longer pull in a top level coach.
He just needs to go 6 and 6 recruit a class in the top 10 to 15 to get everybody excited. These days a team going 6 and 6 is awesome.
Heupel is a good coach. That may not be enough to succeed... but he's a good coach.Just like the last coaching hire, that's how we ended up with JP. I don't think any good coaches was interested so we had to settle.
I think he's potentially better than that... but like I mentioned in the post above he's the best "risk/reward" available to UT. The risks of failure are probably not much different with him than most of the others that were mentioned but his cost and cost of potential separation is much lower.Yep, the reality is that all the coach at UT has to produce is enough on-the-field results to get a bowl game, and in that bowl game they have to whip whatever middling Big 10 team we play, and calls for "next year is our year" will start anew; rinse and repeat for 3-4 years.
Heupel is most likely capable of such production, so I'm sure the UT admin is very happy with getting him for $4 million/year amid looming NCAA sanctions.
6 and 6 truly should be a floor for a program like ours. Three G5 cupcakes plus Vandy, Kentucky, Mizzou and USCe should pretty much always give us 6 wins as a floor.He just needs to go 6 and 6 recruit a class in the top 10 to 15 to get everybody excited. These days a team going 6 and 6 is awesome.
6 and 6 truly should be a floor for a program like ours. Three G5 cupcakes plus Vandy, Kentucky, Mizzou and USCe should pretty much always give us 6 wins as a floor.
The fact that we have NOT achieved that floor five times in the past decade shows just how much we've been hurting through the Dark Ages (not counting 2020 against us, since we might have gotten six with a regular schedule).
Here's hoping we never fall below six again. Starting immediately.
Go Vols!
I think he's potentially better than that... but like I mentioned in the post above he's the best "risk/reward" available to UT. The risks of failure are probably not much different with him than most of the others that were mentioned but his cost and cost of potential separation is much lower.
For my part... I'm just ready to see an O that puts up 35 ppg and doesn't squander whatever talent it has.. That's happened 3 times since 2000.
Not for me... and I suspect not for others like you.He might be better than that, we're going to find out, but the reality is that the bar for "success" at UT is low; real low.