Vols Spring Practice 2012

It's almost time. Things get started tomorrow (Sunday) with [ddiapos]'s press conference at 2pm.

Watch it live here:

Watch [ddiapos]'s Pre-Spring Presser, Sunday At 2 p.m. - Tennessee

 

Man, I want some good things to happen this year. But, I just have so little faith in Dooley.

2012 was the year we were all looking toward as THE year that things began to go our way. That had better be the case...I don't know how much longer I can take it!

 

His refusal to discuss the Rodgers question was telling, imo. Ok PC, but laid the ground work for this years excuses: new systems, new guy in new positions, takes a lot of time to learn and implement those schemes, etc. It's 'good' to have a fresh start to get rid of negatives by bringing in new coaches after a tough year or in our case two. Coachspeak bullshit to cover your ass as I see it. I took this as an acknowledgement of the Rodgers-Baggett situation, but I might just be looking for shit- don't think so but possible. If the previous statement is true, we should be eat up with 'good' feelings all over the place with the number of coaches we had to bring in. Hinshaw is the new Recruiting Coordinator btw.

Same old BS, imo. Coaches don't matter that much as long as goals/atmosphere/principles remain constant. The reasoning for hiring Conklin concerns me. Says he likes having 2 guys with DC experience-no problem. Problem- no real mention of coaching acumen, Xs and Os mastery, or great recruiting skills. Said the interview felt right. Hope that feeling wasn't just gas build up from lunch because I'm not at all confident in CDD's 'feelings'. We'll see. Either the beginning of a turn around or the beginning of the end of Dooley at UT. Still same old coy Dooley. I am biased against him, but he still comes across as a smug bastard that thinks that only he knows the right way to do things, and no one else is capable of understanding the situation. Reminds me of Joseph Smith and his claim that only he was the only person that could interpret the 'golden plates'. Those situations usually don't end well. See Mormonism.....

 

And ironically, Joseph Smith was illiterate.

 

Forgot about that. Thanks for the addition.

 

There should be 9 wins on the regular season schedule this year, and i'm not joking when posting that. I think the talent level has reached a point now that it should be good enough to get the job done. Not necessarily for a championship of any sort this season, but rathar good enough to make a vast improvement over what has been taking place the last few years.

Now, whether or not the coaching staff gets those potentials 9 Ws is a different story. It definitely can happen, but i'm not sure what our chances are after seeing some of the debacles that have happened under this staff in the past two years. Hopefully there is some type of turn around.

 

NC State-should be a W
Georgia State-W
Florida-toss up
Akron-W
Georgia-probably L, but you never know with Richt
Miss St-should be a W
Alabama-L
South Carolina-should be a W
Troy-W
Mizzou-W
Vandy-W
Kentucky-W

9 should be absolute minimum, but I could see 11 if things really went our way. Saying that, I'm expecting us to win 8 games.

 

First time in four years, that I just don't give a shit about spring practice starting.

 

Give me my orange colored shades I guess, but I think Florida should be a win. I honestly don't think they are very good at all. I would put both Georgia and SC in front of them in terms of the SEC East teams we would probably lose to.

 

We should have kicked their guts in last year.

 

I have no doubt many coaches would have beat Florida with last year's Tennessee team. Dooley is obviously not among them.

 

Why do you say that South Carolina is W, but yet Florida is a toss up? I would be more willing to put Florida at W than I would SC.

 

"but... but... but... Justin Hunter got hurt! We couldn't win without him!"

 

Yeah i thought about this too. USCjr should be solid this year.

 

Dooley decided to change the name of the depth chart to the organizational chart. This is the sort of attention to detail that produces winning football.

 

If Hunter hadn't suffered the unfortunate event that he did in that matchup then I honestly believe that the outcome of that game had a really good chance of being different. Hunter is that important to the offense.

 

As a Tennessee fan in the last decade or so, I've come to fear injuries in all forms. When we have someone injured, the player behind always seems to play like shit. We lost without Clausen in '02 (UGA), without Ainge in '04 (Notre Dame), without Ainge in '06 (LSU, Arkansas), without Gerald Jones in '10 (all the games except UAB. and almost UAB), without Bray and Hunter in '11. I guess Foster had a good performance after Riggs went down in '05, but it didn't help us win. Whereas when the other team has a key player injured, their backup somehow manages to be an all star and beat an unprepared Tennessee. LSU '01 being the obvious start of the fear, but it's been consistent all the way up to Kentucky in '11 (who only needed two drives, but hey, they got them). And the basketball loss to Charlotte in '10 was right after they kicked their best player off the team.

I say the last decade because we did pretty well in '98 with Travis Henry. But have we won any games with a key injury since then? Seems like we're the only team in the country without secret world-destroying backups.

 

It's that line of thinking that has convinced Vol fans that Dooley isn't an imbecile.

Hunter is a weapon, not a crutch. We were 100% dependent on him to carry our sorry ass offensive staff through the entire SEC schedule.

That game was lost in the spring when they decided their practice time was better spent going through the nuances of throwing the shit out of the ball and playing the least physical brand of football possible. Once they lost the key cog to that retarded offensive approach, the rest of our offense fell like dominoes. We were soft and the rest of the SEC knew it.

 

They lost all of their best players on D except for Clowney. Alshon Jeffery is gone. Lattimore won't be fully recovered. I just don't see them being that great this year.

 

I agree, but I do think Hunter is very important.