2014 Season Bottom line

[oregonvol]

Wholly inaccurate conclusion. I never said, nor do I adhere, to the belief that "we should hold ourselves to the same standards as South Carolina and Kansas State and Duke." Tennessee is historically a top ten program. Based on its tradition and history, Tennessee is not a particularly difficult program to maintain, once you have it back up and performing to the standards we all expect. When it is down, however, Tennessee is a slower rebuild due to its historically weak instate recruiting base. Fortunately, that talent pool is finally beginning to pick up in terms of both quantity and quality. Not every rebuild is accompanied by the same circumstances.

The difference between you and me is that I categorically do not believe in publicly airing our dirty laundry. As a UT grad and fan (of 46 years), I am no more happy with the outcome of the last five years than you are, but you will not see me engaged in constantly criticizing our players and coaches. Conversely, your devotion to our alma mater may be every bit as intense as mine, but it is very difficult to see it masked by the constant stream of negativity.

It's the internet. If you don't want anyone to criticize anything, you might want to stick to Vol Calls.

Your "Tennessee should take years and years to rebuild and we shouldn't expect to see significant improvements along the way" stance is what allowed Dooley 3 years to put us further behind. Maybe if fans were more negative about that hire and were more critical of his first year, then he wouldn't have gotten a contract extension with a huge buyout we'll be paying off for years.

 

[sjt18]

Wow you really think UT should have won 7 games? Your pretend constructive criticism posts are getting beyond pathetic.

Wow. Who taught you to read and comprehend?

I said for MONTHS that 7 wins by Jones would be validation... proof that he could win more games with a roster than the sum of its talent. IOW's, it would have taken an ABOVE AVERAGE coaching job. I am now saying that SIX next year would indicate something similar based on what we know about the roster and schedule right now.

A lot of people picked us to finish either 5-7 or 6-6 and that was way before Mizzou and Auburn became so good. So no even remotely expecting 7 wins this year was insanity.

No it wasn't and isn't. Two inches and a VERY poorly coached game vs Vandy that STILL probably should have been a win... equals 7 wins. If Worley had been healthy, I think Mizzou would have been a closer game.

North is not a playmaker? Ok, whatever you say dude. He made some huge plays for us and without him we lose the SC game. Did he make some freshman mistakes? Yes but he was a true freshman so mistakes are allowed. Your days must be spent trying to find new and creative ways to insult Butch and the team in general.

You really, really struggle with reading comprehension, don't you? You do understand how some words modify other words... or did you miss those days in grade school?

"Consistent".

You attack me falsely then go on to validate exactly what I actually SAID.

It would seem you spend your days trying to find new and creative ways to lie and distort what I actually say so you don't have to deal with it or answer intelligently.

 

[sjt18]

Most rational posters aren't celebrating 5-7 like you claim they are, but understand that given what Butch inherited they are willing to give it more time. This is in stark contrast to posters like you and Oregonvol who lack basic college football knowledge as evidenced by your incessant pissing and moaning about not being 8-4 and giving no historical context or perspective to your analysis (if you can call it that) of this coaching staff and the overall performance of the team.

Right. I "lack basic college football knowledge" because I recognize that the coaching wasn't great. You all possess it because you gloss over coaching failures. Gotcha.

I am giving Jones time... and credit when it is due. He did a very good job vs UGA and USCe. His recruiting is the best I have seen since the best years of Fulmer. He's doing a very good job of pulling support and resources in and around the program. He has the ability to make people believe. Those are all great and necessary things.

But don't expect me to call a pile of horse dung anything other than horse dung. They didn't coach well the first season overall. They were non-competitive in 4 games losing that many games by 28 plus points for the first time in over a half century. They lost to a very beatable Vandy team because they overestimated how good Vandy was.

Maybe there's some grand strategic reason behind why they did not perform better THIS year... but that does not change the fact that they could have won more games had the coaching and in-season development been better than it was.

 

[sjt18]

Tennessee. John Majors

Completely different era of college football and especially media. Nonetheless Majors was 16-17-1 with a bowl game loss.

 

[Slingshot]

I agree with the OP that 7-5 should be a reasonable expectation and that if Tennessee can't acheive that, then something went wrong.

I just take a more optimistic point of view. Oregon, Alabama, Georgia, Florida (before all their starters were injured, South Carolina, Auburn, Missourri, and were still 2 plays away from a 7-5 season. Inches!

That being said it's not unreasonable to believe that a little more talent could have given us an edge we needed to win some of the close ones that we lost.

I cannot however jump to the conclusion that if UT doesn't improve that the only contributer will be bad coaching.

When teams win.....the team will anylyze the game. They will find numerous bad calls by coaches, poor decisions, poor execution by players....and so on. Very few times can you evaluate any game win or lose and not find opportunities for improvement. The differnce in losses though is the fans are looking for where to lay the blame for the loss.

Bad calls by coaches stand out. It's the easiest thing for a fan to be able to point a finger at and say, Man if they just had not made the one bad call there we would have won.

After a win fans move on.

You can have the best coaches in the world and if the players do not win their match ups on the field you can be OK but you will never be great. I think that we were just OK this year.

 

[sjt18]

Frank Beamer at VAT
Johnny Majors at Tennessee
Shug Jordan at Auburn

off the top of my head

OK... now I'm going to modify the request a little.

Can you name someone in the ESPN era of college football who has done it?

Even so... that still demonstrates you have to look pretty far and wide to find examples. They are the exception... not the rule. And recently... they become even fewer due to media, money, recruiting, et al.

Recruiting alone is vastly different than it was in 1985.

 

[sjt18]

I cannot however jump to the conclusion that if UT doesn't improve that the only contributer will be bad coaching.

When teams win.....the team will anylyze the game. They will find numerous bad calls by coaches, poor decisions, poor execution by players....and so on. Very few times can you evaluate any game win or lose and not find opportunities for improvement. The differnce in losses though is the fans are looking for where to lay the blame for the loss.

Bad calls by coaches stand out. It's the easiest thing for a fan to be able to point a finger at and say, Man if they just had not made the one bad call there we would have won.

.

Actually that's not what we see here. I am apparently public enemy #1 with many of these folks because I won't let them claim that coaching was not a significant factor at all. I have NEVER said talent wasn't an issue. I've never even attempted to say one thing was more of a factor than others. I have very simply and consistently said that if this roster had been well coached they would have won 7. Six wins would have been "average"- not good, not bad, just questions remaining. I said that 5 or fewer wins would be an underachievement with the talent on the roster. It makes people mad that I won't back off that... which is OK with me. Instead of trying to actually prove their point or show me I'm wrong... they name call and such non-sense. Pretty much the admit defeat when they have to resort to that.

Talent was a big part of the problem and likely will be again in '14. The easy thing this year for most of the posters here was NOT to point to coaching... but to blame the players and their gross lack of talent for EVERYTHING (even a loss to a less talented team). Unfortunately, many of those knees will jerk just as hard back in the other direction when the "talent" excuse doesn't work anymore... and many of them seem to assume it won't work anymore in '14. There are folks here predicting 8 or 9 wins. There's one guy even saying he only sees 2 very likely losses.

 

[daj2576]

But but but. We'll have training wheels on both lines of scrimmage. We're young. They've had five classes to build depth. These are just a few of the built in excuses. I want to see some improvement next year regardless.. No year zero and no 5 year rebuild projects. Get it done. Not expecting miracles ,at least a bowl game please.

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