As I was able to attend four homes games this past season one obvious thing occured to me our fans suck. We have the largest stadium in the SEC but everyone knows we are not the lowdest or by far the most hostile environment to play in. One thing was apparent while I was watching us play the UT fans would sit down and clap like its a tennis match. I never sit down during a UT game and the next day I am unable to speak on account of me raisin hell on the opposition. If you go to Gainesville or Death Valley you cannot hear yourself think but at Tennessee I feel like Im at a nursing home.
OK, you got me started. I think this is a multi-demensional problem. It is not just football, but basketball as well. Sticking to football, I think there are multiple reasons. One, we've led the way in pampering our fans. At one time, not in our too distant past, we had 98,000 fans packed in the stadium with thousands outside on games as early as Aug and as late as Dec. Then, we increased to 107,000ish and still yet, we had thousands outside trying to find a last minute ticket. As a middle-aged fan, those were the days. Recently, we have several developments that I believe are contributing factors:
1. We won a national championship. The bar is raised. Sorry, success breeds content (sp?).
2. We were less of an underdawg and more recently we are not even competitive in some games. Blown-out is another word.
3. Our bragging rights of having the second largest stadium on campus is no longer there. There is not a battle cry of having a 107,000 standing room only crowd where only the cool people get in.
4. We now have skyboxes, soon to have exclusive concourses, etc. WE are pampering our fans. There are thousands up in the 70-degree, fair weather fans that don't even get to hear the crowd unless they open the window. And they are so far removed from the game they are ineffective as a noise maker. They get to the games early, leave early. Not that at the games it's that big a deal, but they go home and they are like "that game was boring. I'm not going back until the alabama game." I think that buzz is out there and it is infectious.
5. Here goes: We sold our soul for Lane Kiffin. I hated to see Fulmer go and bring in a new regime. I sincerely believe that Fulmer should have stepped down on his own after the 2005 season to allow Cutcliffe to come back as head coach and keep the staff we had. I think the fact that we took a serious nose-dive after that season, one that could have been avoided, and we could have kept people here that want to be here and Fulmer could have gone out sort of on top. Instead, we have a lame-duck coach for several years and the fan base only tolerated so much. Then, when Kiffy came in, it was obvious he's outta here in a few years either by winning and getting the next job or by losing and getting run out of town. Sorta glad we didn't see that one played out. I think now, we are in great hands with Dooley. But, let's face it, he's never even been on campus before a little over a month ago. The orange on him looks as fake as it did on Kiffy. Don't get me wrong, i am 100% behind this guy and he does want to be here a long time. I sincerely believe it is a destination job for him. But, he wasn't born and raised a vol like some of the other coaches we had on staff. And to me, the Johnny Majors years, the Fulmer years, all that building came crashing down in the past few years.
Can we get that attitude back? Yes.
Will we? We are UT. Yes.
Will we next year? Probably not.
BTW, if we can beat Oregon next year, look out! We'll have one heck of a recruiting year.
Sorry.
BYOBBIO
