Tennessee Not A Blip On The Radar

[VolunteerHillbilly]

looking at the 13 players who are currently rated 5* by Rivals it looks like UTK offered 8 or 9 of them. Of the 8 5* prospects who have comitted, all but one committed to an in-state team. I guess that I do not understand what people expect.

 

[Lexvol]

looking at the 13 players who are currently rated 5* by Rivals it looks like UTK offered 8 or 9 of them. Of the 8 5* prospects who have comitted, all but one committed to an in-state team. I guess that I do not understand what people expect.

They expect to land one. That doesn't make it a realistic expectation. Tennessee fans put up with Kiffin for one reason. He was a recruiting force. UT's name was out there, and we had some recruiting buzz.

Not a lot of buzz this year. In certain circles they are contending that Dooley is not pursuing the upper echelon of talent hard enough.

It seems we are taking a low risk approach in order to fill out a roster. Dooley is making his bed for the 2012 season. I hope his plan works. If this team is not significantly improved by then we will likely see a change.

 

[coffeevol]

looking at the 13 players who are currently rated 5* by Rivals it looks like UTK offered 8 or 9 of them. Of the 8 5* prospects who have comitted, all but one committed to an in-state team. I guess that I do not understand what people expect.

Quit bringing logic into this.

 

[Volnidas]

Quit bringing logic into this.

It's a terrible logic. Most people don't care if we have zero five stars since there are so few of them. What a lot of people expect is to have a good number 4 stars instead of just a bunch of 3 stars.

 

[Smokey1210]

I know this sounds crazy but I feel like we are going to be GREAT on offense in 2012 as long as we get a qb that can pass down field. We have three fr offensive lineman that are getting some good experience this year and if we pick up Richardson for next year we could have a rediculous Kline in the the years to come. We have the you WR group we need to be successful as well a a couple you rb's. Now I think our glaring need is at DT and we are just going to have to coach em up young and get them to come here. I am amazed that we don't have the best in the nation knocking our doors down to get here with the ability to play early and for CCS along with the fact that we should be good by there sophomore year. I guess I am half full guy but guys I think good things are coming to rockytop. We are young at all positions and playing time will help these guys get better than setting on the bench till they are jr waiting for some upper classmen to graduate. We need line backers and DT's in our class next year and we will be better than people think in 2012
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[VolunteerHillbilly]

It's a terrible logic. Most people don't care if we have zero five stars since there are so few of them. What a lot of people expect is to have a good number 4 stars instead of just a bunch of 3 stars.

Other than the feel good factor for fans, what's the measurable difference between a 5.8 4* and a 5.6 or 5.7 3*?

 

[tomq_123]

You make this way too complicated. Talent wins. When did we win our last national title? Oh, right, when we were insanely talented. If freaking Fulmer could find enough players in Georgia and elsewhere, why can't anyone else? You're acting like my idea has been proven wrong, when it's been proven right EVERY SINGLE YEAR that the teams with the best players win.

Hindsight being 20/20 I think you have to look at Fulmer's NC team through the eyes of the competition. Other than Spurrier at Florida, the SEC coaches were not as good as they are now. I think it was easier in the 90's for Fulmer to take players out of GA, AL and other top states. Once the other team caught up, surpased Fulmer from a coaching/recruiting standpoint is when things starting falling apart for Fulmer. Times are tougher now, and stealing 5* players from FL, AL, GA is much more difficult now.

I think it will happen, probably not the 2011 class, but more so in 2012 and beyond. I think CDD is a very good recruiter, better than most will give him credit for, and he will get us back on top.

 

[Vol423]

It's a terrible logic. Most people don't care if we have zero five stars since there are so few of them. What a lot of people expect is to have a good number 4 stars instead of just a bunch of 3 stars.

Correct. It's not the lack of 5-star players in this recruiting class that has people upset. It's the almost non-existence of 4-star players committing to UT that has people upset. You can fill out an 85-man team with 3* and 2* players as Dooley is doing, but it's going to cause you to lose to anybody of significance in the conference, and it's going to make games against Kentucky and Vanderbilt a toss-up. Even they can land 3-star and 2-star talent.

 

[Volnidas]

Other than the feel good factor for fans, what's the measurable difference between a 5.8 4* and a 5.6 or 5.7 3*?

When considering a individual player maybe there isn't a big difference between and 3 star and a 4 star, but there is a huge difference between a class full of 4 stars and a class full 3 stars. Just look at the teams that land a bunch of 4 stars LSU, Bama, UF and even Auburn now. Then look at the teams that fill their rosters with a bunch of 3 stars Mississippi State, Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss and USCjr. Which group of teams has had the most success on the field the teams landing a bunch of 4 stars or the teams land a bunch of 3 stars?

 

[Volnidas]

Correct. It's not the lack of 5-star players in this recruiting class that has people upset. It's the almost non-existence of 4-star players committing to UT that has people upset. You can fill out an 85-man team with 3* and 2* players as Dooley is doing, but it's going to cause you to lose to anybody of significance in the conference, and it's going to make games against Kentucky and Vanderbilt a toss-up. Even they can land 3-star and 2-star talent.

Exactly, even Ole Miss is out recruiting us by a large margin right now.

 

[NashVol11]

Hindsight being 20/20 I think you have to look at Fulmer's NC team through the eyes of the competition. Other than Spurrier at Florida, the SEC coaches were not as good as they are now. I think it was easier in the 90's for Fulmer to take players out of GA, AL and other top states. Once the other team caught up, surpased Fulmer from a coaching/recruiting standpoint is when things starting falling apart for Fulmer. Times are tougher now, and stealing 5* players from FL, AL, GA is much more difficult now.

I think it will happen, probably not the 2011 class, but more so in 2012 and beyond. I think CDD is a very good recruiter, better than most will give him credit for, and he will get us back on top.

People are making excuses for why we can't steal players from Florida and Georgia when we were well on our way to a top-3 class THIS YEAR by doing exactly that. We had the #1, #2, #6 and #11 players in Georgia committed, and we were heavily involved with #3, #4, #5, #10, #12 and #14 as well. Florida was the same way; we were in on #2, #3, and #4 in that state, with #7 (Chaz Green) and #19 (Robey) locks to come here. Almost every single one of those guys was heavily recruited by Florida, Georgia, or both. It's definitely possible to take great players from those states. And I'm not saying Dooley has to match that performance this year, but that's how we're going to return to glory. We have to go get the GREAT players from those states, not just settle for UF and UGA's rejects with a bunch of our in-state guys thrown in.

 

[tomq_123]

People are making excuses for why we can't steal players from Florida and Georgia when we were well on our way to a top-3 class THIS YEAR by doing exactly that. We had the #1, #2, #6 and #11 players in Georgia committed, and we were heavily involved with #3, #4, #5, #10, #12 and #14 as well. Florida was the same way; we were in on #2, #3, and #4 in that state, with #7 (Chaz Green) and #19 (Robey) locks to come here. Almost every single one of those guys was heavily recruited by Florida, Georgia, or both. It's definitely possible to take great players from those states. And I'm not saying Dooley has to match that performance this year, but that's how we're going to return to glory. We have to go get the GREAT players from those states, not just settle for UF and UGA's rejects with a bunch of our in-state guys thrown in.

I'm not making excuses, but putting the Fulmer NC years into perspective.

That being said, I do believe once our program gets some stability we will once again be able to steal players from FL, GA, AL, etc... If Kiffin had stayed, I'm sure he would have gotten some of those early top commits, even though I'm sure the cost (NCAA violations) might have been very high. But he didn't stay, and he left a crater in his wake a month before NSD. Dooley and this staff did a great job saving that class, and adding a couple of extra players (Rogers, Nance) and I'm sure are working extremely hard to get as many top players as they can.

Once this program has some stability and can show they can win games, I have no doubt they will be able to recruit top players from whereever they want.

 

[tm3]

It's definitely possible to take great players from those states.

just curious -- which coach/program is doing it on a consistent basis?

 

[Volnidas]

just curious -- which coach/program is doing it on a consistent basis?

Oklahoma basically raids Texas every year but thats just one state so its different than UT. Notre Dame has to and does recruit nationally with success. And UT for a long time did it consistently and that's why UT has a winning history.

 

[NashVol11]

just curious -- which coach/program is doing it on a consistent basis?

Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Michigan. Kiffin did it when he was here (now doesn't have to), and Fulmer did as well before his recruiting went down the toilet.

 

[NashVol11]

A few decent players from the 90s:

Peyton Manning - LA
Travis Henry - FL
Jamal Lewis - GA
Peerless Price - OH
Joey Kent - AL
Tee Martin - AL
Raynoch Thompson - CA
Cosey Coleman - GA
Deon Grant - GA

There were a lot from SC as well.

 

[sjt18]

People are making excuses for why we can't steal players from Florida and Georgia when we were well on our way to a top-3 class THIS YEAR by doing exactly that. .

Kiffin in two years attracted 2 4* players from Florida. Richardson who is no longer on the team and Meline who is looking like a project player rather than immediate impact. Two 4* players from GA signed committed while he was HC. James who is a stud and Myles who is gone.

Maybe Kiffin struggled to find guys with traits like character, loyalty, basic honesty, etc... because he has no point of reference?

IOW's, the TRUE, bottom line results of his recruiting of GA and FL... support my point. He didn't "steal" anyone except maybe James that the instate schools were trying to protect. Neal and Rogers, the two blue chips from GA that signed AFTER DD came in, are contributing as Fr.

Saying what Kiffin was GOING to do is ridiculous. He didn't do it. He took his "dream" job instead and in the process tried as hard as he could to hose UT.

But... I will now count on you to give him credit for the guys who signed after he left... even though he left... while also saying with grand certainty that a sleugh of great players were just waiting for NSD so they could commit to Kiffin.

He may have been in good shape with some but they aren't committed until the ink is dry.

 

[sjt18]

Interesting that you would ask. Half? You sure about that? Would you rather have a class full of Martaze Jacksons and Raiques Crumps or Kiffin's 2009 class minus Edwards, Green, Nuke, and Myles?

Who said anything about a class full of 2* players? I didn't. Did someone else?

Yeah. Half. Look back over the last several years. The attrition rate among the highly rated guys that signed with UT is very high.

Yeah, I really don't think we needed to raid Louisiana for Janzen Jackson; we should have just gone after LSU's leftovers.

So IOW's, if Dooley signs say 8 4* players this year and 18 3* players you will think that is worse than if he signed 14 4* players and 12 3* players but then lost half those 4* before they even made a contribution?

 

[sjt18]

SJT has basically resigned himself to the same argument he keeps making about why UT hired Dooley... it's the best we can do.

They quit. Game over for them.

No. It isn't. Reality is what it is. With 2 weeks before NSD and a thin roster, the top shelf HC prospects weren't knocking down the door. Whiffing on the '10 recruiting class would have set the program back another 2+ years more than it already is.

I haven't quit at all. I just don't know the future like you apparently do. I will wait and see what happens before calling the guy a failure... yeah, I know, crazy concept waiting for the facts to come in before judging someone.

Keep up the fight! If we don't insist on a coach who can recruit talent, we cannot compete for championships... EVER!

Maybe he is recruiting talent. Maybe he knows talent as well as Saban gives him credit for rather than as poorly as experts like you and VKA?

These guys just want to give away 85 schollies to whomever is Homer enough to agree with them. It's not about winning for that crowd. It's about having a full page of players listed in the program.

I can assure you it IS about winning and doing it in such a way that you don't end up with NCAA problems for me. But like I said before, I haven't become a billionaire on the stock market because of my clear, infallible knowledge of the future like some of you guys. Poor ol' me... I have to actually wait until something happens before I "know" that it will.

 

[sjt18]

Um, no...everyone was pretty positive that King and Fulton were underrated 4* talents before they got here. The same was true of Milton and Bray, until Rivals moved them up to 4*s. It's not that hard to tell. But to compete with the best, we have to bring in a class FULL of underrated, 4* talents (as in, something like 20/25) every year.

OH. OK. So it cannot be that a guys like Randolph, Carson, Kerbyson, Coleman, Saulsbury, Posey, or Smith are underrated, right? Couldn't be, right? Some seem to think Randolph is one of the top 5 players in GA but that couldn't be since Dooley discovered him, right?

Once you open that "underrated" door, your whole argument goes out the window. You have just acknowledged that stars aren't 100% predictors.

And what percentage of 3*s are really talented? You think it's anywhere near 80%, or do you just think Dooley is that good even though he didn't find many underrated gems at La Tech?

The percentage is lower than the higher rated guys. The percentage however between a 5.7 3* and a 5.8 4* though... probably isn't that much.

JaWuan James, Ted Meline, Da'Rick Rogers, Chaz Green, and if not for Bowden leaving we would have Christian Jones and Jeff Luc as well. All of those guys were highly sought after, and that's just one recruiting class off the top of my head. Yes, it was working.

WOW. Not only do you have future vision, you have alternate reality vision too.

Speculate all you want. Your idol hosed the school you claim allegiance to.

It's not anywhere near developed enough for us to be able to compete nationally fielding a team of it. Illinois, Missouri and Kentucky all have plenty of people and "talent" there, but that doesn't mean schools can start expecting championships when they lock down those powerhouse states.

Right. I don't know why this is so hard to understand. Everyone is trying, and failing, to win championships by raiding FL, OH, TX, and CA. Everyone is failing. So the choice is between a sure fire proven method for failure or trusting your "eyes rather than ears" when recruiting.

If Dooley fails then I will support his dismissal just like I did Fulmer's when he failed. No coach is bigger than the program itself... that includes Kiffin btw though he thought and thinks that he was.

 

[justingroves]

OH. OK. So it cannot be that a guys like Randolph, Carson, Kerbyson, Coleman, Saulsbury, Posey, or Smith are underrated, right? Couldn't be, right? Some seem to think Randolph is one of the top 5 players in GA but that couldn't be since Dooley discovered him, right?


Speculate all you want. Your idol hosed the school you claim allegiance to.

What if they aren't underrated? It's silly to think all those guys are just "undiscovered" or "underrated". Randolph looks like a stud and Smith is a reliable plugger. DTs are very hard to evaluate properly. That being said, not every guy Dooley recruits is just some great player that's "underrated". Right now, DD's doing a decent job recruiting, nothing more and nothing less.


It's an educated guess. Roby wasn't going to USC until Kiffin went there. Da'Rick was a toss-up. I don't think Kiffin would have pulled him but Markeith Ambles would have been a Vol so it's a wash IMO.

Kiffin pulled a lot of the guys that are playing significant roles right now and to act like Kiffin couldn't pull guys to Tennessee is very, well, out of touch with reality. However, he's gone.

 

[Hollyvol]

. Da'Rick was a toss-up. I don't think Kiffin would have pulled him but
.

Disagree.

 

[NashVol11]

OH. OK. So it cannot be that a guys like Randolph, Carson, Kerbyson, Coleman, Saulsbury, Posey, or Smith are underrated, right? Couldn't be, right? Some seem to think Randolph is one of the top 5 players in GA but that couldn't be since Dooley discovered him, right?

Once you open that "underrated" door, your whole argument goes out the window. You have just acknowledged that stars aren't 100% predictors.

Apparently you're still missing my point. A few of the guys in our class are underrated. 5, maybe less. For us to compete with the talent of Alabama, we need about 20 of those guys. We can't just have "some guys" that are underrated; for our 3*s to compete with the 5*s of others, almost ALL of them have to be, and so far, they're not. How many underrated guys did he find at Louisiana Tech?

The percentage is lower than the higher rated guys. The percentage however between a 5.7 3* and a 5.8 4* though... probably isn't that much.

And we have how many of those?

Right. I don't know why this is so hard to understand. Everyone is trying, and failing, to win championships by raiding FL, OH, TX, and CA. Everyone is failing. So the choice is between a sure fire proven method for failure or trusting your "eyes rather than ears" when recruiting.

I don't know why it's so hard to understand that the teams that win those states win titles. And speaking of this "dishonesty" and "lack of integrity," I love how you're talking about the "last ten years" but trying to get away with only looking at nine of those and ignoring Oklahoma, with its oh-so-talented state. I don't know why it's so hard to understand that we've done it before, either.

 

[NashVol11]

Who said anything about a class full of 2* players? I didn't. Did someone else?

Yeah. Half. Look back over the last several years. The attrition rate among the highly rated guys that signed with UT is very high.

Oh, so now we're saying that since Fulmer signed some highly rated busts, every coach at UT that simply goes after the best players will have the same results. Yeah, Richardson, Green and Myles were definitely half of the 4*s in our 2009 class. By themselves. Yup.

 

[NashVol11]

Kiffin in two years attracted 2 4* players from Florida. Richardson who is no longer on the team and Meline who is looking like a project player rather than immediate impact. Two 4* players from GA signed committed while he was HC. James who is a stud and Myles who is gone.

Maybe Kiffin struggled to find guys with traits like character, loyalty, basic honesty, etc... because he has no point of reference?

IOW's, the TRUE, bottom line results of his recruiting of GA and FL... support my point. He didn't "steal" anyone except maybe James that the instate schools were trying to protect. Neal and Rogers, the two blue chips from GA that signed AFTER DD came in, are contributing as Fr.

Saying what Kiffin was GOING to do is ridiculous. He didn't do it. He took his "dream" job instead and in the process tried as hard as he could to hose UT.

But... I will now count on you to give him credit for the guys who signed after he left... even though he left... while also saying with grand certainty that a sleugh of great players were just waiting for NSD so they could commit to Kiffin.

He may have been in good shape with some but they aren't committed until the ink is dry.

James is a "maybe" now? Remember that rant you went on about dishonesty and spinning?

Yeah, Dooley pulled Da'Rick all by himself and Kiffin only had a 50-50 shot at Nickell Robey and Markeith Ambles. Just curious, where are those guys now?