Bama week Wednesday...Why not dream a little bit? Kirkland looks back. More about this below from our family of contributors today. The betting public loves Bama. Cool. Tennessee's team is unconventional to the core. Anything can and probably will happen on Saturday. Nobody is as tested nationally as Tennessee while no team is much watch TV as the Vols are. Hence the #'s. We'll tackle this later on in the blog. We start with the latest machinations on UT's leadership search. As we know by now around here, it's NEVER easy.
Latest On Chancellor Search:
We're hearing that hopes are dimming on ETSU president Brian Noland to become the next UTK chancellor. If true, this throws this situation into an uncertain path and perhaps one that could take a chaotic turn. The process is needlessly laborious for would be candidates. Does this sound inviting? A would be candidate would have to become a public candidate, which is limiting....Each candidate will have to be paraded in front of various committees and stakeholders, in a very public process. The whole process is a complete mess and has fiasco written all over it. Think about it this way...What quality candidate would want to go through this type of semi-public dog and pony show? System president Joe DiPietro needs to step up and make a great hire. He inherited Jimmy Cheek but doesn't have him to kick around anymore. Or at least he won't have him to kick around for much longer. Stay tuned because the chancellor is going to have a minor say on the AD.
AD Stuff:
Peyton Manning is coming to town this week for UT/Bama. He's going to surely get ears bent on behalf of both John Gilbert and David Blackburn. Orange Throat will have more on this on Friday but it should be pointed out that Manning is really close to a couple of recent UT athletic department hires that are squarely in the Jon Gilbert camp. And they are encouraging Manning to join them. Going to be a really interesting weekend in his world. As I said, Throaty will be elaborating Friday in his blog on this.
Tidbits From Practice:
A Lil Birdie AKA/Vol Colonel has a few UTidbits.
'Kahlil McKenzie was going with the 1's in practice Tuesday taking Danny O'Brien's spot. I'm not saying it will be McKenzie who starts in his place Saturday, but he is getting the first crack at it.
I feel even more confident today about Darrin Kirkland Jr being a GO for the Alabama game. He was practicing Tuesday and didn't look to be all that limited.
On Kongbo...The coaches love his work ethic and his physical attributes, but has problems understanding the defense sometimes or maybe a lot of the time.'
TV Vols...You realize the Vols are playing their 4th consecutive CBS Telecast this weekend. What you may not know is that Tennessee has been the highest TV draw Nationally in 3 weekends thus far this season. That was exactly the case at Texas A&M when Tennessee stole the weekend! Here are the #'s courtesy of Sports TV Ratings on Twitter.
Tennessee-A&M (CBS): 6.55M
FSU-Mia (ABC): 5.54M
Ala-Ark (ESPN): 4.44M
Notre Dame-NC St (ABC): 3.72M
Texas-Oklahoma (FS1) 2.79M
The insane thing is that Tennessee/Mizzou could be picked up by CBS which would give Tennessee 5 of the possible 13 CBS weekends in 2016. Add the Vols in the SEC Title Game (another CBS game) and UT could end up with 6 out of 14 weeks on CBS. 42.9% of your games in the #1 slot on CBS ain't too shabby. Factor in the ABC game at Va Tech and this would mean Tennessee was on over the air national TV 7 of 14 weeks. NOBODY in America would be able to make this claim.
Got a real treat for the TV viewers tonight at Dewey Warren joins Tony Robinson and yours truly at 10pm Eastern time on In The Pocket. It's going to be an absolute blast tonight.
Then at 10:30 Coach Jerry Glanville tells me he'll be dissecting UT's first TD which he calls one of the finest designs of a TD play he's ever seen. Should be a great hour of TV on MyVLT. Hope you'll remember to set your DVR or watch it live tonight.
Hatfield's Nine
Tony,
The time for what I believe to be the South's finest football rivalry to once again be renewed is near. Tennessee versus Alabama evokes so many memories of games and moments past.
1. The dismissal of Danny O'Brien is exactly the kind of distraction you want nothing to do with when a game against Number 1 is at hand. This team's resilience will be tested once again.
2. The injury plague at linebacker makes it even more imperative that the defensive line, particularly some of the highly touted recent recruits, step their games up. This week is truly all hands on deck.
3. Given Lane Kifffin's penchant for dialing up the deep ball, you have to think Tennessee's corners will get a workout. They have to be much better than they have been previously at playing the ball over their heads.
4. I like the idea that Tennessee seems to be planning to rotating their talented stable of backs more often. You have to maximize the talent you have on hand.
5. Toronto is an incredibly annoying team. I really want them gone from this postseason.
6. It really is feeling like a Cleveland kind of year across the sports landscape. Well, except for one notable exception.
7. The seventh inning battle last night between Bryce Harper and Clayton Kershaw is what the postseason is all about. You have to love the competitive spirit in both guys.
8. Cub fans had to know it would not be easy. Angst is the going to be the currency in Chicago this postseason.
9. Ole Miss picked up a quality player in Devontae Shuler. Andy Kennedy doesn't get enough credit for doing well at a difficult job.
This week's featured small batch punch at Sapphire is "Mercurial." It consists of Baron Samedi spiced rum, pineapple juice, sugar, ginger beer, and walnut liqueur. Stop in and see Pat, Hannah, Zach, and the rest of the gang. You will be glad you did.
Oak Ridge is steaming toward the playoffs and the Blankenship Field renovation project is following suit. Go to blankenshiplegacy.org to donate.
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CC Hoops Tracks Hoops Recruiting:
CC Hoops
'With Rick Barnes and Rob Lanier visiting
Zach Kent this week ahead of his upcoming weekend visit, he
represent's the most likely first commit for the 2017 recruiting class. He is 6-10, 205 player who likes to roam the perimeter has a nice shot but needs to add weight and work on his post game. He is ranked by 247 composite as a 3 Star number 182 overall ranked and it looks like it's down to
Tennessee, Virginia Tech, Seton Hall, Northwestern and St. Bonaventure.
If Tennessee doesn't get Isaiah Stokes, then Zack Kent could end up being the centerpiece of this recruiting class.
I can tell you that the early returns from UT's pre-season practices (multiple sources I trust) are that Tennessee is in need of veteran leadership.
Robert Hubbs III has to pick it up.....As for the newcomers, Jordan Bone has been a really nice addition to the roster and looks to be a quality option in the backcourt. This team looks scrappy but will need more buy in from the veteran guys than we've seen early in camp.
If you've noticed the clips from practice you'll see that Tennessee is attired in a pseudo University of Texas color scheme that appears to be burnt orange. I don't know what this is about but it takes me back to the Lane Kiffin days and his obsession will USC. Really strange. For some reason the Vols aren't wearing Tennessee Orange in practice.
Go
Burnt Big Orange!
Let's get some recruits!!!
CC Hoops'
Wednesday: Live @ Copper Cellar Cumberland Ave
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T-Mail
'One of the more interesting amendments/adjustments being floated “IF” the Florida/LSU game isn’t played to account for the discrepancy is the following:
Decide the divisional winner by division record only since it is an East vs. West game that will be missed. This makes a lot of sense to me and probably is the fairest solution for all involved because it allows the entire conference to drop 2 games from the discussion and puts more weight on head to head with the opponents you are competing with for that spot in the championship game. **the only thing it cannot account for is the impact of a tough SEC game mentally and physically on a team and where it leaves them for the next game. Florida and LSU get the benefit there because the war of attrition simply cannot be accounted for with one less game. It is sad that Florida has maneuvered us to this place and that Sankey Dankey Dog hasn’t stepped in with force to make the game happen! He is commissioner right or just all over twitter until Foley locks him up and he goes missing!!
Frank, DC'
Frank...Like everything that happens around here...The Vols will be a test case but not the beneficiary of a rule change or this case amendment to deciding future division winners. Nothing will surprise me out of this LSU/Florida fiasco. Suffice it to say that Florida is not healthy so their slow play worked to perfection. Mizzou comes to town this weekend which should be a nice jumping off point for Luke Del Rio. Funny how it always works out for Foley....BTW, Sankey's man parts are still missing and unaccounted for.
'Tony,
Thank you for having Vol Colonel on your blog. Hopefully his blog post revives a bit of life back into your listenership. It is so disappointing to see how our fan base crawls into their holes when Bama comes to town. Now, I know what you'll say. "The majority of the show this week has said we'll beat Bama." Maybe so, but it's such a pathetic, pitiful, putrid, panicked, repulsive winning belief. You can hear it in their voices. And it happens most years when we play Alabama. It's probably a consequence of the Florida game being so early in the season and the Alabama game being at the yawn point before the bye, but by God, why can we not continue to believe around here? Is it because Saban (not Alabama) has all those National Championships? Is that it? If fans only put forth faith, REAL FAITH, in a team that had success against their rivals in the past, what would ever be the point of going and seeing a game like this?
I am A FIRM BELIEVER in the effect of the crowd. Being a man who decides to spend his hard earned money on Tennessee football tickets, I also believe once I'm there I have to yell until it's impossible to do so. Why? Because I honestly believe it will make a difference in the outcome of the game and I'd die before I'd let someone convince me otherwise and tell me to sit down and shut up. Is that a disillusion of just another football fan? Like I said, I'd die before I'd let you or anyone else convince me that it is. When Florida came to town, make no mistake about it, the fan base noise had an effect on that game.
My point is this: on Saturday at 3:30 when I along with 100,000 other Tennessee faithful (and a few unfortunate Bammer scum bags) are blessed enough to step into that beautiful stadium and forget about the worries of the world for a second all in an effort to see our team victorious, let's make noise with belief. Let's cheer on our team with belief. The noise of the stadium at the Florida game this year was undoubtedly noise made from voice boxes of belief. I hope this Saturday Jalen Hurts finds the same scenario as Appleby did and dookies all down his leg when we start beating the absolute hell out of them. We have to believe. Friday, I will be purchasing victory cigars for myself and my friends and we will be smoking them looking out over our glorious city once the sun has set a beautifully incomparable shade of Orange.
Thanks for continually being a voice box of belief in some form or another. The closer we get to Saturday, hopefully we can find a way to suspend what may seem like realism and have a little damn faith. Why not? 12 days out of 365. That's it and then it's back to fantasizing on a great team. We have one right now. Let's keep giving them a little faith.
Go Vols.
Alex'
Alex...Nothing about this team makes sense so why not? Why not beat Bama? Nothing else adds up and nothing else about these guys makes sense.
I've said in the past I wouldn't let major college athletes have access to social media because of the unintended consequences. Well, the NLRB isn't singing that song.
Link
Final Thought: Postseason Baseball has been terrific thus far. Due yourself a favor and sit down a watch a deciding game. Great drama.
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