The Junkyard

They will beat USCe this year, mark my word!!!

I wouldn't count out Dooley just yet over there in Knoxville. If you haven't listened to him talk at press conferences before or anything like that yet, try to do so because when I listen to him I am usually very impressed. He is a very SMART man. He also has the football bloodline. Give him a few years I think he can right the ship over there, but then again he could also be the SEC's next Mike Shula. It's going to be interesting to see what happens with him and Muschamp over the next few years.

I am not implying that either is on, or will be near the hot seat any time soon but how much patience do you think those two fan bases will have with these two guys?

Florida will be back quickly.

Tennessee will not.

And it COMPLETELY has to do with having stocked ponds in their backyards in regards to recruiting. The high school football in Tennessee is deplorable compared to Florida. Unless UT can recruit nationally, they'll never recover. Its the same reason why Notre Dame and Michigan has been struggling so long. They lost their national mojo. Dooley ain't getting it back. Tennessee is reduced to the consistent talent level of Ky, Vandy, MS, and Ole Miss.

I've written semi-essays on the Dooley topic on here before so I won't rehash everything. Nonetheless, I respectfully disagree and I'm still waiting for someone to point to an indication of Dooley's talent outside of his manner of speaking in press conferences. I agree, he does sound impressive in press conferences, no doubt about it. He does have a good bloodline and is fairly intelligent. I agree 100% on all points above.

Unfortunately, although he has those advantages, I haven't seen anything from a coaching aspect to think he's a great coach. This is his fifth season and he's currently 26-32 overall. If he has a losing record again this year, it will be the 4th time in his 5 years of being a head coach that it has happened. He is undermanned in terms of talent as of right now, but his teams haven't shown any indication that they are trying to make up for it with discipline or effort or smart play like you would expect from a well coached team. He has gone 0'fer against the three teams that matter on Tennessee's schedule during his first two years (UF,UGA,Bama). There is little reason to think that trend will change next year. If the rest of the season plays out as expected, he will go 6-6 (2-6). It will mean that over his first two seasons at Tennessee, his wins have been against Montana, Cincinatti, Buffalo, Middle Tennessee, Vandy, Kentucky, Tennessee-Martin, UAB, Memphis, and Ole Miss. Quite frankly, that simply isn't going to cut it at UT.

I know most folks think I'm crazy to say the storm is already on the horizon for Dooley, but until he shows something that illustrates his ability as a head coach, I am sticking to my guns and saying that he won't be in Knoxville long.

With all due respect, I just simply disagree. There is no way for me to really refute what you say because there is no empirical evidence that would prove that no coach would do any better than he has or that if he was given a completely different scenario in every way that he wouldn't do better.

I will note that I have never advocated for him to be fired nor do I think he will be fired after this season. That's why I said the storm was on the horizon and not already in Knoxville.

I also think it's a little odd that you compared Dooley's first five seasons overall with Saban's first 4 at Michigan State. Saban was at Toledo first, which would make a more reasonable comparison. Or you might have even used his first 5 years at Michigan State to make the number of years even. I can only assume that you didn't because the 34-24-1 mark he put up under both those scenarios is certainly better than the mark Dooley will have after this year.

Simply put, I'll wait until Dooley does something. He's not like a lot of the latest hot coaches in the league who bring something a little different whether it be offense (Petrino, Chizik/Malzahn, Urban) or defense (Saban). Nor is he recruiting at the lights out level like Miles. He needs some kind of niche in one of those areas if he's going to be a stalwart in this league.

Thats actually not true. Not saying the whole fan base loves him but he still has plenty of support from a lot of people over there. And I disagree that he has taken the Vols from bad to worse. With Bray and Hunter they are not looking up at Vandy and would have had a much better shot against Florida, South Carolina and us. Because of what Kiffin did to them, they have NO depth, so when they lose their best two players plus a few others for the season, I don't know who could very very successful their this season.

No problem, everyone is entitled to their opinion and everything we discuss here is subjective anyway.

The reason I included Saban's first 4 years at Michigan State was to show that even the greatest coach in all of CFB struggled while he was trying to build up a program that wasn't where it needed to be. If this were year 5 or 6 of Dooley then I would agree, but right now he's got to get that roster built back up and let those 19 and 20 year olds mature into 21-22 year olds and have talented depth behind them. Right now its just a really pathetic situation. He shouldn't be judged on his record until he's on a somewhat level playing field.

As far as Dooley's niche, I don't know how important that really is. Mark Richt has won 102 games(somewhere around there). What is his niche? He's an offensive guy, but all of our good teams have been based on playing conservative on offense and letting our defense win it for us. Is Richt's "niche" hiring good defensive coordinators? Maybe Richt's "niche" is being a proud Christian, and if so, maybe Dooley's will be being a really smart guy with a law degree? I honestly don't know about this.

I just think he's getting a lot of criticism for inheriting a really pathetic roster. He hasn't bitched and moaned, he hasn't embarrassed his university, he hasn't really made excuses. He just goes to work everyday, works to get better, and keeps working to bring in talented guys with strong enough character to hang around for 4 or 5 years. I admire the guy, and like I said earlier, I think he's too good for Tennessee. I wish he would get a job somewhere else so I wouldn't feel so dirty defending him.

Richt's niche has been great QB play and great defensive coordinators. The majority of his tenure, Richt has been far and away the best QB coach in the league. His successful seasons almost perfectly mirror the experience of his QBs and other schools can't say the same. It may seem like something that is a natural progression, but no other coach in the league, save possibly Petrino at this point, sees the same results. We've had a good season - i.e. 10+ wins - every single year that our QB to start the year has substantial experience in the offense. Our lesser years, Greene's first year, Tereshinski/Stafford's first year, Cox's year of starting, and Murray's first year, have all coincided with a lack of game experience at the QB position. Most other schools in the conference would kill to have such quality QB development that they could be almost certain that by their quarterback's sophomore year they would be winning double digit games.