We are quickly going there.
I date back to Bill Battle and Johnny come Marching Home.
Realistically we will not win another game until November. It's going to be a long long month. I thought we would fair pretty well in this game, come out playing and win it, but it wasn't to be.
I don't ever remember a time at UT when I didn't think we had at least an outside chance of winning an upcoming game. The only game this month I feel like we have greater than a 0 chance of winning is South Carolina and they will have to have an off day for us to beat them.
I do not entirely blame Derek Dooley for the mess our football team is in. That said, I do feel like he and his coaching staff haven't entirely stepped up to the plate. Yes, they have been dealt a sorry hand, but they aren't doing anything with it.
In my opinion 100% of the blame for this mess lies at the feet of Mike Hamilton. Yes, it was time for Phillip Fulmer to retire, however, Mike should have had someone standing in the wings and ready to take over and move forward. He hired and unproven head coach (Lane Kiffin) and allowed that sorry piece of trash to take advantage of the University, the Taxpayers, the Fans and the Donors for a tremendous amount of money that might as well have been burned. Then when that fell apart we didn't end up with a name brand coach, we ended up with someone coaching a team on the level of Carson Newman and threw them into the fire that they were not ready for.
As it is, Derek Dooley is our head coach. It is not in our best interest to not support him or to get rid of him at this point. At this point some kind of stability has to be built into this program. We have to get back to the point of having upper classmen starting and underclassmen who have talent backing them up. Right now the Seniors on the team should be Phillip Fulmer's Recruits, the Juniors Kiffin's Recruits and frankly the Sophomores should be Kiffin Recruits as well. Where are the Juniors and Seniors?
One thing I have to Concede to Kiffin as much as I hate to is this. If something went wrong on the field one week it was fixed the next week and didn't happen again. Were into our second season under Dooley and still getting penalties for delay of game because we can't get the right play called and team set in time. We still can not kick a ball. The same people still can not hang onto the ball. There are other similar things that can be attributed to coaching.
A football team is a lot more difficult to fix than a basketball team, and I for one am glad Mike Hamilton is gone. I believe that given time Derek Dooley will bring Tennessee around to being halfway respectable. At that point we may have to change coaches again to get to the next level.
I don't know how or why but our team peaked in the early to mid 90's. IMO, the national championship was an accident. We've now bell curved all the way back to where we were with Coach Battle and it's going to be a long climb out of this hole.
