My conversation with a VFL

[crusse10]

Ridiculous. Those coaches were paid 6 and 7 figure salaries to build a football team for the university. The university had honored those scholarships and invested in those players. Just because the coaches decided to hop a train in the middle of the night gave them no right to try and kick the university in the balls in their way out.

f me for caring about kids about to start college and their futures and what they want

 

[crusse10]

Question. Is this how you felt the night he jumped ship for USC? Like no big deal, just circumstances?

The night that he went to USC I said...yeah? Did people really NOT see this coming?

Hard to be angry when you understand the move, saw it coming the second SC opened up, and would probably do the same thing if the Tennessee job became vacant

 

[thebjd]

I am #3.

I like the Guy Fawkes mask avatar but I will always favor the Dwight Yoakam one.

 

[TheCubster]

Typical Volnation.
A player states that he actually liked Kiffin and talks about what a screw up Dooley was, and everyone focuses on griping about Kiffin.

I think you really summed it up. To me it was more about how the team loved Lane and then was ready to kill him. It was the tremendous amount of respect the team had for Monte that changed things for them/saved his life.
Also, it was more about some insight to some of the famous Dooley stories that I only knew parts of, and how much of a Doofus he really is. Also, when the whole team quit on Dooley, they still played for Tennessee and the pride of playing for Tennessee is what kept them from abandoning ship.
A few other things:
1. He never saw anyone just signing in for workouts (and looked a little surprised when I asked him about it-maybe he had to work harder than some, or whatever) so take that for what its worth.
2. His name isn't Daniel Hood. (Hood wasn't the only one who played for all three)
3. Our conversation got cut short and I didn't get to ask much about Butch.
4. Lighten up everybody-This was supposed to be about being so excited to hang out with a real VFL that I wanted to share it with my fellow armchair QB's. :mf_surrender:

 

[whobethis16]

Agree.

About a year or so ago he was a guest speaker at some function at my church. My wife asked if I was going. No way in heck was I going to see the guy that single handily ran our fb and to some extent our bb program into the toilet. I admire him for his faith and dedication but not as the leader of our athletic dept.

And that's kinda petty that you wouldn't go to a CHURCH function, something you just said that you admire in the man, because he did a job the best way he could. Hypocrisy at its best right there.

 

[GreveHaller]

And that's kinda petty that you wouldn't go to a CHURCH function, something you just said that you admire in the man, because he did a job the best way he could. Hypocrisy at its best right there.

it was a church SPONSORED function, not an official church function. But nice job of assuming something you don't know then trying to draw assumption from your fail. If that was your goal then you succeeded. Well.

 

[whobethis16]

it was a church SPONSORED function, not an official church function. But nice job of assuming something you don't know then trying to draw assumption from your fail. If that was your goal then you succeeded. Well.

If you meant church sponsored, then that's what you should've said. When one simply says "function at my church", the most common idea is it us a church function.

 

[Evet Vols]

The Kiffin hire is why TN was in such a mess. I was not on the fire Fulmer bandwagon and now we all know the flashy Kiffin hire was a mistake. Dooley came into a mess and wasn't up for it. Glad we have Butch but hate how we got here.

 

[crunchimusmaximus]

I don't blame Kiffin.......if my dream job came up, i would take it. He's a west coast guy at heart.

Dooley on the other hand.......that guy got away with murder and ruined many many players' careers. No one seems to mention that, though. Everyone chooses to be obsessed with Kiffin. A guy who saved Johnathan Crompton and Montario Hardesty and turned them into NFL prospects/players.

Dooley on the other hand, did the opposite to many many players. And our players flat our quit on Dooley multiple times....never saw that happen under Kiffin even once.

I personally like Kiffin. It sucks how he left, but this is in fact a business and UT is not in fact everyone's ultimate dream job. Hopefully, howver it is Butch Jone's ultimate job like he says.

But those three years of Dooley killed us more than anything Kiffin ever did.

If a guy like Butch was hired instead of Dooley then the Kiffin fiasco would have been a very minor blow because we would have already quickly amassed multiple back to back top 10 or top 5 casses just like what Butch is doing now instead of Dooley's mediocre classes which featured very few lineman.

The three years of Dooley not recruiting at an elite level and then choosing Sal Sunseri and neglecting to recruit any linemen did us so much more harm than Kiffin's one year in which we actually throttled UGA and South Carolina.

 

[crunchimusmaximus]

The Kiffin hire is why TN was in such a mess. I was not on the fire Fulmer bandwagon and now we all know the flashy Kiffin hire was a mistake. Dooley came into a mess and wasn't up for it. Glad we have Butch but hate how we got here.

WRONG......Dooley's three years of not recruiting and not even forcing players to c omplete their conditioning drills is what killed us. All we had to do was hire a competent recruiter and coach such as Butch instead of Dooley and we would already have been elite again starting in 2012. The kiffin year hurt us of course, but it would have been merely a simple footnote if Dooley wasn't hired.

 

[Evet Vols]

I don't blame Kiffin.......if my dream job came up, i would take it. He's a west coast guy at heart.

Dooley on the other hand.......that guy got away with murder and ruined many many players' careers. No one seems to mention that, though. Everyone chooses to be obsessed with Kiffin. A guy who saved Johnathan Crompton and Montario Hardesty and turned them into NFL prospects/players.

Dooley on the other hand, did the opposite to many many players. And our players flat our quit on Dooley multiple times....never saw that happen under Kiffin even once.

I personally like Kiffin. It sucks how he left, but this is in fact a business and UT is not in fact everyone's ultimate dream job. Hopefully, howver it is Butch Jone's ultimate job like he says.

But those three years of Dooley killed us more than anything Kiffin ever did.

If a guy like Butch was hired instead of Dooley then the Kiffin fiasco would have been a very minor blow because we would have already quickly amassed multiple back to back top 10 or top 5 casses just like what Butch is doing now instead of Dooley's mediocre classes which featured very few lineman.

The three years of Dooley not recruiting at an elite level and then choosing Sal Sunseri and neglecting to recruit any linemen did us so much more harm than Kiffin's one year in which we actually throttled UGA and South Carolina.

The Kiffin hire and Kiffin's mess is why TN could only hire someone like Dooley. Kiffin was a young flashy west coast guy which was a mistake for TN. Majors and Fulmer were both TN players and then coaches so their loyalty was unquestioned but someone like Kiffin had no loyalty. Butch is all in for TN. Go Vols !

 

[crunchimusmaximus]

The Kiffin hire and Kiffin's mess is why TN could only hire someone like Dooley. Kiffin was a young flashy west coast guy which was a mistake for TN. Majors and Fulmer were both TN players and then coaches so their loyalty was unquestioned but someone like Kiffin had no loyalty. Butch is all in for TN. Go Vols !

Are you telling me Butch Jones would have rejected the UT job after Kiffin left us choosing Cincinatti instead????????

We could have easily hired Butch then or another up and comer over Dooley after Kiffin left us.

Roster wise, we were in better overall shape than 2010 than we were in Butch's first year after Dooley left. Certainly no worse....heck we would have beaten a stacked LSU team that year if not for Dooley not being able to count properly at the end of the game.

The truth is Hamilton made a horrible horrible decision by hiring Dooley. There were plenty of quality up and coming coaches such as Butch at smaller conference schools that would have GLADLY taken the UT job. Instead, he chose the worst one possible and stuck with him for three years.

 

[Evet Vols]

Are you telling me Butch Jones would have rejected the UT job after Kiffin left us choosing Cincinatti instead????????

We could have easily hired Butch then or another up and comer over Dooley after Kiffin left us.

Roster wise, we were in better overall shape than 2010 than we were in Butch's first year after Dooley left. Certainly no worse....heck we would have beaten a stacked LSU team that year if not for Dooley not being able to count properly at the end of the game.

The truth is Hamilton made a horrible horrible decision by hiring Dooley. There were plenty of quality up and coming coaches such as Butch at smaller conference schools that would have GLADLY taken the UT job. Instead, he chose the worst one possible and stuck with him for three years.

Nobody wanted UT after the Kiffin fiasco. The Kiffin hire was the mistake and the reason we ended up with Dooley. Dooley and Kiffin burned UT down. We lucked into Butch after Dooley.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Kiffin sucked for 11 months. He had us rotting from the inside, in our soul, turning co-eds into escorts and student-athletes into cynic-athletes. When all along, he didn't really want to be here, we were just a stepping stone to something else he really desired.

Dooley sucked for 3 long years. He burned the hill down, himself with it. He was absolutely out of his depth, with not even the faintest idea how to run a top-tier college football program.

Argue all you want for which one sucked worse. Fact is, they both sucked. Anything beyond that is just kind of wallowing around in the muck of it all.

 

[gunner]

Kiffin sucked for 11 months. He had us rotting from the inside, in our soul, turning co-eds into escorts and student-athletes into cynic-athletes. When all along, he didn't really want to be here, we were just a stepping stone to something else he really desired.

Dooley sucked for 3 long years. He burned the hill down, himself with it. He was absolutely out of his depth, with not even the faintest idea how to run a top-tier college football program.

Argue all you want for which one sucked worse. Fact is, they both sucked. Anything beyond that is just kind of wallowing around in the muck of it all.

I agree both sucked, It was 4 of the darkest years of UT Football with no vision or direction.

I understand and appreciate wanting to replace Fulmer, but how did Kiffin become part of that plan.

In hindsight, I hope UT never replaces a winning coach ever again without a plan. Hiring Kiffin set UT Football back at least 5 years and maybe as many as 10.

It's much more stable for the program to keep the HC in place and just replace the coordinators every 3 years if they aren't getting it done. I think Georgia has proven that much. Winning 10 games a season is much better than winning 5.

 

[JonGrudensAgent]

People bash Hamilton as if he is some type of jerk and piece of crap. The man has a great heart and I personally think all the mission work he is doing now is greater than him being an athletic director or any other job for that matter. Yeah, he made some bonehead decisions but come on people, get over it. Sports isn't everything.

I don't necessarily disagree with any of this but you are posting it on a website dedicated to sports.

Gonna be difficult finding an audience here that will overlook Hamilton's tenure as AD.

I know I am not coming here looking to see what type of humanitarian work those associated with the athletic department are doing.

 

[Volz4lif3]

In fairness to Hamilton, No one thought Pete was going to leave USC anytime soon. As for the Dooley Hire, Im not sure at that point Hamilton could have gotten anybody, coaches ran and the timing was awful. The coaches were in full recruiting mode at that point. Tennessee had a black eye so to speak, and the rumors of Tenns tougher than their competitions admissions requirements were in full swing.

That said Hamiltons focus became more spiritual than professional and his heart wasn't 100% committed to UT. Not that serving his God was wrong, it just is what it was.

Yea Pete was bout to bolt that was when USC was being investigated for violations/Reggie Bush. I believe if Hamilton was paying attention all this Kiffin crap would of been downplayed a lot more..

looking back the writing was on the wall for the USC job coming open and Kiffin being their man...