Patience

#177
#177
landscapingvol said:
No it hasn't and that is a problem. This isn't just a head coaching problem, UT's problems extend into the AD. Hindsight is 20-20 but you don't replace a Hall of Fame coach with a guy with zero head coaching experience, not when you had several more options. Replacing said coach with a largely failed head coach was even dumber. Jones had a decent resume and consequently has performed the best of the three. The Pruitt hire was another head scratcher and I don't blame him for taking the job. I blame the AD for giving it to him
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In reality Fulmer dug his own grave when he lobbied for Mike Hamilton to be made AD.
 
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#178
#178
RhodesVol said:
Patience. This is rich.

Let's take a look at Tennessee football over the past 15 years, how about that?

2005: 5-6 (This was the worst season in my then-lifetime. First loss to Vanderbilt in 20 years? People began to get restless about Phillip Fulmer. We should have had patience at this point.)

2006: 9-4 (Our patience was somewhat rewarded, as we won 9 regular season games, but ultimately came up short against Florida - surprise - and then lost the Outback Bowl to Penn State.)

2007: 10-4 (This was the last season that was really good in Tennessee football history. Our patience was fully rewarded after 2005. We backed our way into the SEC title game, despite losing to Bama and Florida. I mean, we lost the SEC title game in epic fashion, but we made it there.)

2008: 5-7 (Goodbye Phillip Fulmer. We should have probably had patience at this juncture. Had we known what was to come, we would have, but hindsight and all that.)

2009: 7-6 (Hello Lane Kiffin! This year was very fun, despite some heartbreak losses. A deflating loss in the Chik-fil-A Bowl to Virginia Tech, and then a midnight exit by our coach left the fanbase in a tail spin. Utter embarrassment ensued. I don't think being patient was very warranted at this point.)

2010: 6-7 (Hello Derek Dooley! We got worse by a game from the prior year after hiring the up and comer with an overall losing record as a head coach. But hey, we were told this was "Year 0" How could we not be patient?)

2011: 5-7 (Oh, Derek, it's going bad my friend. A 1-7 SEC record capped with a total collapse against Kentucky with a wide received playing quarterback in a game that it was obvious our players didn't even want to win. No need to be patient.)

2012: 5-7 (Goodbye, Derek. A repeat 1-7 SEC record ends with the firing of a coach that shouldn't have even gotten this year to begin with. Being patient was a detriment to us, because it saw that lame-duck coach bring in a recruiting class without any offensive linemen. )

2013: 5-7 (Hello, Butch Jones. We hired the guy that our last loser beat, but hey, he had a flat top! The Vols managed to eek out wins against South Carolina and Kentucky in conference. So, sad, and after the three years prior I could see patience running thin. It was just year 1, though, or was it zero?)

2014: 7-6 (Hey, a bowl game for the first time in four years! Our conference scalps increase as we add Vanderbilt to South Carolina and Kentucky from the year prior. Then we beat the vaunted Iowa in a bowl game. Man, we are back! No need for patience, this is the heyday. Sigh.)

2015: 9-4 (Our coach's incompetence cost us the Oklahoma game and the Florida game. Vols suffer a let-down defeat to Arkansas which was inexcusable, and come within a hair's breath of beating Alabama. We come up short, but man, that Outback bowl was fun again. Vols win nothing worthwhile, but we are sold that this is the good life.)

2016: 9-4 (This season was an utter disaster. After starting 5-0, our loser coach managed to lose to South Carolina to lose the SEC East title and then to Vanderbilt to lose a spot in the Sugar Bowl. Yet again, we had too much patience and brought back a guy that should have been fired. This team produced multiple pros, and with a good coach gets us within a hair's breath of the playoff.)

2017: 4-8 (Hey, that patience was rewarded with the worst season in Tennessee football history. You're right, we're just not patient enough. Vols lose every conference game for the first time ever. Good job!)

Coaching search from hell ensues

2018: 5-7 (Hello, Jeremy Pruitt. - Sigh - Whatever, this year sucks, but at least it's year 1 of a new coach. I mean, you'll always have that Auburn win, even if you lost to Vanderbilt to end the year.)

2019: 8-5 (Oh, baby! What a record. Oh, wait, you lost to Georgia State and BYU to begin the season? Oh, you lost to every one of your rivals? I mean, at least we won the Gator Bowl, and the season was a roller coaster. So, we had a good time, but there are some real concerns here.)

2020: 3-7 (Is this the new worst year in Tennessee football? Lost to Kentucky at home? Lost to Arkansas with a first year head coach? Lost six games in a row by double digits? Now we need to retool the entire staff for the third time in as many years? Players are transferring in droves? The team is embroiled in a potential NCAA investigation due to impermissible benefits? Now we need to be patient more than ever! That's the recipe to success.)

In the past 15 years, the Tennessee Football Volunteers are a combined 102-96, just six games above .500. Oh, and that is with four purchased wins on just about every season's schedule.

But, I mean, that's not terrible. Let's look at the conference record, that will make it better, right?

50-81.

Oh...

I guess you disagree, but after the last 15 years of revolving turmoil, my patience is all used up. Do you, I guess.
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Dead on analysis. Been putting up with this abomination called UT football for 15 years now and my patience is gone. Don’t care what the OP or anybody else thinks. Willing to give the new Chancellor and President a chance since previous administrations didn’t give a rip about athletics but I am going to find better things to do with my time and money until I see that UT is serious about football again. It is ironic that COVID started the process of being able to find alternative things to focus on because for me it did.
 
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#179
#179
Pride85 said:
Yep, and the practice of replacing a HC right away when things get tough has helped so much hasn't it.
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We gave Butch extra time and see how well that did us. When the writings on the wall then why wait? The only reason we are in this situation is that we went dollar store on every single hire since Kiffin and we've got the exact results we've paid for at best.
 
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#180
#180
82_VOL_83 said:
Denial, not just a river in Egypt. If you are going to use big words, please spell check. The post you quoted even mentions competing for the East and championships every 3 to 4 year. Geez dude, get off the crack.
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Do you disagree with winning the East every 3-4 years being a reasonable expectation once a competitive program is established? Too much for you to expect? My expectations, which I clearly laid out, do not really go any farther than 2-3 East Championships a decade. This is not unreasonable. Whatever happens after that is gravy...but that should be the bar as we try to find our way back to being a competitive program again. Conference Championships, Playoff berths, and National Championships are not really a given to more than 2 or 3 teams nationally.

And please, somebody explain to me why, in a thread that complains about the personal attacks on coaches by people of one opinion, are personal attacks against fans (digs about spelling and drug use) by those of a differing opinion not derided equally?
 
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#181
#181
SayUWantAreVOLution said:
I'll accept patience if you'll admit 2021 has to be a real turning point for the team's performance. Where's the "low bar" for you in 2021? 3-8, 4-7, 5-6?

Do you have a breaking point for patience?

I've resigned myself to Pruitt being retained for 2021 (though my reasoning is the admin is disinterested in pursuing championship football,) but accountability for the highest paid public employee in TN seems reasonable. Are you content paying Coach Jeremy Pruitt through the 2025 season to be an also ran? Where is the limit of your patience, OP?
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I guess I would be considered to be a part of the "Fire Pruitt" or "Nega Vol" group as opposed to the "Sunshine Pumpers" or "Posi Vol" group, but essentially both sides of the Vols fanbase want the same thing: We want to WIN... So for me, Coach Pruitt and staff need to secure a record of 8-4, assuming a regular season of 12 games for 2021. That should be the minimal expectation every year, no matter who the coach is, and to me anything less and he should be let go. 8-4 is assuming 3 losses to our main rivals, Bama, Gators, Dawgs... Plus, the members of the fanbase that are for the current regime, point to 2020 being a "mulligan" year, due to Covid-19, etc.. Although, we still kept score of the 10 games played in 2020... And, I remember distinctly early in the year when UT was 2-0, and hearing Gary Danielson say something to the effect of the following: It's possible Tennessee can go 8-2 this year (2020), with a possible win over one of the Big 3 rivals.. Well, that clearly did not happen, BUT, obviously expectations were high for 2020, so there should be no more excuses for 2021, assuming a regular offseason, etc..
 
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#182
#182
TNnative said:
In reality, had Kevin Costner's character made those decisions, it is more than likely he would not have BSed that many other GMs. ESPECIALLY from Cleveland. Had they had Costner being the GM at another club, and the Jacksonville GM at Cleveland with their real life owner playing himself? It might have been more believable. At least Jennifer Garner and Dennis Leary was in it.

Not to belittle your point, but basing your what if on this movie, just seems weak. It almost does make Dooley's WW2 story seem less asinine. Almost.
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Lol
I remember that WW2 analogy shite
 
#186
#186
DougAtkins91 said:
For sure the OP is 100% correct and he was equally correct about the troll known as bearded.
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tenor.gif
 
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#188
#188
Ledzepvol said:
I guess I would be considered to be a part of the "Fire Pruitt" or "Nega Vol" group as opposed to the "Sunshine Pumpers" or "Posi Vol" group, but essentially both sides of the Vols fanbase want the same thing: We want to WIN... So for me, Coach Pruitt and staff need to secure a record of 8-4, assuming a regular season of 12 games for 2021.
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Thx. I try to skirt the line between "Nega" and "Posi"..... call me a "Higgs Boson" Vol, I strive for no spin and no +/- charge (but some would say no substance either, so there's that.)

I think there's something "wrong" well beyond the coach level at UT. I think the admin has "given up on" or "walked away from" a winning football commitment. Why? I don't know. Perhaps the school leadership is choosing to focus elsewhere or perhaps they are distracted by internal politics we can't see or perhaps they are heavily tilted to academics and tired of being "a football school" in Knoxville.

I DO know UT football has recruited pretty dang well for years and has underachieved based on our recruiting classes. That part seems to be coaching failure and I would expect ANY organization to expect to get their $4M/yr out of any employee.
 
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#190
#190
VFL-82-JP said:
Okay, here's how predictable some folks are on VN.com. Folks who believe they're witty. Bearded, for example. At some point, even though he's fighting it right now because I can predict his every move, at some point he's going to post in this thread. And what he intended to say, before I called his shot, is "oh, here we go, it's today's installment of JP's defense of Pruitt." He'll probably shift his message just to "prove me wrong," but we all know that's where he would've gone. Heh.

Patience.

This thread is not about Pruitt. It's not about Chaney. Not about Fulmer. Not about Butch. Not about any specific person or event. Not about any specific time frame.

It's about you. You and me.

There's a fictional movie about one year's NFL draft. It's called Draft Day. Has Kevin Costner in the lead role. A lot of us have seen it. For those who haven't, I do recommend it; far better than any movie about such a constrained topic should be. Here's the first of a series of 10 short youtube clips leading up to the climactic scene:



I'll summarize. Costner, the general manager of one NFL team, takes a series of seemingly nonsensical decisions in preparation for draft day. Then, over the course of the day, he seems to double down on the bad choices until, at the end, all the weirdly-shaped pieces of his plan suddenly fall into perspective and his genius is revealed.

Okay, so what? That's just Hollywood making up a feel-good story.

Well, here's what. Costner's character was smarter than the folks around him. The folks trying to give him advice. He knew exactly what he was doing. He had a plan, and he executed it. Even if they couldn't see how it would work until near the end, even if the team gathered no fruits of their labors until the very last minute, he knew what he was doing. He was smarter than everyone around him on his business, his job.

Now what if a Tennessee coaching staff knows their subject better than you and I do? What if they know a bit more about college football than us? About recruiting kids, developing them, forming a team out of them, and winning games and championships with them? What if they know every piece of that better than us?

When did we start assuming they don't?

Where did we lose the ability to wait and see? Where did we lose the ability to give a subject matter expert some leeway, some rope? Sure, they might just hang themselves, but...given that they're probably smarter on the topic than we are...they might just see further ahead to a brighter outcome than we can.

When did we lose patience, as a fan base?

Because I can assure you, we have zero of that now.


END NOTE: no,, this isn't about Pruitt. This is just as much about how we treat the coach after Pruitt, or the coach after that, as it is about how we treat him. This is about US, and a serious flaw we've developed as a community.
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Here is some good advice.....if you can't be interesting, be brief. If you can't be either, don't post
 
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#191
#191
VFL-82-JP said:
Well, you completely misread that. That was a dig at a rival fan. Telling him to go talk bad about his own team on their board for A MASSIVE CHOKE (which is what the reptiles did against Oklahoma) is not telling him to leave here.

Though it wouldn't break my heart if we heard less from gator fans (and gator sycophant Vols fans) and a little more from folks who like making fun of rivals and supporting our lads. That wouldn't hurt my feelings at all.
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I understand your hatred towards Florida but what do you want 99gator to say?

They’ve owned us in football for so long now that they’re even agreeing with us that our program is ran by incompetent idiots.

It’s not about being a fan of this team or that team.

Reality is, we’re no longer a threat to the SEC long as Pruitt is still in charge.
 
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#194
#194
Lol.....a “this isn’t about Pruitt have patience thread.”

So who is this about?
What do we need to have patience for?
Who do we need this patience for?

Oh so it’s ANY (or some random) Tennessee coach.

So Pruitt “is” the coach, and “if” he remains the coach.....we (as fans) need to have patience with him......because he knows more than us about football.....and it worked out in some random movie......got ya.

Fans have had over a decade of patience. Fans still support this program.....even after the worst season in our lifetime.........

PATIENCE......we do not need.......a non-sucking coach is exactly what we need.
 
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#195
#195
Anyone that's preaching about 'patience' to a fanbase that's been continuously kicked in the balls season after season and is still around to even care needs to be committed to the psych ward, because there's some serious delusion going on somewhere.
 
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#197
#197
All I want to see is improvement. Seeing a coach take top 10-15 recruiting classes and get absolutely demolished by teams that have significantly lower recruiting class rankings (UK and Arkansas) is absolutely unacceptable. Georgia state would fall far beneath even those 2 teams recruiting-wise.

Fans have been putting up with crappy football for well over 10 years. The fact our fans even still care about UT football I would say makes them extraordinarily patient.
 
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#199
#199
JoAllan said:
Lol.....a “this isn’t about Pruitt have patience thread.”

So who is this about?
What do we need to have patience for?
Who do we need this patience for?

Oh so it’s ANY (or some random) Tennessee coach.

So Pruitt “is” the coach, and “if” he remains the coach.....we (as fans) need to have patience with him......because he knows more than us about football.....and it worked out in some random movie......got ya.

Fans have had over a decade of patience. Fans still support this program.....even after the worst season in our lifetime.........

PATIENCE......we do not need.......a non-sucking coach is exactly what we need.
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When it comes to college football, I strongly believe that most of our hard core fans (those that watch every UT game live and often again on tape, and those that watch a lot of other football games) are very knowledgeable fans. We know what good football is and what bad football is.
Three years is plenty of time to see the trends of where any program is going.
Pruitt is trending down.
Thus, he needs to go.
What will be done eventually, must be done immediately.
 
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#200
#200
OP, patience for what? Winning? Or signs of improvement?
Because three years in, we don’t have either
 
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