This article explains why UT football has been in decline...and it's not due to coaching

#28
#28
GBOplayer said:
Tennessee football: ESPN’s SEC rights a further blow to Vols’ recruiting edge

This article hits the nail in the head about UT's football program decline. We no longer have a recruiting advantage anymore due to more revenue sharing. For those complaining about coaching being the issue, I would say there are bigger things in play.
Click to expand...

Lol... The way I understood that article is all those years where we had a million dollar plus recruiting budget that the other SEC schools trailed by a long shot is that we wasted a massive opportunity there to score more than 1 measly national championship. It could have and should have been a run like Alabama has had recently. Not to mention all the coaching ineptitude of the past going on 20 years now.
 
#30
#30
J C Higgins said:
Spot on.

Our great record late last century was because many other regional programs (both SEC and otherwise) were in the doldrums relative to where they are now. It was much easier to recruit.
Click to expand...

Utter nonsense, Georgia still recruited well in the late 90's and early 00's so did Auburn. Alabama has always recruited well and so has UF, talent wasn't Zook's problem at UF. Virginia Tech was much better in the late 90's and early 00's than they are today. South Carolina isn't some recruiting juggernaut and neither is UNC. The only team that is recruiting significantly better today is Clemson. We have the talent to compete. We don't have the coaching
 
  • Like
Reactions: dduncan4163, cobbwebb0710, Rickyvol77 and 1 other person
#31
#31
GVol1966 said:
I’m not reading it because if it says our decline is not due to coaching then it’s pure fiction.
16 years of coaching malpractice is the reason.
Click to expand...

This ^

If our decline was not due to atrocious coaching hires then you would expect Dooley and Butch to have HC jobs somewhere else in D1, but as it stands they are assistants and interns because the rest of the college football world knows what UT fans know - they are not big boy football material and neither is Pruitt
 
  • Like
Reactions: TikiVol, dduncan4163, Myrtleturtle and 1 other person
#32
#32
I’ll allow some credence to this. Alabama, UGA, and UF have talent in state to keep the competitive. We do not. National recruiting has been a staple because we’ve needed it.

That said, it isn’t in the top 5 of current problems preventing us from being competitive.
 
#34
#34
You have an entire offensive line made up of 5 stars and you can’t run block or pass block

You have a third year starter 4 star quarterback who has not been developed at all

You have a defense chock full of 4 stars and you can’t stop 3rd and 15

I could go on and on. It’s not the kids, it’s not the fans, it’s coaching and lack of development. If Mullen or even Kiffin had been given this same group of kids three years ago they would be competing for the east and I say that with full confidence.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bassplayer30074, memtownvol, TikiVol and 4 others
#35
#35
Per rivals over the past three years UT has averaged a #15 ranked recruiting class and Florida has averaged a #12 recruiting class. Both Mullen and Pruitt were hired in 2017 so these are their classes. Florida is playing in Atlanta for a playoff spot. We are playing tomorrow to see who the worst team in the SEC is going to be. Tell me again how it is not about coaching.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bassplayer30074, memtownvol, TikiVol and 12 others
#36
#36
EZE said:
If it looks like bad coaching...and smells like bad coaching...it’s bad coaching.

Seriously, the article is based on a flawed premise: that recruits only sign with an in-state school. And we know that simply isn’t the case.

But, YOU HAVE TO HAVE SOMETHING ATTRACTIVE TO SELL. If you get the right coach in there, it all takes care of itself. The States of Oklahoma and Alabama aren’t producing Florida, Texas and California levels of talent, but good coaches in those states are doing just fine.

We will, too, if we hire a good coach.
Click to expand...
It it was all about in state talent then Bama would not be champions, instead it would be the likes of Texas, FSU, Miami, and USC.
 
  • Like
Reactions: memtownvol and EZE
#38
#38
#39
#39
Calhoun has identified a factor, but the talent level of the team has remained much higher than the performance level on the field.
Tennessee football is rich with tradition and resources both.
That team is loaded with talent.
Talent that is not measurably better than either one or two years ago.
Whose job is it to take a high school talent and make them a big time SEC talent?
Who fears playing the Vols in 2020? or 2019? or 2016? or 2011?
It has been a while. Teams lost their fear of the VOLS in the early 2000s.
Our defenses still had enough firepower to punish some teams, but others defeated our superior rosters with better coaching and game plans.
It takes more muscle, speed, and planning to win in this game. Fulmer was being outplanned. By Dooley, we were being beaten in all 3 phases of the game.

This has been a long, consistent decline.
And the decliner is now AD. When he was fired, it was time to go.

Pruitt has improved the muscle. The speed gap has not closed (Velus Jones,here are you?). The planning gap seems to have declined.

So, that is where we are in Dec. 2020.
 
#40
#40
That was a dumb article, but I think it is true that Tennessee is losing/lost its advantage in the facilities arms race. In the 1990's, there were a lot of football juggernaut schools that didn't even try. Style of football/coaching/winning are probably bigger issues than that, though.
 
#41
#41
GBOplayer said:
Tennessee football: ESPN’s SEC rights a further blow to Vols’ recruiting edge

This article hits the nail in the head about UT's football program decline. We no longer have a recruiting advantage anymore due to more revenue sharing. For those complaining about coaching being the issue, I would say there are bigger things in play.
Click to expand...

Nah. I'm giving them the COVID mulligan, but no more excuses next year. All Butches players should be pretty much flushed out. He's had plenty of time, and plenty of "good" recruiting. It's time to make something out of it, or move on.
 
#42
#42
GBOplayer said:
Tennessee football: ESPN’s SEC rights a further blow to Vols’ recruiting edge

This article hits the nail in the head about UT's football program decline. We no longer have a recruiting advantage anymore due to more revenue sharing. For those complaining about coaching being the issue, I would say there are bigger things in play.
Click to expand...
Nonsense...even with revenue sharing, Tennessee still is one of the highest grossing football programs in the country. When not one coach has been successful as a HC in a P5 conference since leaving here, I don't see how anyone can definitively make a statement that "it's not coaching".
 
  • Like
Reactions: ABINGDON VOL FAN
#43
#43
Since 2000, our recruiting classes on average outside of a class or two consistently outranked the following SEC programs: Vanderbilt, UK, SC, Arkansas, Mizzou, Miss. State, Ole Miss, and Auburn (usually). The only teams that consistently out recruit UT are UF, LSU, Bama, and UGA. However, our record against the other 8 since 2000 is a combined total losses of 35 games with several additional losses to OOC opponents who haven't recruited in the top 40 like Ga. State, BYU, West Virginia, and UCLA
 
  • Like
Reactions: memtownvol
#44
#44
Opinions are like butt-holes; everybody's got one. This one is mostly hogwash. Arguing that the demise of Vol football hasn't been due to bad coaching makes as much sense as arguing that stars don't matter in recruiting. Is anyone really dumb enough to believe that Saban, Meyer, or Swinney would have failed in Knoxville?
 
#45
#45
The main point is the fact that I think Volnation in general has expectations that are wayyy too high. UT football program will never be able to replicate the success of the late 90's and early 2000. The landscape at that time enabled our program to rise to the top for almost a decade. It is a different time now, different landscape with revenue sharing (especially going forward). The expectation of hiring a coach and expecting to compete for a national championship in 3 years is just NOT FEASIBLE. That expectation is not realistic, and if we continue to have those expectations, we will be changing coaches every 4 years which has been what has been happening. For our program to be successful, we need a stable atmosphere and a coach who stays long term to be able to build culture and this takes a longer amount of time.
 
#46
#46
Hawkeye4588 said:
Per rivals over the past three years UT has averaged a #15 ranked recruiting class and Florida has averaged a #12 recruiting class. Both Mullen and Pruitt were hired in 2017 so these are their classes. Florida is playing in Atlanta for a playoff spot. We are playing tomorrow to see who the worst team in the SEC is going to be. Tell me again how it is not about coaching.
Click to expand...

I wish I could like this 1000 times. Nailed it.

That said....GO NAVY, BEAT ARMY!!!!!
 
  • Like
Reactions: ABINGDON VOL FAN
#47
#47
GBOplayer said:
Tennessee football: ESPN’s SEC rights a further blow to Vols’ recruiting edge

This article hits the nail in the head about UT's football program decline. We no longer have a recruiting advantage anymore due to more revenue sharing. For those complaining about coaching being the issue, I would say there are bigger things in play.
Click to expand...
That’s called parity, where coaching becomes the difference. So yes, the damn coach makes a huge difference. For most SEC schools, it’s about the only difference.

Good grief.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TikiVol
#48
#48
VolInNW said:
I wish I could like this 1000 times. Nailed it.

That said....GO NAVY, BEAT ARMY!!!!!
Click to expand...


Thanks! and

1000w_q75.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: GoVols15 and VolInNW
#49
#49
Nice story but it’s all ********. Poor evaluation decisions, lack of development, playing a bad QB and signing players not committed to playing winning SEC football are the reasons & thats all coaching.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dduncan4163
#50
#50
GBOplayer said:
Tennessee football: ESPN’s SEC rights a further blow to Vols’ recruiting edge

This article hits the nail in the head about UT's football program decline. We no longer have a recruiting advantage anymore due to more revenue sharing. For those complaining about coaching being the issue, I would say there are bigger things in play.
Click to expand...

lol this is literally and indictment of the coaching. last I checked…… Xs and Os and recruiting are about coaching. Freeze beat two out of three teams, the L was by a single point, that I’m not sure TN could beat - While coaching Liberty with other coaches recruits. I’d be willing to bet small money that TN spent more on one single month of recruiting than Liberty did in a year.
 
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.
Advertisement





Back
Top