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Will Tennessee ever be elite again?
Posted on 7/20/19 at 9:05 am
Posted on 7/20/19 at 9:05 am
Matt Hayes doesn't seem to think so.
In a scathing article from two days ago, he laid out a laundry list of reasons why Tennessee will never rank among the college football elite ever again.
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In a scathing article from two days ago, he laid out a laundry list of reasons why Tennessee will never rank among the college football elite ever again.
quote:
Two decades removed from the golden age of Vols football, second-year coach Jeremy Pruitt strolled to the podium earlier this week and began extolling the academic virtues of his team.
That's right, the program of General Robert Neyland's maxims and Peyton Manning and Reggie White and all those memorable fall Saturdays in the Smoky Mountains is bowing its back with academics.
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Meanwhile, back in reality:
- Tennessee has seven losing seasons in its past 11.
- Five times in the past eight seasons, the Vols have won two or fewer SEC games and are 28-60 in league games since 2008.
- Tennessee hasn't had a player selected in three of the past five NFL drafts.
- Four full-time and two interim coaches in the past 10 years have combined for a 62-63 record.
And if we're really talking academics, look no further than longtime SEC tomato can Vanderbilt, a state rival and academic bastion Tennessee has ignored for decades. The big, bad Commodores have won three straight over the Vols for the first time since the 1920s.
“We don't feel the weight of bringing the program back,” said Tennessee linebacker Darrell Taylor.
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Look, this isn't going to get better because Nick Saban and Alabama aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Because Ed Orgeron is recruiting as well as anyone in the league at LSU, and Kirby Smart is locking down Georgia and Florida has Mullen.
Those same areas Fulmer cultivated two decades ago—when Alabama, LSU and Georgia were underachieving with ill-fitted coaching staffs—are long out of reach now and have been so for more than a decade. The days of Tennessee rolling through the SEC are long gone.
“The game has changed, and Tennessee doesn't quite have the advantages it did with facilities and recruiting,” said former Florida coach Steve Spurrier. “It's a lot like Nebraska right now. Can they get it back? Shoot, there's a lot more to it now.”
The Vols are 29th in the 247Sports composite recruiting rankings for the 2020 class and sit behind 10 other SEC teams. That's not getting you to Atlanta and the SEC Championship Game for the first time since 2007; that's placing you at the end of a growing list of coaches who couldn't figure it out.
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Posted on 7/20/19 at 9:07 am to RollTide1987
quote:
The Vols are 29th in the 247Sports composite recruiting rankings for the 2020 class and sit behind 10 other SEC teams. That's not getting you to Atlanta and the SEC Championship
Recruiting rankings in July
And the answer is no, since libs will have the sport discontinued in a decade.
Posted on 7/20/19 at 9:08 am to sand mountainDvalues
Matt Hayes is a fairly smart guy so he’s probably right about this 
Posted on 7/20/19 at 9:14 am to sand mountainDvalues
Well, to be fair, the vast majority of Tennessee fans thought Butch Jones would win and win big. I think a lot of people failed to realize that Tennessee's problem may have been less to do with the chaos caused by Kiffin's sudden departure and more to do with the fact that Tennessee just isn't the same program it once was.
Kiffin saw the writing on the wall and left for a program more predisposed for success.
Kiffin saw the writing on the wall and left for a program more predisposed for success.
This post was edited on 7/20/19 at 9:16 am
Posted on 7/20/19 at 9:18 am to RollTide1987
There are 3 programs that are guaranteed to always be good at worst, and elite most of the time; Bama, OSU, and OU.
Everyone else is just waiting on the right coach to fall into their lap a la Clemson or Washington. It’s not exactly rocket science.
But as I said, VOLS will suck for the rest of footballs lifetime, probably ~10 more years.
Everyone else is just waiting on the right coach to fall into their lap a la Clemson or Washington. It’s not exactly rocket science.
But as I said, VOLS will suck for the rest of footballs lifetime, probably ~10 more years.
Posted on 7/20/19 at 9:27 am to RollTide1987
No.
Next question.
Next question.
Posted on 7/20/19 at 9:31 am to RollTide1987
No
Posted on 7/20/19 at 9:38 am to RollTide1987
I could see them getting back to respectability. An 8-4, 9-3, competitive type program. The 90’s are never coming back though barring some kind of miracle. Like that guy said, the landscape has changed with all the money flowing now. Everybody has great facilities and huge recruiting budgets. TN doesn’t have the natural advantages that a UGA does.
This post was edited on 7/20/19 at 9:42 am
Posted on 7/20/19 at 9:49 am to NDonahue
quote:
TN doesn’t have the natural advantages that a UGA does.
TN has more natural advantages than Clemson. For the most part, any team in the SEC/ACC has access to enough talent to compete nationally.
Literally the only thing that matters is the coach.
Posted on 7/20/19 at 9:51 am to RollTide1987
They could be. UT is in the SEC, and thus has a recruiting base across the conference.
However the damage Fulmer did to the UT program trying (unsuccessfully) to destroy Alabama's program will linger for a while longer. People may not admit it, but they remember it.
Until Fulmer leaves UT will struggle.
However the damage Fulmer did to the UT program trying (unsuccessfully) to destroy Alabama's program will linger for a while longer. People may not admit it, but they remember it.
Until Fulmer leaves UT will struggle.
Posted on 7/20/19 at 9:52 am to sand mountainDvalues
Clemson’s single greatest advantage is playing that Charmin-soft ACC schedule. UT has an automatic loss before the season even starts playing Bama every year from the West. Plus UGA.
Posted on 7/20/19 at 9:52 am to RollTide1987
Hard to say Bama has beaten them down so badly.
Posted on 7/20/19 at 9:54 am to NDonahue
quote:
UT has an automatic loss before the season even starts playing Bama every year from the West. Plus UGA.
And a good coach overcomes that. Not that hard to comprehend imo. VOLS play in the East, our schedule year to year is only slightly more difficult than Clemson’s.
Posted on 7/20/19 at 9:56 am to FishFearMe
Elite? No. Schedule issues & recruiting issues make that a steep hill to climb. They'll be good again pretty soon, though.
Posted on 7/20/19 at 9:57 am to RollTide1987
It's very tough to climb back up that ladder when you have been off of it so long. Look at Nebraska and in particular USC. Even Michigan doesn't scare anyone anymore.
Posted on 7/20/19 at 10:09 am to sand mountainDvalues
The internet doesn’t forget, Matt. This tweet should render any of his sharticles useless and an internet suspension (administered by Al Gore) should be considered for all his accounts.
Posted on 7/20/19 at 10:23 am to sand mountainDvalues
quote:
There are 3 programs that are guaranteed to always be good at worst, and elite most of the time; Bama, OSU, and OU.
UGA SHOULD be on that list, but they haven’t earned it. Built in recruiting advantages, just can’t seem to finish.
Posted on 7/20/19 at 10:27 am to ClemTig
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UGA SHOULD be on that list, but they haven’t earned it. Built in recruiting advantages, just can’t seem to finish.
So should Florida and Texas. But those 3 programs listed have been consistently at the top for the majority of the sport’s existence (oddly enough, all 3 were down in the 90s, but outside of that there’s no real down periods for any of those programs).
Posted on 7/20/19 at 10:29 am to ClemTig
the only way they will be good again is if they give a coach 6-7 years. As we’ve seen they wont do that.
Posted on 7/20/19 at 10:33 am to chillmonster
quote:
They'll be good again pretty soon, though.
In our conference, you can be real good and lose 4 games.
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