From Title Hopes to Dumpster Fire in Three Weeks

Has anyone ever had a relationship with someone who you just absolutely love and have devoted your time and effort and affection to but is constantly letting you down and is never the person they say they would be? They make all of these beautiful promises and shows signs of changing, they surround themselves with better people, make significant progress, and give you high hopes that this change is legitimate...only to relapse and show their true colors and leave you to have to realize that this is just how that person is and they can never change. I have this very eerily similar type of relationship with the University of Tennessee football. I bought into the hype this year 100%. I knew we would win the SEC East and were a conference championship win from a BCS bowl or even crashing the playoff party. Josh Dobbs was coming off an incredible year as on of the nations elite running quarterbacks, to add to that, Jalen Hurd and Alvin Kamara are two future NFL talents that graced our backfield making it the most dangerous rushing backfield in the nation coming into this season. The offensive line was finally seasoned and experienced and our defense was to include at least three or four NFL caliber playoffs. Derek Barnett will be a star in the NFL and Cam Sutton was an all SEC cornerback. Jalen Reeves-Maybin was coming into his senior year on a mammoth wave of momentum from last year and the defensive line was looking as if those four and five star recruits were playing to their potential. We enjoyed all of these returning players and a preseason top ten ranking to start the year. Tennessee football was possibly back to what it was when I was younger...when Tennessee was dominant and Neyland Stadium was the best home field advantage in college football and Tennessee was always considered a contender to win the SEC.

Jokes on me, huh? Tennessee squeaks by Appalachian State in overtime and just looked bad and uninspired. The first quarter of the Virginia Tech game had us down 14-0 until we made the Hokies fumble the ball a billion times and the offense finally looked like it had a pulse. The rest of the year picked up as we F I N A L L Y beat the Florida Gators and did it in spectacular fashion after erasing a 21 point deficit. We then turned around and pulled off a miracle in Athens and won one of the best college football games in recent memory. The Vols were 5-0 and 2-0 in the SEC. They had a stranglehold on the East and controlled their destiny on the road to Atlanta. Then came the losses. I don't give a damn about the Texas A&M loss, they had that coming and I expected that. You can only dick around and get down two or three touchdowns so many times before you eventually run into a good team that won't let you come back...even though Tennessee showed amazing resiliency and character by pushing it to double overtime. One week later, Alabama just beat the brakes off the Vols and dominated them in every aspect of the game. Never mind that Tennessee had a plethora of injuries, they still received an epic ass kicking. But Saturday, a loss against against a sorry South Carolina team became the ultimate example of Tennessee emotionally abusing it's fans and officially flushing another season down the toilet. Coming off a bye week, playing a bad team who isn't even sure who their quarterback is, beat Tennessee. Butch Jones got out coached by Will Muschamp AGAIN and should forever address Coach Muschamp as "daddy" since that scrub of a coach has never lost to Butch Jones. 

Sounds pretty bad right? Well the shitty got shittier and this morning Jalen Hurd jumps ship and is deciding to transfer to play WR/TE at another school. Jonathan Kongbo even tweeted a picture of hanging cleats, insinuating that he is done playing football at the University of Tennessee. Preston Williams has already transferred and jumped the ship before it became trendy and now I can see why...and I do not blame him or the others. According to Hurd's uncle, Butch Jones promised to run Hurd in the I-formation after the success they experienced with that formation last year. The Vols haven't run it once all year. Hurd feels underutilized and under coached, and I completely agree. This coaching staff has been a joke with the exception of the defense. Butch Jones has taken this brand new sports car of a football team, drank a fifth of vodka, got behind the wheel of said car, and drove it off a bridge. What has happened at this program all leads back to the head coach. Period. Anyone can coach as an under dog when nobody expects you to win but only great coaches can win when all the eyes are on you. This year, all eyes were on the Vols and if it wasn't for a fluke last second miracle, Tennessee would be 4-4 and 1-4 in the SEC. This never happens to Nick Saban or Urban Meyer coached teams and I can promise you that John Harbaugh coached teams will never fail to reach expectations like this. The season went from a dream season to colossal disaster in a span of four weeks. In four weeks Butch Jones had his team in a position to win the East to pissing it away in Columbia, South Carolina. The offense went from having exciting weapons in its backfield to becoming a four quarter long punting display. Offensive coordinator failed the offense, Butch Jones failed the team for hiring him and buying in on that boring ass predictable offense, and Butch Jones also failed his players but not fulfilling personal promises. 

Butch Jones failed the program in epic fashion in a year where he couldn't afford to. If the Vols have a team this talented and this is the best they do, than this is the ultimate ceiling for Tennessee football under Butch Jones, and thats it. If the program just absolutely loves watching the SEC Championship game from home every year and just aims to be 8-4 every year and is content with being the Outback Bowl champs every year, than keep Coach Jones. He's your guy. But if you want to bring Tennessee football back into relevancy and keep your fan base from losing all faith, it's time to show him and Mike Debord the door. 

E_Campbell3