A healthy dose of perspective

#1
Q

QuarterSawnVol

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#1
Hear me out. This is not a negative Nancy thread.

I believe two reasons this season has been so satisfying are 1. It was quite a surprise 2. What we have endured as a fan base for 15 years.

Regarding my second point, what was the LOWEST point of this fan base since Fulmer was fired?

I'm immediately reminded of Dooley throwing his crutches, the champions of life presser, and the Mdonalds bag story. I think losing to Vandy in 2016 and seeing the frat boys of West End dancing to Rocky Top was an all time low moment
 
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#3
#3
2 events for me are the tops of the lows.

1. Kiffin leaving. I don't fault him for going after his dream job but the timing, the way he did it, and the aftermath were bad.

2. Losing to Georgia State and BYU at home in the same year. Freaking Pruitt could not get players ready to punch their way out of a wet paper bag.

These lows make the high we're on now much sweeter indeed.
 
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#4
#4
QuarterSawnVol said:
Hear me out. This is not a negative Nancy thread.

I believe two reasons this season has been so satisfying are 1. It was quite a surprise 2. What we have endured as a fan base for 15 years.

Regarding my second point, what was the LOWEST point of this fan base since Fulmer was fired?

I'm immediately reminded of Dooley throwing his crutches, the champions of life presser, and the Mdonalds bag story. I think losing to Vandy in 2016 and seeing the frat boys of West End dancing to Rocky Top was an all time low moment
Click to expand...
Pruitt pick a year …after him I thought we would never be “back”
 
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#8
#8
The Pruitt era, especially losing to Georgia State.

Although Dooley was very bad, it was still early in our collapse and I still had confidence we could get a good coach.

Another low point is the fact that so many coaches were turning us down in some of the recent hires.

Alabama being so damn good was also frustrating.
 
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#10
#10
Pruitt years. I thought he would be okay at first but the second year was a disaster.
One of Dooley's biggest issues was lack of defense. If he hadn't brought in Sunsuri or what ever his name was, and tried to change the defense to a 3-4 without the players to do it with he would have been more successful.
 
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#11
#11
McDad said:
2 events for me are the tops of the lows.

1. Kiffin leaving. I don't fault him for going after his dream job but the timing, the way he did it, and the aftermath were bad.

2. Losing to Georgia State and BYU at home in the same year. Freaking Pruitt could not get players ready to punch their way out of a wet paper bag.

These lows make the high we're on now much sweeter indeed.
Click to expand...

At that point in his coaching career, Kiffin leaving is the best thing he ever did for Tennessee. He brought in, what turned out to be, the single worst recruiting class in Tennessee history and left the program in much worse shape than what he inherited.
 
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#17
#17
What was so frustrating about Dooley was that his hire was strictly because of his name. We could have even hired an accomplished coordinator that would have at least kept the program afloat for 3-4 seasons. But the head honchos acted like they had to scramble, when in reality it was a wink wink Dooley-has the-right-connections hire.
 
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#18
#18
2011. Kentucky. Tennessee went to Lexington needing one win for a bowl game. We had Tyler Bray, who was pretty decent quarterback with a real arm, Justin Hunter, Tauren Poole, Raijon Neal, Da'Rick Rogers, and then big guys like JuWuan James, Malik Jackson - point is, Tennessee went up there with a decent enough roster of talent, and all we needed was 1 win to earn a bowl game and also extend the Kentucky streak to 27 straight years.

Kentucky had nothing to bring to the table. They had to convert a wide receiver to quarterback to even HAVE a quarterback to play in the game. They had injuries all over their roster. They hadn't beaten anyone that year. They had NOTHING to bring to that game aside from their competitive will to win.

Final score? 10-7, Wildcats.

Kentucky only managed 217 yards of offense that game, and threw a total of six passes - I just checked - and somehow that was enough to beat Tennessee.

Tennessee didn't look like it cared one damn bit about anything that happened that day. Winning that game didn't matter to anyone. Making a bowl didn't matter to them. We didn't have a team out there. We had some guys just kind of hanging around until the game was over. That, to me, was the lowest moment.

Wyoming 2008 was low. Georgia State was low. 13 men on the field was low. All of that was low.

But 2011 Kentucky? That was just awful beyond belief.
 
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#19
#19
Kiffin bent us over and used us then kicked us in the gonads for good measure. There was nothing that devalued Tennessee football like him throwing us to the side. No one respected our program after that.
 
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#20
#20
For me:

1. Fulmer's first loss to Vandy in 05. This was the knockout punch that signaled the end of an era. It should have been Fulmer's last game. Fulmer was completely lost on Offense without Cut. I knew it, you knew it, everyone knew it. Nobody wanted to admit it. Between 3rd Down Screen Sanders and 3rd and Chavis, we became the laughing stock.
2. Losing to Wyoming in 08. Nuff said. No need in kicking a dead horse.
3. Hiring Lane Kiffin, Derek Dooley, Butch Jones, and Cornbread Beldar and the crapshow that followed doesn't hold a candle in the wind to watching our Vols slam face first into the dirt during the early 2000s. It literally took us 20 years to get off the mat. Those other four chodes that followed were our program's version of Rocky watching Apollo die. Everyone knew it was happening, but there was nothing any of us could do to stop it.
 
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#21
#21
Voltopia said:
2011. Kentucky. Tennessee went to Lexington needing one win for a bowl game. We had Tyler Bray, who was pretty decent quarterback with a real arm, Justin Hunter, Tauren Poole, Raijon Neal, Da'Rick Rogers, and then big guys like JuWuan James, Malik Jackson - point is, Tennessee went up there with a decent enough roster of talent, and all we needed was 1 win to earn a bowl game and also extend the Kentucky streak to 27 straight years.

Kentucky had nothing to bring to the table. They had to convert a wide receiver to quarterback to even HAVE a quarterback to play in the game. They had injuries all over their roster. They hadn't beaten anyone that year. They had NOTHING to bring to that game aside from their competitive will to win.

Final score? 10-7, Wildcats.

Kentucky only managed 217 yards of offense that game, and threw a total of six passes - I just checked - and somehow that was enough to beat Tennessee.

Tennessee didn't look like it cared one damn bit about anything that happened that day. Winning that game didn't matter to anyone. Making a bowl didn't matter to them. We didn't have a team out there. We had some guys just kind of hanging around until the game was over. That, to me, was the lowest moment.

Wyoming 2008 was low. Georgia State was low. 13 men on the field was low. All of that was low.

But 2011 Kentucky? That was just awful beyond belief.
Click to expand...


I think those last 3 weeks just showed the hopelessness of the program. Huge loss to Arkansas>going to OT with Vandy at home>loss to UK.

Just an absolute stinker of a season and really showcased how terrible Dooley was.
 
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#22
#22
VOLfrombama said:
For me:

1. Fulmer's first loss to Vandy in 05. This was the knockout punch that signaled the end of an era. It should have been Fulmer's last game. Fulmer was completely lost on Offense without Cut. I knew it, you knew it, everyone knew it. Nobody wanted to admit it. Between 3rd Down Screen Sanders and 3rd and Chavis, we became the laughing stock.
2. Losing to Wyoming in 08. Nuff said. No need in kicking a dead horse.
3. Hiring Lane Kiffin, Derek Dooley, Butch Jones, and Cornbread Beldar and the crapshow that followed doesn't hold a candle in the wind to watching our Vols slam face first into the dirt during the early 2000s. It literally took us 20 years to get off the mat. Those other four chodes that followed were our program's version of Rocky watching Apollo die. Everyone knew it was happening, but there was nothing any of us could do to stop it.
Click to expand...
Have to agree. I was at that 2005 Vanderbilt game and you knew the program was on a downward spiral. If it had not been for Cutcliffe coming back you could have added 3 additional years to the dark ages.
 
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