I read this article while ago and it confirmed what I thought before reading it
Why the State produces few SEC players - VolNation Blog
I've thought for some time that our problem exists in lack of instate talent. Not much has changed over the years in Tennessee High School football. The same schools that were good 30 years ago are good today. Back in the day my highschool played a lot of Tennessee schools and generally we won even though we were much much smaller. I remember whipping Austin East in a scrimmage. A Knoxville school v's a 1 A Kentucky school.
At whatever level a sport is played, it's dependent on the lower levels to feed it talent. Really it doesn't make a difference what sport it is, if Little League isn't feeding Jr Varsity and JV feeding the highschool and highschool feeding college, the system breaks down.
Basketball is different than football. You need 10 or so players for a basketball team. If Tennessee can produce 2 capable players out of 334 highschools per year we can keep a basketball team stocked with players. Football on the other hand needs 50 or so players, that's a dozen a year. According to this article, Tennessee produces 9.
I don't know if the answer is increasing the number of UT ran football camps, helping some of the better coached highschools to meet up with better talent, It may be that UT needs to work at the little league level to get kids involved in Football.
With UT's coaching budget 400,000 to 600,000 wouldn't be that big of a deal to come up with if it went toward hiring several hard working good coaches to promote little leagues, help with highschool players. You could probably hire a Defensive coach on the level of someone who would coach at Carson Newman for 75,000 or less. Make his unofficial job to visit area high schools and help the coaches out.
Obviously this isn't a quick fix to our problems, but IMO it's the longer term solution. Throwing money at coaches isn't going to do much if they don't have talent to work with. We paid how much to Lane and Co and what was the score of the Chicken Bowl? Why? We were obviously out classed talent wise.
Looking back in our history, Johnny Majors was one of the best coaches we've had for finding talent. His recruiting system kept Fulmer in business for a few years after Johnny was fired. Once the talent dropped, we have been what we've been since 2001 or so.
Why the State produces few SEC players - VolNation Blog
I've thought for some time that our problem exists in lack of instate talent. Not much has changed over the years in Tennessee High School football. The same schools that were good 30 years ago are good today. Back in the day my highschool played a lot of Tennessee schools and generally we won even though we were much much smaller. I remember whipping Austin East in a scrimmage. A Knoxville school v's a 1 A Kentucky school.
At whatever level a sport is played, it's dependent on the lower levels to feed it talent. Really it doesn't make a difference what sport it is, if Little League isn't feeding Jr Varsity and JV feeding the highschool and highschool feeding college, the system breaks down.
Basketball is different than football. You need 10 or so players for a basketball team. If Tennessee can produce 2 capable players out of 334 highschools per year we can keep a basketball team stocked with players. Football on the other hand needs 50 or so players, that's a dozen a year. According to this article, Tennessee produces 9.
I don't know if the answer is increasing the number of UT ran football camps, helping some of the better coached highschools to meet up with better talent, It may be that UT needs to work at the little league level to get kids involved in Football.
With UT's coaching budget 400,000 to 600,000 wouldn't be that big of a deal to come up with if it went toward hiring several hard working good coaches to promote little leagues, help with highschool players. You could probably hire a Defensive coach on the level of someone who would coach at Carson Newman for 75,000 or less. Make his unofficial job to visit area high schools and help the coaches out.
Obviously this isn't a quick fix to our problems, but IMO it's the longer term solution. Throwing money at coaches isn't going to do much if they don't have talent to work with. We paid how much to Lane and Co and what was the score of the Chicken Bowl? Why? We were obviously out classed talent wise.
Looking back in our history, Johnny Majors was one of the best coaches we've had for finding talent. His recruiting system kept Fulmer in business for a few years after Johnny was fired. Once the talent dropped, we have been what we've been since 2001 or so.
