Poll for a slow day

If you could pick, who would you want to win a natl championship first?

  • Baseball

  • Football

  • Men's Basketball

  • Women's Basketball

  • Softball

  • I don't like this poll

Results are only viewable after voting.
#2
#2
Men's basketball, in a heartbeat. It would be a perfect way to cap Barnes' brilliant career and what he's done for the program, and just getting that first championship, much like baseball last year.
 
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#3
#3
Barnes.

Then Kim Caldwell. I think she's a special person who could be a positive face for UT athletics for decades to come.

Josh Heupel, third only because college football championships are such a crap shoot from recruiting to injuries to the season. Many, many deserving coaches and programs will never see a football championship.
 
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#4
#4
BruisedOrange said:
Barnes.

Then Kim Caldwell. I think she's a special person who could be a positive face for UT athletics for decades to come.

Josh Heupel, third only because college football championships are such a crap shoot from recruiting to injuries to the season. Many, many deserving coaches and programs will never see a football championship.
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I want Caldwell to get one before Barnes. One day before Barnes, in fact. Women's final is on April 5, men's on the 6th.
 
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#5
#5
It wouldn't bother me to see Barnes win it all before calling it a career as long as it isn't at the detriment of UNC.
 
#6
#6
We cannot chose between any of these,because we want all to win championships.Unfair(if you know what this word means) to try to separate these sports.Each is vitally important.Go Vols!
 
#10
#10
I'd vote for a second natty in baseball first and foremost, After that, I guess basketball would be the choice. Football is, by far, the biggest "meh" sport on campus right now. No juice at all with me.
 
#12
#12
BruisedOrange said:
Barnes.

Then Kim Caldwell. I think she's a special person who could be a positive face for UT athletics for decades to come.

Josh Heupel, third only because college football championships are such a crap shoot from recruiting to injuries to the season. Many, many deserving coaches and programs will never see a football championship.
Click to expand...

Wanting us to win a natty in WBB sooner than football is wild to me
 
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#14
#14
KnoxRealtorVOL said:
Wanting us to win a natty in WBB sooner than football is wild to me
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To be honest, it's strange for me, too. It certainly wasn't always that way.

Like probably most kids, I got started on Tennessee football, and then began to learn about and follow more and more Vols and Lady Vols sports. But football was still the premiere sport for me, long after I could no longer play football, even recreationally.

But let me pose a question: as an adult, which boardgames can still hold your interest for an hour or two with family or friends? Probably the ones that require more skill or strategy, and are less dependent on the roll of the dice, right?

I guess I've come to value a college football championship less because of the outsized influence that luck plays on that achievement. Stoerner's fumble. The pass interference call against Syracuse getting called (because you don't always get that call, especially as the visiting team). Florida State's starting QB out with injury for the BCS championship game. Like several other teams in '98, we were good enough to be champions. But throughout the season, we needed some things to fall our way in order to become "the" champions.

Ironically, our current playoff system actually increases luck as a factor on the eventual outcome.
[edit: I'll amend that statement. It also increases the impact of having a deep, talented bench with which you can respond to inevitable injuries. But today, building such a bench is largely a measure of NIL resources--again, something unrelated to the quality, performance, and character of the players.]

Luck is always an outsized factor in college football because of its season's limited number of games. Its small sample size increases the impact of: Who did you play? How good were they when you played them? Did you play them at home, or away? Whose roster was most intact when you played?

Increasing the number of games to a truly meaningful sample size is impossible. Furthermore, adding only another two games multiplies the likelihood of injuries (whether season ending or just performance diminishing) far out of proportion to the minutely increased sampling number of games.

In sports like baseball, basketball, or soccer, playing a regular season schedule against the best teams helps your team get better. In football, the better your regular season opposition, the more battered and compromised you likely are at the end of the season.

The nature of football seasons is neither scientific nor mathematic. They're narratives. Every team's season is an epic journey, a multitude of individual hero's journeys combining into a team journey. Football seasons are real life--and most importantly, they are better preparation for real life.

Is there a championship for fatherhood? No--you just try to get better and smarter each day and hope that your kids don't suffer too much, too late for your learning curve to catch up.

Are there championships for business? Only in the most toxic of business environments or predatory practices. No, you just compete every day, and attend to your "video study" so you can anticipate and respond to changes in the market or competition.

Is there a championship for being a great partner/spouse? Thank God, no. You just keep learning, keep improving, keep loving... and the best possible outcome is that you're still there for each other as your season draws to its inevitable close. That's real life. It's a narrative, a story you write day by day.

So--surprisingly to me--I've become an advocate for returning to the bowl system of rewarding great individual seasons (and great fanbases) and leaving the "best team" debate to... debate!

I loved that back in the day, 30 years after the fact, people would still argue and make their case for who had the best team that season! That tradition of debating who was "champion" (we even called it the "mythical champion") built community and culture. We debated as members of different tribes, but at the same time, our debate united us as part of the larger tribe who cares about the sport.

And that's real life. That's what being a healthy nation is--people who are free to differ in opinion, but are united in doing so. I think that's the ideal space that sports should occupy in a free society. Some sports are better for on-the-field championships. Football just is not one of those sports, IMHO.
 
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#21
#21
Football pays the bills. Win big in football and you are gonna have a great deal more money to throw around on other sports

In the year 2025 the first ingredient to winning is money. Without it, things are pointless.

I said it on here a few weeks ago and I will say it again-

I would gladly accept us playing like the Washington Generals in every other sport in exchange for a CFB championship every 5 years
 
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