OneManGang
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Tennessee vs The Maxims vs Vanderbilt
A friend of mine earns his daily bread toiling in the bowels of the UT Athletics Department. We spoke on the phone the other day. I normally don't bother him during football or basketball season as I fully understand the concept of the killer workload and all the assorted folderol of producing the events we fans enjoy as Game Day. I had a specific non-sports related request to make of him and so I violated that particular guideline. He brought up the current state of affairs in Vol Land and asked me a disturbing question, How is it that people who have worked here for YEARS and grew up around this truly special place can have so little pride in it?
His point was proven spectacularly Saturday night in Nashville.
They were the heirs of a proud tradition. Their battle-flags bore streamers proclaiming past heroic deeds. The Army bore the name of the Volunteer State and wore it as a badge of honor despite the fact that very few of the men actually hailed from Tennessee.
Despite all that, they were a truly tatterdemalion corps as they dug in along the high ground south of Nashville. They had fought hard from the beginning, seldom won, but always carried themselves well. It is commonly held that the Army of Tennessee had suffered for years from a succession of poor commanders and most of their defeats could be laid squarely at the feet of the Confederate high command rather than any shortcomings of the men in firing lines.
Their young general was literally on his last leg. John Bell Hood, the Gallant Hood of Texas, now led the Army as he had since the Atlanta Campaign. Hood had suffered a had suffered a wound at Gettysburg which cost him the use of his left arm. Less than three months later, as his Texans poured through the gap at Chickamauga, he was struck yet again costing him his right leg which was amputated just below the hip.
Hood was a VERY good divisional commander, a passable corps commander and an absolute disaster as the commanding general of a field army.
So it was that Hood and the Army of Tennessee squared off against General George Thomas and the Army of the Tennessee (the Confederates named their armies after states and the Union theirs after rivers) in December, 1864. Thomas held a very strong position as well and awaited the impetuous Hood's attack. Hood, however, realized his army was in no condition to attack and stood on the defensive for two long weeks. During those weeks, Union headquarters, specifically Ulysses Grant, kept needling Thomas to do something and soon.
Thomas ignored the rising ire of the far-off Grant and did things on his own schedule. He resolved to not just beat Hood. He intended to humiliate the Army of Tennessee. His strategy to do so was as simple as it was devastating. He would demonstrate against Hood's right to pin the Texan's attention while massing a force larger than the entire grey-clad host on the Confederate left. He compared his plan to a swinging gate: the three corps on Hood's left would extend out past the confederate flank and, like a gate, swing shut pinning the Rebels and putting them to fly once and for all.
Thomas' plan was executed on 15 and 16 December. Thomas' gate swung shut during the afternoon of the 16th and the once proud Army of Tennessee was reduced to a disorganized rabble streaming toward Alabama and Mississippi singing bitterly to the tune of the Yellow Rose of Texas:"
Oh, you can speak about your Beauregard
And sing of General Lee
But the Gallant Hood of Texas
Sure played hell in Tennessee.
There is no excuse for what happened Saturday night in Nashville. It was the complete and utter humiliation of a Tennessee football team.
This cannot, must not, and by the Almighty WILL NOT stand.
As I pointed out last week, the General has shown us the was out of this mess, if only the Vols would follow his sage advice.
All together now:
1. The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win.
2. Play for and make the breaks. When one comes your way
SCORE!
3. If at first the game or the breaks go against you, dont let up
PUT ON MORE STEAM!
4. Protect our kickers, our quarterback, our lead and our ballgame.
5. Ball! Oskie! Cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle
THIS IS THE WINNING EDGE.
6. Press the kicking game. Here is where the breaks are made.
7. Carry the fight to the Vanderbilt and keep it there for sixty minutes.
Reports of a magnitude 8.7 earthquake centered in the High Lawn Memorial Park in Oak Hill, West Virginia, are unconfirmed but plausible.*
To my mind, at this point, I want them all gone. Not just the coaches, but the players, the cheerleaders, the groundskeepers, and everybody even remotely connected to this debacle from UT president DiPietro down to the damned dog.
All right, all right, Smokey can stay, but you get my point.
I reflected on my friend's question as the Disaster at Dudley unfolded Saturday. I was reminded of a scene from the movie Patton depicting the general storming into the headquarters of US II Corps after the humiliating defeat at Kasserine Pass. Patton trips over a soldier huddled in a corridor and the following exchange takes place.
Patton aide: What were you doing down there, soldier?
Soldier, saluting nervously: Trying to get some sleep, Sir.
Patton: Well, you get back down there, son. You're the only sonofab*tch in this whole headquarters who knows what he's trying to do.
He may very well be. I just hope we can hang on to him.
MAXOMG
*OK, OK, I'll tell you: that is the final resting place of Tennessee football legend George Cafego.
*OK, OK, I'll tell you: that is the final resting place of Tennessee football legend George Cafego.
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