Clarification: Tennessee is NOT competitive in the SEC

Conspiracy theories are what they are - but I'm a firm believer that there are no coincidences either. There is a lot of $ on CFB (and growing daily). Where there is a great deal of money (or power), the opportunity for corruption is nearly on par. I have seen referees not call penalties which benefit UT and have called penalties which have hampered UT this season. In fact, it's nearly the worst I've seen in 40 years. Even the announcers are saying, "Well...yeah...he held the UT receiver...and even turned him...". That is nearly a direct quote from Sat night talking about a UGA DB. The SEC office wants Alabama to play UGA every year in the SECCG. It's that simple. Sure strange things can happen and a LSU gets in - but year in and year out - you know at season's beginning who it is going to be. The SEC office should have been moved out of Alabama decades ago. It wasn't for a reason. Money is the only thing that these types understand....and it isn't going down b/c too many people look to sports as an temporary escape hatch from their lives. Endure the "blue-blood programs" or abandon the sport.
 
College football is not the NFL. Yes, there are countless arguments that have merit that says it pretty much is, but it is not on paper. If the powers that be want to officially recognize that the P5 is really just an NFL development league and that the players have zero obligation to academics and pursuing a degree, then fine. Make all the parity rules you want. But, if they continue to pretend that it is college football, then they can't tell a player that he can't go to a particular school.

Heck with NIL, you can't even really limit scholarships to control the parity. Who needs a scholarship if you have a seven figure NIL deal? You'd just have "walk ons" playing at elite levels at certain P5 schools.
This is why the money destroys college football.

With the old system of at least the appearance of amateur athletes, the money rarely got completely out of hand in controlling the majority of recruiting decisions. With NIL essentially being "pay to play" it becomes a pretty open bidding war for services so parity isn't the question, who wants to spend more is the question.

We've already seen this with college coaches. Ridiculous salaries that don't result in wins and we'll see it with players too, but statistics won't lie in the long run........ pay an elite coach and more often than not you'll get elite results, pay elite players and more often than not you'll get elite results.

Without salary caps you'll end up with what MLB has: big baseball markets with massive payrolls and smaller markets without them. And the results tend to follow the payroll.

I'm shocked, shocked to the bone, that you get what you pay for in life.
 
There's zero reason for Smart to jump to Bama. Zero. He's got and will get in the future everything post-Saban Bama could provide for him already in Athens AND Atlanta money, which even with the Falcons and Braves in town, will still be enough to keep up with any Alabama money.

Bama isn't Bama without Saban and Bear before him. Smart owns GA like those guys did Alabama. There's nothing for him to gain by moving anywhere.
I was referring to using their (future) interest for a raise.
Bama will aim high when they hire the next HC, and Kirby will not leave UGA in the foreseeable future.
That coaching search, when it happens, will inflate salaries for the top tier of elite coaches.
 
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I was referring to using their (future) interest for a raise.
Bama will aim high when they hire the next HC, and Kirby will not leave UGA in the foreseeable future.
That coaching search, when it happens, will inflate salaries for the top tier of elite coaches.
Whatever they pay Kirby will be worth it, at this point, as it is with Saban at Alabama.

They're rolling along at almost $300M in revenue every year and very profitable.

It's a very good business.....er .......ugh ..... well..... I mean, it's a very good amateur athletic branch of an educational institution.
 
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Missouri isn’t good. They’re average. They have the type of QB that would have us in the playoff. If we had that QB from Mizzou we would have been undefeated going into the Georgia game. I don’t even think Georgia is as good as the score indicated, but our team gave up mentally by having a QB that could not score or sustain drives.

Seriously it’s infuriating seeing Milton as a starter this year. It’s the same thing as Guarantano’s last 2 years. YOU KNEW WHAT YOU HAD THERE. HOW DO HEAD COACHES OF MAJOR DIV 1 SCHOOLS MAKE THE SAME STUPID DECISIONS. I AM SO ANNOYED THINKING ABOUT IT.
One of the most delusional posts I have ever read. EVER!
 
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Whatever they pay Kirby will be worth it, at this point, as it is with Saban at Alabama.

They're rolling along at almost $300M in revenue every year and very profitable.

It's a very good business.....er .......ugh ..... well..... I mean, it's a very good amateur athletic branch of an educational institution.
Totally agree. Kirby and Nick are worth even more than what they are presently paid in real terms.
It will only require another Real Big Time coaching search to push Elite coaches pay up another level or two.
A&M could be that search. We'll see how high they aim to find a coach of the same caliber as their budget. Most coaches worth what they will be offering are extremely secure and well regarded at their current job.

Just A&M considering talking to one of the Big Two coaches increases their value and leverage in salary talks. Dan Lanning should be a lot richer in the next few months simply for being named in the search.
 
Totally agree. Kirby and Nick are worth even more than what they are presently paid in real terms.
It will only require another Real Big Time coaching search to push Elite coaches pay up another level or two.
A&M could be that search. We'll see how high they aim to find a coach of the same caliber as their budget. Most coaches worth what they will be offering are extremely secure and well regarded at their current job.

Just A&M considering talking to one of the Big Two coaches increases their value and leverage in salary talks. Dan Lanning should be a lot richer in the next few months simply for being named in the search.
Yep. It's a relatively small market for decent college football coaches and even smaller for elite coaches who might want to make a move.

I'm sure Jimmy Sexton is grinning like me in a Krispy Kreme without my wife.
 
I hear people saying this, that isn't true.

The statement should be Tennessee isn't competitive against Alabama and Georgia. Tennessee, under Heupel, has a winning record against the SEC outside of Alabama and Georgia.

The SEC outside of those two programs is a bunch of mediocre to bad teams. The fact is the sport sucks because our league is a 2-team league. We might as well not even play the games and just have Alabama and Georgia play in Atlanta and that be the SEC season.

Maybe Oklahoma and Texas will change things but outside of 2019 LSU, no one has been competitive among the other SEC in the past decade. Even Georgia really wasn't that great until 2017.

Fact is that Saban (and now Smart) have sucked all of the life out of the sport...

It isn't just Tennessee having this problem...


Oklahoma and Texas will make the conference more competitive in 2024.
 
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"a Saban or Kirby" or "Saban or Kirby?"

I don't know how you can say either. One is predetermined on being able to see the future, and the other on if either wanted to coach at UT. Kirby played for UGA and Saban got poached while Fulmer was still at UT. I don't think anyone predicted the level of success either would have, Smart being his first time as a head coach, and Saban a college and NFL journeyman who didn't really have success until LSU, and even that was limited. He went 8-4, 10-3, 8-5 before winning the Natty, then went 9-3. VolNation would have considered that "mediocre" and called for his head, or at least the heads of his assistants.
Another person seeing things that aren’t there. When I say “a Kirby or saban” I don’t mean only those two. I mean our university could’ve taken shots at big names and didn’t. UT was more interested in finding their next bargain bin coach and hoping for the best. There were definitely better out there list fulmer than dooleys, Pruitt’s, and butches
 
Just curious, how does an AD tell who are the Saban's and Smart's before they become those guys?

Saban had LSU and his Natty before Bama, but there was no real indication he'd become the force he did.

Smart had his work under Saban before GA.

We HIRED Saban assistants that didn't become Smart. We hired Johnny, who won the SEC but never won a Natty for us.

Tell me, how DO you know who the next successful coach is before their success?
How cute if you to act like it’s just a random shot in the dark. You realize these universities spend millions on coaching searches, right? You realize they even spend tons of money for outside agencies to evaluate coaching talent? This isn’t middle school. Is a lot if it luck? I’m sure it is just like anything in life. BUT I don’t believe for one second we did the best we could as a university. UT was cheap coach hunting for years and the outcome reflects it.
 
So you’re just telling us the answer to our problems are hiring the greatest coach in college football history and the guy that is on the verge of winning his 3rd straight national title, but you don’t know who that would’ve been for us to hire ? Hell we should’ve hired Coach K or Dean Smith or maybe Jay Wright to get us to the final 4. It’s not always money. Just ask aTm
But in our case it was…… does big money equal big outcome? Not necessarily. But the point being UT was never willing to spend the money to find out. I guess you’re another person that’s gonna try to tell me the best UT could do was Dooley, butch, Pruitt? Give me a break.
 
I’m not real sure what you’re trying to say. Personally I’m jealous of those programs. They did what it took to get where they are. Bama brought saban in and made him the highest paid coach at the time. Ga fired richt who was winning 8-10 a year but they wanted more. Now look where both teams are. They did what it took whether it was popular or not. Tn has shown they won’t do what it takes. Mediocrity is where we will stay.
What did you mean when you said “Tn has shown they won’t do what it takes”? You mentioned Bama and UGA going after 2 coaches as doing whatever it takes. Saban had left CFB after winning a natty for the NFL and failed there so wanted to come back to the college game. Kirby was a Saban understudy for like a decade and played at UGA so he jumped at the opportunity to go home. So which great college coach is out there looking for a new team like Saban did, or a former UT player considered to be one of the top coordinators and recruiters in the country that is waiting for UT to call him home?
 
How cute if you to act like it’s just a random shot in the dark. You realize these universities spend millions on coaching searches, right? You realize they even spend tons of money for outside agencies to evaluate coaching talent? This isn’t middle school. Is a lot if it luck? I’m sure it is just like anything in life. BUT I don’t believe for one second we did the best we could as a university. UT was cheap coach hunting for years and the outcome reflects it.
So you think GA knew Kirby was going to be a great head coach? He was a great assistant for Saban, but so was a guy named Pruitt.

I know schools spend tons of cash on searches and how many truly elite coaches appear? Few. Apparently the "outside evaluation" doesn't work well for MOST schools.
 
So you think GA knew Kirby was going to be a great head coach? He was a great assistant for Saban, but so was a guy named Pruitt.

I know schools spend tons of cash on searches and how many truly elite coaches appear? Few. Apparently the "outside evaluation" doesn't work well for MOST schools.
What GA was is willing to take a leap and find out. They fired a consistent 8+ win coach bc they wanted more. There’s never any guarantee. It worked out. My point being we never did/will do that. IF UT had been a little looser with the bank post fulmer, maybe we wouldn’t have had 20 years of football hell to dig out of. No guarantee either way, but the try would be been nice. It would’ve been a lot easier to stomach the stench knowing they tried. They didn’t.
 
What did you mean when you said “Tn has shown they won’t do what it takes”? You mentioned Bama and UGA going after 2 coaches as doing whatever it takes. Saban had left CFB after winning a natty for the NFL and failed there so wanted to come back to the college game. Kirby was a Saban understudy for like a decade and played at UGA so he jumped at the opportunity to go home. So which great college coach is out there looking for a new team like Saban did, or a former UT player considered to be one of the top coordinators and recruiters in the country that is waiting for UT to call him home?
So you’re telling me UT did the best they could when we sifted through the goodwill store and hired Dooley, butch, Pruitt? Riiiiightt
 
More people making up what they want to fit their agenda. When I say “could’ve chased a saban or Kirby, it doesn’t mean the literal name. It means a high level coach instead of sifting through dooleys, Pruitt’s, and butch
But Kirby wasn’t a coach when UGA went after him, he was a defensive coordinator. How is a coordinator a high level coach? Didn’t we try to chase a Kirby like coach when we got Pruitt? He was a Bama DC and a great recruiter. Sounds a lot like pre UGA Kirby to me.
 
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What GA was is willing to take a leap and find out. They fired a consistent 8+ win coach bc they wanted more. There’s never any guarantee. It worked out. My point being we never did/will do that. IF UT had been a little looser with the bank post fulmer, maybe we wouldn’t have had 20 years of football hell to dig out of. No guarantee either way, but the try would be been nice. It would’ve been a lot easier to stomach the stench knowing they tried. They didn’t.
That's what TN did with Heupel. It's said unofficially that Franklin turned them down. It's not like there's a "sure thing" coach that's ever easily available.

You act as though you can back the Brinks truck up and hire an elite coach but they're often dug in deep like Saban or Smart or Dabo or Meyer. They move when they want, not because "a search" or "a big offer" appears.

Coaches watch guys like Kiffin or Chip Kelly or Lincoln Riley or Jimbo jump for big money and see things go south for them.

You're just pissy because you don't like Heupel and that's fine but there weren't a ton of people who wanted the TN job after Pruitt.
 
I’m not real sure what you’re trying to say. Personally I’m jealous of those programs. They did what it took to get where they are. Bama brought saban in and made him the highest paid coach at the time. Ga fired richt who was winning 8-10 a year but they wanted more. Now look where both teams are. They did what it took whether it was popular or not. Tn has shown they won’t do what it takes. Mediocrity is where we will stay.
What do you suggest UT does to show they will do what it takes?
 
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So you’re telling me UT did the best they could when we sifted through the goodwill store and hired Dooley, butch, Pruitt? Riiiiightt
Why do you keep leaving Kiffin off of your list of hires? His mess with the NCAA led directly to the hiring of Dooley since we were on probation. Butch showed success at a G5 school for multiple years, so not sure why it was a bad hire at the time. Pruitt appeared to be a Kirby clone since he was a Bama DC and a great recruiter. Biggest mistake was not firing Butch after 2016 and hiring Dan Mullen, but even he turned out to be a good but not great coach.
 
You make a good point in that GA wanted more. Richt was consistently winning every year and would have been the darling of any college program. Job security was no issue at the rate he was going. But GA made a commitment to go to the next level and it paid off.
Do you know what caused UGA to fire Richt and hire Kirby? It wasn’t that UGA wasn’t happy with Richt and wanted more. They fired Richt and hired Kirby b/c SCAR was about to hire Kirby and that forced their hand. Any star coordinators out there that went to UT and their dream job is to coach here? Didn’t think so.
 
I’ll agree. But they took the step off of the ledge to get lucky. They could’ve kept Richt and continued down the path of 8ish+ wins a season. The numbers that many here will tell you we should be ecstatic to see yearly.
And UF did the same thing with Mullen after 1 down year and look how well Napier has done there. UGA firing a good coach like Richt for not being great and having it work out is the rare exception, not the rule.

Here is the 1st rule in firing a good coach, you better have a home run hire lined up who you 100% know will join your program.
 
Yeah but go read my post# 84 in the thread, it was NEVER this bad.

13 years, 5 teams won National Titles, that is it

13 years prior, 13 different teams won it.

There is a reason leagues like Pac12 are folding, entire regions of the country are dialing out because they are sick of Alabama and Saban. In a lot of ways, his dominance has ruined the sport. Kirby Smart just seems like Saban 2.0.

Even in 1990s, you felt like it was more of a NATIONAL sport, now it is just the Southeast and maybe sometimes a team from Michigan, Ohio, or Texas.
The PAC 12 is folding b/c they turned down a media deal with ESPN that would pay each school $30 million a year b/c one of the schools convinced enough of the others that ESPN should pay them $50 million a year then ESPN said no and backed out. That led to USC and UCLA leaving the Pac 12 for the B1G which started the dominos falling.

The lack of a 4 team playoffs is what led to 13 teams winning the championship in 13 years or whatever the number is. Turns out when the champion is decided on the field a lot of paper tigers get crushed. If the playoffs were around from 1990-2013 then schools like FSU, UF, & Nebraska probably win a lot more titles.
 
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And UF did the same thing with Mullen after 1 down year and look how well Napier has done there. UGA firing a good coach like Richt for not being great and having it work out is the rare exception, not the rule.

Here is the 1st rule in firing a good coach, you better have a home run hire lined up who you 100% know will join your program.
This. Auburn found out the hard way that Gus wasn't going to get them to the promised land but without a plan nailed down among the admins and the Yella fella money, they sliced their own wrists.

I'm curious who aTm has on a string, if anyone. I hope they reach the chaos level Auburn did with Harsin but surely they're smarter than that.

I think it's going to be an interesting dance of coaches soon because I see Michigan losing Harbaugh too and that's a "top 10 turnkey machine" program that will attract big attention and could shuffle some coaches around.
 
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But in our case it was…… does big money equal big outcome? Not necessarily. But the point being UT was never willing to spend the money to find out. I guess you’re another person that’s gonna try to tell me the best UT could do was Dooley, butch, Pruitt? Give me a break.
Where did I say that was the best we could do? It was one horrible decision after another beginning w/ Dooley being named head coach and not putting Kippy Brown as the interim. The biggest problem we’ve had IMO is that we weren’t all on the same page. The administration, the athletic department and the boosters were not rowing in the same direction at all. Since Danny White has arrived, coupled w/ Donde, Boyd I think everyone seems moving in the same direction.
 
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