Hasn’t Rexrode been doing most of the UT for the last couple of months anyways? Isn’t he the obvious replacement or does he do something else for the athletic?
Could have changed, but he was Nashville area general assignment. I think he did half of Titans (split w/ Kentucky guy after they cut the original Titans beat during lockdown), anything Vandy/MTSU/OVC/women's, supplemental Nashville Predators (even though they have a beat writer that doesn't do anything else), and then Tennessee basketball since Ubben was football only. Not sure if they ever did anything with baseball, which is kind of poor if so. They also have literally no coverage of Nashville's MLS team, which should probably get at least a token effort if you have a generalist.
Hopefully Joe sticks with the Nashville sports, but he's no Rucker. Probably could do worse than him, granted he is a typical cookie cutter sports journo. What was the douchebag Vol Beat guy's name that covered us for years and had to leave to go cover UGA football because all he focused on was burning goodwill with his audience by trolling Tennessee fans via reminding us how bad we are, like we needed reminding? It was the guy that would go on Finebaum and wouldn't dare trash Butch Jones because Butch used him as a pet. Can't remember his name to save my life.
That's him. By far the WOAT in my opinion of anyone who has covered Tennessee athletics in my lifetime. Dude truly hated the audience he served.
