The Overwhelming Negativity...

I am always hoping for a lightning bolt of coaching talent to come arcing down and strike the staff. I'd take it in a heartbeat.

 

Les Miles comes to mind his first few years at LSU but even he has become a competent coach. I don't see a competent coach in Dooley. And I believe if we hire another coach he will have to cull and restock.

 

BTW, where did the OP go. Good thread.

 

Must have fallen in line somewhere

 

"In crowd" got him.

 

re-watching the UK game?

 

To be fair, he always seemed to do pretty well against the better teams. Now the team is loaded and only Bama even had a chance last year.

 

Wasn't he the coach at OSU the years that the Bedlam game was so intense to watch? There were some great games between them in about a 3 year stretch

 

Shit, I'm sorry I missed this thread thusfar. It's been a great read.

P.S. I hate everyone here. Especially unimane because he doesn't like pictures.

 

I think some people are missing the OP's point. Of course it's not unreasonable to think Dooley sucks as a coach (as I do fwiw), but some of the constant negativity is simply very lame. I disagree that it's that big a deal on here tho. There were some dudes who I think also believe Dooley to be a bad coach that called out someone or some posters who have gone over the edge with the negativity. To act like every thing Dooley does is wrong, bad, or stupid makes you, and to a degree, the board look quite unreasonable. jmo iyo gbo smokey's on the prowl volsgovolsgo beat bama.

 

Don't disagree but he lived on the edge with some play calling or gambles he took. If those don't work out the way they did, it's a little bit different situation down in Baton Rogue. Having said that, he surrounded himself with a good staff and for the most part, I feel he has let them coach. The same thing cannot be said for Dooley.

 

Frankly, he's a 8 minute drive or blown call in Neyland in 06 from not being coach there.

 

Helluva post.

 

I don't hope Tennessee loses. But I do hope justice is served and they run that sorry sum[itch bay] off.

 

Russell did fumble da mn it

 

Personally, I don't take any umbrage to what Berry said in the OP - and might agree that this board is negative towards Dooley, even perhaps overly so. If he is trying to make the point that an imbalanced pendulum, be it leaning left or right, is equally wrong in either direction, then I do agree with him. If he intends to insinuate that Dooley is being unfairly criticized, then I do not.

For the record, here's where I stand:

1. I am for the University of Tennessee, and strongly desire it to be a perennial powerhouse.
2. I don't give a good gosh **** if the best person to navigate the path to that singularly focused goal is [ddiapos], Lane Kiffin, Barack Obama, Ned Flanders, Sabanocchio, Jimmy Hyams, a Jew, a lesbian, a Puerto Rican, a tee-totaler, a drunkard, a former missionary, a woman who was once paid to work in the missionary position, a southerner, a Yankee, a Buddhist monk, Art Monk, John Gruden, Uncle Ben or Aunt Jamima, red, blue, purple, old, young, fat, skinny, or any other decsriptive adjective you can possibly think of.
3. But, as soon as they've developed enough of a track record to where common sense and a preponderance of the evidence says that they won't, or are even largely unlikely to get us to that point - then I want them gone. Toot sweet. I don't care of that takes 30 seconds or 5 years. I don't care what color their pants are. I don't even care how much I personally like the person. If they can't get us to that level, then each moment they're here is a moment we're wasting until we get "the guy" - and the harder we're making it on him, the further the program slips. It's nothing personal against that person, whatsoever. I don't "have it out" for them - I just don't want to waste any more time / opportunity.
4. This is EXACTLY where I find myself on Dooley. I'm not saying he's a bad person, didn't inherit an incredibly tough situation, hasn't tried his absolute best, etc. In fact, I think that the man has done everything in his limited power to get it "right" - I just think that his effort, as Herculean as it he been, is woefully insufficient to achieve my admittedly high expectations. Or even their rough equivalent. And so, I hope he gets gone. I hate it for him, as a human being. But we're paying him to win ball games and to restore us to our rightful place - and paying him millions to do it. If he can't get it done, then let the next guy try. He did inherit a soup sandwich...but he knowingly did so, and in fact, one could (easily) argue that had the situation not been so drastic, that he never would have been called to begin with (he wasn't even interviewed, and only a year earlier - and when he was coming off of his one winning season). So, it's not like he was unaware, or didn't gain a tremendous amount by accepting everything that came with this job, crappy roster and (possibly) unrealistic expectations, included.
4. I wrote a blog soon after the Cuonzo Martin hire, essentially, claiming he had failed before he even started. As the season wore on, for any one of a number of reasons, he proved me wrong. Badly. Despite his, let's say "inauspicious" start, the truth is that [ddiapos] can still do the exact same - prove me wrong. And if he does, I'll be the first to admit it and take my lumps accordingly, and will sincerely hope to see him achieve continued improvement (think leaps and bounds, not process-oriented baby steps), but as soon as he doesn't, again, I want him gone. For the record, I think that he wins 9 games this season (NINE!) and quells a lot of this chatter....until 2013, when we're right back at 6-7 (or worse) and he gets fired. My fear is that by then, the two coaches that we really need - Gruden notably included - will have been snatched up by another program, and we'll be left picking through the also-rans / never were's. So, my hope is two-fold - first, that Dooley shows me that he is "the man" and wins 9-10 games this season, or secondly and failing that, that he wins 7 and gets canned after this season.

So, that's where I'm at, on Dooley.

The other stuff - the "in" crowd, the "fall in line" stuff is just baseless nonsense, tripe even. It could only be purported by someone who wasn't paying attention around here (who has NOT disagreed with me?) or is just trying to deflect the attack on his original position by a red herring of the first and highest order. Simply, my response to those accusations is this: Read some more.

 

Fantastic post.

 

People assume that Tennessee's national reputation will not suffer. They disregard all of the articles about Dooley on the hot seat, TN's program slipping to the next tier of programs in the BCS, etc. I think it looks a lot different from the outside (read *by recruits*) than we think it does as fans.

If he wins 9-10 games this season, I'm not sure how likely his firing in '13 would be? "He proved he was a good coach last year ('12) ......."

 

Nice post, Tenny D.

Inertia. Status Quo. Expectations. Perceptions of what success is. Status quo as the baseline that dictates whether subsequent seasons are successes or failures. In other words, a 2-10 season for Akron next year is a success. It's the delta that gets noticed. The result of this is an inertia effect. I could seriously just keep writing those words. Status quo. Inertia. Clemson. They are so important. We have to decide whether we want to be Alabama or whether we want to be Clemson. Right now, we are on the highway that leads directly to Clemson. "Hey honey, what exit do we need to get off on in order to get to Alabama? We didn't miss the exit, did we?"

Don't fall asleep at the wheel.

 

*toot suite*