I was in line at GameStop for the PS5 with DJ Henderson. Here’s what i learned.

#76
#76
VFL-82-JP said:
At Clemson, they were on the verge of firing Dabo. I mean, razor-thin margin between him and unemployment at the end of his third season at the helm.

Luckily for them, they showed a bit of patience.

For Saban at Michigan State, it was a bit different. For the first four years, they wondered if they had the right guy. Remember, though, this is Michigan State, where you don't necessarily have to be championship caliber to keep your job. So they were wondering if Saban would work out, but no pitchforks. Then, in Saban's 6th year as a head coach, and 5th year at Michigan State, he led the Spartans on a 9-2 campaign. And immediately after left them for LSU.

From _that_ point, Michigan State felt about Nick roughly the way we felt about Kiffin after 2009. Except unlike Kiffin in 2010 and beyond, Saban went on to be the best coach in America. Imagine how we'd have felt if Kiffin had won a championship at USC, then six more at UCLA. That's what Saban's departure was for the Spartans. They're STILL pissed about it.

So it's tough to compare the latter. But that's exactly my point.

How will we like it if we cut Pruitt lose after the 2021 season, and then he goes on to win championships somewhere else?

When we have the option of being like Clemson instead, sitting on our hands another year or two, and see how Pruitt matures into the job.

So yeah, the situations are roughly comparable, especially with Clemson. It's a valid comparison.
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Except Swinney was very competitive even in the losses with the big exception of the Orange Bowl game against Rich Rod which lead to the prompt firing of Steele.
 
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#78
#78
VFL-82-JP said:
Here's a simple fact that, once you hear it, you'll say, "oh. yeah.":

Every loss looks ugly as hell to passionate fans of a losing team. I mean, fugly. It never looks reasonable.

I mean, tell me the last pretty loss you remember the Vols suffering.

The losing team always looks lost, they seem to have quit, they seem to have no fire, when the fan base is unreasonable.

And we're unreasonable. Because we want to be champions. So it all looks like dog poop when we lose.

Same for Clemson fans when they were losing, I'm sure. It's in the nature of passionate fandom.
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Pretty much disagree with all this. Each game is different. I watch the game and determine what happened.
Sometimes the winner is just better, you played up to potential but just got beat
Other times games are winnable but although the team played well overall a missed FG, fumble or Int happens and you blew it.
Losing six to seven to better teams while playing well and blowing a game with a bad break is night and day
From getting embarrassed by better teams while playing terrible in 4 , and losing 3 more because the team looks lost and underperforms in all 3.
The average fan knows the difference
 
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#79
#79
JonGrudensAgent said:
Except Swinney was very competitive even in the losses with the big exception of the Orange Bowl game against Rich Rod which lead to the prompt firing of Steele.
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Maybe, but he also lost to much weaker teams and going 6-6 is the ACC is quite different than going 6-6 in the SEC.

Dabo lost to a 2-10 Maryland team in '09. And lost to a lot of mediocre teams in '10 (7-6 BC, 8-5 UNC, 8-5 USF). And then all of his losses in '11 were by huge margins.

Not saying Pruitt is Dabo, but it really took Dabo till Year 5 to get things rolling consistently. In an easier conference. And with a better jump-start than Pruitt (remember, Dabo got to recruit a lot of his own players before he became HC since he was assistant head coach on Bowden's staff).

There are a lot of things about Pruitt that make me think he could be a Dabo or Saban. The way recruits and players talk about him is one of those things. I never heard people talk about Butch Jones like that. But there are other things that concern me, with his stubbornness on the offense being #1 on the list.
 
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#80
#80
VFL-82-JP said:
Folks like to think about the Urban Meyers of the world, guys who come in and start having huge success in their first year or two as a head coach.

That does happen. There are plenty of "if you don't win big in the first three years, you won't win big" examples.

But as you point out, there is proof that's far from always true. You mentioned Coach Beamer. Here are a couple of other fellas:

Dabo Swinney's first three years as head coach (all at Clemson):
4-3
9-5
6-7

Nick Saban's first five years (at Toledo for one season, then Michigan State):
9-2
6-5-1
6-6
7-5
6-6

Now, we could cut Jeremy loose because he's not getting us to championship level as fast as any of us would like.

And, truth in advertising, he might never get us there. No guarantees. He might not be the right guy.

On the other hand, we might be the Michigan State of Pruitt's career. The place where he never won a lot, but where he learned how to be a head coach.

So we have to ask ourselves: do we want to be a Michigan State, paying the price so someone else (LSU and Bama) can reap the rewards? Or do we want to be a Clemson, show a little patience, and see if he'll get the head coaching thing down?

I'm with you, a proponent of giving the man some more time.
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How many times is it going to need to be said that Dabo's actual 3rd year as the head coach he won 10 games and the ACC title game? His interim year when he hadn't been in charge of running the program at all, isn't a full year. Fulmer's 3rd year was 1995, not 1994. Dabo went to the ACC title game in year one. He was not under danger of being fired after his second year on the job.

The Saban argument is even funnier. He took over Michgan State that had just been placed under crippling probation for 4 years when he took the job. He was only able to offer 18 scholarships a year for a couple of years. His first season they were above .500 for the first time in 5 seasons. His third season they were ranked as high as 11, their highest ranking since 1987. By year 4 he beat #1 ranked Ohio State, the game that actually let Tennessee take over at #1 in the AP poll. His final year there was their best season since 1965. They hadn't been in the top 5 since 1967 and he got them there. He was a red hot coach LSU went all in on. You act like Michigan State fired him. There are no parallels between he and Pruitt at this point. Saban has never finished below .500. Pruitt will 2 times in his first 3 seasons.
 
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#81
#81
VolArmy74 said:
How many times is it going to need to be said that Dabo's actual 3rd year as the head coach he won 10 games and the ACC title game? His interim year when he hadn't been in charge of running the program at all, isn't a full year. Fulmer's 3rd year was 1995, not 1994. Dabo went to the ACC title game in year one. He was not under danger of being fired after his second year on the job.
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This is a complete BS distinction.

The main reason is because you're totally ignoring the actual disadvantage for most 1st year coaches, which is recruiting. The transitional year normally yields a weaker class and a coach doesn't get his first good class till Year 2. This is why it often takes a few years for a new coach to get going.

Dabo is no different in spite of being an interim coach in Year 1. Indeed, much the opposite, Dabo actually had a jump-start on recruiting because he was on Bowden's staff for 6 years and got to recruit his own players before he became HC. So saying "he was an interim" actually ends up being a poor argument here, because he had a similar situation to most coaches for his 2nd recruiting class, and indeed, even had a jump-start on most coaches.

It's also inaccurate. There were a lot of irate Clemson fans who wanted to fire Dabo after both 2010 and 2011. You seem to be forgetting that going 10-4 with a lot of blowout losses in the ACC in 2011 was not viewed very favorably. The ACC was extremely weak back then and getting blown out by both South Carolina and West Virginia was not a good sign of Clemson's competitiveness nationally.
 
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#83
#83
DiderotsGhost said:
This is a complete BS distinction.

The main reason is because you're totally ignoring the actual disadvantage for most 1st year coaches, which is recruiting. The transitional year normally yields a weaker class and a coach doesn't get his first good class till Year 2. This is why it often takes a few years for a new coach to get going.

Dabo is no different in spite of being an interim coach in Year 1. Indeed, much the opposite, Dabo actually had a jump-start on recruiting because he was on Bowden's staff for 6 years and got to recruit his own players before he became HC. So saying "he was an interim" actually ends up being a poor argument here, because he had a similar situation to most coaches for his 2nd recruiting class, and indeed, even had a jump-start on most coaches.

It's also inaccurate. There were a lot of irate Clemson fans who wanted to fire Dabo after both 2010 and 2011.
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PLUS it's an ACC slate of games

mic drop
 
#84
#84
DiderotsGhost said:
Maybe, but he also lost to much weaker teams and going 6-6 is the ACC is quite different than going 6-6 in the SEC.

Dabo lost to a 2-10 Maryland team in '09. And lost to a lot of mediocre teams in '10 (7-6 BC, 8-5 UNC, 8-5 USF). And then all of his losses in '11 were by huge margins.

Not saying Pruitt is Dabo, but it really took Dabo till Year 5 to get things rolling consistently. In an easier conference. And with a better jump-start than Pruitt (remember, Dabo got to recruit a lot of his own players before he became HC since he was assistant head coach on Bowden's staff).

There are a lot of things about Pruitt that make me think he could be a Dabo or Saban. The way recruits and players talk about him is one of those things. I never heard people talk about Butch Jones like that. But there are other things that concern me, with his stubbornness on the offense being #1 on the list.
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The weaker conference angle is valid but look at his record early on against FSU. He took #1 FSU to overtime in 2014. He beat them twice in 5 tries from 09 to 14.

How is Pruitt holding up in the early going against Bama and Ga?

And then there is this regarding Swinney ...he can hang against the SEC. Throw out the 9-1 record since 2016, that still has him at .500 against the SEC early in his tenure.

CLEMSON SUCCESS VS. SEC OPPONENTS Clemson has enjoyed a recent run of success against opponents…

ACC isn't the SEC but the Vols get the benefit of what used to be some cupcakes of their own in KY and Vandy.

Now its a legit question as to whether we get swept by them or not. And I think the gap between those teams are as much TN underperforming as Vandy or KY overperforming.
 
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#85
#85
Unfortunately sounds like Smith is a bad apple. Maybe I’m reading too much into this.
 
#86
#86
DiderotsGhost said:
This is a complete BS distinction.

The main reason is because you're totally ignoring the actual disadvantage for most 1st year coaches, which is recruiting. The transitional year normally yields a weaker class and a coach doesn't get his first good class till Year 2. This is why it often takes a few years for a new coach to get going.

Dabo is no different in spite of being an interim coach in Year 1. Indeed, much the opposite, Dabo actually had a jump-start on recruiting because he was on Bowden's staff for 6 years and got to recruit his own players before he became HC. So saying "he was an interim" actually ends up being a poor argument here, because he had a similar situation to most coaches for his 2nd recruiting class, and indeed, even had a jump-start on most coaches.

It's also inaccurate. There were a lot of irate Clemson fans who wanted to fire Dabo after both 2010 and 2011. You seem to be forgetting that going 10-4 with a lot of blowout losses in the ACC in 2011 was not viewed very favorably. The ACC was extremely weak back then and getting blown out by both South Carolina and West Virginia was not a good sign of Clemson's competitiveness nationally.
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Dabo was the wide receivers coach. He wasn't steering the program for 6 years.
Their athletic director even admitted it was actually unfair to Dabo in a way to give him the job because he wasn't prepared to run a program as a head coach having 0 experience even at the coordinator level. Fans were mad at one season, his second. But he still went to a bowl then. He also had the A.D. and school president on his side. He was never under any true pressure about being fired. That 10 win 3rd season was the most wins they had had there in decades. Hell, Dabo's 1st season with 9 wins was tied for the most wins they had in a season in 19 years.
 
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#87
#87
Freak said:
The real question nobody is asking here...


How’s the PS5?
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See, I don't understand why people buy the PS or XBox any more. Just get a gaming PC, brah!

Are there really enough original games on XBox or PS to justify buying them versus a gaming PC?
 
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#88
#88
JonGrudensAgent said:
The weaker conference angle is valid but look at his record early on against FSU. He took #1 FSU to overtime in 2014. He beat them twice in 5 tries from 09 to 14.

How is Pruitt holding up in the early going against Bama and Ga?

And then there is this regarding Swinney ...he can hang against the SEC. Throw out the 9-1 record since 2016, that still has him at .500 against the SEC early in his tenure.

CLEMSON SUCCESS VS. SEC OPPONENTS Clemson has enjoyed a recent run of success against opponents…

ACC isn't the SEC but the Vols get the benefit of what used to be some cupcakes of their own in KY and Vandy.

Now its a legit question as to whether we get swept by them or not. And I think the gap between those teams are as much TN underperforming as Vandy or KY overperforming.
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You should not disregard the job Stoops has done at the basketball school.
 
#90
#90
Carp said:
I mean those Ark players that were there won 4 games the prior 2 seasons combines. I would think they would be pretty humble after that. Pittman was also able to get a pretty good QB with past success in the SEC. That helped quite a bit.
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Our players went 0-8 in the SEC the year before Pruitt got here, they should have been pretty humble after that, especially with the magnitude of some of the beat downs we got in Butch's last year 45-7 by Bama, 41-0 by Georgia and 50-17 by Missouri, freaking MISSOURI. Pruitt's first team turned around and lost to Missouri by the same margin.
 
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#91
#91
Christian Lowe said:
he said pruitt is smart, and the coaches are good. the older players, for whatever reason, just don’t listen to him when it comes game time. he said guarantano is a genius, and he has everything it takes... in practice. he just loses everything when the lights come on. he doesn’t know why.
he said jennings was crazy, but he knew how to pull the team together. the team doesn’t have that anymore. but overall, he said he thinks pruitt can get it done when the bad apples are gone.

he’s working at amazon in spartanburg, SC where he grew up, also where i grew up. he’s a cool guy. y’all don’t have to believe me, but everything i said here is true.
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Then why doesn’t he bench the older guys?
 
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#92
#92
VFL-82-JP said:
Folks like to think about the Urban Meyers of the world, guys who come in and start having huge success in their first year or two as a head coach.

That does happen. There are plenty of "if you don't win big in the first three years, you won't win big" examples.

But as you point out, there is proof that's far from always true. You mentioned Coach Beamer. Here are a couple of other fellas:

Dabo Swinney's first three years as head coach (all at Clemson):
4-3
9-5
6-7

Nick Saban's first five years (at Toledo for one season, then Michigan State):
9-2
6-5-1
6-6
7-5
6-6

Now, we could cut Jeremy loose because he's not getting us to championship level as fast as any of us would like.

And, truth in advertising, he might never get us there. No guarantees. He might not be the right guy.

On the other hand, we might be the Michigan State of Pruitt's career. The place where he never won a lot, but where he learned how to be a head coach.

So we have to ask ourselves: do we want to be a Michigan State, paying the price so someone else (LSU and Bama) can reap the rewards? Or do we want to be a Clemson, show a little patience, and see if he'll get the head coaching thing down?

I'm with you, a proponent of giving the man some more time.
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JP, I am torn. I DO want CJP to succeed, if he is successful so are our beloved Vols.

On the other hand... someone at a P5 is going to hire Hugh Freeze, and his football history suggests that he is going to turn someone around in a big way, assuming his... foibles?... are rectified. There is this other part of me that desperately wants to take that plunge. Losing to SC or Vandy or Memphis or whomever takes that chance is not a future I want to consider.
 
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#93
#93
VFL-82-JP said:
Here's a simple fact that, once you hear it, you'll say, "oh. yeah.":

Every loss looks ugly as hell to passionate fans of a losing team. I mean, fugly. It never looks reasonable.

I mean, tell me the last pretty loss you remember the Vols suffering.

The losing team always looks lost, they seem to have quit, they seem to have no fire, when the fan base is unreasonable.

And we're unreasonable. Because we want to be champions. So it all looks like dog poop when we lose.

Same for Clemson fans when they were losing, I'm sure. It's in the nature of passionate fandom.
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That is an interesting question, the last "reasonable" loss we had. Maybe... Bama game with Dobbs at qb that we almost (perhaps should've) won?
 
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#95
#95
Christian Lowe said:
he said pruitt is smart, and the coaches are good. the older players, for whatever reason, just don’t listen to him when it comes game time. he said guarantano is a genius, and he has everything it takes... in practice. he just loses everything when the lights come on. he doesn’t know why.
he said jennings was crazy, but he knew how to pull the team together. the team doesn’t have that anymore. but overall, he said he thinks pruitt can get it done when the bad apples are gone.

he’s working at amazon in spartanburg, SC where he grew up, also where i grew up. he’s a cool guy. y’all don’t have to believe me, but everything i said here is true.
Click to expand...

The more important question is, did you get a PS5? Mine's being delivered tomorrow.

Edit: Never mind. I see that you got one.
 
#99
#99
JoAllan said:
I certainly believe. However we should all probably listen to logic, what we see and what we know......over anyone’s opinion especially one which “could” be skewed.

look....I wanted Pruitt to thrive......because I love the Vols.

“If” JG is freakin Tom Brady in practice.....but by year 5 he is still JG in game......at some point the “practice” doesn’t matter......if your losing.

If there are bad apples. At some point (if your losing anyway) you simply have to put “your” young talent on the field......and get those who won’t do or can’t do off.

Pruitt is the head coach. He can decide who gets on (the field) and who comes off. He supposedly has a bunch of young talent.....which HE has decided not to play.

Seriously if your going to lose anyway.....why not lose with “good apples” on the field.

Why not lose with an open play book.

Why not lose with the motivated players.

Why not lose while “talking the chance” to win.

And if you screw up big time and you don’t kick a needed FG....why not own it......everyone will respect you more.
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the very essence of the "armchair coach"
 
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#100
#100
Not sure why anyone on earth would want to bring up Dabo Or Saban.......when trying to make comparisons to Pruitt.

It’s seriously dumb!

Dabo went to a bowl game year 1, year 2 and year 3. He went to the championship game in year 2 (first full year) had won 10 games by year 4 (3rd full)......not to mention he had one blow out loss over his first 35 games........Pruitt has had 12 over his first 31 games.

Saban has NEVER had a losing season......anywhere.

Saban had 4 blow out losses over his first 48 games.......again Pruitt 12 in 31 games!


Some of you simply can’t grasp that Pruitt isn’t a good head coach.
 
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