First off, let me say that I am excited about having Derek Dooley as a head football coach.  He seems honest and sincere, he has a southern drawl, and he said "britches in his presser for god's sake, in addition to being a helluva recruiter under nick saban.  This much has been touched upon a lot by others, but when it comes to his actual ability to coach, many people that I have talked to simply say "17-20 at LA Tech" when asked about their thoughts on Dooley.  They say this because it is the only stat ESPN seems to find relevant concerning Dooley.  However, "17-20" does NOT tell the whole story.  Not by a long shot. 

Continue reading this post »

Let me first say that I am quite pleased with the job that Kiffin has done in his first year, despite the ups and downs, and that we have every reason to believe that we can win a National Championship with this guy.  He has boosted recruiting, and the play on the field, and he has repeatedly shown he can develop players. Heres what I took from this season:

Continue reading this post »

its not true, and i am getting sick of hearing it. the people over at GVX are convinced that we have not sold out a single home game...when in fact we have sold out the UCLA, Auburn, Georgia, and Vanderbilt games.  i attribute this knowledge to the fact that people dont know that the stadium capactiy is now at 100,011.  Because of this reduced capacity, the days of 109,000 orange clad folks stuffed in neyland are likel over.  I just had to get this out of my system, sorry if it sounded like i was ranting a little bit. once the economy gets back to normal and folks can afford to eat and buy gas, we will get back to selling out every single game, just like we did as soon as 2007.

Dear Bo, 
     I am a cincinnati bearcats football fan, and in case you havent noticed, we have yet to lose a game.  Since we are from a BCS conference, I feel we deserve a shot at the National Title if we beat pitt and finish 12-0.  However, theres a problem.  A motherfucking burnt orange problem.  I believe you can help.

Continue reading this post »

Yeah, losing to ole miss sucks, and like many other vols fans the mccluster-monster will haunt me in my dreams for years to come.  Truly, the team really did play a bad game.  But you know what?? Thats all that was.  Just a bad game.  Nothin more and nothin less.  We'll put it together and get a W next week.

Continue reading this post »

I dont know about you guys, but it drives me crazy that whoever we play our opponents always always ALWAYS make their field goals.  and we dont.  and its frustrating. Let me show you some disturbing numbers:

Continue reading this post »

Why is it that the Sullins twins always seem to be the ones committing penalties? I swear to God, every friggin hold, false start, chop block or other penalty that can be called on an o-lineman can and will be called on the sullins brothers.  Its crazy, if the vols are to be caught holding, i would bet my right foot (and a couple of fingers too) that the offender is one of the two.  Particularly number 66 (Cody).  Is it because they are too dang small, and must resort to these underhanded techniques?  Or do they just get scared and jump a tad early?  God knows, but I would loooove  for it to stop.  Also, if Josh Mcneil didn't get hurt, do you think things would be different?

GO VOLS!!!  

After watching todays absolute throttling of the hilltoppers, I have determined we're in for a real surprise this year.  Yeah, it was western kentucky, and yeah, they suck.  But we played some quality fussball today; the type of fussball i havent seen played in a good while at UT.

The holes for the backs were large huge.  I could have have gone for at least a hundred yards today with the holes provided.  And I have a feeling that that aint gonna change much, regardeless of opponent, our boys were nasty.  The backs looked insane, extremely violent and tough between the tackles, in addition to having excellent vision and excelleration (see montario and Bryce's respective TD runs).  I watched this game with an Ohio State fan, and we would alternate series watching the UT and OSU games.  And I gotta tell ya, Ohio State's running backs got nothin on ours.  I could only take about 5 minutes at a time of watching OSU's [FULMERIZED] backs getting stuffed at the line before saying to my friend, "Lets go to the UT game, and see some real running".  Some other things I liked from today's performance: 

 JONATHON CROMPTON THREW FIVE TOUCHDOWN PASSES! OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!

Many thought it could never be done.  I myself am guilty of thinking this.  In fact, WHO could have anticipated that this fine young man could throw 5 tds!?  Any, Crompdaddy looked excellent, and those two picks were not his fault, just Kentucky Bad Luck.  Couldnt be happier for him.

Monte Kiffin+Tennessee Defense+Eric Berry=what may one day go down as one of the best D's in UT history, who knows?  We set up camp in the wku backfield, they had no running game('cept for that drive where we took berry and reveiz out, which will never happen in a meaningful game) and they had noo passing game.  Extremely impressed with the D.  I think Florida will be too.

Oh, and by the way, the special teams didnt suck like it did last year; god bless eddie gran.

Overall, I was super impressed, if you couldnt tell, and cant wait till next week! 

     After having seen the Preseason USA Today Poll in which the Vols were not ranked, an assuming that we will remain unranked in the AP Poll, when is the last time we were unranked in the Preseason?  I did a little research on ESPN.com and have found that we have been ranked in the preseson each of the past six years prior to this year, but I cannot find any information beyond that, can someone help me out? 

      Football season looms just around the corner, and many people (myself included) cannot wait for it to begin.  But before it does, I would like to introduce the interesting thought on the basketball side of things: This may be the final year in Bruce Pearl's career that he has a legitimate shot at winning the NCAA Tournament.  It is a scary thought, but it is not nearly as outrageous as you might think. 

Continue reading this post »

It is inevitable that Jon Crompton will one day leave a legacy at the University of Tennessee.  He will either leave the legacy of one who was given a shot at the big times and repeatedly failed, or he will leave the legacy of a man that faced adversity, sucked it up and redeemed himself with a solid senior season.  Hopefully, it will be the latter.  

Crompton failed miserably in 2008, and I feel confident that I wasn't the only one who swore every time he took the field.  As a result, one of the biggest storylines in all of college football this year will be how Crompton handles himself after such a dismal 2008 campaign. This is his team, his show.  His time to prove all the naysayers wrong and win the faith of Tennessee fans everywhere.  

There aren't many second chances in life, especially in major college football, where nobodys job is safe and there is always someone else waiting in the wings, biding their time to take your place and put you out on the streets.  This makes it even more critical for Crompton to have a solid senior season and prove for once and for all that he can play at Tennessee. Because at the end of the day, there is one question that must be asked:  was it the system, or the quarterback, that was responsible for the failures of 2008?  That is the question that will take the entire 2009 college football season to answer.  I hope for Crompton's sake that he has the senior season that he needs, because he will spend the rest of his life thinking about it, for the better or for the worse.

There has been much animated discussion nation-wide concerning Lane Kiffin and his star-studded staff.  Vilified by some and loved by others, he has everyone talking about the wonderful job he has done recruiting in his four months as a vol.  In fact, many vol fans have been so busy exultng this latest recruiting class and mentioning how bright the future looks, that they fail to see just how bright the 2009 season could be for the vols.  

The vols are the dark horse of the entire NCAA come football season.  Nobody knows what to expect from them this year; they have lots of talent (only 1 recruiting class in he last 4 years was not ranked in the top 25), and they had plenty of motivation with the fiery new staff at hand.  And they have a new attitude.  At the same time, they went 5-7 lat year for christsakes, and how could any tough SEC team take a 5-7 team seriously?  Enter Florida.  Florida and the rest of gator nation tell everyone who listens that they will eat baby Kiffin alive come 2009, and that the tennessee game really does matter to them.  Honestly though, it is ridiculous to think that the gators will try any harder than they normally would have just because kiffin made some silly goose comments about them; they will overlook us.  We will not be the only team that they will overlook, there will be many others, but we may very well be the only team talented enough enough to actually do something about it.  Obviously, if by some miracle we do manage to edge the mighty gators in gainesville, the cloak comes off and the days of us being overlooked will be over. And if we lose, as many expect, then we maintain our invisible status.   There is not a team on our schedule we cannot beat, and on the other end of the spectrum there is not a team on our schedule that cannot beat us.  

The reason we lost seven games last year are quite simple really:  1) Nobody on the offense knew what they were doing at any point during the season and 2) We were not clutch.  The clawfense was so friggin complex that it made everyone look terrible, and the 3 close games we lost can be summed up in 3 plays, 1 from each game 1) Daniel Lincoln misses 34 yd FG in OT (UCLA) 2) Crompton fumbles in his own end zone (Auburn) 3) Stephens throws a killing pick six (Wyoming).  

Now we must ask ourselves, have we fixed these problems?  For the most part, yes.  A much simpler offensive system put into place (and we have the talent to run it).  However, there is no way to tell if we are any more clutch, it seems we must simply pray to God that Lincoln has recovered the long-lost ability to kick the football.  Now this brings us to the quarterback.  How well our QB performs (be it crompton or coleman, stephens has no shot due to his broken wrist) will ultimately decide where we go this season.  The system is simpler, so there is a chance that they might succeed, and maybe even flourish.    

So what is fair to expect from the vols this year?  If 2008 taught us anything, we may just as easily go 14-0 as we might 0-12.  I hesitate to put any expectations at all on this team, I know we have the talent and coaching to win any game and I know just from watching the team last year that there is no one that cannot beat us.  If I were held at gunpoint and forced to give my best guess, I would say 8 or 9 wins, but in reality, there is no telling where this team may, or may not, go.  The sky is the limit for the vols in 09, and no matter what our final record is, its sure going to be a wild ride.