Honestly there was about a 2-3 hour window of time today that I thought Tennessee football had died. I almost threw up. My head was spinning with news that I couldn't accept as true. Was I going to even care anymore? Was I going to walk away from this fandom I've carried with me all these years? I heavily considered that. I know most of us here likely did. Screw John Currie for that feeling. We should have never been put in that position today.
But then all of a sudden this fanbase stood up and fought for it to come back to life. They fought like hell. They banded together and fought like no collection of college football fans ever have. We should have had power to stop this today but somehow we did. I don't care what anybody says. Vol fans stopped this garbage in its tracks.
Nobody understands fully what it's like to be us. What we've endured. Not just the losses or the coaching changes. But the day to day letdowns and signs that this wasn't a school that cares about winning. All the while, we care SO MUCH! Our Vols have slipped from their rightful place at the top slowly and consistently, day by day for years and years. Until it hit the bottom Saturday night. We were here for all of it. We took our lumps and waited patiently for the day that we could shove it back in their faces. We would remind everyone about where Tennessee belongs. We held out hope that that day was coming. It was supposed to be today.
Instead, our school did what they have proven to always do, which is to cave to the outsiders opinions that tell us we are average. We should expect no better than average. We should just accept it. We should be grateful for it even. Because it could always be worse.
But no. We had hit rock bottom. We just hit it! And they trot out this dip**** to be our next coach? Hell naw. We didn't wait all year for that.
You not only hire an average coach. You hire an average coach with a built in disadvantage that every other coach in the best conference in America was going to use against us in recruiting? You bring a piece of one of the most disgusting scandals in college football in my lifetime right to our doorstep? You bring that to Knoxville? And that's supposed to be okay? That hire was program suicide and we all knew it. It was not just a mediocre hire. That's where the national media misses it. This is what they think of our program. We are just supposed to be grateful for our asshat coach. Because we are an asshat program to them. Nope. Greg Schiano would have buried this program. They knew it. We knew it. The difference is, that's what they wanted to see happen. But we actually care about this place.
We were too smart for the bull**** today. I could not be more proud of what transpired. We saved something great. We saved Tennessee mfin Volunteer football today. We won't go quietly. We won't be bullied by the media or another bully coach who is gonna use us to build up goodwill to the public for a few years until he fizzled out and this program was left alone again to pick up the pieces. Nah. We just had a coach like that. We already read that book.
We remember what this job can be. They remember what we did yesterday and last year. That's who we are to them. That's who we should continue to be. They're wrong.
It may not be next season but we will prove it to them again someday. Today signified hope. That tiny sparkle of an idea of shoving that **** right back into their pompous faces. Because of today, we get to keep that for a little while longer.
It's gonna happen someday and it's gonna be glorious. The fact that I can still hold on makes me incredibly grateful.
Go big orange forever