Please Don’t Shoot the Messenger

#51
#51
Guys.... what are we trying to do here? There was no fight. A couple of guys fell on some helmets. Thats the truth. We have to understand, what do we want out of our message board? This place with the drama. These are kids and I think we all have children and we are all adults. Are we focused on Tennessee football?
 
#52
#52
Fortunately, most of those guys have quit, transferred, or left the program as in retired from playing football. We don't need 'em glad that they are gone. Good riddance.


I was not aware of what I am about to share. This may be old news.

I went to my dentist today, who like me is a Tennessee graduate and fan, and he shared something I was not aware of. We were talking football, and he shared that his daughter dates one of the players. I will not share his name or position. I made the comment it was obvious some of the players just quit late in the season, i.e. Missouri and Vanderbilt. He shared the player told him there was a significant fight/scuffle in the dressing room after the Vanderbilt game. Said, several players commented “they just wanted to get this shite over with”.

Is anyone else aware of a dust up after the game?
 
#53
#53
I hate to heaven to sound like some damn pacifist, but the kids in that locker room didn't sign up for the Jeremy Pruitt School of Football. My guess is that he demanded them to work harder than they had anticipated and therefore, ala, the cause of the strife.
 
#55
#55
Hopefully we are talking about Sapp, Richmond, Wolf and others who graduated or transferred and not current players. Although I doubt it was Sapp.
 
#58
#58
Well, it was no secret not everyone completely bought in to the new system. And a lot of those guys had probably never been worked nearly as hard under Butch's lax system as they had to under Pruitt and his staff, where they actually had to do S&C and do football 5 days a week rather than a couple of days.

You know what's really bad is that a Knox area DL (name?) a few years ago who had 1 season under CBJ said the same thing about Dooley. Said that they would go in and "sign their names" for the daily S&C workouts. So if we were bad under CBJ, we must have been exceptionally sucky under CDD.

No wonder we are losing so many linemen to medical retirements! No wonder we have lost 21 of 22 games to bama and Florida.
 
#59
#59
It’s tough to go from being coddled to playing for a hard nosed coach. I’d imagine the ones who weren’t on board with the new system were pretty frustrated by the end of the season.
 
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#60
#60
The rumor back then was a number of the players had no interest in going to some minor bowl game and playing in the cold and having to continue to practice through the holidays and that game as well.
This shows the character of players and pathetic coaching that the previous regime instilled in the team. This reared its head in all of the Butch Jones teams, especially the last year, and is something a new coaching staff can change in one year. I guarantee that it will not continue with the current staff. They can't kick all of them off the team, or we won't have a team to field next year. They can work them till they puke and maybe make them grow up.
 
#62
#62
Interesting thread. Supposedly when Kiffin took over the players hadn't worked for years... when Dooley took over the players said they'd never worked so hard... there were claims when Jones took over that numerous players couldn't hack the new level of work expectations... now this. Looking at a regression here... Fulmer's players must have just showed up on Saturday without working or practicing.

I'd say it is pretty typical when a coach gets fired for the long downward spiral to begin well before the new coach arrives. There's a good chance that many players "quit" in '17 after they knew Jones was gone... and never really got back on board. Kind of typical human response to these kinds of situations. The style difference between Jones and Pruitt is probably a big factor. Jones wanted to be "cool". Pruitt isn't playing it that way.
 
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#63
#63
It’s tough to go from being coddled to playing for a hard nosed coach. I’d imagine the ones who weren’t on board with the new system were pretty frustrated by the end of the season.

They missed a few of Bruce Tuckman's Stages:

Storming
Forming
Performing
Norming

I think they got stuck on Storming.
 
#65
#65
images
 
#66
#66
At halftime of Bama game, Pruitt basically said he couldn’t wait to get 25 of his guys in there. So I think it’s obvious at least that many didn’t buy into his system. Which would rub real competitors the wrong way and may lead to fights
If yall recall Kirby had the exact same issues his 1st year, split clubhouse, gotta get one more new cycle in.
 
#67
#67
If true, this related to the “culture” of the previous regime that is spoken so much of.
 
#68
#68
I was not aware of what I am about to share. This may be old news.

I went to my dentist today, who like me is a Tennessee graduate and fan, and he shared something I was not aware of. We were talking football, and he shared that his daughter dates one of the players. I will not share his name or position. I made the comment it was obvious some of the players just quit late in the season, i.e. Missouri and Vanderbilt. He shared the player told him there was a significant fight/scuffle in the dressing room after the Vanderbilt game. Said, several players commented “they just wanted to get this shite over with”.

Is anyone else aware of a dust up after the game?
That's probably the least bit of inside info I've ever heard. A person with zero knowledge of football or the happenings within Tennessee program could have watched that Vandy game and saw that a bunch of them had quit.

I've thought from pretty early on last season that if depth wasn't such an issue, Pruitt probably would have cut 7-10 guys off of this team. There were/are cancers on the squad, but he literally just needed the bodies even if they had an awful attitude.
 
#69
#69
When did this fight happen? “Players quit before the Missouri and Vanderbilt games” only narrows it down to the last two seasons...
 
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#72
#72
Interesting thread. Supposedly when Kiffin took over the players hadn't worked for years... when Dooley took over the players said they'd never worked so hard... there were claims when Jones took over that numerous players couldn't hack the new level of work expectations... now this. Looking at a regression here... Fulmer's players must have just showed up on Saturday without working or practicing.

I'd say it is pretty typical when a coach gets fired for the long downward spiral to begin well before the new coach arrives. There's a good chance that many players "quit" in '17 after they knew Jones was gone... and never really got back on board. Kind of typical human response to these kinds of situations. The style difference between Jones and Pruitt is probably a big factor. Jones wanted to be "cool". Pruitt isn't playing it that way.
We probably haven't had a legit S&C program since early 2000s. That's also the last time we had what you could call one of the better offensive or defensive lines in the country, and that probably isn't a coincidence. A subpar S&C program is going to show up largely 1) in the trenches and 2) in an excessive number of injuries over multiple years.

Phil got soft in his later years. Kiffin certainly wasn't a drill sergeant and was only here for a year anyway. Dooley might have worked them hard, but was a terrible coach. Butch I don't think ever truly worked these guys.
 
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#74
#74
I was not aware of what I am about to share. This may be old news.

I went to my dentist today, who like me is a Tennessee graduate and fan, and he shared something I was not aware of. We were talking football, and he shared that his daughter dates one of the players. I will not share his name or position. I made the comment it was obvious some of the players just quit late in the season, i.e. Missouri and Vanderbilt. He shared the player told him there was a significant fight/scuffle in the dressing room after the Vanderbilt game. Said, several players commented “they just wanted to get this shite over with”.

Is anyone else aware of a dust up after the game?

Great news. Let's us know we have some guys who want to win and guys who don't. Separating the wheat from the chaff.
 

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