It can get a little too dramatic at times, but seriously, a lot of us are just tired after five straight years of being beaten into the ground. Some of us, like me, bought into thinking maybe Dooley could actually do a good job. Got burned pretty bad on that one.

It's not so much "beaten wife syndrome" as it is, I think, coming to grips with just what a huge project this is. That's why the whole "Brick by Brick" business isn't just a saying -- it's what we're having to do. This thing has to be rebuilt. Fulmer's exit was probably the right thing, but the sheer incompetence of our administration in their next two hires -- a guy whose recruiting class was a complete bust and who basically nuked our program, and of course the Great and Powerful Doolander -- has set Tennessee way, way back.

I thought this was going to be a year or two thing when Fulmer was fired. We needed work, but we'd be back in short order. It has instead become the worst stretch, arguably, in Tennessee's entire football history.

I'm not giving up -- I think Butch Jones is going to do good things here. Maybe not win us an SEC or national title, but at least get us out of this hole. But it just isn't going to be this year or next year.

I'm done getting my hopes up for "DA BIG UPZET!" I want to see the team compete hard and play four full quarters, which we hadn't been seeing enough of. It'll get there, but it's going to take time.

This post was edited on 9/8/13 at 10:44 pm