Recruiting Forum Football Talk XLI

[nicksjuzunk]

Man I wish the Lord would help me get tempered more like you, you're a great guy and an inspiration. By his grace I have laid so much of my old self down, but my worst fault is still my temper. It's not as bad as it once was, but I haven't been able to totally overcome it either.

Lol, I carry logs in my own eye too. More than I care to count. I appreciate your authenticity.

 

[kw3953]

Quick question: you guys still think Currie is handling this coaching transition well?

I do until I know he isn’t

 

[Ulysees E. McGill]

Lol, I carry logs in my own eye too. More than I care to count. I appreciate your authenticity.

I guess we all do. I appreciate your commitment. I know I'm in the states, but Harlan County Kentucky is about the closest thing I've seen to 3rd world conditions in the US outside of the big reservations out west, and I know that it takes a great love of God and his children to sacrifice your life to it. God Bless you buddy.

 

[ChattaTNVol]

Were you there?

No but I saw the presentation online. I swear the thing that jumped out to me on the slides was hammering home slide after slide the imbalance between our athletic revenues and our results in competition. Our national ranking #46 was repeated slide after slide. There was a trend slide that showed we were well below average from a competitive standpoint in the SEC and it wasn't getting better.

In his position, I suspect he's not autonomous. He needs to make a case before he can get the buy-in he needs to chart a course of change. It's the way I would do it. I'd first indentify the problem in stark terms and assess the feedback, all the while, knowing I have a plan I'm "secretly" going to want the guys to buy into. Feed it to them all at once and they'll choke on it. jmo.

 

[delfonic]

On a side note, what is up with all these hipster cool guy douchebags using the word "optics" as the next big cliche all of a sudden? Where in the heck did that come from? It is already getting on my nerves 🤔

You're about a decade behind.

 

[kw3953]

I’m going to try not to poison this place with my negative forecasting. Posting a bit less moving forward.

:hi:

Yeah, Frost is not Lombardi. Some day perhaps, but not likely. He is like Butch was only has the tough guy look. His resume is impressive and he may be the next big super star, but don’t put all your eggs in that basket.

 

[Darth_Shiveman]

Except it was successful businessmen.

That makes it ok? lol

 

[Darth_Shiveman]

Nah, the UTAD's stock line should by default be: "The standard at Tennessee should ve SEC and National Titles. I won't be saitisfied until we're back to that standard." Even if you don't mean it, why would you say anything else? What is the value in equivocating?

I know he was talking about the stadium. He could have rattled off the above line followed by "and we think this stadium renovation is an important step to getting us back." Who would have opposed this?

Were you there?

 

[Darth_Shiveman]

Freshman snowflakes? Are you under the impression that freshmen bankroll stadium renovations?

It was more of a comment on the tactics used than the people using them.

Bad look for a college freshman snowflake or a billionaire businessman to try and take over a planned business meeting and go complain on social media when they didn’t get their way.

 

[Ulysees E. McGill]

You're about a decade behind.

Nah...I've been seeing it all over VN all of a sudden.

 

[Ulysees E. McGill]

No but I saw the presentation online. I swear the thing that jumped out to me on the slides was hammering home slide after slide the imbalance between our athletic revenues and our results in competition. Our national ranking #46 was repeated slide after slide. There was a trend slide that showed we were well below average from a competitive standpoint in the SEC and it wasn't getting better.

In his position, I suspect he's not autonomous. He needs to make a case before he can get the buy-in he needs to chart a course of change. It's the way I would do it. I'd first indentify the problem in stark terms and assess the feedback, all the while, knowing I have a plan I'm "secretly" going to want the guys to buy into. Feed it to them all at once and they'll choke on it. jmo.

Oh..I had heard it was streamed in another thread, but I didn't know if you were actually there are not. That is actually cool that he is doing that, but does his focus/answer for the problems really really seem to be hardware improvements?, or was that just his focus for the meeting tonight because that was the purpose for the gathering in your opinion?

 

[Ulysees E. McGill]

That makes it ok? lol

What the heck? You know freakin well what I meant. These are succesful alums, not a bunch of stupid teenage girls. I know you think you are intellectually and emotionally superior to everybody else Darth, but come on.

 

[Ulysees E. McGill]

It was more of a comment on the tactics used than the people using them.

Bad look for a college freshman snowflake or a billionaire businessman to try and take over a planned business meeting and go complain on social media when they didn’t get their way.

Uhmm..when somebody is begging you money, but will not even give a clue as to their direction, and will not give you any access or information...it's understandable. I mean this guy hasn't earned a drop of trust at this point, but he wants you to fork over your money as he treats you like a mushroom? Yeah...under the circumstances I would be asking questions too.

 

[ChattaTNVol]

Oh..I had heard it was streamed in another thread, but I didn't know if you were actually there are not. That is actually cool that he is doing that, but does his focus/answer for the problems really really seem to be hardware improvements?, or was that just his focus for the meeting tonight because that was the purpose for the gathering in your opinion?

I'm just commenting based on my experience in business and in particular with large capital projects and performance reports. The focus of the slides I was referring to is for the leadership cup which measures perforance across all of your sports programs and takes the top 20 sports scores you have and ranks your athletic program overall against everyone else. Football has a scoring system mostly based off of the USA coaches poll. In any event, we're 3rd from the bottom for our athletic department when ranked against other SEC schools. We actually got 50 points for football last fall for finishing in the top 25 but all other fall sports sucked. In fact, we didn't get any points for any other sport last fall. We ranked #113 in fall sports. A higher ranking in football would give us more points but even if we were #1 and won the national championship we'd still only be around #70 in leadership cup rankings for fall sports last year.

I think he inherited the stadium renovation project so he has to deal with that but the bigger issue I think is that we have a culture of losing across the board yet our revenues are among the highest in all of college athletic programs nationwide. In the SEC we rank 3rd from the bottom in performance. Is that really acceptable? I don't think this is just about football. I think it's about Tennessee athletics overall and whatever mindset, decision making, culture or whatever, is affecting everything in our sports world. Something needs to change and it starts with the guy in charge. We have a new guy. Reportedly, he's already made a couple of impressive hires and extended some other good coaches. I don't know how this is going to shake out with football but it's the primary source of revenues and the image of the football program likely has a bearing to some extent on most all other sports programs as well as the university itself. Our leadership cup ranking hasn't been declining for 2 decades solely because of football but football is the high profile leader perception-wise.

With large corporations change and new projects doesn't happen overnight. Sometimes they can be years in the planning and project development phase. I think Currie's worst nightmare was that football would fall in to a crisis mode just months after taking his job. He can't tell us what he's doing or what he's going to do. There are all kinds of issues, politics, and personalities he has to deal with that we wouldn't even think about. He has to try to manage the media aspect of this in a way that doesn't excerbate the natural frenzy aspect of it. The less he says publicly the easier his job will be where it counts. I'm pretty sure I know what he wants to do. He wants to be a hero to everybody and land the right guy to make everyone happy and the program successful. I don't know if he's going to be able to do that given politics and whatnot but I have confidence that he's probaby pretty competent and he's going to try. I think he knows what he's doing but that's just my read from afar. Whatever the final outcome, even if it was not his choice, he'll saddle up like a good team player and try to sell the new guy. I think that's the way it works.

All of this is just my opinion. I'm as frustrated as everyone else and skeptical like many. I think we have to pick a guy we want and make him say yes. That's it. I don't think we've been doing that recently and I think the reason is that some of the "decision makers" are arrogant to the point of not being overly concerned about the end results. It's been more about them and their clout and high horse than it has been about what is in the best interest of student athletes, fans, or the university. You need to present their results in an open forum so that maybe they'll discover some humility or in the very least find that a lot of other people around the table are going to be questioning their credibility when it comes decision time.

 

[Darth_Shiveman]

What the heck? You know freakin well what I meant. These are succesful alums, not a bunch of stupid teenage girls. I know you think you are intellectually and emotionally superior to everybody else Darth, but come on.

1. I honestly wasn’t sure what you were getting at because you didn’t make much of a point about anything other than they were successful businessmen.

2. The fact that you couldn’t answer the question and resorted to a personal attack is telling.

3. The fact that the meeting is all successful businessemen makes it a worse look, IMO. I get the frustration, but why try to railroad a meeting that had a set agenda into something completely off topic?

Uhmm..when somebody is begging you money, but will not even give a clue as to their direction, and will not give you any access or information...it's understandable. I mean this guy hasn't earned a drop of trust at this point, but he wants you to fork over your money as he treats you like a mushroom? Yeah...under the circumstances I would be asking questions too.

I totally agree that guys giving that kinda money have a right to be upset and want access.


But you’re framing it like this wasn’t a meeting with a set agenda where everybody knew he’d be outlining a plan for stadium renovations based on their donations. Everybody going into it knew the topic wasn’t going to be about the coaching search or Butch’s firing.


For someone who has been so critical of journalists for playing “gotcha” journalism, can’t you see the connection to boosters doing this in a conference that was being streamed?

 

[orange parmejohn]

I like peeing in the trough. Reminds me of when men were men and the Vols kicked tail instead of having to take it in the tail from the AD. I DONT MIND PAYING JUST WIN SOME FREAKING GAMES YOU DUMB RENOVATING LOSERS.

I will never forget seeing a drunk female Georgia fan peeing in a trough in a crowded bathroom at Neyland.

 

[rekinhavoc]

Lol it’s the same thing every time with Gruden.
“
-Loves UT
-Putting out feelers for potential staff members
-Boosters are bringing him to AD on platter
-Pres/Chancelor maybe blocking move
-Not blocking after all
- Gruden doesn’t want to coach
“

Last minute admin or boosters screwed up the hire.
Sorry guys my info was good just like 2012.
See you rubes ..I mean Grudenites in a few years.

 

[OGbabyaviVol]

I appreciate you bringing it over here. Keeps me from having to wade through the 95 percent garbage.

And this comes from someone who was addicted to those threads in 2012.

No problem. It’s hard to keep up, but I just scan through looking for the posters who usually bring some info.

 

[rekinhavoc]

I’m going to try not to poison this place with my negative forecasting. Posting a bit less moving forward.

:hi:

Maybe your time would be better spent killing cobras and ending this curse once and for all!



JK we really don't blame you.

 

[OGbabyaviVol]

I'm just wondering why Currie/Haslam would be against it. I can see how Haslam would but not Currie.

Me either. I don’t understand why an alum who played for the great Neyland would not want the football program to be great. Some have mentioned they think he doesn’t want a team or coach do succeed and be more legendary than Neyland. News flash...that’s not going to happen. Neyland has his place among the legends. He will never be replaced, always be remembered for what he did for TN football.

 

[rekinhavoc]

If we hire another bargain hire, maybe we can get Roto Rooter to sponsor our field like Kroger does Kentucky because we will probably see some
**** for the next 3-5 years that’ll piss everyone off.

I was thinking Waste Management .

 

[nicksjuzunk]

Me either. I don’t understand why an alum who played for the great Neyland would not want the football program to be great. Some have mentioned they think he doesn’t want a team or coach do succeed and be more legendary than Neyland. News flash...that’s not going to happen. Neyland has his place among the legends. He will never be replaced, always be remembered for what he did for TN football.

Yeah... poor Bama suffering with Saban tarnishing the Bear

 

[OGbabyaviVol]

Anyone with VQ subscription hear that Gruden stayed at Haslam’s House when he went to that game? Buddy of mine said it was posted on VQ.

That doesn’t fit the narrative we get here

I’m sure this has been answered but I’m not backing up to find this post and answer it if no one did. Yes, apparently he stayed at one of the Haslams for a couple of days when he came for the SC game. Throw another wrench in this...this is the house he apparently is closing on today, I think. The house wasn’t on the market, but Gruden loved it so much that he made an offer to buy it. Sold apparently.

If true, it doesn’t fit the narrative, except this isn’t Big Jim’s home. I’m not sure if all the Haslams are together in the power struggle, or if maybe little Jimmy or Bill doesn’t agree with dad and his stance. Not sure why you would like Gruden enough to let him stay with you and sell him your home, but not what him as the coach of your alma mater.

 

[rekinhavoc]

On a side note, what is up with all these hipster cool guy douchebags using the word "optics" as the next big cliche all of a sudden? Where in the heck did that come from? It is already getting on my nerves 🤔

We need a coach with gravitas.

 

[OGbabyaviVol]

Currie is very focused on the stadium renovations. He doesn't like being asked about CBJ or the coaching search. Donors are testy, and he likes that even less.

And he has softened his stance on winning championships. He was asked about it, and he said something about having to look at a season a game at a time and not focus on winning championships until the end of the season. He kept circling back to stadium renovations, saying that UT wants to give fans a better experience. Somebody said "Winning championships would do that." His response was to shift the topic back to stadium renovations, saying that UT wants to expedite renovations to make it a better venue for fans. He was asked about #EmptyNeyland, and he talked about stadium renovations making Neyland a place fans would want to come.

The man is obsessed with stadium renovations and milking donors for more money to renovate more quickly than originally planned.

Ugh! This is not what I wanted to read. Well, as I have said, trot out Coach McGoogle, and Currie will lose this fan and alum’s support, and that will be expedited. I’m not following my alma mater’s football program this closely and giving the time and money to support it. I may or may not watch a game on Saturday when the time comes.