OneManGang
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[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Tennessee vs The Maxims vs Oklahoma [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] Saturday night, Tennessee fans were treated to a glimpse of the 2016 edition of the Volunteers.[/FONT]
Unfortunately, that glimpse was provided by the 2014 Oklahoma Sooners, although this writer could do without the cheap shots and sack dances. On the other hand, if you don't want your opponent doing sack dances, don't let your quarterback get sacked.
Tennessee's young squad fought hard but were repeatedly stymied by Oklahoma's arsenal of experienced and talented players. Head Vol Butch Jones is laying a strong foundation for future success, Oklahoma has built their edifice and it shows.
One of the "crown jewels" of your Humble Scribe's collection of books on military history (currently numbering well over one thousand) is the fifteen-volume History of United States Naval Operations in World War II by Samuel Eliot Morison. Morison received his Ph.D from Harvard in 1912 and spent most of his career as a professor of history at the school. In the early days of WWII Morison, already an accomplished naval historian who received the 1942 Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Christopher Columbus, approached President Roosevelt about the possibility of writing a history of what promised to be the greatest naval war in history.
Roosevelt endorsed his idea and sent him to the flinty Admiral Ernest King for assignment. King made Morison a Commodore and issued orders that he be allowed to see virtually anything he wanted. This last was important because Morison was no effete "Ivory Tower" historian. He firmly believed in getting out and getting his hands dirty experiencing, as much as possible, what his subjects went through. For example, while doing research for his Columbus biography he not only traveled to Italy and Spain but also booked passage as a crewman on a square-rigged sailing ship on a run from Spain to the Caribbean despite being in his late 40s.
It was this dedication that lends a "you are there" feel to his naval histories. During World War II, Morison traveled to Pearl Harbor to interview survivors, he rode in anti-submarine patrol bombers, he watched carrier operations from the bridges of Essex-class ships and he was on the bridge of one of the flagships and later walked along a still smoking OMAHA beach. He was also in the vast fleet that anchored in Tokyo Bay to receive the Japanese surrender in 1945. Morison retired from the Navy as a Rear Admiral in 1952.
He also came from a time when historians were expected not only to be excellent researchers but also to be writers and story-tellers, a far cry from the soulless compilers of data who haunt the halls of academe in this country today.
October of 1942 found Morison in the South Pacific tagging along with the fleet off the fetid, yet vital, island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. The 1st Marine Division had been put ashore in August and then left, as the Devil Dogs put it, "bare-a**ed" after Japanese air and naval attacks forced the invasion fleet away still carrying nearly half of the Marine's supplies. This set off a series of desperate naval battles in the waters around the island. Indeed, the sea floor around the small island of Savo, off the northwest coast of Guadalcanal became so littered with sunken American and Japanese ships that it is known to this day as "Iron Bottom Sound."
The U.S. Navy had virtually ignored night combat in its training syllabus during the 1920s and 1930s. Proper naval battles were to be fought in broad daylight just like Jutland (1916) and Mobile Bay (1864). The Japanese made night combat the centerpiece of their surface naval tactics. Japanese destroyermen, and their counterparts on His Imperial Japanese Majesty's cruisers and battleships trained relentlessly in the arcane art of night combat before the age of FLIR, Starlight scopes and radar. And it showed.
The night of 11 October 1942 would go down in American naval history as the Battle of Cape Esperance. In that action, an American task force of cruisers and destroyers under the command of Admiral Norman Scott, for the first time, forced a Japanese force of similar composition to turn tail.
As the fleet sailed into action that night, Morison was inspired to pen, what is to this writer, one of the absolute best examples of the historian's art:
Entering a night sea battle is an awesome business. The enveloping darkness, hiding the enemy's agents of destruction, seems a living thing, malignant and oppressive; hardened "shellback" and timid "pollywog"* alike hate to fight blind. Swishing water at bow and stern mark an inexorable advance toward an unknown destiny. Men speak seldom and then only in short, clipped sentences. The gunners who perpetually fiddle with the complicated mechanism of their pieces, the navigators pricking off chart positions and the engineers manipulating valves are gratefully occupied, but hundreds just stand at battle stations and think long thoughts. Each sailor looks at his nearest shipmate, saying with his eyes, "What is going to happen? What will I be required to do? How well will I do it?" (The Struggle for Guadalcanal, pg 153)
Scott would lead another such force into night action a month later and was killed in action when the cruiser USS Atlanta was blown out of the water by Japanese shells and torpedoes. Admiral Scott's actions that night earned him the Medal of Honor, posthumously.
One should judge Saturday's match-up with Oklahoma in light of last season's collapse against a very similar Oregon Ducks team. Again, the 2014 Vols lost in Norman but they didn't get beat.
It's an important distinction. Losing is hardly acceptable but improvement is. The Vols are not there yet, but they're getting there.
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]
So how did the team do compared to the Maxims?
1. The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]It's been a recurring theme in these reports but it bears repeating. The Vols of 2014 are paying the price for feckless leadership, abysmal recruiting and overall mediocrity that has marked UT football since 2007. That said, the Vols made far too many errors both in the mental aspect of the game and in execution to have any chance Saturday night. Some of it was inexperience, a lot of it was the Sooners' team speed and overall scheme which maximizes their manifest strengths. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]2. Play for and make the breaks. When one comes your way SCORE![/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]This was perhaps the critical failure on the part of Tennessee. Oklahoma made just enough mistakes to have lost the game but the Boys in Orange couldn't seem to capitalize. It was Julian Williams 100-yard pick six in the 4th quarter after the Vols had driven to the Sooner 4-yard line that settled Tennessee's hash for good. Maybe Worley should have waited, maybe he should have thrown the fade, maybe a frog with wings wouldn't whomp his a** every time he jumps. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]3. If at first the game or the breaks go against you, dont let up PUT ON MORE STEAM!
[/FONT]
On a better note, nobody who has ever played a down of football against a quality opponent in a hostile environment can fault Tennessee's overall effort. Once again, they lost, they didn't get beat.
4. Protect our kickers, our quarterback, our lead and our ballgame.
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Oklahoma's Eric Striker had his arms around Justin Worley so often I expected them to announce their engagement after the game. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]5. Ball! Oskie! Cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle THIS IS THE WINNING EDGE.
It was gratifying to see the defense still hitting with authority late in the fourth quarter. Well done, well done! [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]6. Press the kicking game. Here is where the breaks are made.
The Vols needed Matt Darr to have a stellar outing, to flip field position and keep the Sooners on their side of the 50. Alas, Darr's 34-point-something yard average says it all. [/FONT]
7. Carry the fight to Oklahoma and keep it there for sixty minutes.[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Yeah, verily. Vol fans can say one thing with certainty: if (and granted it's a big IF) Tennessee can maintain this level of energy and effort through the war of attrition that is SEC football, good things are going to happen.[/FONT]
Anyone with an ounce of competitiveness knows that you measure yourself by going up against the best. Tennessee may not have met that challenge in Norman.
But they are going to.
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Perhaps, for the best summary, we can again turn to Admiral Morison. Toward the end of the volume quoted above, he offered this assessment of the Navy's learning curve: [/FONT]
Tactically - in the sense of coming to grips with the enemy - Guadalcanal was a profitable lesson book. The recommendations of Guadalcanal commanders became doctrine for Allied fighting men the world over. And it was the veteran from "the 'Canal" who went back to man the new ship or for the cornerstone for the new regiment. ... They would be heard from again. (The Struggle for Guadalcanal, pg 372)
Tennessee WILL be heard from again!
Brick by Brick, Baby!
MAXOMG
*"Pollywog" is the term for a sailor who has yet to cross the equator. He became a "shellback" in a rather raucous shipboard ceremony that would be excoriated by modern busybodies as "hazing" but then was all in good fun. It was a small smile in a grim war.
© 2014
Keeping Your Stories Alive
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] Saturday night, Tennessee fans were treated to a glimpse of the 2016 edition of the Volunteers.[/FONT]
Unfortunately, that glimpse was provided by the 2014 Oklahoma Sooners, although this writer could do without the cheap shots and sack dances. On the other hand, if you don't want your opponent doing sack dances, don't let your quarterback get sacked.
Tennessee's young squad fought hard but were repeatedly stymied by Oklahoma's arsenal of experienced and talented players. Head Vol Butch Jones is laying a strong foundation for future success, Oklahoma has built their edifice and it shows.
One of the "crown jewels" of your Humble Scribe's collection of books on military history (currently numbering well over one thousand) is the fifteen-volume History of United States Naval Operations in World War II by Samuel Eliot Morison. Morison received his Ph.D from Harvard in 1912 and spent most of his career as a professor of history at the school. In the early days of WWII Morison, already an accomplished naval historian who received the 1942 Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Christopher Columbus, approached President Roosevelt about the possibility of writing a history of what promised to be the greatest naval war in history.
Roosevelt endorsed his idea and sent him to the flinty Admiral Ernest King for assignment. King made Morison a Commodore and issued orders that he be allowed to see virtually anything he wanted. This last was important because Morison was no effete "Ivory Tower" historian. He firmly believed in getting out and getting his hands dirty experiencing, as much as possible, what his subjects went through. For example, while doing research for his Columbus biography he not only traveled to Italy and Spain but also booked passage as a crewman on a square-rigged sailing ship on a run from Spain to the Caribbean despite being in his late 40s.
It was this dedication that lends a "you are there" feel to his naval histories. During World War II, Morison traveled to Pearl Harbor to interview survivors, he rode in anti-submarine patrol bombers, he watched carrier operations from the bridges of Essex-class ships and he was on the bridge of one of the flagships and later walked along a still smoking OMAHA beach. He was also in the vast fleet that anchored in Tokyo Bay to receive the Japanese surrender in 1945. Morison retired from the Navy as a Rear Admiral in 1952.
He also came from a time when historians were expected not only to be excellent researchers but also to be writers and story-tellers, a far cry from the soulless compilers of data who haunt the halls of academe in this country today.
October of 1942 found Morison in the South Pacific tagging along with the fleet off the fetid, yet vital, island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. The 1st Marine Division had been put ashore in August and then left, as the Devil Dogs put it, "bare-a**ed" after Japanese air and naval attacks forced the invasion fleet away still carrying nearly half of the Marine's supplies. This set off a series of desperate naval battles in the waters around the island. Indeed, the sea floor around the small island of Savo, off the northwest coast of Guadalcanal became so littered with sunken American and Japanese ships that it is known to this day as "Iron Bottom Sound."
The U.S. Navy had virtually ignored night combat in its training syllabus during the 1920s and 1930s. Proper naval battles were to be fought in broad daylight just like Jutland (1916) and Mobile Bay (1864). The Japanese made night combat the centerpiece of their surface naval tactics. Japanese destroyermen, and their counterparts on His Imperial Japanese Majesty's cruisers and battleships trained relentlessly in the arcane art of night combat before the age of FLIR, Starlight scopes and radar. And it showed.
The night of 11 October 1942 would go down in American naval history as the Battle of Cape Esperance. In that action, an American task force of cruisers and destroyers under the command of Admiral Norman Scott, for the first time, forced a Japanese force of similar composition to turn tail.
As the fleet sailed into action that night, Morison was inspired to pen, what is to this writer, one of the absolute best examples of the historian's art:
Entering a night sea battle is an awesome business. The enveloping darkness, hiding the enemy's agents of destruction, seems a living thing, malignant and oppressive; hardened "shellback" and timid "pollywog"* alike hate to fight blind. Swishing water at bow and stern mark an inexorable advance toward an unknown destiny. Men speak seldom and then only in short, clipped sentences. The gunners who perpetually fiddle with the complicated mechanism of their pieces, the navigators pricking off chart positions and the engineers manipulating valves are gratefully occupied, but hundreds just stand at battle stations and think long thoughts. Each sailor looks at his nearest shipmate, saying with his eyes, "What is going to happen? What will I be required to do? How well will I do it?" (The Struggle for Guadalcanal, pg 153)
Scott would lead another such force into night action a month later and was killed in action when the cruiser USS Atlanta was blown out of the water by Japanese shells and torpedoes. Admiral Scott's actions that night earned him the Medal of Honor, posthumously.
One should judge Saturday's match-up with Oklahoma in light of last season's collapse against a very similar Oregon Ducks team. Again, the 2014 Vols lost in Norman but they didn't get beat.
It's an important distinction. Losing is hardly acceptable but improvement is. The Vols are not there yet, but they're getting there.
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]
So how did the team do compared to the Maxims?
1. The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]It's been a recurring theme in these reports but it bears repeating. The Vols of 2014 are paying the price for feckless leadership, abysmal recruiting and overall mediocrity that has marked UT football since 2007. That said, the Vols made far too many errors both in the mental aspect of the game and in execution to have any chance Saturday night. Some of it was inexperience, a lot of it was the Sooners' team speed and overall scheme which maximizes their manifest strengths. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]2. Play for and make the breaks. When one comes your way SCORE![/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]This was perhaps the critical failure on the part of Tennessee. Oklahoma made just enough mistakes to have lost the game but the Boys in Orange couldn't seem to capitalize. It was Julian Williams 100-yard pick six in the 4th quarter after the Vols had driven to the Sooner 4-yard line that settled Tennessee's hash for good. Maybe Worley should have waited, maybe he should have thrown the fade, maybe a frog with wings wouldn't whomp his a** every time he jumps. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]3. If at first the game or the breaks go against you, dont let up PUT ON MORE STEAM!
[/FONT]
On a better note, nobody who has ever played a down of football against a quality opponent in a hostile environment can fault Tennessee's overall effort. Once again, they lost, they didn't get beat.
4. Protect our kickers, our quarterback, our lead and our ballgame.
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Oklahoma's Eric Striker had his arms around Justin Worley so often I expected them to announce their engagement after the game. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]5. Ball! Oskie! Cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle THIS IS THE WINNING EDGE.
It was gratifying to see the defense still hitting with authority late in the fourth quarter. Well done, well done! [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]6. Press the kicking game. Here is where the breaks are made.
The Vols needed Matt Darr to have a stellar outing, to flip field position and keep the Sooners on their side of the 50. Alas, Darr's 34-point-something yard average says it all. [/FONT]
7. Carry the fight to Oklahoma and keep it there for sixty minutes.[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Yeah, verily. Vol fans can say one thing with certainty: if (and granted it's a big IF) Tennessee can maintain this level of energy and effort through the war of attrition that is SEC football, good things are going to happen.[/FONT]
Anyone with an ounce of competitiveness knows that you measure yourself by going up against the best. Tennessee may not have met that challenge in Norman.
But they are going to.
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Perhaps, for the best summary, we can again turn to Admiral Morison. Toward the end of the volume quoted above, he offered this assessment of the Navy's learning curve: [/FONT]
Tactically - in the sense of coming to grips with the enemy - Guadalcanal was a profitable lesson book. The recommendations of Guadalcanal commanders became doctrine for Allied fighting men the world over. And it was the veteran from "the 'Canal" who went back to man the new ship or for the cornerstone for the new regiment. ... They would be heard from again. (The Struggle for Guadalcanal, pg 372)
Tennessee WILL be heard from again!
Brick by Brick, Baby!
MAXOMG
*"Pollywog" is the term for a sailor who has yet to cross the equator. He became a "shellback" in a rather raucous shipboard ceremony that would be excoriated by modern busybodies as "hazing" but then was all in good fun. It was a small smile in a grim war.
© 2014
Keeping Your Stories Alive
Last edited:
