Hey, Bears. I hope your Saturday evening is going well.
Whatever problems you all might be having this weekend, I'm sure they are better than anyone in the state of Tennessee right now.
I've mostly kept my silence on this matter, but after watching our division rival win the SEC just an hour ago, I cannot anymore.
Forgive me in advance, but I am going to be venting and being pretty blunt in my language.
Simply put, Tennessee is the laughingstock of college football now. The last decade has been filled with bad decision after bad decision after bad decision since firing Philip Fulmer. As a result, our football program has been mired in mediocrity. Yes, there have been a few peaks in that period, but those peaks have been outnumbered by the lowest of valleys.
Sunday was the breaking point. I am a pretty young guy; I started watching the Volunteers religiously in 1995. In those years, I thought I had seen it all. And then came Sunday.
I have never in my life seen fans derail a coaching hire. Never. Now, don't get me wrong, whether or not Greg Schiano knew about the goings-on at Penn State and the Sandusky scandal, then it would be unwise to hire him, simply because we need to avoid the drama. However, I think it should be up to the administration and the athletic department to properly vet him. It is their responsibility to find any red flags and act accordingly.
And therein lies the conundrum. We have (and have had for some time) an incompetent and clueless administration and athletic department. I don't think John Currie would have been able to put his personal relationship with Schiano aside for the good of the program. Currie had been eyeing Schiano since his time at Kansas State, and he thought he would be a great fit at Tennessee.
He wouldn't have.
What irks me about this whole circus is what I would like to call "The Volshevik Revolution," where the Volunteer fans everywhere on campus and in the social media universe must have thought this was early 1900s Russia and the UT administration was the Romanov royal family.
Forgive me if I am inaccurate with my parallel.
Volunteer fans have embarrassed themselves before. This is not the first time. Remember January 12, 2010? That was the night Lane Kiffin decided to abruptly take the USC job and left town with a police escort in the middle of the night. Students and fans from the area took to campus and started painting The Rock with all kinds of obscenities and epithets towards Kiffin. They also ran across campus, burning mattresses (of all things). Yes, MATTRESSES.
After a 5-6 record in 2005, people wanted Fulmer fired immediately. It was one subpar season out of thirteen at the school.
Fans constantly deride former coaches for their faults because they are bitter that they didn't win every game. They currently want Lady Vol basketball coach Holly Warlick fired. She hasn't had a losing season yet. They've been below Lady Vol standards, but she's no loser. She's also not Pat Summitt.
These fans were ready to run Butch Jones out of town the minute he took the job. So I knew that he was coaching on borrowed time.
I'm not going to pretend the reason for this uprising had everything to do with Schiano and Penn State and nothing to do with Jon Gruden. Schiano was an excuse, in my opinion. They were just angry because the name that emerged was his and not Gruden's. Volunteer fans have been on this Jon Gruden kick since firing Derek Dooley and they just won't let it go. In the meantime, Gruden has been having fun at our expense and trolling us at every turn. Lane Kiffin has also joined the party with his childish tweets about Kim Jong Un and heaven knows what else.
I never once believed that Gruden was going to leave Monday Night Football to coach in college, especially at a program as dysfunctional and calamity-prone as Tennessee. I still don't believe it. And I refuse to believe it, unless he decides on his own volition to wade into these shark-infested waters.
And I hate to break it to Vol Nation, but I don't see that happening. So they can come up with all the inside sources and hold out all the hope they want, it's not going to happen, not in this lifetime or the next or whatever comes after that.
Because of this ridiculousness and the nonsense surrounding the program, no coach in their right mind wants to coach here.
I love Tennessee. I always have and always will. I've been elated, crestfallen, and oftentimes stunned. I've been sad, confused, and I've even been as mad as hell at it. But this is the first time in my life that I have ever been ashamed of Tennessee football. Ashamed and embarrassed I never once thought it would come to this.
EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE, associated with the Orange and White deserves blame for how this has fallen apart. Including the fans. I'll even lump myself into that group. This has been a disaster of unbelievable proportions. The media coverage has been embarrassing. We've been eviscerated in the local and national media. People who have been laughing at us for so many years are laughing at us even harder. We've become one giant meme, and I don't like it.
But Tennessee deserves it. Oh, my Good God Almighty, we deserve this.
Currie is gone. Terminated. Fulmer is the AD now. I don't know how this whole thing came about and I don't care. I don't care if Fulmer wanted this to happen or if he wants to coach again. I don't care about what conspiracy theorists are saying about this or what they think about what has been happening behind the scenes. And I don't care about what other fans are saying. All I want to see is some order restored. Some peace and quiet around the program for a change. I don't even care about a unified Tennessee... at least not now.
All I want to see is order. Order and stability.
I hope Fulmer does a good job, but as for right now, I'm just going to sit back and relax.
It's good therapy.
Rant over. Sorry if I came across as uncharacteristically whiny. I have just been so angry about what has happened.
Whatever problems you all might be having this weekend, I'm sure they are better than anyone in the state of Tennessee right now.
I've mostly kept my silence on this matter, but after watching our division rival win the SEC just an hour ago, I cannot anymore.
Forgive me in advance, but I am going to be venting and being pretty blunt in my language.
Simply put, Tennessee is the laughingstock of college football now. The last decade has been filled with bad decision after bad decision after bad decision since firing Philip Fulmer. As a result, our football program has been mired in mediocrity. Yes, there have been a few peaks in that period, but those peaks have been outnumbered by the lowest of valleys.
Sunday was the breaking point. I am a pretty young guy; I started watching the Volunteers religiously in 1995. In those years, I thought I had seen it all. And then came Sunday.
I have never in my life seen fans derail a coaching hire. Never. Now, don't get me wrong, whether or not Greg Schiano knew about the goings-on at Penn State and the Sandusky scandal, then it would be unwise to hire him, simply because we need to avoid the drama. However, I think it should be up to the administration and the athletic department to properly vet him. It is their responsibility to find any red flags and act accordingly.
And therein lies the conundrum. We have (and have had for some time) an incompetent and clueless administration and athletic department. I don't think John Currie would have been able to put his personal relationship with Schiano aside for the good of the program. Currie had been eyeing Schiano since his time at Kansas State, and he thought he would be a great fit at Tennessee.
He wouldn't have.
What irks me about this whole circus is what I would like to call "The Volshevik Revolution," where the Volunteer fans everywhere on campus and in the social media universe must have thought this was early 1900s Russia and the UT administration was the Romanov royal family.
Forgive me if I am inaccurate with my parallel.
Volunteer fans have embarrassed themselves before. This is not the first time. Remember January 12, 2010? That was the night Lane Kiffin decided to abruptly take the USC job and left town with a police escort in the middle of the night. Students and fans from the area took to campus and started painting The Rock with all kinds of obscenities and epithets towards Kiffin. They also ran across campus, burning mattresses (of all things). Yes, MATTRESSES.
After a 5-6 record in 2005, people wanted Fulmer fired immediately. It was one subpar season out of thirteen at the school.
Fans constantly deride former coaches for their faults because they are bitter that they didn't win every game. They currently want Lady Vol basketball coach Holly Warlick fired. She hasn't had a losing season yet. They've been below Lady Vol standards, but she's no loser. She's also not Pat Summitt.
These fans were ready to run Butch Jones out of town the minute he took the job. So I knew that he was coaching on borrowed time.
I'm not going to pretend the reason for this uprising had everything to do with Schiano and Penn State and nothing to do with Jon Gruden. Schiano was an excuse, in my opinion. They were just angry because the name that emerged was his and not Gruden's. Volunteer fans have been on this Jon Gruden kick since firing Derek Dooley and they just won't let it go. In the meantime, Gruden has been having fun at our expense and trolling us at every turn. Lane Kiffin has also joined the party with his childish tweets about Kim Jong Un and heaven knows what else.
I never once believed that Gruden was going to leave Monday Night Football to coach in college, especially at a program as dysfunctional and calamity-prone as Tennessee. I still don't believe it. And I refuse to believe it, unless he decides on his own volition to wade into these shark-infested waters.
And I hate to break it to Vol Nation, but I don't see that happening. So they can come up with all the inside sources and hold out all the hope they want, it's not going to happen, not in this lifetime or the next or whatever comes after that.
Because of this ridiculousness and the nonsense surrounding the program, no coach in their right mind wants to coach here.
I love Tennessee. I always have and always will. I've been elated, crestfallen, and oftentimes stunned. I've been sad, confused, and I've even been as mad as hell at it. But this is the first time in my life that I have ever been ashamed of Tennessee football. Ashamed and embarrassed I never once thought it would come to this.
EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE, associated with the Orange and White deserves blame for how this has fallen apart. Including the fans. I'll even lump myself into that group. This has been a disaster of unbelievable proportions. The media coverage has been embarrassing. We've been eviscerated in the local and national media. People who have been laughing at us for so many years are laughing at us even harder. We've become one giant meme, and I don't like it.
But Tennessee deserves it. Oh, my Good God Almighty, we deserve this.
Currie is gone. Terminated. Fulmer is the AD now. I don't know how this whole thing came about and I don't care. I don't care if Fulmer wanted this to happen or if he wants to coach again. I don't care about what conspiracy theorists are saying about this or what they think about what has been happening behind the scenes. And I don't care about what other fans are saying. All I want to see is some order restored. Some peace and quiet around the program for a change. I don't even care about a unified Tennessee... at least not now.
All I want to see is order. Order and stability.
I hope Fulmer does a good job, but as for right now, I'm just going to sit back and relax.
It's good therapy.
Rant over. Sorry if I came across as uncharacteristically whiny. I have just been so angry about what has happened.
