OneManGang
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Tennessee vs The Maxims vs South Carolina
During the Kickoff Call-in Show (shameless SON-promotion, Younger Son&Heir is telephonic systems controller for the show!) before Saturday's tilt in Columbia, a caller asked about the keys to the game. Former Vol signal-caller and perpetual back-up for the New York Jets Pat Ryan fielded that one. He bluntly stated that the Vols had to not only generate a LOT more offense than against A&M or Alabama but also could not afford to fall behind early or turn the ball over two or three times as that would get the Gamecock fans into the game and create a VERY hostile environment.
Apparently, Our Beloved Vols decided to test Ryan's theory.
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]They found out he was right.[/FONT]
Launched in 1919, the USS Borie had been the ultimate in destroyer design. She was fast capable of up to 35 knots (40 mph) and well armed for the time with four 4 guns, a bank of 21 torpedo tubes and depth charges. By 1943, though, she was showing her age.
October of 1943 found Borie and two of her sisters, USS Goff and USS Barry part of a hunter-killer task group, [FONT=Verdana, Arial]Task Group 21.14.[/FONT] centered around the USS Card, an escort carrier. The escort carrier concept arose to fill in gaps in air coverage for convoys crossing the U-Boat-infested Atlantic. Unlike their larger and more glamorous kin, the escort carriers (CVE) were built on merchant or tanker hulls with a flight deck and a small island structure nailed on top. They usually carried 21 aircraft: nine or ten Widcat fighters and a dozen or so Avenger torpedo bombers rigged to carry depth-charges. Running flat out, with everything open but the toolbox, a CVE could make about 20 knots. Since most convoys plodded along at less than 15 knots this was sufficient.
Halloween night 1943 found the Borie, under the command of Lieutenant Charles H. Hutchins, chasing a reported U-Boat. At 2000 hours (8PM) Borie got a radar fix on the U-256 which she open fire upon. U-256 was observed to go down rapidly and the sound men reported an underwater explosion. An oil slick and debris seemed to confirm the kill. Hutchins jauntily signaled Card, Scratch one pig-boat! Despite heavy damage, though, U-256 returned to port but never sailed again.
At 0145 on 1 November, a radar contact revealed the presence of yet another U-Boat at 8000 yards. The boat dove as the range closed but Borie's sonarmen were up to the challenge and regained the contact at 2200 yards. Hutchins swung his ship toward the contact for a depth-charge run. As Borie passed over the contact a mechanical failure caused all of the charges on one rack to roll into the sea. The resulting explosions literally blew U-405 under Korvettenkapitan Rolf-Heinrich Hopman to the surface and began one of the wildest sea fights in American naval history.
Hutchins ordered his ship's 24-inch searchlight switched on and illuminated the German boat. The German crew literally boiled out of the conning tower racing to man the boat's deck guns. U-405 boasted one 88mm cannon and four 20mm guns in a quadruple mount along with machine guns and small arms. 20mm shells slammed in to Borie's forward engine room and bridge but caused no casualties. Borie responded with 4 guns and her own 20mm guns. As the German 88mm spat defiance, Borie's forward gun barked once, twice, three times. The second shell landed close aboard and killed some of the 88's crew and the third shell blew the gun completely overboard.
Hutchins now ordered a left turn and closed to ram the sub on its starboard side. A storm was brewing and seas were running at 15 to 20 feet. Hopman saw Hutchins' play and initiated his own left turn to avoid the ram and turn parallel to Borie. The U-Boat made it about halfway through its turn before Borie slammed into her. However, instead of striking the U-Boat directly, Borie hit a glancing blow as the sea simultaneously lowered the sub and raised the destroyer. Borie came to rest atop the forecastle of the U-Boat about where the 88mm had been. Now the Germans opened up with everything they had. The men of Borie rushed topside with rifles, Thompson sub-machine guns, shotguns and pistols and returned fire. It was a scene more suited to the days of sail, of Wooden Ships and Iron Men, of John Paul Jones' day than the 20th Century.
The most immediate need was to keep the Germans away from the 20mm mount as those four guns would wreak fearful slaughter among the exposed Americans. German after German tried and died to get to those guns. In one instance a Borie crewman, Fireman 1/c David Southwick, pulled his sheath knife and flung it at a German rushing to man one of the machine guns. The blade buried itself in the man's belly and he fell over the side. In another instance, Chief Bosun's Mate Walter Kurz, the Gun-Captain of the Number Two 4 gun mount, with little to do since his gun would not depress enough to hit the U-Boat, saw a German sailor heading up the ladder to the 20mm mount and tossed a spent 4 shell casing at him, hitting the man on the head and he, too, fell overboard. Going overboard in this fight was a death-sentence as not only were the seas running high but the water temperature was about forty degrees.
The close-quarters battle raged for ten minutes and accounted for roughly half the U-Boat's crew. The straining engines of the two vessels and the action of the waves finally wrenched the two vessels apart and the rattle of musketry died away. Both combatants had suffered grievous injury. The U-Boat's superstructure was a wreck and half her crew was dead. Borie had suffered no crew casualties but the grinding of her thin hull against the tough pressure hull of the submarine had opened holes and seams in her hull all along the port side. The destroyer was taking on water and her engine room crew under Lt. Morrison Brown was working in chest-deep water in the forward engine room to keep up steam and keep her in the fight. A drain fitting was stuck open and the sea was flooding in. The valve was closed by MM2C Irving Saum who dove down under ten feet of water to shut it. Pumps were brought in to dry out the compartment.
With her engineering spaces once again fit to work in, Borie bent on 27 knots in pursuit. This whole time the 24 searchlight held the German in its blinding grip. The stern of U-405 was now pointed directly at Borie and Hutchins realized the searchlight would give the Germans a perfect torpedo solution for their stern tubes. He ordered the light put out and steered clear. No torpedoes were fired.
Once clear of the stingers Borie now rigged her depth-charge projectors and rapidly closed to attempt another ramming. U-405 then turned in an attempt to return the favor. By judicious use of rudder and engines, Hutchins turned the destroyer left. Now Korvettenkapitan Hopman had his chance to strike Borie in the stern and disable her steering but Lt. Hutchins played his hole card and fired a perfect pattern of depth charges directly into the path of the U-Boat. Set shallow, the 500lb charges went off underneath the conning tower and lifted the sub completely out of the water and stopped her dead with her stern six feet from Borie's.
The sub quickly restarted her engines and backed away as Borie also drew clear while keeping up a lively fire from her main battery and adding a snap-shot torpedo which missed. During this part of the action a 4 shell hit the sub's conning tower and probably killed Korvettenkapitan Hopman. Another 4 round hit the main exhaust and U-405's engines died for the last time. Once again the German crew came out of their hatches, but as some fired white flares to indicated surrender others ran to the guns and Borie's guns kept firing until cries of Kamerad! were heard across the deep.
Now the men of Borie began to transition from agents of destruction to Angels of Mercy as she closed to rescue survivors. The U-Boat's crew was already taking to life rafts. U-405 was seen to sink by the stern. Two or three minutes later there was an underwater explosion, possibly of the sub's scuttling charges. From their rafts the sub's crew continued to fire flares. The bridge crew of the Borie saw an answering set of flares in the distance and almost simultaneously the sonarman Lerten Kent picked up the high-pitched screeeeeee of torpedoes in the water. There was yet a THIRD U-Boat in the area and by slowing for the rescue, Borie was a sitting duck. Hutchins had no choice, he rang for flank speed on his remaining operational engine to clear the area running over several of the rafts in the process. He turned toward the incoming tin fish and the crew watched as it whizzed past leaving a phosphorescent wake.
The German boat that fired that last Parthian Shot never came to look for 405's crew and Borie quickly cleared the area only to lose power and generators some distance away. The entire crew of U-405 perished.
The killing was over, the dying would go on for a while.
Borie was also on her last legs. At 0900 the generator for her radio also died. Enough flammable liquid was found to get the radio working for one brief, last message from Lt. Hutchins to Card at 1100, Commenced sinking. The carrier got a radio fix and launched a pair of Avengers on that bearing to find Borie which they located some 14 miles away. Captain Arnold Isbell of Card dispatched his remaining escorts, Goff and Barry, to render aid to their sister. However the ocean swells were now running FORTY feet and neither destroyer could get close enough to Borie to help without risking catastrophic damage.
It was now getting on toward sunset and Captain Isbell ordered Lt. Hutchins to abandon ship lest she capsize in the dark with grievous loss of life. The abandonment began at 1644 and proceeded well but there was a significant problem: the men of the Borie had been in combat with one submarine, in close-quarters action and a running gun battle with another, conducting life-or-death damage control AND battling mountainous seas for the better part of 24 hours. They were spent.
As the crew took to the rafts some men were clearly addled and in shock from the recent events. Ignoring the pleas of their shipmates, they let go and tried to swim to the other destroyers. Others simply let go of the rafts. The forty-degree water ensured they never made it. Others clinging to the sides of the life rafts were killed when the huge waves bashed them against the hulls of the other ships.
Goff and Barry conducted rescue operations until about 0200 on 2 November then secured and returned to rendezvous with Card and transfer the survivors to her. When the roll was called, a total of 7 officers and 120 men were counted present. Three of Borie's officers and 24 of her enlisted men were lost.
Borie survived only hours longer. Abandoned and heavily damaged, some consideration was given to trying to get her back under control and tow her to safety. However, the nearest port was 500 miles away and the nearest harbor that could actually do anything to repair her was over 2000 miles distant. Added to this was the knowledge that there was at least one U-Boat still in the area and an estimated fifty within a couple of day's sail.
It was time.
Barry was sent to sink her with torpedoes but all failed. Finally an Avenger from Card dropped four depth-bombs close aboard and sent Borie to the bottom.
Three Navy Crosses were earned by Borie men: one by Lt. Hutchins, the second went to MM2C Irving R. Saum and a third, posthumously, to Lt. Morrison R. Brown.
Steel ships can still be manned by Iron Men.
Tennessee should have come out Saturday night looking to make a statement. They needed to prove they were better than the lackluster performance against Alabama.
They failed.
Our Beloved Vols seem to once again need a dose of senior leadership and can't seem to get there. There is a fundamental problem in that of the eighty or so players listed on the official roster only ten are seniors and two of the most dynamic players, Cam Sutton and Jalen Reeves-Maybin, are in street clothes. This sad situation is a direct result of the feckless recruiting under Lawyer Dooley.
That, too will change, but not quickly enough to really effect this season. What must happen now is that some of the juniors need to step up and assume the mantle.
So how did the team do compared to the Maxims?
1. The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win.
It would seem one major mistake for Tennessee was allowing the team to listen to call-in shows and read posts on the web. Tennessee came out completely flat and the reason can be discerned. There has been general agreement that once past Alabama, the rest of the season would be a cake walk. This writer was convinced from the bginning that this sentiment was flawed. First, Tennessee is still carrying the baggage of ten years or so of mediocrity and simply cannot take any victory over ANY opponent for granted. Second, four of the Vols' last five opponent play in the Southeastern Conference. Granted, none of them are playing for a date in Atlanta in December BUT every one of them views their remaining games as potentially their bowl game. To become complacent, at this point in Tennessee's rebuilding, is to court disaster.
2. Play for and make the breaks. When one comes your way SCORE!
Tennessee created exactly no breaks for itself. The Chickens ran wild but thankfully couldn't seem to finish the deal either.
3. If at first the game or the breaks go against you, dont let up PUT ON MORE STEAM!
Tennessee still seems to think this Maxim applies to a turkey and Swiss at Gus's.
4. Protect our kickers, our quarterback, our lead and our ballgame.
Tennessee's offensive line woes continued. I lost count of how many times Tim Priest pointed out that the Vol offensive line is getting no push. Play after play that should have gone for positive yards was blown up at or behind the line. Dobbs spent most of the game running for his life.
5. Ball! Oskie! Cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle THIS IS THE WINNING EDGE.
One thing I've noticed over the years is a trend among teams at all levels to pile it on when things go well and simply wilt when they don't. This is true for Pee-Wees and all the way to the NFL. I mark it down as yet another sign of the degradation of Western Culture. Young men used to pride themselves on overcoming adversity. Now they're told in schools that such an attitude is outdated. (sighs)
6. Press the kicking game. Here is where the breaks are made.
It's hard to argue with a 100-yard kickoff return.
7. Carry the fight to South Carolina and keep it there for sixty minutes.
More like about ten and it wasn't nearly enough.
I don't know how Tennessee can fix this and Butch Jones can't change modern youth culture by himself.
Tennessee badly needs a dose of confidence and perhaps the upcoming tilt with Tennis-shoe Tech can begin to provide that.
Maybe.
Brick by Brick, Baby!
MAXOMG
Suggested Reading:
Samuel Eliot Morison, History of U.S. Naval Operation in World War II, Volume X: The Atlantic Battle Won
Robert A. Maher and Capt. James E. Wise, Jr., USN (Ret.), Sailors Journey into War
E. Andrew Wilde, Jr., The USS Borie (DD-215) in World War II: Documents and Photographs
© 2016
Keeping Your Stories Alive
A painting of the battle between the USS Borie and U-405 (US Navy)
During the Kickoff Call-in Show (shameless SON-promotion, Younger Son&Heir is telephonic systems controller for the show!) before Saturday's tilt in Columbia, a caller asked about the keys to the game. Former Vol signal-caller and perpetual back-up for the New York Jets Pat Ryan fielded that one. He bluntly stated that the Vols had to not only generate a LOT more offense than against A&M or Alabama but also could not afford to fall behind early or turn the ball over two or three times as that would get the Gamecock fans into the game and create a VERY hostile environment.
Apparently, Our Beloved Vols decided to test Ryan's theory.
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]They found out he was right.[/FONT]
******
Several years ago, your Humble Scribe undertook to read all of Adm. Samuel Eliot Morison's magisterial History of United States Naval Operation in World War II all FIFTEEN volumes. It took over a year to read them all. Buried in Volume 10 is a story that blew my feeble mind. Being a dutiful historian more research was called for and what follows is a brief retelling of what will be the subject of a book by yours truly coming out in 2017.
Launched in 1919, the USS Borie had been the ultimate in destroyer design. She was fast capable of up to 35 knots (40 mph) and well armed for the time with four 4 guns, a bank of 21 torpedo tubes and depth charges. By 1943, though, she was showing her age.
October of 1943 found Borie and two of her sisters, USS Goff and USS Barry part of a hunter-killer task group, [FONT=Verdana, Arial]Task Group 21.14.[/FONT] centered around the USS Card, an escort carrier. The escort carrier concept arose to fill in gaps in air coverage for convoys crossing the U-Boat-infested Atlantic. Unlike their larger and more glamorous kin, the escort carriers (CVE) were built on merchant or tanker hulls with a flight deck and a small island structure nailed on top. They usually carried 21 aircraft: nine or ten Widcat fighters and a dozen or so Avenger torpedo bombers rigged to carry depth-charges. Running flat out, with everything open but the toolbox, a CVE could make about 20 knots. Since most convoys plodded along at less than 15 knots this was sufficient.
Halloween night 1943 found the Borie, under the command of Lieutenant Charles H. Hutchins, chasing a reported U-Boat. At 2000 hours (8PM) Borie got a radar fix on the U-256 which she open fire upon. U-256 was observed to go down rapidly and the sound men reported an underwater explosion. An oil slick and debris seemed to confirm the kill. Hutchins jauntily signaled Card, Scratch one pig-boat! Despite heavy damage, though, U-256 returned to port but never sailed again.
At 0145 on 1 November, a radar contact revealed the presence of yet another U-Boat at 8000 yards. The boat dove as the range closed but Borie's sonarmen were up to the challenge and regained the contact at 2200 yards. Hutchins swung his ship toward the contact for a depth-charge run. As Borie passed over the contact a mechanical failure caused all of the charges on one rack to roll into the sea. The resulting explosions literally blew U-405 under Korvettenkapitan Rolf-Heinrich Hopman to the surface and began one of the wildest sea fights in American naval history.
Hutchins ordered his ship's 24-inch searchlight switched on and illuminated the German boat. The German crew literally boiled out of the conning tower racing to man the boat's deck guns. U-405 boasted one 88mm cannon and four 20mm guns in a quadruple mount along with machine guns and small arms. 20mm shells slammed in to Borie's forward engine room and bridge but caused no casualties. Borie responded with 4 guns and her own 20mm guns. As the German 88mm spat defiance, Borie's forward gun barked once, twice, three times. The second shell landed close aboard and killed some of the 88's crew and the third shell blew the gun completely overboard.
Hutchins now ordered a left turn and closed to ram the sub on its starboard side. A storm was brewing and seas were running at 15 to 20 feet. Hopman saw Hutchins' play and initiated his own left turn to avoid the ram and turn parallel to Borie. The U-Boat made it about halfway through its turn before Borie slammed into her. However, instead of striking the U-Boat directly, Borie hit a glancing blow as the sea simultaneously lowered the sub and raised the destroyer. Borie came to rest atop the forecastle of the U-Boat about where the 88mm had been. Now the Germans opened up with everything they had. The men of Borie rushed topside with rifles, Thompson sub-machine guns, shotguns and pistols and returned fire. It was a scene more suited to the days of sail, of Wooden Ships and Iron Men, of John Paul Jones' day than the 20th Century.
The most immediate need was to keep the Germans away from the 20mm mount as those four guns would wreak fearful slaughter among the exposed Americans. German after German tried and died to get to those guns. In one instance a Borie crewman, Fireman 1/c David Southwick, pulled his sheath knife and flung it at a German rushing to man one of the machine guns. The blade buried itself in the man's belly and he fell over the side. In another instance, Chief Bosun's Mate Walter Kurz, the Gun-Captain of the Number Two 4 gun mount, with little to do since his gun would not depress enough to hit the U-Boat, saw a German sailor heading up the ladder to the 20mm mount and tossed a spent 4 shell casing at him, hitting the man on the head and he, too, fell overboard. Going overboard in this fight was a death-sentence as not only were the seas running high but the water temperature was about forty degrees.
The close-quarters battle raged for ten minutes and accounted for roughly half the U-Boat's crew. The straining engines of the two vessels and the action of the waves finally wrenched the two vessels apart and the rattle of musketry died away. Both combatants had suffered grievous injury. The U-Boat's superstructure was a wreck and half her crew was dead. Borie had suffered no crew casualties but the grinding of her thin hull against the tough pressure hull of the submarine had opened holes and seams in her hull all along the port side. The destroyer was taking on water and her engine room crew under Lt. Morrison Brown was working in chest-deep water in the forward engine room to keep up steam and keep her in the fight. A drain fitting was stuck open and the sea was flooding in. The valve was closed by MM2C Irving Saum who dove down under ten feet of water to shut it. Pumps were brought in to dry out the compartment.
With her engineering spaces once again fit to work in, Borie bent on 27 knots in pursuit. This whole time the 24 searchlight held the German in its blinding grip. The stern of U-405 was now pointed directly at Borie and Hutchins realized the searchlight would give the Germans a perfect torpedo solution for their stern tubes. He ordered the light put out and steered clear. No torpedoes were fired.
Once clear of the stingers Borie now rigged her depth-charge projectors and rapidly closed to attempt another ramming. U-405 then turned in an attempt to return the favor. By judicious use of rudder and engines, Hutchins turned the destroyer left. Now Korvettenkapitan Hopman had his chance to strike Borie in the stern and disable her steering but Lt. Hutchins played his hole card and fired a perfect pattern of depth charges directly into the path of the U-Boat. Set shallow, the 500lb charges went off underneath the conning tower and lifted the sub completely out of the water and stopped her dead with her stern six feet from Borie's.
The sub quickly restarted her engines and backed away as Borie also drew clear while keeping up a lively fire from her main battery and adding a snap-shot torpedo which missed. During this part of the action a 4 shell hit the sub's conning tower and probably killed Korvettenkapitan Hopman. Another 4 round hit the main exhaust and U-405's engines died for the last time. Once again the German crew came out of their hatches, but as some fired white flares to indicated surrender others ran to the guns and Borie's guns kept firing until cries of Kamerad! were heard across the deep.
Now the men of Borie began to transition from agents of destruction to Angels of Mercy as she closed to rescue survivors. The U-Boat's crew was already taking to life rafts. U-405 was seen to sink by the stern. Two or three minutes later there was an underwater explosion, possibly of the sub's scuttling charges. From their rafts the sub's crew continued to fire flares. The bridge crew of the Borie saw an answering set of flares in the distance and almost simultaneously the sonarman Lerten Kent picked up the high-pitched screeeeeee of torpedoes in the water. There was yet a THIRD U-Boat in the area and by slowing for the rescue, Borie was a sitting duck. Hutchins had no choice, he rang for flank speed on his remaining operational engine to clear the area running over several of the rafts in the process. He turned toward the incoming tin fish and the crew watched as it whizzed past leaving a phosphorescent wake.
The German boat that fired that last Parthian Shot never came to look for 405's crew and Borie quickly cleared the area only to lose power and generators some distance away. The entire crew of U-405 perished.
The killing was over, the dying would go on for a while.
Borie was also on her last legs. At 0900 the generator for her radio also died. Enough flammable liquid was found to get the radio working for one brief, last message from Lt. Hutchins to Card at 1100, Commenced sinking. The carrier got a radio fix and launched a pair of Avengers on that bearing to find Borie which they located some 14 miles away. Captain Arnold Isbell of Card dispatched his remaining escorts, Goff and Barry, to render aid to their sister. However the ocean swells were now running FORTY feet and neither destroyer could get close enough to Borie to help without risking catastrophic damage.
It was now getting on toward sunset and Captain Isbell ordered Lt. Hutchins to abandon ship lest she capsize in the dark with grievous loss of life. The abandonment began at 1644 and proceeded well but there was a significant problem: the men of the Borie had been in combat with one submarine, in close-quarters action and a running gun battle with another, conducting life-or-death damage control AND battling mountainous seas for the better part of 24 hours. They were spent.
As the crew took to the rafts some men were clearly addled and in shock from the recent events. Ignoring the pleas of their shipmates, they let go and tried to swim to the other destroyers. Others simply let go of the rafts. The forty-degree water ensured they never made it. Others clinging to the sides of the life rafts were killed when the huge waves bashed them against the hulls of the other ships.
Goff and Barry conducted rescue operations until about 0200 on 2 November then secured and returned to rendezvous with Card and transfer the survivors to her. When the roll was called, a total of 7 officers and 120 men were counted present. Three of Borie's officers and 24 of her enlisted men were lost.
Borie survived only hours longer. Abandoned and heavily damaged, some consideration was given to trying to get her back under control and tow her to safety. However, the nearest port was 500 miles away and the nearest harbor that could actually do anything to repair her was over 2000 miles distant. Added to this was the knowledge that there was at least one U-Boat still in the area and an estimated fifty within a couple of day's sail.
It was time.
Barry was sent to sink her with torpedoes but all failed. Finally an Avenger from Card dropped four depth-bombs close aboard and sent Borie to the bottom.
Three Navy Crosses were earned by Borie men: one by Lt. Hutchins, the second went to MM2C Irving R. Saum and a third, posthumously, to Lt. Morrison R. Brown.
Steel ships can still be manned by Iron Men.
****
Tennessee should have come out Saturday night looking to make a statement. They needed to prove they were better than the lackluster performance against Alabama.
They failed.
Our Beloved Vols seem to once again need a dose of senior leadership and can't seem to get there. There is a fundamental problem in that of the eighty or so players listed on the official roster only ten are seniors and two of the most dynamic players, Cam Sutton and Jalen Reeves-Maybin, are in street clothes. This sad situation is a direct result of the feckless recruiting under Lawyer Dooley.
That, too will change, but not quickly enough to really effect this season. What must happen now is that some of the juniors need to step up and assume the mantle.
So how did the team do compared to the Maxims?
1. The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win.
It would seem one major mistake for Tennessee was allowing the team to listen to call-in shows and read posts on the web. Tennessee came out completely flat and the reason can be discerned. There has been general agreement that once past Alabama, the rest of the season would be a cake walk. This writer was convinced from the bginning that this sentiment was flawed. First, Tennessee is still carrying the baggage of ten years or so of mediocrity and simply cannot take any victory over ANY opponent for granted. Second, four of the Vols' last five opponent play in the Southeastern Conference. Granted, none of them are playing for a date in Atlanta in December BUT every one of them views their remaining games as potentially their bowl game. To become complacent, at this point in Tennessee's rebuilding, is to court disaster.
2. Play for and make the breaks. When one comes your way SCORE!
Tennessee created exactly no breaks for itself. The Chickens ran wild but thankfully couldn't seem to finish the deal either.
3. If at first the game or the breaks go against you, dont let up PUT ON MORE STEAM!
Tennessee still seems to think this Maxim applies to a turkey and Swiss at Gus's.
4. Protect our kickers, our quarterback, our lead and our ballgame.
Tennessee's offensive line woes continued. I lost count of how many times Tim Priest pointed out that the Vol offensive line is getting no push. Play after play that should have gone for positive yards was blown up at or behind the line. Dobbs spent most of the game running for his life.
5. Ball! Oskie! Cover, block, cut and slice, pursue and gang tackle THIS IS THE WINNING EDGE.
One thing I've noticed over the years is a trend among teams at all levels to pile it on when things go well and simply wilt when they don't. This is true for Pee-Wees and all the way to the NFL. I mark it down as yet another sign of the degradation of Western Culture. Young men used to pride themselves on overcoming adversity. Now they're told in schools that such an attitude is outdated. (sighs)
6. Press the kicking game. Here is where the breaks are made.
It's hard to argue with a 100-yard kickoff return.
7. Carry the fight to South Carolina and keep it there for sixty minutes.
More like about ten and it wasn't nearly enough.
I don't know how Tennessee can fix this and Butch Jones can't change modern youth culture by himself.
Tennessee badly needs a dose of confidence and perhaps the upcoming tilt with Tennis-shoe Tech can begin to provide that.
Maybe.
Brick by Brick, Baby!
MAXOMG
Suggested Reading:
Samuel Eliot Morison, History of U.S. Naval Operation in World War II, Volume X: The Atlantic Battle Won
Robert A. Maher and Capt. James E. Wise, Jr., USN (Ret.), Sailors Journey into War
E. Andrew Wilde, Jr., The USS Borie (DD-215) in World War II: Documents and Photographs
© 2016
Keeping Your Stories Alive
A painting of the battle between the USS Borie and U-405 (US Navy)
