The Week in Football: Tennessee isn't Close to being a SEC Contender

This weekend of college football was one of the craziest weeks in the history of college football. Number 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 14, 15, 16, and 19 all lost, and many of them met their doom late in the game. And yes, I realize I whiffed on almost all of my college picks. I didn’t give the Mississippi schools enough credit for being really good. In the Stanford game, I ignored how hard it is for teams to travel all the way across the country and win, and the fact that the Cardinal’s offense is about as good as a mediocre high school offense. Still though, it was a really exciting Saturday. Unfortunately for me, I really couldn’t enjoy it because my Vols had a loss earlier in the day that I can’t even really put into words; or, at least put into one sentence that would encompass everything that I felt, and still feel today, after the game. I’ll try to capture that throughout this writing.

 

But first, I have a few problems with Tennessee fans, and actually fans in general, after the loss on Saturday.

 

1. Every time a team loses, the losing team’s fans always blame the officiating. Always. That’s the dumbest and least analytical way to look at a game. On Saturday, Florida’s field goal late in the game that gave them the lead occurred just after the play clock had expired. If the refs had noticed it, they would’ve flagged it and moved the ball back five yards, making the kick more difficult. Tennessee fans act like that missed call cost them the game. Never mind the fact that the Vols could only muster 9 points the entire game, or the fact that they couldn’t pass block if their life depended on it. I bet that was the official’s fault too, right? Oh wait, it wasn’t. Tennessee lost on Saturday because they played awful all day. The offensive line was terrible, and Worley was running for his life the entire game. That’s why they lost. Not because the officials. Every time you want to blame the officials after the game, first ask yourself this’ “Did my team do everything it could to win? Did they play their best possible game, yet they still lost? Are there any mistakes my team made that I can point to?” The answer will always be “Yeah, we didn’t play our best game and we left some opportunities on the field”, and that’s why it’s silly to blame the officials. That kick at the end of the game for Florida shouldn’t have even mattered, because Tennessee should’ve never been in that situation in the first place. 9 points! Are you kidding me? 9 points! So please, just stop with the officiating. Score more points. Florida and Jeff Driskel were trying to give them the game, and Tennessee couldn’t take advantage of it. That’s not the official’s fault. It’s Tennessee’s. And that’s why they lost.
2. Another common thing for fans to do after their team loses is to say, “Oh, well the team that beat us showed no class when they won”. On Saturday, after Tennessee lost, Will Muschamp said that he was happy to see all of these Vol fans disappointed. Many Tennessee fans were upset by this, and got on social media and screamed about how Muschamp and the Gators had no class. What did you want him to say? Of course he’s happy that Tennessee fans were disappointed, because if they weren’t, that would’ve meant his team had lost. Did you want him to say, “Man, my team was so lucky to win, we’re not a good team, Tennessee is so awesome, they’re the best team in the country, and we we’re just fortunate to win, man, I have no idea how we pulled that one off”. If you did, that’s stupid, no coach has ever said that after a game, and you’re also hypocritical. Like I’ve said before, no one would admit to this now, but when Kiffin was in Knoxville, every Vol fan loved him. We loved his swagger, his attitude, and his mouth. He was probably the most “classless” coach in the country, only we didn’t mind it because he was our guy. So if you’re so offended when someone shows no “class”, then you should’ve hated Kiffin when he was in Knoxville. Oh, that’s right, you didn’t. Don’t be hypocritical. Please be consistent.
3. Another thing I’ve noticed is something that’s quietly a big problem for Tennessee fans. They, in general, have low expectations, lower than they’ve probably ever been. Lowered expectations are the worst thing that can happen to any program, because once that happens, the fan base stops demanding that the program be good, which means there isn’t as much pressure on the program to win, which means that everybody involved starts to become satisfied with an 7 or 8 win season. Most Vol fans have been beaten down for so long that they now just shrug their shoulders, sigh, and accept the “fact” that Tennessee is going to suck. Don’t get me wrong, everybody was really disappointed after the loss on Saturday, because they gave that game away. That was the most inexplicable loss for Tennessee since the Kentucky game in 2011. After that game, it seemed like 95% of Vol fans were done with Dooley and wanted him fired. After this game, people just sort of seemed to shrug their shoulders and, in some cases, be fine with the realization that Tennessee won’t be good again for a long time. That’s crap. And you know what, maybe they may not be that good for a long time. They’ve got some enormous problems down there, and it may be 2016 before they contend for the SEC East again. But I won’t lower my expectations. I expect them to get back to being a program that wins big, because they have. This is a program that is in the top 10 in wins all time in college football, a school that’s won 13 SEC championships, and one that can claim six national titles. They’ve won big before, and they should win big again. That’s my expectation. So don’t lower your expectations. We should be flustered, disappointed, and exasperated after a loss like that. We need to expect the Vols to win, and demand it.

 

My angry old man also was very flabbergasted after the game. Amidst his yelling and unintelligible grunts, I managed to gather one coherent thought:

 

“The only thing in my entire life that disappointed me more than this game was every single time that I opened your report card. When are the Vols ever going to get it together? When are they going to contend for the SEC again?”

 

Honestly, I don’t know. They’ve got two enormous, program altering problems going forward, which are; who is the quarterback of the future, and what the heck is going on with that offensive line? Unfortunately, both those problems aren’t short term fixes.

 

1. The Vols are going to have to go out and recruit the right quarterback to run Butch’s offense. They’ve got to find that guy and convince him to come play behind that “shaky” (and that’s putting it lightly) offensive line. At least right now, they don’t have him. I have respect for Worley, particularly with how he’s gotten beaten up this year, but he was never the right guy to run that offense. He never keeps the ball on those read option plays, which allows the defensive ends to always crash down and blow those plays up. They need a Marcus Mariota or Johnny Manziel type guy, but they haven’t been able to recruit him yet. I thought Josh Dobbs was going to be the guy, but the fact that they aren’t playing him tells me that they don’t trust him. Heck, they played Nathan Peterman before him, and we all know how that turned out. And if they’re never able to recruit that guy, or it takes them a few more years, it might be a long time before they ever become conference contenders again.
2. That offensive line is the worst unit I’ve ever seen on the college level. They’re just abysmal. They couldn’t keep a powder puff team away from the quarterback. Phillip Fulmer and others have questioned whether or not the guys on the offensive line are even athletic enough to play on this level. And yes, I realize that Tennessee is the only program in the country that had to replace all 5 starters on the offensive line, but still, that unit was embarrassing on Saturday, and has been all year. That’s the reason they’ve lost the last three games. They haven’t been able to keep Worley up right, or from running for his life. They haven’t given him time to be able to stand in there confidently, survey the field, and fire down the field. All of his throws are rushed, and he’s constantly moved around in the pocket, worried about where the pass rush is. And a lot of the time, he doesn’t even have a chance, as there will be a free, unblocked rusher in the backfield in half a second. The reason Tennessee wasn’t able to complete any passes down the field to those big, physical wideouts was because Worley never had the time to let them get open. And you can’t fix an offensive line by just snapping your fingers. It takes time, and you have to constantly recruit the right type of guys over and over and over again. But if the O-line keeps playing like this, they won’t be very successful this year, or next year, or the next year, or ever.

 

So when will they contend again? Originally I would’ve said next year, assuming they could get the right quarterback. I know that guy would’ve been a freshman, but it’s not like the SEC East was going to be this overwhelming monster next year. But now, with how that O-line looks, I don’t see how they will. What can they do this off-season to improve that unit? And would you really feel confident in that unit if they started a bunch of freshman next year? I wouldn’t. So I’m looking at 2016, which sucks, because I feel like I’m always looking to the future with this program.

 

Regardless of what happens the rest of this year, as well as next year, I’d still bring Butch back for a fourth year. The program can’t afford to start over for the fourth time since 2009 with a new coach. Let 2016 be the year where we make a final judgment on Butch as a coach. Let’s see if he can recruit that superstar QB, and if he can fix that offensive line. And let’s see if he can really start winning some of these big time games against their rivals. That was the biggest thing that I haven’t even brought up yet. Losing a game like that was disappointing. The fact that it was to Florida, a mediocre Gators’ team, one that has put down the Vols nine (and now ten) straight years, as well as one who played so horribly, a team that is probably the worst offensive Florida team since Spurrier got there, made it that much worse. He’s going to have to start consistently winning these rivalry games, or the fan base will lose patience quickly, and he won’t be the coach anymore. I don’t want that to happen. I like Butch, I believe in him, and I want him to be the guy that takes the Vols back to the top.

 

So overall, it was a disappointing Saturday for me. It was a tenth straight devastating loss to a team I hate. We’ll see how the rest of the year plays out.