New recruiting category

#5
#5
John Ward was a unique person. For us "boomers", there was a golden age of sports radio. Why? Because you were lucky if 2 or more games were broadcast on television. The role of a play by play announcer was the "go to" guy for those not at the game. The VOL network served the state of Tennessee well in 60's and 70's until the networks stranglehold on TV was taken down by this lawsuit:

NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Radio was the only way to get the game. Period, so the quality of the broadcast mattered. John Ward studied the great ones and he had the amazing ability to describe in great detail exactly what his eyes were seeing in real time. He (in my opinion) did it as good or better calling basketball games.

Growing up in Huntsville AL, the closest radio station was in Fayetteville Tn and it was barely strong enough to come in, so it was sketchy. The descriptions of the game Ward painted was how you "watched the game" in you head. Then, you'd wake up on Sunday and catch the "Bill Battle Show" or whatever and then you finally got confirmation on what Ward had described the day before. You also ran you and got a Sunday paper and if you were lucky, there was half a dozen photos of the game.

Ward set a high standard for the VOL network. Would Wilkerson be better, or Mike Keith or _______ fill in the blank? Is it as important now, as most people watch the game in real time on TV and the radio is for those who choose to fish on game day. Maybe not so much. Give him 6.
 
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#10
#10
Golf freak said:
Local radio show running clips of past games, Bob's call on the winning field goal against Alabama was one of the most uninspiring calls I've ever heard.I wonder how John Wilkerson would have called it?
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I remember those days well. Even in the 90's, I lived out in the country .... No cable or satellite or even a phone to stream games. When a big game was on ESPN, I'd get my wife and daughters, a bucket of KFC, and go check into a motel for the night to be able to watch the games. Usually CBS would carry the Bama game way back when and someone would carry the bowl game but that was about it as far as watching the Vols play.
 
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#12
#12
Xanny said:
Announcer. Need to recruit a John Ward genre announcer to make all the epic calls over the next few years these great recruiting classes and quality coaches are going to bring to us!! Go Vols!!
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First, I just love your imaginative idea!!! Second, I hope Daneel Blanco gets wind of it and follows through. It would be superlative if the UT hunted and hired the most exciting game announcer available. Perhaps the first peek should be to see if there are anymore of those old time style radio announcers. If so, grab one.
 
#13
#13
unfrozencvmanvol said:
As good as our recruiting class is, incredibly, it's still ranked 5th in the SEC.
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I think that has to do with recruiting services dropping McIntyre from a 5* because he didn't participate in the camps this summer. I don't know why they would expect him to compete when he was recovering from an injury. If he had kept his 5* status, we would be 3-4 positions higher.
 
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#14
#14
Golf freak said:
Local radio show running clips of past games, Bob's call on the winning field goal against Alabama was one of the most uninspiring calls I've ever heard.I wonder how John Wilkerson would have called it?
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My issue with Bob is he tries to be an unbiased national announcer despite being THE VOICE OF THE VOLS. He's supposed to be a homer.
 
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#15
#15
bigorangepoppa said:
I think that has to do with recruiting services dropping McIntyre from a 5* because he didn't participate in the camps this summer. I don't know why they would expect him to compete when he was recovering from an injury. If he had kept his 5* status, we would be 3-4 positions higher.
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Bottom line is, we are just this year recruiting with the top teams in the conference, and it's great, but damn we play in a tough league when 6th in the country still leaves you 5th in the conference. I would never want to leave the league out of pride, but man we'd be dominating the Big 12 or the ACC with classes like this and we'd be challenging Ohio State in the B1G.

Top Half of the SEC.PNG
 
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#16
#16
unfrozencvmanvol said:
Bottom line is, we are just this year recruiting with the top teams in the conference, and it's great, but damn we play in a tough league when 6th in the country still leaves you 5th in the conference. I would never want to leave the league out of pride, but man we'd be dominating the Big 12 or the ACC with classes like this and we'd be challenging Ohio State in the B1G.

View attachment 668269
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There are no award ceremonies or grand prizes for being #1 vs #3 or #5 in recruiting. The only thing that is important is getting enough really high quality players that you can compete with the best on the field.

Once we acknowledge that truth, it is the size of the gap between #1 and #6 that's more important than the numbers themselves.

If I have a million bucks, and you have $999,999, and the next guy has $999,998, and the fourth guy has $999,997, and even the sixth guy has $999,995, well, he's only five bucks shy of being a millionaire. In reality, he's got everything I've got. He's just sixth instead of first. But who cares about the numbers, right?

On the other hand, if I have a million and you're in second place with $100,000, and the third place guy has $23,000, and the sixth place guy has a buck tree-fiddy, then that is a REAL, SIGNIFICANT difference in our relative positions. That's when to worry about #1 vs #6.

I'm no recruiting aficionado, but it seems to me that the scores are really crowded up in those top six spots. Which means, really, all those teams have roughly equal talent. Not a huge difference.

And as long as we have a competitive chance on the field, that's what's important, right?

Go Vols!
 
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#18
#18
Recruiting's importance has been diminished with the advent of the transfer portal. Just ask Lane Kiffin & Ole Miss.
 
#19
#19
VFL-82-JP said:
There are no award ceremonies or grand prizes for being #1 vs #3 or #5 in recruiting. The only thing that is important is getting enough really high quality players that you can compete with the best on the field.

Once we acknowledge that truth, it is the size of the gap between #1 and #6 that's more important than the numbers themselves.

If I have a million bucks, and you have $999,999, and the next guy has $999,998, and the fourth guy has $999,997, and even the sixth guy has $999,995, well, he's only five bucks shy of being a millionaire. In reality, he's got everything I've got. He's just sixth instead of first. But who cares about the numbers, right?

On the other hand, if I have a million and you're in second place with $100,000, and the third place guy has $23,000, and the sixth place guy has a buck tree-fiddy, then that is a REAL, SIGNIFICANT difference in our relative positions. That's when to worry about #1 vs #6.

I'm no recruiting aficionado, but it seems to me that the scores are really crowded up in those top six spots. Which means, really, all those teams have roughly equal talent. Not a huge difference.

And as long as we have a competitive chance on the field, that's what's important, right?

Go Vols!
Click to expand...
One could argue, outside of one year, we haven't really been competing very well on the field for many years now. I think it's fair to draw some hope from the fact that we are LEGITIMATELY recruiting competitively now with this incoming class. There have been alot of claims that we were recruiting competitively in the past but with this 2025 class, it's for real. My point was our league is frustrating, I agree the Top 5-6 spots in this incoming class are probably pretty comparable, what is frustrating though is that in the SEC recruiting at this elite level (consensus Top 10 in the country) makes you one of a half dozen teams with a shot, whereas in all the other conferences, 3 of whom's champions will have an automatic bye in the playoffs, recruiting at this level would make us the unequivocal top dog, or in the case of the B1G, one of the Top 2 or 3. The SEC is just so much more competitive than these other leagues. I sincerely hope the playoff committee will compensate for that by allowing at least 4, if not 5 teams in the playoff from the SEC, but I'm not holding my breath on that in a 12 team field.
 
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#20
#20
I didn't expect Bob to be John Ward, but I expected him to be decent, he is terrible! Most anyone would be better than him. Please retire Bob
 
#21
#21
ptcarter said:
John Ward was a unique person. For us "boomers", there was a golden age of sports radio. Why? Because you were lucky if 2 or more games were broadcast on television. The role of a play by play announcer was the "go to" guy for those not at the game. The VOL network served the state of Tennessee well in 60's and 70's until the networks stranglehold on TV was taken down by this lawsuit:

NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Radio was the only way to get the game. Period, so the quality of the broadcast mattered. John Ward studied the great ones and he had the amazing ability to describe in great detail exactly what his eyes were seeing in real time. He (in my opinion) did it as good or better calling basketball games.

Growing up in Huntsville AL, the closest radio station was in Fayetteville Tn and it was barely strong enough to come in, so it was sketchy. The descriptions of the game Ward painted was how you "watched the game" in you head. Then, you'd wake up on Sunday and catch the "Bill Battle Show" or whatever and then you finally got confirmation on what Ward had described the day before. You also ran you and got a Sunday paper and if you were lucky, there was half a dozen photos of the game.

Ward set a high standard for the VOL network. Would Wilkerson be better, or Mike Keith or _______ fill in the blank? Is it as important now, as most people watch the game in real time on TV and the radio is for those who choose to fish on game day. Maybe not so much. Give him 6.
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Great post. Going to school here in the early '80's, I listened to countless Ward broadcasts of away games, and as you said the picture he painted was as close to being there as you could get. To me, he was at his best doing basketball, with his calls of "bottom!" being the most memorable of his many signature calls.
 
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#22
#22
ptcarter said:
John Ward was a unique person. For us "boomers", there was a golden age of sports radio. Why? Because you were lucky if 2 or more games were broadcast on television. The role of a play by play announcer was the "go to" guy for those not at the game. The VOL network served the state of Tennessee well in 60's and 70's until the networks stranglehold on TV was taken down by this lawsuit:

NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Radio was the only way to get the game. Period, so the quality of the broadcast mattered. John Ward studied the great ones and he had the amazing ability to describe in great detail exactly what his eyes were seeing in real time. He (in my opinion) did it as good or better calling basketball games.

Growing up in Huntsville AL, the closest radio station was in Fayetteville Tn and it was barely strong enough to come in, so it was sketchy. The descriptions of the game Ward painted was how you "watched the game" in you head. Then, you'd wake up on Sunday and catch the "Bill Battle Show" or whatever and then you finally got confirmation on what Ward had described the day before. You also ran you and got a Sunday paper and if you were lucky, there was half a dozen photos of the game.

Ward set a high standard for the VOL network. Would Wilkerson be better, or Mike Keith or _______ fill in the blank? Is it as important now, as most people watch the game in real time on TV and the radio is for those who choose to fish on game day. Maybe not so much. Give him 6.
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There were shows from early morning up to the Big Orange kickoff show too. We had the main console stereo blasting all day at my house. It was a weekly event. Usually a really good lunch prior to the 12:30 CT kickoff. Mom always timed that up perfectly. Not sure I didn't enjoy those 1970s game days better than I do now. There was always a game in our Wonder Years neighborhood, usually around 10
 
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#23
#23
Xanny said:
Announcer. Need to recruit a John Ward genre announcer to make all the epic calls over the next few years these great recruiting classes and quality coaches are going to bring to us!! Go Vols!!
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Not that I disagree, but that's like saying we need to recruit an Al Wilson type linebacker or an Eric Berry type safety. They don't grow on trees like crabapples. There will never be another John Ward! He's in a class by himself that no other announcer will ever be a part of! Right now I would just settle for better than Bob Kessling.
 
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#24
#24
VFL-82-JP said:
There are no award ceremonies or grand prizes for being #1 vs #3 or #5 in recruiting. The only thing that is important is getting enough really high quality players that you can compete with the best on the field.

Once we acknowledge that truth, it is the size of the gap between #1 and #6 that's more important than the numbers themselves.

If I have a million bucks, and you have $999,999, and the next guy has $999,998, and the fourth guy has $999,997, and even the sixth guy has $999,995, well, he's only five bucks shy of being a millionaire. In reality, he's got everything I've got. He's just sixth instead of first. But who cares about the numbers, right?

On the other hand, if I have a million and you're in second place with $100,000, and the third place guy has $23,000, and the sixth place guy has a buck tree-fiddy, then that is a REAL, SIGNIFICANT difference in our relative positions. That's when to worry about #1 vs #6.

I'm no recruiting aficionado, but it seems to me that the scores are really crowded up in those top six spots. Which means, really, all those teams have roughly equal talent. Not a huge difference.

And as long as we have a competitive chance on the field, that's what's important, right?

Go Vols!
Click to expand...
Plus the fact that the recruiting services degrade or upgrade players depending on which school they sign with. If Georgia or Alabama had our class and we had theirs the standings would be the same because the system is built on media bias and how many clicks the services get. In reality, we might have the best class in the country and the ratings not show it.

People put too much into recruiting sometimes. We have had 5 star players never play a down at UT. Lee Otis Burton, Geter from WV, and Brian Darden are just a few examples. There is no such thing as a can’t miss prospect.

I am excited about Sanders but am waiting for the potential on the field before celebrating.
 
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#25
#25
You're right in that there's very little difference between the #1 recruiting class VS say, the #10 recruiting class. What's probably more important is which teams do a better job in retaining that talent and recruit at a top 10 level consistently.

One of the things that hurt Fulmer at the end was his recruiting became wildly inconsistent. He'd have a top 3 class one year, and barely break the top 25 the next year. He also struggled with player retention at the end that killed his depth. I remember he started an O-lineman in one of his latter years named Michael Frogg. He may have even been a walk on. And he was terrible! He eventually got replaced but championship programs dont put themselves in a position to have to start players like than. Look at Kiffin's 2009 team where he had to start two undersized walk ons on the O-line in the Sullen twins and a former walk on at middle linebacker in Nick Reviez. That was an indictment on Fulmer and his recruiting near the end!
 
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