8 of 10 is better than 8 of 12 imoWe have averaged 8.22 wins per season since 1968, so you're right about the 8 win program thing... but of course, there are two dreadful 7 season stints that really drags down our average ('74-'80 and '08-'14). 9 wins should not be the ceiling at Tennessee and 8 wins should not be the norm. Butch has some work to do.
I'm sure only to be met with, "But we have Oklahoma, Oregon, VT, GT, etc. on the schedule NOW. In reality, the 12th game is the APSU, TTU, UTC type of game.
You have to take into consideration that from 1988-1991 we were only playing a 7 game SEC schedule and prior to 1988 it was only 6 games. The number of 'cupcake games' hasn't really increased due to the extra conference game. In the 80's, Tennessee would typically play one strong ooc game (such as UCLA, USC or Pitt) and one good ooc game (such as Georgia Tech, Washington State or Boston College)... Now, we just play one strong ooc game but also have an extra SEC game at a time when the SEC is much deeper than it was in the 80's.
Like I said, there is an "extra" cupcake built into the schedule. And I notice you conveniently left out from '92 on. Back then there were 8 conference games and 3 OOC games...and low and behold UT somehow managed to have some of their greatest successes with those schedules.
Sure... but there isn't anyone in the SEC who doesn't play a Chattanooga, App St type game. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. That's not exclusive to Tennessee.
Thinking of the the lack of depth problem right now and how Butch will probably use that for this year, what are some of the excuses that you guys remember over the years or decades? What are some of the potential excuses coming?
Butch and "that's what the book said to do".
Fulmer and "we've had X amount of starters missing X amount of quarters."
The last Dooley show. The ENTIRE show!
Blast away my fellow VN'ers
Excuses are for losers. It's Year 5. Either you bask in the glow of winning bigly or get ready to move on.
Now to play along with your theme, the excuse would be there were not enough 5* hearts on the team.