Doug Matthews show today

[Tin Man]

Looking back, John Ward made you (me) feel like you (I) were (was) in the stadium in beautiful east Tennessee every Saturday. Always set the scene, color of trees, the way the sky look, the river, temperature, the beauty of the field and fans, Pride of the Southland Band, the National Anthem with George and all the things that you see and here in your minds eye. Then came the game, you could see it in the same way as he described the players of both teams running up and down the field. There is now way to completely describe what Mr. John Ward meant to UT football, and UT sports in general. (remembered and spoken from the west of the great state of Tennessee)

"It's football time in Tennessee!" will forever be associated with John Ward. John also loved Tennessee basketball (See if you can find recordings of him calling the Ernie & Bernie Show during the mid-'70s). I think that he would be thrilled with this year's roundball Vols (especially following last year's team).

 

[Seattle Hillbilly]

He’s literally been wrong about everything he’s predicted the last several months. The 2 that jump right to mind is, obviously, the OC hire and his recent statement that “there’s no way Tennessee has 6 offensive coaches and 4 defensive coaches on this staff, Pruitt will definitely make changes there to even things out to 5 on each side of the ball”.

Now, there are some things that he’s said recently about AD priorities, including upgrades to Neyland stadium, where he said he spoke directly with Fulmer about....that’s one thing, he’s gonna be accurate there because he has direct ties with Phil and Phil will talk with him about those things. But if Doug is making predictions about coaching hires or things specially involving team/staff personnel, things he says he doesn’t ask Phil about, then you can bet he’s guessing, that his information is 50/50, AT BEST....and recently it’s been 0/100.

Interesting take KB. But there's still time for Pruitt to prove him right about the coaching alignment.

 

[RollerVol]

Did he have any clue as to when we will hire our OC?

Coach/AD Fulmer will be calling the plays...

GO VOLS!

 

[GoVols64]

I don't know, you notice he said pump the brakes on the expectations for the freshmen OL, that liability isn't going to turn into a strength anytime soon. Considering we are replacing the DL starters as well I think a 1-2 game improvement will be a solid outing for this coaching staff.

Hopefully we can be a 8-9 win team in 2020, but to sniff championships, we've got to close the talent gap with Bama and Georgia, and we haven't begun to do that yet. They both signed essentially twice as many 4 and 5 star recruits as we did in 2019, even though we had a solid class.

Our immediate goal is beating Sakerlina, Mizzou, and Vandy consistently. This past recruiting class has us on our way to that goal, but I doubt we beat all of them this year though.

Quit being so level headed, this post makes too much sense!

In all seriousness if this team can compete with the big dogs, win the games we are supposed to and gain confidence as the season progresses we may be able to surprise some folks later in the year. To your point, it will all boil down to the OL and DL play. If we can get great OL technique (which should improve our ability to stay on the field) it will offset the strength issues to a degree. This opens up a late season run and at least stomp Vandy!

 

[Dudleys87]

He’s literally been wrong about everything he’s predicted the last several months. The 2 that jump right to mind is, obviously, the OC hire and his recent statement that “there’s no way Tennessee has 6 offensive coaches and 4 defensive coaches on this staff, Pruitt will definitely make changes there to even things out to 5 on each side of the ball”.

Now, there are some things that he’s said recently about AD priorities, including upgrades to Neyland stadium, where he said he spoke directly with Fulmer about....that’s one thing, he’s gonna be accurate there because he has direct ties with Phil and Phil will talk with him about those things. But if Doug is making predictions about coaching hires or things specially involving team/staff personnel, things he says he doesn’t ask Phil about, then you can bet he’s guessing, that his information is 50/50, AT BEST....and recently it’s been 0/100.

Everyone is wrong at some point or another. Hell some are wrong more than right. To say that he’s not connected or Doesent know anything about Tennessee football is clearly wrong.

 

[SmokinBob]

Looking back, John Ward made you (me) feel like you (I) were (was) in the stadium in beautiful east Tennessee every Saturday. Always set the scene, color of trees, the way the sky look, the river, temperature, the beauty of the field and fans, Pride of the Southland Band, the National Anthem with George and all the things that you see and here in your minds eye. Then came the game, you could see it in the same way as he described the players of both teams running up and down the field. There is now way to completely describe what Mr. John Ward meant to UT football, and UT sports in general. (remembered and spoken from the west of the great state of Tennessee)

Spoken well, savannahfan. The same feelings and descriptions were true for those of us from the east of the great state of Tennessee, as well.

We spent every fall Saturday “watching” the radio as our Vols played - seeing everything through John Ward’s eyes.

We also watched our BasketVols the same way!