ON MY MONDAY MIND
FOR OPENERS: All season my stated goal has been for Tennessee to be better at the end than they were at the beginning. Somehow the 2018 edition of Tennessee Football failed to meet even those meager expectations. From the first game I attended in Charlotte against a solid WVU team until the embarrassment of Saturday versus average Vandy the same glaring issues persist; the leaky offensive line, amplified by an unaware QB; a poor-tackling defense overwhelmed by any balanced attack, an unwillingness by the staff to assist areas of concern and a general lack of discipline throughout. The most frustrating element however was seeing a team that in the last two games appeared to be satisfied with a win over Kentucky and ready to call it a season. It’s one thing for Vandy to be on a mini run of success against Tennessee; it’s quite another for them to want the game more. After all the results are now in it’s hard to look back on the campaign as anything other than what it was; a disappointment.
OPENERS 2: Current frustration aside I stop just short of calling Jeremy Pruitt’s first year a failure. I don’t think beating two ranked teams and ending long losing streaks both against the West and on the road in the SEC can be that critically evaluated. I guess however we’re speaking semantics here. It’s a very thin line between disappointment and failure.
OPENERS 3: Though I have no intention of projecting Pruitt’s career here based on his first season -and probably not his second- I would be a mindless, sightless, apologist if I said there were no red flags. Some of the more glaring were the Vols 25.1 margin of defeat, the previously mentioned poor finish, the obvious disconnect between Pruitt and his offensive coordinator and the struggles of his close buddy Will Friend’s offensive front. The final one is admittedly unfair but THAT performance looked eerily similar to the final game of Derek Dooley’s second year at Kentucky.
WHAT I SAW:
A Tennessee team that looked as if they’d had enough of this football season. At least on that matter the roster and fanbase are probably united
An additional red flag to be drawn from Year-1 was Pruitt’s trouble moving the bar in his area of expertise. I expected a lot more improvement over the course of the season on defense which never came.
I’m sure a lot of it is lack of SEC-level personnel but this was a Sal Sunseri-like tackling Tennessee team. It was even more glaring versus Vandy than Missouri.
Jahmir Johnson’s blatant targeting was just the latest incident of a team seemingly becoming more undisciplined with every outing. I WILL give him credit for being one of the few guys on the field who seemed to have had enough of losing to Vandy.
Ty Chandler’s run to open the second half was just about the lone redeeming factor in what was -for me- the most disappointing effort of the year.
-Kyle Shurmur was 31-35; I said THIRTY-ONE of THIRTY-FIVE; for 367 yards and 3 TDs. That makes his four-year totals versus the Vols 1257 yds; 12 TDs and only 2 Ints
-The Vols were outgained 467-242, out-possessed 43:03-16:57; out-hit; out-hustled; out-coached and out-desired.
-Since the Vols appeared to have no desire to extend their season I see little reason to extend this segment. Lord willing I’ll resume it again next fall.
WHAT WE LEARNED IN WEEK 13
EVERYONE WITH A REAR END GOT IT KICKED: You talk about ending the regular season with a whimper. The only drama on Thanksgiving weekend prior to the Saturday 8:00 window was who could stay awake for an entire game after gorging themselves for three days. Well let’s backup; Oklahoma and West Virginia played an NBA game but I was limiting this to normal College Football. LSU and Texas A&M played an epic 7 OT game and USC played Notre Dame closer than most expected but other than that there was little resistance to be found.
In a weekend with five matchups between ranked opponents Michigan and Washington State let most of the viewers down by putting up little to no fight other than the flukey end of the first half for the Wolverines. The other ranked matchup (after Okla-WVU, LSU-A&M and those discussed above) was Utah State falling by 9 at Boise after most had been in a comatose state for hours if not days.
BEAN-O-METER: On the Monday following each of Tennessee’s football games this season I will regurgitate my immediate emotional state. I’ll bet mine closely resembles your own.
AFTER VANDY: WONDERING WHEN THE HELL IT TURNS AROUND? What a mere two weeks ago appeared to be a season on the verge of a program-turning stretch went unimaginably off-the-rails. The total lack of will to both end the Vandy embarrassment and extend the season was alarming. I haven’t begun to mark my Jeremy Pruitt scorecard but in my current state of red-hineytude my thoughts are he better be able to recruit his ass off as advertised. If not the rebuild will continue indefinitely AND FOSSILS LIKE ME DON’T DO INDEFINITELY. I found someone who can express my frustration much better than I. (Warning; mild profanity..I mean it is Richard Pryor for heavens-sake)
TAKE IT AWAY RICHARD
BLOG BREAK: Putting together General Neyland and Brett Favre I’ve come up with my own maxim
“If at first the breaks go against you…take two weeks off then quit” I’m just kidding about the quitting part but I am taking a few weeks off from the blog. Talk to you again soon and as always thanks for always being there.
MONDAY MUSING: Five out of seven to Vandy? Jiminy Christmas.