Thanks for the condescension, but after all, I received both of my degrees, including my doctorate (which in a manner of speaking largely involves reading comprehension), from UTK, so I'm prolly purty stoopid, what with that publik edgumacasheeun and such as that.
First, did I ever say he interviewed ALL the players? The overall tone of the article was to imply the players interviewed were a representative sample reflecting the "feeling" of the team. This is not a lawsuit, something I know a little about, but you appear to be the one nit-picking through the article as if it was a proposed collective bargaining agreement for a new labor deal with a
Fortune 500 company.
Second, your assumption, based on nothing, is that all the players not interviewed WERE well aware of it.
Third, you make MY point about the 48 hour delay, clearly stated in my initial post. This should have been enough time to have passed since the press conference for a bit more circumspect responses. Yes, more slack should indeed be cut at the time of the conference itself, and I personally have no problem with Berry or Foster's remarks at the time, but if you weren't gonna say it shortly after the conference, waiting two days DOES allow for the very reasonable, permissive inference that it took you a while to figure it out.
Again, you claim I have no basis to make assumptions, but how can you possibly assume that even if they didn't say it 'til 48 hours later, they knew it all along? As someone else posted above, I have to believe that if they had indeed "known it all along," they woulda/shoulda known it since the UCLA game, and poor as we were on offense, we would have certainly beaten both UCLA and Auburn with just a bit more effort.
I agree with you that you can't take all media stories as gospel, but these were simple, direct quotes IMO. Where was the "spin" here?
Last, your spaghetti answer was indeed far and away better than what the players actually said, and I would have found a quick, "The answer is obvious, isn't it?" to be best, but would have under the circumstances been OK w/a bit of non-profane smart-aleck rhetoric such as: "Well, of course it did. And of course we feel bad about it. And 2 + 2 = 4, too, in case you were wondering."
Reading Comprehension > You
They only interviewed SOME of the players. Therefore, only SOME of the players were in position to take blame.
The interviews took place 48 hours after the firing. I guess for those on lower reading levels, the author should have said "I wrote this article two days after Fulmer resigned. I interviewed these players two days after Fulmer resigned. Most likely, they have had the feelings they expressed here since the firing. However, since I am just now interviewing them, I have to preface my article by saying "two days."
Most sports articles aren't exactly new news. They fill up space. When a reporter asks "Do you think your performance had anything to do with Fulmer's resignation" or "Are the players or coaches more to blame here?" what do you expect them to say??? Maybe you'd enjoy if they said "You know, I'm not going to answer that question, because the answer is apparent to all. Instead, I'm going to talk about a recipe for my mother's baked spaghetti, because not everyone knows how to make that."
Long story short: YOU'RE READING INTO THESE FILLER PIECES TOO MUCH.
