(Orangewhiteblood @ Jun 23 said:
I hear that WVU is supposed to have a decent team in a conference where they don't play anyone. Perhaps you should check them out.
Yeah, we have season tickets. You?
Yes, winning and losing seem to have a lot to do with a good or bad year. Lots of teams win close games all the time. It's part of what makes football exciting to watch. As for the losses, they happen in bunches to every team at some point or another.
It could be that. It could also be that other teams are catching up and matching our level of play. We play in the SEC, not the Big East. It's a tough conference and not for the weak of heart. Or it could be a little of both.
I've never been one to be satisfied with only an Eastern division crown with an exception to UT basketball last season. Perhaps if you weren't new and have been around a while, you'd know what I really think about it. But you're new and don't know, so I'll give you a pass.
I can't disagree with that. I think that everyone would be pretty happy to see that. However, I'm sensing by your remarks that close wins just won't cut it. I would also like to see Tennessee beat every team they play 50, but it's just not going to happen.
All I'm saying for those of you who are convinced that we're doomed is try to hold it together. Fulmer isn't going anywhere this year. Accept it and start backing your team instead of acting like Bama fans. If not, go form a picket line outside of Mike Hamilton's office and protest. Don't blame people like me who are willing to wait and see the outcome of the changes already made.
If you truly believe that things take care of themselves, then sit back and relax and see what happens this season. Who knows, you might be surprised.
i would also add to this, at the risk of going off topic again, that sometimes, not always, winning close games, could be construed as a sign that you do in fact have a good team. After all, it's the
ability to win that defines good vs. poor. And sometimes, having the ability to win a close game tells more about your team than walking all over the opposition....walking all over the competition may have more to say about that competiton than it does about your team. Having said that, i don't think anyone would say that we have been world beaters in any fashion, with the exceptions of the Citrius bowl and cotton Bowl that we won convincingly, over the past 3-5 years. the ability to win those games is what escaped us last year. If there was anything i could take out of last year's games, was that no one just truly walked all over us. We were in every game. but that ability to close the deal in games like we had, and have had lately, is what separated us form being a good team.
People tend to forget that there are only a few teams each year that are just so good that they truly are dominant. USC, TX, maybe OSU of late are the only teams that have been that good. in previous years, you've had teams like Miami, FSU, NEB, OK, FL that were that good, and just flat out better than everyone they play. And i would love for TN to have a team like that as well, don't get me wrong. And we've had flashes of that in the 90's. We haven't sniffed it since 1999.
As to SEC CG appearances, you also aren't going to win that game every time you get to it...no one in the league is undefeated in that game...every team that has played in and won it, has also played in it and lost it at one point or another. There is something to be said for getting there as it relates to being in legitimate competition for the SEC title, but there isn't, as has been stated many times before, any ultimate reward for losing it either. So strictly from that standpoint, not saying we should hang banners for it, we have at least been competing for SEC titles in the last 5 years. before you can win that game, you have to at least get there.
so, no, i don't think it was one bad year, i think it was one bad year that was a culmination of issues we have all noticed at one point or another over the past 3-5 years.
the question, as OWB said, is, will all the changes that were made this off season make any difference in getting us back in to legitimate competition for the SEC title? for that, we all have to wait and see. And before we have a chance to have one of those truly dominant teams, we have to show the ability to be able to win, and compete consistently again for SEC Titles.
sorry for getting off topic again....
