Dougherty’s Random Thoughts
A Layered Focus:
Tennessee football Coach Phillip Fulmer is up to his eyelids in responsibility. What off-season? While USC Coach Pete Carroll sips umbrella drinks on the island beaches of Hawaii trying to figure out which potential NFL job to use to get more money out of Southern Cal, CPF will change the face of his offensive staff, figure out a way to drastically change the direction of a recruiting year and organize a mental game-plan to play within a division of a conference that may feature two of the top three pre-season teams in America.
This can be a reinvigorating, re-defining opportunity for Fulmer to add to his legacy and walk off the hill one day on his terms. Pull this staff change off correctly and Phillip Fulmer will get his wish. The talent level is there. It’s simply a matter of putting the pieces together correctly.
A quick look at a 2007 8-team Playoff:
If you took the 6 conference champions and 2 highest rated teams left in the final regular season BCS standings while seeding the teams using their BCS rankings at the end of the season, the field would look like this:
Bracket A:
1. Ohio St. v. 8. West Virginia
4. Oklahoma v. 5. Georgia
Bracket B:
3. Virginia Tech v. 6. Missouri
7. USC v. 2. LSU
How’s that for fun? Georgia President Michael Adams loves the eight team playoff and he does appear to have some burgeoning support among some NCAA Presidents. However, the Final Four or plus-one will obviously happen first. And, that would be a great start if the ultimate end is a college football playoff.
If there were a Final Four model in place following the ’07 season, we would have enjoyed Ohio St. taking on Oklahoma and LSU battling Virginia Tech with the winners meeting for the Championship. The outcome likely would have been the same with LSU winning it all. However, Buckeye fan would have been spared another Championship blowout loss to an SEC team.
Turning towards the hardwood:
It’s amazing what one year can do to the make-up of a team. Tennessee fans calling our show during the basketball off-season wondered how the team would cope with the locker room loss of Dane Bradshaw. Since you’re reading this you understand how difficult Bradshaw’s 5.5 points per game were to replace. Bradshaw was the unquestionable glue to a sweet 16 team that was ever so close to accomplishing even more. Bradshaw did the little things better than anyone else and required few shots which helped keep teammates happy. The loss of Bradshaw not withstanding, the true question this team must continue to work on finding an answer to is: how does this team deal with the additions of J.P Prince and Tyler Smith?
On the surface, it would appear very well. Against Ole Miss, with the game on the line Tennessee chose to go to heralded transfer Tyler Smith for both the game tying and game winning baskets. Smith not only took the shots, he made them.
What was a team that struggled mightily without Chris Lofton’s long range bombs now finds ways to win despite Lofton’s uncharacteristic struggles. Lofton’s three-point percentage has fallen from almost 42% last year to 34% this year. Lofton’s scoring average is down almost seven points per game off of last year’s pace. But, Lofton is picking his game up in other areas. His rebounding and assists are up. His turnovers are down, and he shows a complete unselfishness turning down shots he would not have thought twice about taking previously, setting up his teammates for shots they can now consistently make.
Rebounding will continue to be a problem for this team, but athletes quicker than their one on one competition and hot shooting perimeter players can more than compensate against most teams.
This team has the potential to be much better come March. As Tyler Smith and J.P Prince continue to develop and Ramar Smith takes back over at the point the Vols could be Final Four participants especially when, not if, Chris Lofton finds his stroke.
Thank you very much for reading. Please feel free to offer feed-back or column direction suggestions to brentd@wlac.com.
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