Maybe it's not the coaches at Tennessee

But cycles bro

It’s all about cycles. Nebraska’s waiting for that cycle too

Tennessee needs to look at the big flagship state schools surrounding them. UNC, UVa. These are "public Ivies". Strong academics, great basketball emphasis, no football achievement to speak of. Perhaps this can be a goal. Scale back emphasis on football, scale back enrollment and raise academic standards, focus on basketball and eventually, join the ACC.

OU suing the NCAA fricked over Tennessee.

here’s the deal... the advantages UT did 20-30 years ago under Majors and Fulmer (huge recruiting budget, recruit nationally) are gone... now, everybody’s got money to fly their coaches coast to coast... now, every program has national reach bc of conference networks and endless televised games.

It’s not like it’s hopeless... but it would take a homerun hire at HC to turn things around.

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Scale back emphasis on football, scale back enrollment and raise academic standards, focus on basketball

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Not a bad idea tbh.

Tennessee is in the middle of a good recruiting area that spans several states, but when the Vols were good, most of the surrounding schools were bad. Virginia Tech was only just starting to become relevant in the 90's. South Carolina was abysmal. Ohio State and Georgia were decent but not great. UNC had some good years, but NC State was a joke. Alabama fell off big time around the time UT really ramped up. The Vols were able to go into those surrounding states and make a living off of players there.

Fast forward to the last decade. Alabama is a monster. Ohio State is a monster. Georgia is a monster. Virginia Tech is a good to very good program. South Carolina is a good to very good program. UNC and NC State still suck, so there's some potential for UT there, but the other aforementioned programs also go into North Carolina for players too. Overall, there's a lot more pressure on Tennessee's traditional recruiting base than what there was in the 90's and early 00's.

I don't think Tennessee is dead, but they are going to struggle to get back to what they were. Of course, winning breeds winning, but the smartest and best coaches are going to go where the grass is greenest, and I'm not sure Knoxville is that place anymore.

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Now name me some of the good offensive linemen that came from those last few classes

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Projected starters against Georgia

LT. Trey Smith. 5 Star
LG Jaimie Johnson. 3 Star
C. Ryan Johnson. 4 Star
RT. Drew Richmond 5 Star
RG Jerome Carvin. 3 Star

Are you saying all these guys are busts? Maybe there’s more problems?

It’s nice you’re concerned about them.
It’s weird that they’ve struggled mightily yet there’s a good chance they average better attendance than your favorite school that had a possible Heisman candidate...

The problem for Tennessee is that none of these kids they are recruiting today were even born the last time they were any good.