Dooley screwed us so bad

[Insunseri]

Hammy did some good things: He hired Pearl--best basketball coach UT has ever had, and it's too bad he got too ambitious and then tried to cover up a rather minor recruiting violation. I also thought hiring Kiffin was a stroke of genius, but yea, it backfired: No one foresaw Kiffin's dream job coming open a year later--and it couldn't have been foreseen. It was bad luck. Kiffin would have brought us back to the top--and quickly, though he was not going to stay at UT very long. Hamilton did make a huge mistake in hiring Dooley--a guy with three years of head coaching experience at a small college, and even there he had a losing record. He was not qualified for the job--period. Hamilton was in a bind--the timing of Kiffin's departure was terrible; still, he blew that hire. I also give Hammy a ton of credit for sacking Fulmer--who needed to retire. It's not easy pushing a successful coach out the door--see pa. state and fsu.

Pearl and kiffin were good hires at the time. Sacking fulmer was the origin of hammy's demise, since the chain of events that followed ended up being the biggest ut football disaster of our lifetimes...we're still trying to fix it. Hindsight is 20/20.

 

[TNnative]

Very true. Knoxville is Appalachia and Memphis is Midwest. Very very different.

maybe so, but years ago, Tennessee played an SEC game every year in Memphis, because of a strong fan base in west Tennessee. Once that practice ended, it became much harder to recruit from that area.

 

[TNnative]

No we didn't. GO back and look at the successful years and notice that the names on the roster that pop out at you are NOT from TN. Maybe this was true in the 60's or 50's but not in modern football has it been true. Even when we get in state guys they rarely produce. Recently we have been getting more guys from west/middle TN than normal and some of those guys are contributing or getting kicked off the team...

Seriously do me a favor and you don't have to post it here but go back the last 10 recruiting classes. See how many instate guys are on there. Look at how my contributed compared to how many flamed out dramatically.

excellent point, but depressing to see how many came in 4 and 5 star (regardless of home state), and flamed out.

 

[TNnative]

We weren't doing too great at in state recruiting before Dooley. Do any of these names ring a bell:

Randall Cobb, Harrison Smith, Patrick Willis, Barrett Jones, Golden Tate, Don'ta Hightower, Bo Wallace

Those guys could have completely changed the last few years of TN football.

Wow didn't realize Willis, Tate, and Wallace were from Tennessee.

 

[SpiritOfNeyland]

Hammy did some good things: He hired Pearl--best basketball coach UT has ever had, and it's too bad he got too ambitious and then tried to cover up a rather minor recruiting violation. I also thought hiring Kiffin was a stroke of genius, but yea, it backfired: No one foresaw Kiffin's dream job coming open a year later--and it couldn't have been foreseen. It was bad luck. Kiffin would have brought us back to the top--and quickly, though he was not going to stay at UT very long. Hamilton did make a huge mistake in hiring Dooley--a guy with three years of head coaching experience at a small college, and even there he had a losing record. He was not qualified for the job--period. Hamilton was in a bind--the timing of Kiffin's departure was terrible; still, he blew that hire. I also give Hammy a ton of credit for sacking Fulmer--who needed to retire. It's not easy pushing a successful coach out the door--see pa. state and fsu.

You might be the most foolish analyst I've ever seen.

 

[Oskie Volum]

Very well said. I think a large number of our fans have a problem of geography. It is not a problem special to just us but it's a problem all the same. Most people have a bubble around them they don't even realize exists and that bubble extends about 30 miles in either direction from their home. Anything outside of that bubble is evil or imaginary and all goodness and reality lives in that bubble. I have been to 27 countries and 48 states in my time on P.E. and very few places have I seen a place more bubblicious than east TN.

If you took a person and put them in a plane with no idea where they were going and dropped them first in Knoxville then Chattanooga then Nashville then Memphis then asked that person where they were they would have no idea that the 4 places were all in the same state. I was born and raised in Chattanooga, went to college in Nashville and until moving to Atlanta spent and inordinate amount of time in Knoxville. Memphis I have spent a lot less time there and of the 3 have never lived there but the differences culturally are huge.

Beyond all that talent in state even counting Memphis is terrible. First off all the talent is spread out because the 4 major Cities are pretty much the 4 cardinal points of the state (N,S,E,W) and very little in between. Compare that to other southern states that either have a much larger population or a much larger concentration of population in one place.

Example Atlanta. The state of Georgia has a population of 9 million the city of Atlanta has a population of 6 million which is pretty much the population of the state of TN. The difference in population is not really all the huge but the fact that almost all of it is concentrated in one spot means competition levels are high because teams don't have to travel hundreds of miles for games. Teams get to play a lot of other teams and that in an of itself makes competition levels rise. Compare that to here where you pretty much have 1 or 2 teams in each area that dominates for years but mysteriously does not put out much D1 talent.

Nice!:good!: I've actually tried to use this type of argument on here before but not as well said of course. I've actually used this same argument with friends when discussing the difficulties of having top notice homegrown soccer players in this country. Goes over many of there heads so glad someone else out there thinks outside the box. Few on here do. And I'm sure you, like me, are use to people calling us idiots because they cant grasp it. :hi:

 

[photovol]

No No No Dooley didn't hire himself...UT did....everything can be blamed on good Old UT....they have hired all 3 coaches.....like it or lump it! UT is where it's at because of UT's own decisions....not the Fans....it is what it is

 

[Bluetic]

Rip...