Eric S.
'Tennessee is currently playing a Where is Waldo game with John Currie wondering when the AD (or anybody else at UT) is going to speak up and make an announcement or at least come out and give Jones the dreaded, “vote of confidence.” Instead, they’re more worried about …..stadium renovations.
Earlier this week, John Currie breathlessly broke the news of the thing he had been working hardest on, a $340 million dollar renovation to Neyland Stadium. Strange. A couple of Athletic Directors ago, Mike Hamilton put on his hard hat, did a photo-op at Neyland Stadium, and promised us the Mother Of All Stadium Renovation. Yet, Hamilton’s Folly didn’t rid us of the 60 year old trench urinals-which even Dr. Bill Bass cannot positively prove have ever actually been cleaned. But, THIS series of renovations could possibly make that a reality. (For the low low price of $340,000,000)
As we remember the glory days of Lord Hamilton’s reign, we can look fondly back upon the days when bowl eligibility was nearly a guarantee. Ah yes, the good old days when “8 was enough”. And so, it is that history repeats itself. Currie puts on the hardhat for a stadium renovation-just as Hamilton once did. Jones puts on the Chick-Fil-A leather helmet of doom in Atlanta, just as his predecessor before him.
As a quick aside, the king of bad headgear photo-ops, Mike Dukakis looks like Braddock from Missing in Action when he put on a helmet clowns like Currie and Hamilton in a hard hat. I opine, you decide.
Link
By the way, that photo was in 1988 when Tennessee started the season 0-6. Does anybody else think that the 88 Vols would curb stomp the 2017 crew? Heck I’d even take the ‘88 Vols over the 2017 crew if they had Mike Dukakis as their head coach!
In the middle 2000’s, UT began a huge campaign to renovate the stadium and ignore the results on the field. Predictably, the stadium, looked great and the product on the field continued to decline. After completing our first decade of decline, it’s now time to launch the next glorious phase of renovation so that the destruction of UT football can be completed. Tennessee is no longer on the 8-win plateau though. Instead, this football program has slumped into the realm of scratching for a .500 record and bowl eligibility in late November, multiple losses to Kentucky and Vanderbilt. Championships hidden behind bricks under stairs. For the 5th time since 2010, Tennessee enters November under .500 and in danger of missing a bowl.
But take heart, Tennessee fans! The stadium will have its appearance improved by Botox extracted DIRECTLY from the rotting flesh of the football program that will play there. Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends! With bad plastic surgery and predictably bad results, it’s like a Dolly Parton kabuki theater played out in front of a hundred thousand fans. (For the low low price of $340 million dollars.) (And yes, Dolly has had about three too many surgeries.) The silence from the weasels at UT must be because they’re honestly calculating the balance; How much more money can we extract from the paying fan such that those who are alienated no longer matter? How much Botox can we extract from the patient’s buttocks without killing them? How much better can we make the façade look while not causing attendance to tank?
Of one thing you can be sure; UT administrators are incapable of doing more than one thing at a time. As long as they’re talking stadium renovations, they’re not going to have anything to do with the messy business of hiring and firing coaches.
In other news this week, Lane Kiffin said possibly the most adult thing I’ve ever heard him say-and perhaps the only complimentary thing I’ve ever heard him say since leaving Tennessee. On your show, he said that Tennessee has everything that Alabama has. Well. Yes. Thanks, we knew that when you were here in 2009. I submit that the only reason that Alabama has been so dominant in the last decade is because Tennessee has been so abysmally bad. The Tide have had no counterweight in the conference. Tennessee under Kiffin could have been that counterweight. But he’d have wound up like Hugh Freeze too. That ship has sailed and whatever maturity Lane Kiffin may have suddenly gained, it doesn’t offset his family effectively stealing $1M from UT. It doesn’t excuse the trouble that he got UT into. It doesn’t excuse his behavior while he was here. It doesn’t forgive the jerk he’s been to UT since he left.
Based on this interview and the national media’s tendency to troll Tennessee, Lane Kiffin now is being advanced as a legitimate candidate to be Coach 24. Fool me twice much? If Lane Kiffin is hired by Tennessee, then they deserve him, and they can have each other. If Lane Kiffin is hired by Tennessee, then I am done with Tennessee forever because there is no place for me there. I might be the only one that feels that way, but I’ve made up my mind and my heart on this. Because the thought has been expressed publicly, I am certain that someone at UT is giving this serious thought.
The script UT goes like this for nearly all recent hires I can think of:
· There will be a sure-thing, can’t-miss, alpha wolf, who might even bleed orange.
· There will be a long, inexplicable delay. This is where we are now. UT’s top administrators are sitting around giving each other Leadership Reps™ and going through their Mental Reps-practicing what they’ll say to Butch Jones when they fire him. I like to call this period, The Silence of the Weasels. (see movie poster attached)
· There might even be a random encouraging sign that the fan favorite known wolf is “still in the running”.
· A compromise candidate’s name will be floated. This is a troll to Tennessee Volunteers. Yes, someone local/orange/wolf was considered-and quickly dismissed.
· There will be a “national search”. This is primarily to disabuse Tennesseans of the notion that a native Tennessee born and bred candidate might be the best candidate for Tennessee. Strangely, the national search won’t get its arms around truly great candidates-just candidates that aren’t from here. Additionally, the national candidates will be complete strangers to anyone who cares about Tennessee. But in the hallowed halls of the college administrator and among their peers, the ignorance of the rubes about your chosen candidate is prima facia evidence that this candidate is a good one.
· In the end, weasels hire weasels. The leaders then count on UT’s fans to slip into cognitive dissonance. “This guy could be a good hire in time.” The administrators hope that their weasel will have a couple of early successes to make fans forget that a guy who absolutely would have been a great hire from day 1 was completely bypassed.
Now when the here’s a great story; Is John Currie dealing with Jimmy Sexton to find Butch Jones a “landing spot” and thereby reduce the buyout amount? Isn’t your heart warmed by these Leadership Reps™? UT could be acting as an outplacement employment counselor for Lyle Allen Jones, Jr. Don’t you feel better as a Volunteer knowing that our administration is trying and help ease Butch’s pain, while doing nothing for our suffering? Wouldn’t you be glad to know that UT is more concerned about Butch than they are about the football program? Wouldn’t you be glad to know that UT is going to treat Butch better than they did two coaches who had 4 SEC Championship rings and 2 National Championship rings between them? (and would be future Hall of Fame inductees as coaches). Wouldn’t that make you feel like a Life Champion?
Perhaps the outplacement search is going slow. (Unexpectedly!™) It’s like the rest of the nation can see that Jones is a failed coach who speaks clichés instead of football, who has no real knowledge or feel for the game, no solid staff around him, who can’t handle tough times, and who makes enemies all around as times get tougher. To put it another way, if Jones was any good as a coach, he wouldn’t be getting fired. Why in the world UT might be doing Jimmy Sexton’s job for him is beyond me. But as a bonus, Tennessee could be getting “serviced” by an agent who may choose to shop one of his “available” coaches to Tennessee for his own enrichment.
Whatever he’s doing, I’m sure that John Currie is getting in “mental reps”, just as the idiotic announcers said Saturday night.
Trillions for stadium renovations, but not a penny for a decent coach. Mental Reps. Leadership Reps. Lower extremity injuries. Empty calories and junk football, but never the meat of a solid football team that can pound the bottom half of the conference and compete with the top half.
Perhaps they can outplace Jones as a smoothie stand operator. (For reference, Smoothie King does not have a shop in Saugatuck, Michigan.)
Well at any rate, there is another road trip coming up this week. Another jet flight for the team. Another SEC opponent preparing to hit their peak against us and hand us an epic beat down. Another chance to hand Jones a backpack full of his buyout money and a parachute so that he can exit the plane before it gets back to Knoxville. I’m partial to seeing Jones go Full DB Cooper because it would mean that he was never heard from again.
Last thought: Do you remember Checker Neyland? The first one. It was borne out of a fan’s idea that got picked up by 100,000 people and it was a thing of beauty. The imagery was amazing. And terrifying. The Axis of Weasels had to recognize that if they didn’t take control of this themselves, then fans could recognize the power that they had. Checker Neyland and Empty Neyland are just different sides of the same coin. The passion is still there. It’s just a matter of which direction it’s aimed. The Axis of Weasels might do well to remember that.
E for Exile.'