OneManGang
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Tennessee vs The Maxims vs South Carolina
If any one incident can serve as a metaphor for the last four years of University of Tennessee athletics, it happened Saturday night.
With 13:08 left in the third canto, Vol corner Prentiss Waggner stepped in front of a Connor Shaw pass, intercepted it. and set sail for the checkerboards. As Waggoner roared up the greensward of Shields-Watkins Field he was slowed only by having to dodge an official. That half-step to the side allowed the Chickens chasing him to catch him on the Carolina 2-yard line.
Joy abounded in Neyland Stadium. From Memphis to Mountain City, Vol faithful were united in one thought, “Surely to Heaven, they can't screw this up.”
They did.
After Vol tailback Tauren Poole was stuffed on first down three yards behind the line, freshman quarterback Justin Worley dropped back on second down and spotted a UT receiver three yards deep in the endzone. What he didn't see was Gamecock safety D.J. Swearinger camped out on the two. As Swearinger fell to the turf clutching the ball, the Vols' hope for any kind of redemption turned into a heap of what Farmer Brown hauled away.
Let's take a little trip in the Wayback Machine to see where the Vols were in 2007.
First, let's face it, there are really only three sports that matter on the Hill: football, mens' basketball and womens' basketball. All the rest, when they achieve some level of success or win a championship fall into the “Well, isn't that nice” category.
In women's basketball, Head Volette Pat Summit's troops won a national title.
In men's basketball, third-year coach Bruce Pearl took his team to an SEC East title and thence to the rarefied air of the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament.
Finally, Head Vol Philip Fulmer's boys won the SEC East but lost a 21-14 decision to LSU in the SEC Championship game. The football Vols went on to best Wisconsin in the Outback Bowl.
Life was good in the Land of the Orange.
Then somewhere, somehow, as Pat and the girls hung yet another banner in a newly-renovated Thompson-Boling Arena, the dark gods laughed.
The 2008 football campaign started out with much promise but turned into a 5-7 disaster of epic proportions. Head Vol Fulmer was dismissed in a tearful presser. After a “national” search, the University hired Lane Kiffin – the anti-Fulmer. He was brash. He was a young, flat-bellied, whippy-wristed college boy who was the very embodiment of everything the Fulmer-haters wanted in a Head Vol. After the 2009 season, he ditched the Vols like some sloppy-second drunken prom date and fled KnoxVegas for the bright lights, smog and muggers of Los Angeles. Tennessee students threw a riot in his honor. The powers-that-be, finding themselves way behind the eight ball when it came to hiring a coach, settled on young Derek Dooley, late of Louisiana Tech, to fill the job. It has fallen to him to attempt to clean up the massive failure that is Tennessee football in the 2010s.
In men's basketball, Head Huckster Bruce Pearl took the Vols to the even more rarified air of the Elite Eight in NCAA tournament play. Then the whispers began that all was not as it seemed in round-ball land. Bruce Pearl was proven to be a serial violator of NCAA regulations and suddenly EVERYTHING the man had ever told us smelled, too, of what Farmer Brown hauled off. New Head Coach Counzo Martin is left to clean out the Augean Stables in the bowels of Thompson-Boling.
Finally, the much-beloved Pat Summit has announced that she is suffering from “early-onset dementia” and has but a few more seasons in the coach's chair.
Tennessee Athletics Director Mike Hamilton, Head Head Vol during this period was also fed to the wolves and now works for a non-profit church group.
For the Volunteer faithful this has been a nightmare from which they have yet to awaken. A mere four years ago the Vols were Just This Close to being nationally relevant in all three main sports and then *poof.* Since then it has been a litany of bad decisions, bad seasons and bad news. Vol fans can be forgiven for imagining themselves in a long, dark, and dank tunnel in which any light seen seems to be an oncoming train.
Once, during Johnny Majors early years as Head Vol, after a particularly disastrous outing in Neyland Stadium, Mary Lynn Majors wailed to then AD Bob Woodruff, “Oh God, this is terrible!” Woodruff patted her on the knee and said, “Don't worry. If you stay around here long enough, there'll be worse days.”
I think I may need a drink.
So, how did the team do against the Maxims?
1. The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win.
2. Play for and make the breaks. When one comes your way … SCORE!
3. If at first the game – or the breaks – go against you, don’t let up … PUT ON MORE STEAM!
4. Protect our kickers, our quarterback, our lead and our ballgame.
5. Ball! Oskie! Cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle … THIS IS THE WINNING EDGE.
6. Press the kicking game, here is where the breaks are made.
7. Carry the fight to South Carolina and keep it there for sixty minutes.
MAXOMG
If any one incident can serve as a metaphor for the last four years of University of Tennessee athletics, it happened Saturday night.
With 13:08 left in the third canto, Vol corner Prentiss Waggner stepped in front of a Connor Shaw pass, intercepted it. and set sail for the checkerboards. As Waggoner roared up the greensward of Shields-Watkins Field he was slowed only by having to dodge an official. That half-step to the side allowed the Chickens chasing him to catch him on the Carolina 2-yard line.
Joy abounded in Neyland Stadium. From Memphis to Mountain City, Vol faithful were united in one thought, “Surely to Heaven, they can't screw this up.”
They did.
After Vol tailback Tauren Poole was stuffed on first down three yards behind the line, freshman quarterback Justin Worley dropped back on second down and spotted a UT receiver three yards deep in the endzone. What he didn't see was Gamecock safety D.J. Swearinger camped out on the two. As Swearinger fell to the turf clutching the ball, the Vols' hope for any kind of redemption turned into a heap of what Farmer Brown hauled away.
Let's take a little trip in the Wayback Machine to see where the Vols were in 2007.
First, let's face it, there are really only three sports that matter on the Hill: football, mens' basketball and womens' basketball. All the rest, when they achieve some level of success or win a championship fall into the “Well, isn't that nice” category.
In women's basketball, Head Volette Pat Summit's troops won a national title.
In men's basketball, third-year coach Bruce Pearl took his team to an SEC East title and thence to the rarefied air of the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament.
Finally, Head Vol Philip Fulmer's boys won the SEC East but lost a 21-14 decision to LSU in the SEC Championship game. The football Vols went on to best Wisconsin in the Outback Bowl.
Life was good in the Land of the Orange.
Then somewhere, somehow, as Pat and the girls hung yet another banner in a newly-renovated Thompson-Boling Arena, the dark gods laughed.
The 2008 football campaign started out with much promise but turned into a 5-7 disaster of epic proportions. Head Vol Fulmer was dismissed in a tearful presser. After a “national” search, the University hired Lane Kiffin – the anti-Fulmer. He was brash. He was a young, flat-bellied, whippy-wristed college boy who was the very embodiment of everything the Fulmer-haters wanted in a Head Vol. After the 2009 season, he ditched the Vols like some sloppy-second drunken prom date and fled KnoxVegas for the bright lights, smog and muggers of Los Angeles. Tennessee students threw a riot in his honor. The powers-that-be, finding themselves way behind the eight ball when it came to hiring a coach, settled on young Derek Dooley, late of Louisiana Tech, to fill the job. It has fallen to him to attempt to clean up the massive failure that is Tennessee football in the 2010s.
In men's basketball, Head Huckster Bruce Pearl took the Vols to the even more rarified air of the Elite Eight in NCAA tournament play. Then the whispers began that all was not as it seemed in round-ball land. Bruce Pearl was proven to be a serial violator of NCAA regulations and suddenly EVERYTHING the man had ever told us smelled, too, of what Farmer Brown hauled off. New Head Coach Counzo Martin is left to clean out the Augean Stables in the bowels of Thompson-Boling.
Finally, the much-beloved Pat Summit has announced that she is suffering from “early-onset dementia” and has but a few more seasons in the coach's chair.
Tennessee Athletics Director Mike Hamilton, Head Head Vol during this period was also fed to the wolves and now works for a non-profit church group.
For the Volunteer faithful this has been a nightmare from which they have yet to awaken. A mere four years ago the Vols were Just This Close to being nationally relevant in all three main sports and then *poof.* Since then it has been a litany of bad decisions, bad seasons and bad news. Vol fans can be forgiven for imagining themselves in a long, dark, and dank tunnel in which any light seen seems to be an oncoming train.
Once, during Johnny Majors early years as Head Vol, after a particularly disastrous outing in Neyland Stadium, Mary Lynn Majors wailed to then AD Bob Woodruff, “Oh God, this is terrible!” Woodruff patted her on the knee and said, “Don't worry. If you stay around here long enough, there'll be worse days.”
I think I may need a drink.
So, how did the team do against the Maxims?
1. The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win.
2. Play for and make the breaks. When one comes your way … SCORE!
3. If at first the game – or the breaks – go against you, don’t let up … PUT ON MORE STEAM!
4. Protect our kickers, our quarterback, our lead and our ballgame.
5. Ball! Oskie! Cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle … THIS IS THE WINNING EDGE.
6. Press the kicking game, here is where the breaks are made.
7. Carry the fight to South Carolina and keep it there for sixty minutes.
MAXOMG
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