Tennessee fans wanted to believe in someone so badly that when he rolled in with his smooth talking BS, everyone bought in to it because we all wanted the things he was saying to be true. We wanted to believe that because of who Monte was and because we believed that we had all these NFL coaches being pushed to recruit hard by the guy who they wrote the book about recruiting on. All out there getting us some top grade talent on the field, which would finally give us a fighting chance at the UF's and UA's of the world. Whom we were nowhere near close enough to, competitively for several years. (By ANY Vols' opinion, I think.)
This once great fanbase has been fighting with mediocrity for quite sometime, and everyone was and is so very anxious to avoid the slip to national irrelevance which, is where we saw the program going. Sub-par recruiting classes, many top-notch talents not even considering us, under-performing teams, insufficient player development, perennially losing to the teams on our schedule considered to be the biggest rivalry games.
Disappointment was becoming acceptable and our fanbase was smart enought to see this. They scratched to find something to right the ship before the waterfall. Lane Kiffin was the devil making us a deal with our program. He painted a rosey picture of what he could do for us, we bought in, myself included, hook, line and sinker.
Now I feel like the drunk chick who fell asleep at the party, waking up in a puddle of her own filth. I'm disgusted with myself and ashamed of the things I have said to defend the devil and his level of intelligence, decision-making, coaching capability, and character. Boy, I will never consider myself as intelligent as I once did before this episode.
Now we have Dooley. I hope for the best but, my spirit's weakened. He has some solid qualities and I so want to believe again, but... This guy's going to have to prove himself worthy of this position before I defend anything he says or does. My football IQ isn't as high as some others' on this board so, I'll leave his resume and abilities for someone else to comment on. I know its no longer a question of whether "we want to believe in him," now its more of a "we need to believe in him."
Our program has probably rarely seen some of the deepest lows we have all had to endure during our years of support to this University, in its entire history. The way I see it, we have no choice here, everyone. We have to be as enthusiastic as possible for this coach and primarily for these players that have decided to give their all for Tennessee.
I hope and pray that Dooley has what it takes to pull us out of this nosedive trajectory we followed with the last coaching staff. But, I know if the fans don't remain strongly behind the entire program at this critical time, we would be giving in. I don't believe in giving up. No way, not one bit. We will survive this. Maybe after, a few years down the road, we will all be a little stronger along with this amazing program booming stronger than ever.
We were smart enough to see the writing on the wall before when things took a wrong turn. I hope we are smart enough to see it this time as well. This team is going to need us now more than ever so, I hope everyone out there that's looking at this situation sketically buys-in, and quickly. I'm not saying hook, line, and sinker this time but, we all need to be as loud and vocal of our support now, more than ever.
We can't quit now. GO VOLS!