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I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that. UT is not in a apposition where we have to "catch up" to vandy. We are the better football program. That is a fact. 2 wins does not change that. I'm not trying to downplay y'all's wins against us. It is no small feat, and we certainly had it coming, but we are in a slump, and vandy is nearing the end of one of their best periods in history. I just dont think vandy has the AD, resources, fan base and recruiting advantages (this includes vandys more strenuous admission standards) to sustain themselves and compare to UT in the long term. I think they've had a perfect storm recently which has led to their recent success, but I believe this situation will prove to be the exception, rather than the norm. Vandy will field good teams every once in a while (like the jay cutler era) but I think it's gonna be back to the days of UT having huge streaks again relatively soon. This is all my opinion of course

I've been recently pondering an interesting aspect of modern football and, while I have yet to decide on a thorough formulation of my thoughts, I have come to the conclusion that Tennessee might need to worry more than y'all think. It's my premise that modern technology and the pervasiveness of academic support programs and specialized classes are leading to more parity between the traditionally weaker "highly-ranked academics" schools and the larger public ones. Stanford is a legitimate football power now. Northwestern has been been steadily growing into a respectable football program, Vandy has done pretty well for itself lately, and even Duke has shown marked improvement. Mind you, I'm quite aware all of these examples can be attributed to good coaching hires, but it seems to be a rather massive coincidence that they all managed it around the same time. That suggests a broader reason that includes coaching but also betokens a deeper sea change. My theories are, as of yet, nascent, but I've already started to hypothesize that the Internet Age and the pervasiveness of avenues for scholastic improvement for high school athletes are making it easier for these schools to find decent recruits that can both gain admission and hack the coursework. If I am correct, then the ascendance may not be nearly as predictably temporary as you might hope.

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Posted by Prof

Member since Jun 2013

42695 posts

Posted on 6/24/14 at 3:25 am to randomways

I think it's interesting they have all arisen and/or re-arisen at the same time (let's not forget Northwestern had some good teams in the past) but I'm not certain about the reasons why. Duke has always been a basketball school and had no trouble admitting players that there's no way would pass normal admissions and that's not a special thing. Even though it's a well kept secret, Stanford, NW, Duke, Vandy, all use special admits just like every other school in the country - there's only 7 schools who have no formal special admit policy and none of them are who you might think and not having a special admit policy doesn't necessarily mean they're not using special admits (they're just using it differently). However, special admits aren't exclusive to athletes and are used for many reasons.

Many schools have special admits for rich students: LINK

The reason for all of this is that admissions isn't a cut and dried kinda thing and it never will be. Admissions is arbitrary so arbitrary that I've seen professors write notes and boom a student was in grad school.

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