He's done a fantastic job getting Hurd to commit this early (as Dooley literally did nothing in regards to his recruitment) and making sure the legacies are in recruits' ears. This class an odd one in that there's a lot of legacy players that are really good, but Butch was left in a really big hole because the last staff, with Hinshaw and Graham being the exceptions, quit after Florida. That being said, after three years of a bumbling idiot that didn't go to high school games to see players, it's easy to get too excited about what he's done. He is doing beter than he should though.
The average fan wasn't the only one with delusional optimism for Phil though. Fulmer did a better job surrounding himself with yes men than most politicians.
I though 2009 was going to be a miserable year. It was until Crompton had the playbook paired down and Tennessee looked like a decent team. The same guys that couldn't score against Northern Illinois ran UGA out of the stadium. I think we'll all be fairly shocked at how well the running game looks once it becomes a priority and how the defense, while still not great, will look better than a middle school team since they will at least know their assignments 75% of the time. I don't think we'll see this team quit on their coach and I don't think this staff will put the team in a position to lose every week. That will win 6 or 7 games.
I wouldn't go that far. Part of the reason the ranking is so high is we already have a bunch of commits. Also, if the season is really bad, it may be difficult to hold on to some of these guys.
Merely holding serve? Three of our commits right now are legacies. Sure Hurd is instate but nobody thought he would be on board this early, if at all. This is worse than people saying he has a 7-8 win roster. As far as the OP goes, that's gonna happen no matter who the coach is.
One of our commits isn't even rated right now. Another is a 5.5 kicker. I have a feeling the recruits understand there will be struggles. They have committed to a school that hasn't had a winning record in four years.
Butch practically lived in the halls of Beech hs the weeks leading up to Hurd's visit to the UK game.
No, Butch has actually exceeded my expectations for him and is doing what I think a Tennessee coach should do. I am not in awe of what he has done though by any stretch. The nonsense about how hard it is to recruit at Tennessee has gotten out of hand.
I do agree he's doing what Tennessee's head coach should be doing. I'm surprised he's doing though, especially with the dogshit job Dooley did in recruiting. The bridges Dooley burnt should take years to repair. Butch has done it, for the most part, in 6 months. I still don't know if this staff can coach, but he's doing everything right right now.
Dooley burnt some bridges so thoroughly, some people may have rebuilt them with Butch just to spite DD.
Butch has done better than I expected so far in recruiting. My hope is that he does the same on the field. The recruiting will remain strong if the product on the field improves and Butch shows he belongs. He doesn't have to set the woods on fire this year, but he desperately needs to give us all something to believe in right out of the gate. If he can beat AU, Mizzou and Vandy, go 7-5, it would be a great first year and more than I am expecting given our current talent level
I didn't think I did. My only comment regarding the quality of the class was concerning the chances of finishing in the top spot. I'm just not sure we're still in front of some of those teams who currently have 3-4 fewer commits in February. I admittedly don't follow recruiting very closely.
Maybe not. We will be very high. Take away our 3 lowest recruits and we're 5th or 6th. Give Kameel Jackson a 3 star and we're number one.
