I didn't fall for it this year and showed how I felt about it by staying at home on Election Day and dropping the Pubbies. I was so damn pissed they nominated a fake, and treated the one with the most potential like dirt and forced him to submit.
If Jones starts to win, and that's a big if, most fans will be glad BUT true fans will not be satisfied until we rid ourselves of the man who stood before us with an evil grin that he would bring us the best coach without any help. He then brings us Jones and laughs in our face on the podium while basically bankrupting the program with Cheeks help. How and why should the true fans "let it go?' After watching the press conference yesterday, I can understand why a REAL coach would want control and why we have Jones with his multimillion dollar safety net. What a sickening time for all of us that can see the writing on the wall.
Shit, they let Saban have control at Alabama because they were tired of losing and it has worked out pretty good. This is what meddling produces.
Anyone who thinks that press conference was anything g more than pandering off the cuff bullshit is a gullible ****. Dave hart insulted every single fan while Jimmy Cheek literally ate a booger. I said during the search that I have no obligation to support mediocrity and I meant it. I will be rooting for failure of Butch Jones. I now know what my republican friends felt like when Obama won again. Id trade him out right now for Sarah Palin if it meant we could have Gruden.
Did anybody try to tell us Dooley's players loved him? If so, I must've excised that from my brain. I thought they tried to tell us he was a mini Saban, which is pretty much the opposite of player's coach.
Darkness has fallen on our program. The light at the end of the tunnel was not the end but a ****ing train that sHart and Booger Cheek were driving to keep this team down in the depths of hell. We have first class facilities that are second to none. The biggest warning sign of this whole debacle is when Booger stuck his [dadgum] nose in the middle of the coaching interviews. I hope that the administration will be cleansed soon! Then and only then will our program be able to rise from the ashes.
I hear you. I have so many great memories of gameday with friends/family (as we all do) and wearing the T apparel reminds me of those times. Outside of that, I just know that we're gonna get blown out by the big boys and embarrassed by the cellar dwellers. I've pretty much been in that mode since the last few Fulmer years.
I would tend to give those guys the benefit of the doubt. Surely they know that the track record is heavily dependent on Brian Kelly and they're basing opinions off of other factors? At the same time, when you're a generalist (and for Mortensen, a generalist in another circle), how much detail can you know about specific situations? I could see some of the feelings/support (more so for Mortensen) being along the lines of "Hey, Cincinnati is still making noise in the Big East. Must be a good coach." And the fact remains that the combined targeting/interview/hiring process for Butch Jones elapsed just around 10 hours when it became obvious that Dooley had to go after the Mississippi State game, at worst.
I broke out an old shirt I wore to the UT Arkansas game in 98. I thought we had Gruden. I am so pissed at Hart and Cheek. I've been apathetic for some time now. The last time I felt the passion was when UT came out in black against SC. It's been down hill since then. Thank you guys from the 8th, and especially Tenny D. for bringing that passion back for these last few weeks. Back to apathy and anger. My son plays for TTU so I'm all Golden Eagle again until my son graduates and UT gets rid of Hart and/or Cheek. I'm not mad at Jones. Just dissappointed and skeptical. He could win me over with results. Skeptical.
Reading fans need to get behind this and be pumped up for these assistants. Nope, and it looks like Tee is not in the plans. Lucky Graham got retained I'm not a sheep, and refuse to be a sheep!!!
I've seen a couple of comments that suggest if a person didn't graduate from or go to UT that we have not as much passion for Tennessee football.I didn't go to college(wish I had),But I can promise you my blood runs as orange as anyone elses.I don't like the hire but it has already been made.I do hope Hart and Cheek lose their jobs over it.That would be the only way I can ever watch a game again.
I see how one might take it that way, but I don't think that was the intent. It was more about the idiocy of an alum having their fandom questioned is the way I understood it.
This a.m., I had a real life issue that put this petty shit to shame. Having said that, I'm dissapointed but hopelessly optimistic about it. If I could survive Dooley and as long as Pilot Oil, Dish Network etc.. don't fold, we'll be okay. Counting down the days till Cheek and Hart GTFO.
I dont get caught up in interviews and locker room vids. My skepticism is not gonna move until he starts coaching football games.
I think I am more pissed today. Facebook hasn't helped. At least I grew up a little bit in all of this going back to include Dooley. There are certain things that are rock-solid, unchanging, immutable to you when you are a child. As you grow up, you slowly realize that, if they are of this world, they are not as rock solid as you think or you have them taken away from you in some fashion. When I was younger, like a child, I always believed in Tennessee football. Meaning, I never counted them out of winning any game. It was like Santa Claus to a small child or a parent's or grandparent's (in my case) love in that it could never be challenged. I believed. It didn't matter if it was logical or not. I just felt certain that no matter the odds, there was a chance that Tennessee could pull out the win. Being a ten year old boy sitting wide eyed in the living room floor watching the Sugar Bowl in the early days of 1986 admittedly did a lot to spur this on. It lasted as I grew up through the Johnny years, and the changing of the guard to Phil did little to sway it. It lived on through the National Championship and the disappointments in the years that followed. Even while I was arguing for Phil to be gone in 2008, I never really lost the faith that it was possible for even that team to pull out a game against anybody. Delusions, like water flowing into a mountain lake from small streams in my mind, filled my thoughts. It was childish, silly, immature. I get that. I know it. It was silly. It didn't end there though. Kiffin did nothing while roaming the sidelines to hinder this mindset. The UGA and USC games stoked the old fire. The damned moral victory against bammer even kept it going. Kiffin's departure, however, unlocked the floodgates. Mike Hamilton opened the first of these that drained my faith. Hiring [ddiapos] was shocking to me. I was nearly as angry as I was yesterday, but I wasn't as wise. I was immature. I listened to his press conference. I cautiously bought in at least enough to give him a chance. I even went to three games in his first year including the bowl. I loaded the whole family and traveled to Knoxville to watch the start of the second season. By the end of that year, my faith in Tennessee football shattered. After watching a team wallow in shock over injuries and a coaching staff panic and do nothing to account for different personnel, my unshakable faith was gone. Never before had I seen such pitiful coaching. The loss to Kentucky was like watching the death of a friend in slow motion. It was the heinous end to the season that saw one of bedrock truths of my childhood destroyed. The KY game wasn't the end. It was merely the filling of the grave after the sealed casket was lowered. It was dead before bammer. Mortally wounded against UF, it died during the UGA game. Oh sure, there was a small, small chance at the end of that one, but my belief was dead. That team had no chance, none, against LSU, bammer, and others on the schedule. The team didn't believe. The coach didn't believe, and more personally, I didn't believe. This season marked the first time I wasn't genuinely excited for football to begin. I missed it, but what I missed from the past wasn't coming. I had less pride, less anticipation, and made few plans to travel to Knoxville for a game. I did plan early on to go to the KY game to possibly see Dooley's last game as head coach. I would have liked to have seen the first and the last. He would even have disappointed me on that one, but I had already canceled plans to go due to other engagements. I know I've gone way off topic here, and you might ask what this has to do with the hiring. It's simple. A big splash hire, a proven winner hire, a surprise hire away from a big program or something else big might have helped repair my faith. I guess I should be glad. Butch Jones does not make me excited nor do anything to stoke that fire of anticipation and belief in Tennessee football. I won't believe in this team or it's coach, and I guess I am a little better off in some ways. The worst part is I will pull for his teams. I will. I don't want to, but it's like a damn drug. I won't be able to keep from it, and I hate that. At least my children still show no signs of leaning toward bammer or the barn at this point. I just hope this hire works out better than I expect.
