Rocky Top Talk Reacts: 'Can't We Talk About Basketball?'

Tennessee head coach Derek Dooley has made a statement to the media, in which he ascribes Bryce Brown's possible departure to "a lot of personal and family problems":

“They’re concerns that I believe stem from — and what he told me stem from — some of the reasons why he came here, and his experience over the first six months that he was here.

It's the "reasons why he came here" part that gives pause, because nobody had their motivations on Signing Day and beyond questioned more than Brown, but if the kid's gotta go home, he's gotta go home.  SBN's fine Tennessee crew at Rocky Top Talk already have their heads on straight regarding Bryce Brown:

He has the look and build of a future star, which goes with that whole number one recruit in America thing.

But things have changed in Knoxville, and just as Lane Kiffin was not the right man for Lennon Creer, so too may Derek Dooley not be the right man for Bryce Brown.  These things do happen with coaching changes, and though we may like it less when it happens to guys with Brown's hype, we handle it better when it comes at a position of great quality depth like tailback.

Tennessee fans now have to shift their focus back to basketball, as the Vols prepare for their first-round NCAA tournament tipoff against San Diego State, but we'll be following this story as long as it's a story, here and at Rocky Top Talk.