A valuable lesson Tennessee has yet to learn

[joevol33]

that's Danny White's job to decide. you write me a check for 10 million and I'll find you a coach! until then it don't matter who Id hire.

I understand it's his job. I'm just wondering for all those wanting Heupel fired, who they think White is going to get. I'm afraid some of you have short memories, or are new fans. We were nothing between Fulmer and Heupel. We haven't win anything, but we have beaten bama twice, Florida, won 10 games a couple of times. That's a long way from going 0-8 in conference play, and getting busted for McDonald's bags. I'm not happy, especially after Saturday, and I see he's going to have to make changes, or it'll be his job. However, those of you calling for his head are on a message board, and not an athletic director for a reason. If y'all really knew better, you'd have that job. Sincerely, not trying to sound like that sounds, but goodness, I don't wanna go back to what we were just a few years ago.

 

[GetYouSomeofThat]

It's cult like the way some folks latch onto a coach. These multi millionaire coaches wouldn't give any of them the time of day. And these coaches will leave over more money and a better contract in a heartbeat. Really odd how emotional some folks get if anything negative is said about these overpaid PE teachers.

Even more odd how some grown ass men get so aroused at the prospect of a coaching search.

 

[The_topis_Rocky89]

being a "hot name" ain't the same thing as being a proven head coach. only a proven head coach can even be considered a splash hire.

Ryan Day has been able to sustain OSU all on his own. but you're right he inherited a program with talent which is exactly what Tennessee has right now and exactly the point of this lesson.

Kirby Smart was groomed by Nick Saban and I give him credit he didn’t just jump for any job. He was also arguably the best coordinator/ recruiters in America for close to a decade. Even in his time at UGA people forget the early years. First yr lost to Butch Jones, 3rd yr lost 3 or 4 games. Why we should be encouraged by Heupel is we just need him to hire his Brent Venebales.

 

[JMSqb11]

whenever calls come to fire the coach there are many grown @ss men on this board that literally sh!t themselves with fear.

Why? Its because of the dumb way that Tennessee will let a coach hang around until they completely ruin the program to an unfixable level before they let them walk and make the program so undesirable that nobody will coach here. when in reality the only thing that matters is not who the coach is but what is the current state of the program. you need to preserve that.

what do Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia and LSU all have in common? they all made coaching transitions one way or another BEFORE the program was a disaster.

and did they make splash hires?

well Bama hires Deboer who was almost a nobody with just 3 years HC experience. those fans don't even like him. Tennessee fans never would not have considered this a splash hire for Tennessee.

Georgia hired a DC with no head coaching experience. Basically Jeremy Pruitt 1.0. not a splash hire at the time.

OSU hired an assistant coach from within the program that nobody outside of OSU had ever even heard of.

what was far far far more important than who got hired is the fact that the program was NOT a disaster. it was NOT devoid of talent. that's because the coaching transition was allowed to happen BEFORE the coach ran the program into a ditch.

so people always love to say "oh yeah smart guy well who is your list of replacements?" and then they will act like they know something and start to disprove all your choices.

But I think the next splash hire in college football is not Lane Kiffin to LSU. its going to be a guy almost nobody has ever heard of, but he will be given the keys to a fully loaded team that isn't a disaster. and he will make a name for himself and only later will idiots call it a splash hire.

the key to making it to the elite level of college football is having lots and lots and lots of NIL money and not being afraid of change as long as that change happens BEFORE you become a 6-6 football team.

Regardless of who Heupel fires or hires for next year, we will lose a minimum of 4 games next year. that's a practical guarantee.

Tennessee won't win any SEC titles or national titles until they learn the lesson above.

I stopped reading after you seemed to imply that Kirby getting hired at Georgia was not considered a splash hire. What an absolutely brainrot statement.

 

[JMSqb11]

Kirby Smart was groomed by Nick Saban and I give him credit he didn’t just jump for any job. He was also arguably the best coordinator/ recruiters in America for close to a decade. Even in his time at UGA people forget the early years. First yr lost to Butch Jones, 3rd yr lost 3 or 4 games. Why we should be encouraged by Heupel is we just need him to hire his Brent Venebales.

Kirby was literally getting thrown job offer after job offer after their second natty..... He waited for his alma mater to open up. The notion that Kirby was somehow a project hire or not a splash hire for Georgia is just an amazing take.

 

[Rickyvol77]

whenever calls come to fire the coach there are many grown @ss men on this board that literally sh!t themselves with fear.

Why? Its because of the dumb way that Tennessee will let a coach hang around until they completely ruin the program to an unfixable level before they let them walk and make the program so undesirable that nobody will coach here. when in reality the only thing that matters is not who the coach is but what is the current state of the program. you need to preserve that.

what do Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia and LSU all have in common? they all made coaching transitions one way or another BEFORE the program was a disaster.

and did they make splash hires?

well Bama hires Deboer who was almost a nobody with just 3 years HC experience. those fans don't even like him. Tennessee fans never would not have considered this a splash hire for Tennessee.

Georgia hired a DC with no head coaching experience. Basically Jeremy Pruitt 1.0. not a splash hire at the time.

OSU hired an assistant coach from within the program that nobody outside of OSU had ever even heard of.

what was far far far more important than who got hired is the fact that the program was NOT a disaster. it was NOT devoid of talent. that's because the coaching transition was allowed to happen BEFORE the coach ran the program into a ditch.

so people always love to say "oh yeah smart guy well who is your list of replacements?" and then they will act like they know something and start to disprove all your choices.

But I think the next splash hire in college football is not Lane Kiffin to LSU. its going to be a guy almost nobody has ever heard of, but he will be given the keys to a fully loaded team that isn't a disaster. and he will make a name for himself and only later will idiots call it a splash hire.

the key to making it to the elite level of college football is having lots and lots and lots of NIL money and not being afraid of change as long as that change happens BEFORE you become a 6-6 football team.

Regardless of who Heupel fires or hires for next year, we will lose a minimum of 4 games next year. that's a practical guarantee.

Tennessee won't win any SEC titles or national titles until they learn the lesson above.

Maybe you should post the same drivel over and over again but repackage it with a different title each time. Oh wait

 

[volfan4evr]

I have been a Volunteer fan since 1965. Since that time I have seen many changes. Some better than others. But, what I have noticed is that very successful programs (OSU, Bama) have one thing in common. The support from the top is always the same. They will not tolerate average. It has to be top notch results or the coach is gone.

I believe we now have that kind of administration here. Danny White knows what a good football program looks like. I trust him to run the show. I know he and Heupel have worked together for several years, so they have that connection. My only worry is that will they spend the money to be elite? Do they even want to spend that much money on a football program? The BOT has control of things at UT. It's up to them to make the change if it is necessary.

I'll stand behind them like I have for the last 60 years. I may not agree with their decisions, but I'm all in.

 

[RDU VOL#14]

whenever calls come to fire the coach there are many grown @ss men on this board that literally sh!t themselves with fear.

Why? Its because of the dumb way that Tennessee will let a coach hang around until they completely ruin the program to an unfixable level before they let them walk and make the program so undesirable that nobody will coach here. when in reality the only thing that matters is not who the coach is but what is the current state of the program. you need to preserve that.

what do Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia and LSU all have in common? they all made coaching transitions one way or another BEFORE the program was a disaster.

and did they make splash hires?

well Bama hires Deboer who was almost a nobody with just 3 years HC experience. those fans don't even like him. Tennessee fans never would not have considered this a splash hire for Tennessee.

Georgia hired a DC with no head coaching experience. Basically Jeremy Pruitt 1.0. not a splash hire at the time.

OSU hired an assistant coach from within the program that nobody outside of OSU had ever even heard of.

what was far far far more important than who got hired is the fact that the program was NOT a disaster. it was NOT devoid of talent. that's because the coaching transition was allowed to happen BEFORE the coach ran the program into a ditch.

so people always love to say "oh yeah smart guy well who is your list of replacements?" and then they will act like they know something and start to disprove all your choices.

But I think the next splash hire in college football is not Lane Kiffin to LSU. its going to be a guy almost nobody has ever heard of, but he will be given the keys to a fully loaded team that isn't a disaster. and he will make a name for himself and only later will idiots call it a splash hire.

the key to making it to the elite level of college football is having lots and lots and lots of NIL money and not being afraid of change as long as that change happens BEFORE you become a 6-6 football team.

Regardless of who Heupel fires or hires for next year, we will lose a minimum of 4 games next year. that's a practical guarantee.

Tennessee won't win any SEC titles or national titles until they learn the lesson above.

I’m trying to recall what kind of shape those programs were in when they hired new coaches .

UGA had the stability of Mark Richt for over a decade and had won SEC championships and had the roster pretty loaded for Kirby, a UGA alum.

Ohio State had Urban Meyer leave the cupboard full for his OC

Alabama obviously was loaded with talent left over from Saban.

So… not exactly apples to oranges. And there’s no guarantee about anything next year. We don’t even know who’s on the roster. We could win 6, we could win 11.

 

[agent|orange]

I don't know, it looks to me like Alabama made a lot of dumb coaching decisions too, and had just as much of a habit of waiting until they had a "wheels off the bus" season as anyone else. Both Dubose and Shula had a pooped-their-pants season before getting axed.

View attachment 794345
Also, the same genius AD that hired Dennis "Fifth-Choice-ione," Mike Price, and Mike Shula, also hired Nick Saban. Funny how that stuff works, sometimes.

Remember the AD that hired Franchione, Price and Shula initially wanted to hire Rich Rodriguez. They completely lucked into Saban and it cost them dropping a $4mil/year pricetag on him. That was double the going rate at the time with most top-flight coaches making 2-3mil tops.

 

[Fanforlife21]

Just to see all the heads explode, if we head in a different direction I hope they pick Banks to be the head man.

 

[CAVPUT]

whenever calls come to fire the coach there are many grown @ss men on this board that literally sh!t themselves with fear.

Why? Its because of the dumb way that Tennessee will let a coach hang around until they completely ruin the program to an unfixable level before they let them walk and make the program so undesirable that nobody will coach here. when in reality the only thing that matters is not who the coach is but what is the current state of the program. you need to preserve that.

what do Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia and LSU all have in common? they all made coaching transitions one way or another BEFORE the program was a disaster.

and did they make splash hires?

well Bama hires Deboer who was almost a nobody with just 3 years HC experience. those fans don't even like him. Tennessee fans never would not have considered this a splash hire for Tennessee.

Georgia hired a DC with no head coaching experience. Basically Jeremy Pruitt 1.0. not a splash hire at the time.

OSU hired an assistant coach from within the program that nobody outside of OSU had ever even heard of.

what was far far far more important than who got hired is the fact that the program was NOT a disaster. it was NOT devoid of talent. that's because the coaching transition was allowed to happen BEFORE the coach ran the program into a ditch.

so people always love to say "oh yeah smart guy well who is your list of replacements?" and then they will act like they know something and start to disprove all your choices.

But I think the next splash hire in college football is not Lane Kiffin to LSU. its going to be a guy almost nobody has ever heard of, but he will be given the keys to a fully loaded team that isn't a disaster. and he will make a name for himself and only later will idiots call it a splash hire.

the key to making it to the elite level of college football is having lots and lots and lots of NIL money and not being afraid of change as long as that change happens BEFORE you become a 6-6 football team.

Regardless of who Heupel fires or hires for next year, we will lose a minimum of 4 games next year. that's a practical guarantee.

Tennessee won't win any SEC titles or national titles until they learn the lesson above.

Many suggest that they'd like to retain Heupel, but change up his staff. Maybe Golesh plucking a few guys from Heupel will force his hand? Yeah, he will take what good coaches and recruiters we have....which aren't many...but that provides opportunity to get some fresh blood, discipline. Heck, maybe they can even coach and recruit? Surely Heupel is out of groomsmen and buddies to hire?

It's going to be interesting to see what direction Heupel goes. Sadly, I don't see him going the saban route and hiring super talented coaches. I think he'll promote from with in and go after guys he has connections with from his past that he's comfortable with. Sad. He walked on water with this fan base just 3 short years ago. Now he in the soup, and I have no confidence that he'll try to get out. Dude seems to be on cruise control and the approaching cliff be damned. Full speed ahead.

 

[Budalicious]

whenever calls come to fire the coach there are many grown @ss men on this board that literally sh!t themselves with fear.

Why? Its because of the dumb way that Tennessee will let a coach hang around until they completely ruin the program to an unfixable level before they let them walk and make the program so undesirable that nobody will coach here. when in reality the only thing that matters is not who the coach is but what is the current state of the program. you need to preserve that.

what do Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia and LSU all have in common? they all made coaching transitions one way or another BEFORE the program was a disaster.

and did they make splash hires?

well Bama hires Deboer who was almost a nobody with just 3 years HC experience. those fans don't even like him. Tennessee fans never would not have considered this a splash hire for Tennessee.

Georgia hired a DC with no head coaching experience. Basically Jeremy Pruitt 1.0. not a splash hire at the time.

OSU hired an assistant coach from within the program that nobody outside of OSU had ever even heard of.

what was far far far more important than who got hired is the fact that the program was NOT a disaster. it was NOT devoid of talent. that's because the coaching transition was allowed to happen BEFORE the coach ran the program into a ditch.

so people always love to say "oh yeah smart guy well who is your list of replacements?" and then they will act like they know something and start to disprove all your choices.

But I think the next splash hire in college football is not Lane Kiffin to LSU. its going to be a guy almost nobody has ever heard of, but he will be given the keys to a fully loaded team that isn't a disaster. and he will make a name for himself and only later will idiots call it a splash hire.

the key to making it to the elite level of college football is having lots and lots and lots of NIL money and not being afraid of change as long as that change happens BEFORE you become a 6-6 football team.

Regardless of who Heupel fires or hires for next year, we will lose a minimum of 4 games next year. that's a practical guarantee.

Tennessee won't win any SEC titles or national titles until they learn the lesson above.

For every example you gave, I can give five that didn’t work.

 

[Vol8188]

You used two programs who didn’t fire their coach as examples of why we should fire our coach?

Did your school bus have less than 3 axels by chance?

 

[xpsyclonex2002]

Do you feel better? Did you get it all out? Good......

Here's what you completely ignore. Since 2016, 80% of FBS schools have replaced their head coaches. That's not a made up stat. In the same time window, Day, Orgeron, and Kirby are the only hires out of all those schools to win a NC. You could almost lump Harbaugh in there because he was hired in 2015, but it still took him 8 years (and cheating) to get a NC.
OP, you think hiring coaches fixes programs. Tennessee, LSU, Auburn, and Florida are a prime example of what happens when you try to fire your way into a championship football team. Tennessee was lost in the wilderness for 15+ years. Florida is still circling the bowl. I'm not going to say that you are 100% wrong, but you're more wrong than right. You're take is arrogant. After nearly 2 decades of irrelevance, you think it's a privilege for coaches to come here. We haven't proven that we are actually back yet. Imagine a VT, Nebraska, or Wisconsin fan posting about their programs being top tier coaching jobs. 20 years ago, that may have been true. But in 2025, these are dead end jobs. In 2025, we are in a better position than those teams. But by no means are we a top tier coaching job. 2nd tier? Yes.
Bottom line is don't look a gift horse in the mouth. We are on the edge of making the next leap. Changing coaches won't accelerate that. We are going to get our butts handed to us next year. It's baked in to our schedule due to the QB turnover. We have a phenomenal recruiting class coming in this year. They'll take some lumps next season. If we can solve some defensive issues, we might duplicate this season and even steal a win. If we're still having this conversation at the end of 2027, I'll listen.

 

[farmdogvol]

being a "hot name" ain't the same thing as being a proven head coach. only a proven head coach can even be considered a splash hire.

Ryan Day has been able to sustain OSU all on his own. but you're right he inherited a program with talent which is exactly what Tennessee has right now and exactly the point of this lesson.

DeBoer was 1 year from taking UW to the playoffs. He wasn't some unknown coach. Plenty of people who know ball knew who he was.

 

[AthensVol2007]

whenever calls come to fire the coach there are many grown @ss men on this board that literally sh!t themselves with fear.

Why? Its because of the dumb way that Tennessee will let a coach hang around until they completely ruin the program to an unfixable level before they let them walk and make the program so undesirable that nobody will coach here. when in reality the only thing that matters is not who the coach is but what is the current state of the program. you need to preserve that.

what do Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia and LSU all have in common? they all made coaching transitions one way or another BEFORE the program was a disaster.

and did they make splash hires?

well Bama hires Deboer who was almost a nobody with just 3 years HC experience. those fans don't even like him. Tennessee fans never would not have considered this a splash hire for Tennessee.

Georgia hired a DC with no head coaching experience. Basically Jeremy Pruitt 1.0. not a splash hire at the time.

OSU hired an assistant coach from within the program that nobody outside of OSU had ever even heard of.

what was far far far more important than who got hired is the fact that the program was NOT a disaster. it was NOT devoid of talent. that's because the coaching transition was allowed to happen BEFORE the coach ran the program into a ditch.

so people always love to say "oh yeah smart guy well who is your list of replacements?" and then they will act like they know something and start to disprove all your choices.

But I think the next splash hire in college football is not Lane Kiffin to LSU. its going to be a guy almost nobody has ever heard of, but he will be given the keys to a fully loaded team that isn't a disaster. and he will make a name for himself and only later will idiots call it a splash hire.

the key to making it to the elite level of college football is having lots and lots and lots of NIL money and not being afraid of change as long as that change happens BEFORE you become a 6-6 football team.

Regardless of who Heupel fires or hires for next year, we will lose a minimum of 4 games next year. that's a practical guarantee.

Tennessee won't win any SEC titles or national titles until they learn the lesson above.

Stop reading after you insinuated DeBoer was a nobody and had been a HC for 3 years.

 

[Big Orange Rob]

Here's my points of thinking:
1) Heupel has done a good job bring us back from the ashes when we were not only talent poor, but also under sanctions. Overall skill level has been upgraded, players represent themselves well for the most part (not a bunch of thugs) and we have won some big games. He's ran a clean program with no further indications of violations or penalties. Therefore he deserves the chance to fix a few things, most namely the defense, strength & conditioning and improved OL play.
2) We don't need another coaching turnover circus - we've had enough of those over the last 20 years. We built a bad reputation nationally as a coaching carousel, which was used extensively against us. Stability is important with recruits and their parents.
3) With all the coaching openings, probably not a good year to be coach shopping. You don't fire coaches unless you have "the guy" already in your pocket.

Nobody is happy with the way this season played out, especially getting dominated by vandy. However, it may turn out to be a blessing in disguise because it may be what was needed to force changes that are needed to take us to the next level. If we don't see some improvement in the next year or two, then time to move on.

 

[VOL765309]

Do you hold the record for most started threads?

Well......lets put our money on that prediction

 

[Zues1]

People tend to forget that every Bama fan in the state of Alabama should take up $ and send Rich Rod’s wife a million dollar condo in Gulf Shores. If she had not objected to living in Tuscaloosa, Saban would have never been hired by Bama. Rich Rod was all but going to be the next Bama coach after they canned Shula. His wife threw a fit and he declined the job.

She preferred to live in West Virginia vs Alabama.
Now think about that Bama fans..

 

[VOLtaism]

Don't fall in love with the coaches, they are hired guns brought in to perform at a high level. They will leave at the drop of the right coin in the right place. They have zero loyalty to players or fans. You have just seen that play out with a coach leaving a playoff team at the most vital moment to school history. 11-1 and he leaves his beloved players in the lurch not to mention all the recruits he made promises to over the last month before signing day. Now he will try to steal this new recruits for his new gig. This is who we are dealing with.

 

[VOLINVONORE]

I would argue he shouldn't be allowed to have a train wreck season. that's the kind of thing that makes our program undesirable. we need to hand over the keys before then.

Heupel took a train wreck team and made a winner out of a team which was as bad as Tennessee has had in more than 30 years. This years team was predicted to be 7-5/8-4. Then he lost his QB to UCLA and lost his two starting CBs to injury plus another star secondary player in Boo Carter. I think it is remarkable that his team was able to play as well as it did. That being said, there is concern with the way both his defense and offense played so poorly in the second half of the Vandy game. I believe that the play calling on offense was not up to par in the second half against Vandy as well as some of the other games we lost this year. I also believe that most of our problems on defense this year can be traced to unfortunate injuries to key players, I also believe our defensive schemes were inadequate to stop modern offenses in the SEC I do believe it is the right time to have a complete review of the performance of our assistant coaches. And the schemes we are using.

 

[Wahoooo]

Don't fall in lone with the coaches, they are hired guns brought in to perform at a high level. They will leave at the drop of the right coin in the right place. They have zero loyalty to players or fans. You have just seen that play out with a coach leaving a playoff team at the most vital moment to school history. 11-1 and he leaves his beloved players in the lurch not to mention all the recruits he made promises to over the last month before signing day. Now he will try to steal this new recruits for his new gig. This is who we are dealing with.

I tend to agree with the only exception being a coach like Kirby who is a great recruiter, decent to really good at staff decisions, most importantly he is at his alma mater. UGA is located in a great state for HS football and UGA is not short on funds. He is not going to any other college gig.

Unfortunately, I don’t know any up and coming coaches who have these type of ties to UT.

 

[adam.vol]

The last great coaching staff we had was Fulmer’s. Promoted the OC.

You could end up with Dabo Swinney or Sam Pitman. You could end up with Ed Orgeron at LSU or Ed Orgeron at USC. Maybe it all depends on where the program is when the change is made?

 

[Mocvol83]

The funny part about the original post is that you imply CJH is going to "completely ruin the program." This even despite all the good that has come from his tenure, especially compared to the previous FOUR coaches. My gosh. It was a down year. I don't need to rehash all the reasons that went into that. Give the man his credit and chill out. Could some of the coaching have been better? Absolutely, but we are a LONG ways away from the program being on the path to ruin.

 

[UTFranklinVol]

Maybe you should post the same drivel over and over again but repackage it with a different title each time. Oh wait

you can take low grade jabs at me all you want. I'm no longer interested in talking to you ever again. after your "we will beat Vanderbilt easily" drivel I know that responding to your troll work is pointless.