The real start of our slide into mediocrity...

#1
orangetd88

orangetd88

Agent of Chaos
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#1
was actually in 2000. All this time we (or at least I, or anyone not ignoring facts) thought it was 2002. And it was...to an extent. 2000 was a little bump in the road and we accpeted it since we were just 2 years removed from a MNC. In hindsight, however, you could actually point to that year, or even go back to the 1999 recruiting class, which was quite possibly one of the worst classes ever brought in by a school that just won a national title.

Now I know that we went to a BCS bowl again in 99 and were a half away from the Rose Bowl in 2001, but that is where things started to fall off just a tad, IMO.
 
#4
#4
Before 2005, I was stupid enough to believe that a down year at TN would be an 8-4 season; but 2005 and now 2008 is making it painfully clear that TN is just like other power programs that have declined, it has to get really bad before it can get good again. Nebraska is a prime example of this.
 
#5
#5
Sherman from Niota said:
Before 2005, I was stupid enough to believe that a down year at TN would be an 8-4 season; but 2005 and now 2008 is making it painfully clear that TN is just like other power programs that have declined, it has to get really bad before it can get good again. Nebraska is a prime example of this.
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It is very rare that a program like Tennessee has this kind of downward spiral with a nation champion winning "legendary" coach at the helm. That is what makes our slide so painful. Byrant at bamma, Paterno at PS, Brown at TX, Stoops at OK, Carroll at USC, Meyer at FL. Once you establish a standard of excellence losing seasons are not tolerated. Notice the coaches I wrote of have all won NC's and are still at the top. Nebraska lost their "legendary" coach and that is when things went down for them.

I think the beginning of the end was the SECCG in '01. We lost to a team we beat in the regular season that was playing with some asshat at QB names Matt Mauk and, as has been the trend since then, he looked like a Heisman winning QB in the game. He could do no wrong.
 
#7
#7
gasguy98 said:
It is very rare that a program like Tennessee has this kind of downward spiral with a nation champion winning "legendary" coach at the helm. That is what makes our slide so painful. Byrant at bamma, Paterno at PS, Brown at TX, Stoops at OK, Carroll at USC, Meyer at FL. Once you establish a standard of excellence losing seasons are not tolerated. Notice the coaches I wrote of have all won NC's and are still at the top. Nebraska lost their "legendary" coach and that is when things went down for them.

I think the beginning of the end was the SECCG in '01. We lost to a team we beat in the regular season that was playing with some asshat at QB names Matt Mauk and, as has been the trend since then, he looked like a Heisman winning QB in the game. He could do no wrong.
Click to expand...

It's a little early to put Carroll and Meyer in this discussion. Neither of them have been at the helm of their respective schools for 10 years yet.
 
#8
#8
gasguy98 said:
It is very rare that a program like Tennessee has this kind of downward spiral with a nation champion winning "legendary" coach at the helm. That is what makes our slide so painful. Byrant at bamma, Paterno at PS, Brown at TX, Stoops at OK, Carroll at USC, Meyer at FL. Once you establish a standard of excellence losing seasons are not tolerated. Notice the coaches I wrote of have all won NC's and are still at the top. Nebraska lost their "legendary" coach and that is when things went down for them.

I think the beginning of the end was the SECCG in '01. We lost to a team we beat in the regular season that was playing with some asshat at QB names Matt Mauk and, as has been the trend since then, he looked like a Heisman winning QB in the game. He could do no wrong.
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You mean the "asshat" who quarterbacked the 2003 BCS championship team?
 
#9
#9
hatvol96 said:
You mean the "asshat" who quarterbacked the 2003 BCS championship team?
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In all fairness Hat, at the time of the SECCG '01 he wasn't much of a QB.

He improved over the course of his career; but if I recall that was his first season.
 
#10
#10
I chalked 2000 up to being a rebuilding year. We lost so much after '99, including 3 All Americans and our starting QB. We followed up the less than stellar 2000 campaign with a national title contending squad in 2001. So for me, the slide really started in 2002. I never felt that we had a true top 10 team after that, with the exception of a brief delusional period prior to the 2005 season.
 
#11
#11
General Jack said:
I chalked 2000 up to being a rebuilding year. We lost so much after '99, including 3 All Americans and our starting QB. We followed up the less than stellar 2000 campaign with a national title contending squad in 2001. So for me, the slide really started in 2002. I never felt that we had a true top 10 team after that, with the exception of a brief delusional period prior to the 2005 season.
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I agree. With the exception of the awful performance in the Cotton Bowl, there wasn't much in 2000 I found disappointing. We won six games in a row at the end of the regular season with a true freshman QB.
 
#12
#12
General Jack said:
...I never felt that we had a true top 10 team after that, with the exception of a brief delusional period prior to the 2005 season.
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Well, that's because we haven't had a top 10 team since then.

In fact, that is our only top ten finish since the NC in '98. Not to mention that the Fiesta after '99 was our last BCS bowl appearance.

Since that time we've been a fringe top 25 team...which is essentially a decade.
 
#13
#13
hatvol96 said:
I agree. With the exception of the awful performance in the Cotton Bowl, there wasn't much in 2000 I found disappointing. We won six games in a row at the end of the regular season with a true freshman QB.
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QB issues ruled that year early on.

However, the ultra blow-out loss to K St was quite disappointing.
 
#14
#14
Liper said:
QB issues ruled that year early on.

However, the ultra blow-out loss to K St was quite disappointing.
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Funny story about that one. As most will remember, the weather in Dallas that day was atrocious. When we got to the stadium, my friend asked me how I thought the cold would affect our California QB. About that time, Clausen threw a warmup pass over the bench and into the second row of the stands.
 
#15
#15
hatvol96 said:
I agree. With the exception of the awful performance in the Cotton Bowl, there wasn't much in 2000 I found disappointing. We won six games in a row at the end of the regular season with a true freshman QB.
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Starting 0-3 in the conference wasn't anything to be excited about.
 
#17
#17
orangetd88 said:
Starting 0-3 in the conference wasn't anything to be excited about.
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We lost to 3 good SEC teams with our whole offensive identity at the time being, "lets see if we can dig ourselves a hole by giving it to Travis Henry 40 times a game."
 
#18
#18
Troy Fleming was on his cell phone at the peach bowl and players were pretty much giving coaches the finger on the sidelines in the second half.
 
#19
#19
Rodney and complacency. Ego, old school philosophy, unwillingness to change with the times, making a mockery of the game maxims. Never hiring the best coordinators available. Bad practice habits, misused talent. Favoritism for seniors and guys that do the right things off the field. Most of it started right after 1998. Talent carried us through till around 2001. Then it all began to show up. Those back to back 10-3 years masked alot of our deficency's. 2004 other than 2001 has been our best year this decade. Even that year we lost to a ND team we should have killed. Also its when ainge went mental on us. This decade has pretty much sucked.

Laundry list.
 
#20
#20
I remember my frustration starting with the embarrassing bowl performances against Maryland and Clemson
 
#21
#21
Yeah, I looked at our overall alltime bowl record yesterday and if it was accurate its not too sporty!
 
#22
#22
VolSwaff said:
We lost to 3 good SEC teams with our whole offensive identity at the time being, "lets see if we can dig ourselves a hole by giving it to Travis Henry 40 times a game."
Click to expand...

We've lost to a couple of good SEC teams so far this year, too. Doesn't make it any better.

At least Dubose was choking it up @ Bama that year, so we were able to beat them.
 
#24
#24
Cartervol said:
Rodney and complacency. Ego, old school philosophy, unwillingness to change with the times, making a mockery of the game maxims. Never hiring the best coordinators available. Bad practice habits, misused talent. Favoritism for seniors and guys that do the right things off the field. Most of it started right after 1998. Talent carried us through till around 2001. Then it all began to show up. Those back to back 10-3 years masked alot of our deficency's. 2004 other than 2001 has been our best year this decade. Even that year we lost to a ND team we should have killed. Also its when ainge went mental on us. This decade has pretty much sucked.

Laundry list.
Click to expand...
To further this...

our slide began in '99...starting with the hire of Sanders as OC. Yes Randy has taken alot of hits and eventually alot of blame and in retrospect we all know he shouldered more blame that he should have. But by hiring Sanders Fulmer keep things in house...not a bad idea in general but Fulmer had no intention of letting Sanders run his Offense how Randy wanted to run it. In turn that seasons O was a shadow of it's self...with much the same talent that it had in winning the NC. Fulmers hand was clearly controlling the action and why?

Well I've been preaching this for years...before the NC Fulmer and company were constantly a team capable of putting up huge offensive numbers. Often Fulmers teams even whe he was the OC himself regularly put up 40+ a game. I remember those days and 40+ was almost expected. However Fulmer finally won the NC with a team that was defensively strong...and an offense that was scaled way back for Tee. In essence Fulmer won the title with an extremely conservative offense and game plan and relied on a great defense. It's been that way since then. Long, long gone are the days of letting the ball fly, of Wide Reciever U. And for me it all started with UF that year when UT made Alex Brown an overnight star. Any coach on any level would have made the adjustment to stop Brown...even if it meant putting the whole team on the kid but Fulmer sat back and never once made an adjustment to stop Brown. Now given all that UT still had a shot to win the game...consecutive plays of sweeping lewis to get the first down and he was stopped. Now I'm sorry but the sweep just ain't that succesfull agains't teams with speed i.e Florida. So yeah that was the first omen. 2nd ? UT vs. Arkansas...win that game and we're back in the NC hunt...what did UT do...came out flat and unmotivated. Throw in the fact that recruiting that year was atrocious...well here we are.

1999 was the year of playing not to lose as opposed to playing to win. Fulmer saw that by being conservative and good D, he could win a NC...he's been trying to repeat this formula since then. Fulmer forgot a huge fundamental about teams...and that is every team is different. Regardless if it's still most of the same personal...every team has a different identity and great coaches find out what that is and use it to they're advantage.

Has Fulmer forgotten how to coach? Nope! But he has forgotten how to win. And that means surrounding yourself with the best coaches, playing your best talent, developing your talent, teaching fundamentals and a go for the throat attitude. None of the above have been a part of UT football for a decade.
 
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