UT History

#26
#26
I expect to get back to having 3-5 challenging games each scheduled year. Fl, Ga, gumps, the other west team( LSU and All burn, the rest not so much. and a strong OCC team.

It’s not about those 2nd tier team’s play but the Vol’s play.
 
#27
#27
By the way: Bama, powerhouse that they are these days, had a 62% win rate in the 2000-2009 decade. And that's if you give them credit for vacated wins. If you take into account what a dirty, cheating program they were, their 2000s win rate was 55%.

Oh, you say, that's a single-decade anomaly. But it's not. In the 1990s (1990-1999), their win rate was 67%.

Point is, all programs have up periods and down periods. Even decade-long ups and downs. Tennessee's best years were with Neyland and Fulmer. Bama's best years were with Bryant and Saban. They're up right now, and we're down.

This too shall pass.
 
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#29
#29
Tennessee won't have any sustained success until school's administration makes athletics a top priority.

At least with Fulmer in there we know there's the will. What we don't know is if he'll be competent at the job.

There's an opportunity with the new University President to get someone in who is committed to winning in football (and all athletics for that matter). If we get another soul-less suit whose punching the clock and cashing checks then we are one step closer to becoming the Minnesota of the 21st century.

As fans, we all want to win, but if the University leadership isn't committed to winning its not going to happen. No different than any other business in a competitive industry. You've got to all be committed, pointed in the same direction and firing on all cylinders to be the best.
 
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#30
#30
OP, I think your data interpretation is a bit skewed. First off, winning percentage by decade is way too broad a metric. For instance, you have us at 67% for the 00s but those years include four seasons with 10 or more wins and two seasons with only 5 wins. So were we good or not in that decade? Truth is, part of it we were and part of it we weren't.

And to say that "every decade but the 90s they haven’t been relevant" makes no sense either. Winning a national championship is not a measure of relevancy, it's a measure of supremacy. In the 60s you show us at 63% wins but among those wins were two SEC championships and one (sort of) national championship. That's relevant. Same with the 80s, that 65% included two SEC championships as well. That 67% in the 00s didn't include an SEC championship but we played in four SEC championship games. Even in the 70s we had three 10+ wins seasons.

We could talk all day about what the expected level of success is but until the current decade, relevance was never an issue.
 
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#31
#31
Interesting to hear people talk about Bill Battle in Dooley terms.

He won 31 games in a 3 year period, had a much higher win % than Johnny and was 8-4 in year 4 (couldn't have all still been Doug's players). He was 6-5 his last season and Johnny was 6-5-1 in year 6. Not saying we should have kept him, just not sure he was the disaster we make him out to be
 
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#32
#32
MurphyVol said:
Interesting to hear people talk about Bill Battle in Dooley terms.

He won 31 games in a 3 year period, had a much higher win % than Johnny and was 8-4 in year 4 (couldn't have all still been Doug's players). He was 6-5 his last season and Johnny was 6-5-1 in year 6. Not saying we should have kept him, just not sure he was the disaster we make him out to be
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Consider the crowd.

This is the mob that regularly vilifies the second-best coach in Tennessee history. As well as the third-best.

Only General Neyland is beyond scorn for the Negavol community.
 
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#35
#35
Everyone is taking my op ad an assault on Tenn. It's not. I have been a fan for about 40 years. In my early years I was happy to go 8-3 or 9-2, go to a bowl game and sometimes win a conference champ. With social media and tv 24/7 it has changed my views (not for the better) of winning 8 games. That is average history for almost 60 years. Now if we aren't in the championship talk, we are having a down year. Look no farther than our gator fans who frequent this board. They are 4 and 1 yet not happy. Enjoy the season.
 
#37
#37
a vol n tears said:
Everyone is taking my op ad an assault on Tenn. It's not. I have been a fan for about 40 years. In my early years I was happy to go 8-3 or 9-2, go to a bowl game and sometimes win a conference champ. With social media and tv 24/7 it has changed my views (not for the better) of winning 8 games. That is average history for almost 60 years. Now if we aren't in the championship talk, we are having a down year. Look no farther than our gator fans who frequent this board. They are 4 and 1 yet not happy. Enjoy the season.
Click to expand...

Here, let's try a different analogy.

Let's say national championships are Mt Everest. You can't get any higher on earth than a national championship. So every program that has ever won a NC is a "himalayan" program.

The question then becomes, how dense are those 8,000-meter peaks? How often do they show up in the mountain range of your seasons, and how wide are the valleys in between?

Bama's mountain range is dense with high peaks. Even more dense if you count the way they do, heh, but even objectively speaking, they've got a lot of Death Zone peaks in their chain.

We have fewer, but still in the small group of universities who can say "multiple peaks" and mean more than two.

Will we see another Everest in our future? Of course. Our program is not dead, and it's not dying, mouth-breathers aside.

I spent 4 years at Army, and another 30+ following that team. I know what a has-been program feels like (when I was a cadet (student) there, we were still just getting used to the idea that we could no longer run with the big dogs without going 1-10).

Tennessee is not Army. We're not Minnesota. We're not even Nebraska, which made the very bad decision of moving out of its base, trying to fit into a new place that didn't fit well at all.

We'll be back on top. Just gotta be patient.
 
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#42
#42
Most every fan on here was unimpressed with the two recent 9 - 4 seasons. They knew in their minds it should have been better. Those same fans would now love to be 9-4 this season. I am guilty. I'm just saying history says 8 and 4 or 9 and 3 seasons are not bad just because they are not playing for a championship. They are average for 110 teams every year.
 
#43
#43
a vol n tears said:
Most every fan on here was unimpressed with the two recent 9 - 4 seasons. They knew in their minds it should have been better. Those same fans would now love to be 9-4 this season. I am guilty. I'm just saying history says 8 and 4 or 9 and 3 seasons are not bad just because they are not playing for a championship. They are average for 110 teams every year.
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An 8-4 average masks the peak seasons. But those peaks are there.

This is a championship program. So we're gonna hold out for the guy who can get us back to summiting, at least once in a while.

Is it Jeremy? I hope so. But we just don't know yet.
 
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#44
#44
MyBloodRunnethOrange said:
Just when Dickey had the program on a level ready to compete with Alabama, he bolted for his Alma mater. We made a disastrous hire in Bill Battle. He did alright for a few years with Dickey's players, but steadily ran the program into the ground. But the time Coach Majors took over in 77 it was at rock bottom. It took him until 83 to get back to winning like Tennessee fans were accustomed to.
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This is an interesting point. I started in 1981 and the team was just starting to show some signs that they were becoming something special again. I was lucky enough to travel to a bowl game every year I was in the band. Unfortunately, by the standards of some posters on this board now, CJM would not have even been the coach when I started, little less the wonderful '85 SB beatdown.
 
#45
#45
a vol n tears said:
Most every fan on here was unimpressed with the two recent 9 - 4 seasons. They knew in their minds it should have been better. Those same fans would now love to be 9-4 this season. I am guilty. I'm just saying history says 8 and 4 or 9 and 3 seasons are not bad just because they are not playing for a championship. They are average for 110 teams every year.
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There are 9 win seasons that are about what we were expecting. There are 9 win seasons where the team overachieves to reach that win total. Then there are 9 win seasons where the team vastly underachieves.
 
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#46
#46
Pride85 said:
This is an interesting point. I started in 1981 and the team was just starting to show some signs that they were becoming something special again. I was lucky enough to travel to a bowl game every year I was in the band. Unfortunately, by the standards of some posters on this board now, CJM would not have even been the coach when I started, little less the wonderful '85 SB beatdown.
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I think the thing that Majors had in his corner is that he was a legend as a player. I've stated before that he was probably the Peyton Manning of his era. That in itself bought him some goodwill with the fan base that other coaches wouldn't have been given.
 
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#47
#47
UTK said:
You should expect 90s success or actually even greater. Simply because UT has it all to be a top 10 program every year. Besides mangament and coaches. Hopefully that’s fixed now.
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I thing missing......Recruiting base. That is Huge.
 
#48
#48
MurphyVol said:
Interesting to hear people talk about Bill Battle in Dooley terms.

He won 31 games in a 3 year period, had a much higher win % than Johnny and was 8-4 in year 4 (couldn't have all still been Doug's players). He was 6-5 his last season and Johnny was 6-5-1 in year 6. Not saying we should have kept him, just not sure he was the disaster we make him out to be
Click to expand...
"Come back home Bill Battle, we mad a Major mistake."
 
#49
#49
People aren't considering how the playoffs have changed the landscape in terms of winning a championship. It's so much harder now cause now you have to beat 2 of the top 4 teams in the country in back to back games. If there was a playoff system since the very beginning a lot of the claimed and outright titles would be different. You're not winning a title in this era with 2 loses
 
#50
#50
What in tarnation is going' on, here? Bunch pimple-poppers getting' the deep quiver over Tennessee football?
 
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