re: Want to know why Tennessee has been historically bad recently?

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We're not talking about the high school talent in Tennessee. We're talking about the actual location of the University of Tennessee. Recruits don't wanna live in east Tennessee any more. Kids from Memphis would rather sign with Ole Miss or Arkansas than Tennessee. Talent from Florida would rather move one state north than two states north


Knoxville > Oxford ./thread

As far as Campuses go, we're definitely mid/lower table.

As far as the area and overall city.. Location, Population, Distance , and outdoor beauty ( Smokys + 100's of lakes and rivers ). Knoxville is one of the premier locations in the south to have a Major campus located in it.Urban for the city boys or really Rugged for the mountain guys. Knoxville and the smokies are like Fayettville and the Ozarks.. just 1000x prettier and better in every facet

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Bringing up that your campus is as pretty as Fayetteville doesn't help your cause, it's not like Arky is a recruiting giant. Knoxville is a great town but it is still culturally different than where most of the recruits grow up. Personally I would love it there but I'm not your target.

It's also true that the big hotbed of talent in Tenn seems to be Memphis which might as well not even be in Tennessee because of the distance. It's just as close to a ton of other SEC programs.

The biggest thing that has hurt UT though is the rise of so many others. USC, and UGA to go with UF along with all the West powers make it harder for UT to come in and grab recruits like they used to. The SEC is just loaded with quality programs now and being great isn't even good enough, if you aren't winning you will get pounded. A great coach will turn it around though. UT is still a historic power with a lot of tradition and character. The money issues are all related to the recent record but soon the SEC TV money will be enough to nullify it.

Just a lot of bad decisions at UT that you have to dig yourself out of. UT kind of reminds me of when A&M got rid of Fran. A program with a ton of potential and good history that made a lot of bad decisions to the point that people had started to forget what they had done. It's a blessing and a curse that college football can be determined by the whims of where 17 year olds want to play. A few bad years and all of a sudden they were in elementary school since the last time you were good. For instance from '84-02 A&M didn't have a winning season and won 7 Conference Titles but to people under 30 it was as though we hadn't ever done anything.

You will be fine though. A winning program at UT is more attractive than a winning program at a lot of other SEC schools. A losing program at UT though will get kicked around by winning SEC programs, that's just the game.