Big Orange Roundtable - Week 1

Through the power of Bleacher Report, I've gotten exponentially more connected to the Tennessee blogging community over the last few weeks. As such, SESB is joining the Big Orange Roundtable feature, the brainchild of Third Saturday in Blogtober and one that includes notable Vol blogs Fulmer's Belly, Gate 21, Losers with Socks, Moondog Sports, The Power T, Rocky Top Talk, The UT Vols Football Blog, and YMSWWC.

You can read more about this feature at Third Saturday and many of the other sites, but basically each week one site - starting with Third Saturday - will ask five questions related to the Vols, and then the members of the roundtable will each give their answers. At the end of the week, a comprehensive piece will be published with the best responses. You can find all the current responses to the week one questions at the introductory piece here.

I'm incredibly proud and excited to be a part of this feature...the Week 1 questions come from Third Saturday, and here are my responses:

1.) How good/bad do you think Jonathan Crompton will be in his first year as a Tennessee starting quarterback and what makes you think that?

The fates of Jonathan Crompton and Dave Clawson are, in a sense, joined at the hip. Crompton under Cutcliffe would've been one thing - Cut is the master of training guys in the school of "don't take sacks and don't make mistakes", something the Mannings, Tee Martin and Erik Ainge post-2005 excelled at.

Crompton with a guy like Clawson and his verbal commitment to "get the ball to the playmakers" jacks up the risk/reward factor. And I think in '08 you're going to see a bit of both.

Crompton's performance against LSU in '06 was admirable, and while his numbers (11 of 24) weren't spectacular and he had the benefit of Robert Meachem on the receiving end, he showed plenty of promise. Vol fans who are nervous about Crompton can at least take heart in the fact that JC has more relevant in-game experience in a Vol uniform than any new starter the Vols have had since Andy Kelly. Where there will always be questions about new QBs, and clearly there is speculation about this one, you do have more concrete (and mostly positive) evidence to go on with Crompton than with anyone else in recent memory.

So I think he'll have his moments just based on what I've seen on the field, though it's a tough jury early for both Crompton and Clawson with UCLA, Florida and Auburn in September. This could be a year where Vol fans are cursing Crompton in mid-October and then excited about him in 2009 by December. Keep in mind that almost every young QB who's come through the program has "one of those games" - Manning against Florida in '96, Casey Clausen against Florida in '02, Ainge against Auburn in '04 and LSU in '05 - where they turn the ball over 4 times and get most of the blame for the loss. It's uncomfortable but realistic to expect one of those games from Crompton somewhere along the way. I don't think Crompton has to be great, and right away I don't expect him to be. But I do think he'll be plenty good enough over the course of the whole season to do the things this offense needs him to do to win games.

2.) This question was posed on our site a few weeks ago by the Bama boys, and it brought some good discussion, so given UT’s rich history of scheduling home-and-homes with top-shelf BCS programs, what school would you most like for the Vols to play in the future and why?

Though my personal answer to this question is Virginia Tech because I've lived in "the heart of Hokie country" for the last two years, on the whole it has to be Texas.

On the list of teams that have incurred the wrath of Vol Nation, Tennessee's beaten Notre Dame plenty and made sure Michigan got all they wanted in the Citrus Bowl. Nebraska's still out there, but frankly I'm still afraid of them a decade later, and plus that series is already under contract down the road. And Penn State has handed us three painful bowl losses, but we've also seen that one before in the 70s.

Between the Chris Simms saga (made a little better by his performance against Colorado in the 2001 Big 12 Championship that, at the time, helped the Vols move closer towards the National Championship) and those people who don't Remember the Alamo and drop that "The Real UT" nonsense, Texas is the team I have the most angst towards with the least real life reward. Aren't Fulmer and Mack Brown buddies? Maybe that's why we don't hear more talk of what seems like a naturally good and intense series to initiate...

3.) A lot has been made of our lack of depth at defensive tackle. With Demonte Bolden, Dan Williams and Walter Fisher pretty solid, what other player do you think makes a big move toward becoming dependable?

I'm gonna go with "...no one."

It took most of last year for Dan Williams to fall into that "pretty solid" category, and Walter Fisher is still more hype than result. If what's making it on the field is already that questionable, I don't see any of the younger, inexperienced guys stepping in and becoming dependable, unless it's something late in the year like Williams last season when he finally took Mapu's spot.

That's not to say that a Ben Martin or someone we're currently thinking about primarily at end couldn't transform into a solid option, but this is the one spot on the field outside of Crompton where one injury could devastate.

4.) Neyland Stadium has undergone some wholesale external and internal renovations during the offseason, updating and improving the overall appearance. If you could change one thing about Neyland, what would it be?

While I got more used to the Vegas-style advertising that surrounds the field as the season went on last year, the one thing I'd change has to do with the way we present our championships.

It makes me sound like less of a fan in some ways when I say that I don't like that we put our "six" National Championships up there, but it's true - if I was objective, if I hate the fact that every piece of memorabilia at Bryant-Denney Stadium has "12 National Championships" on it when Bama's only won half of those according to consensus, I also have to disagree with anything more than 1951 & 1998 in Knoxville.

What I'd like to see is less space for non-consensus, hardly recognized titles we won decades ago, and instead something listing our SEC Championships AND our Eastern Division Championships. The idea of listing division titles may make some think we're above that, but it also means you can put something up there more recent than ten years ago. Right now, it looks like Tennessee hasn't been relevant in the last ten years (insert punchline here) when you look at what the Vols recognize at Neyland Stadium.

5.) Different UT fans have different opinions on last season. Was it a success? Was it a failure? Why do you think so?

Any season that ends in Atlanta is successful.

Sometimes you get there at 12-0 and sometimes you get there at 9-3, but as Fulmer himself would tell you, the first goal is always winning the SEC East. And as long as Florida is Florida and Georgia is ranked No. 2, winning that division means you did something good. It's not a non-consensus honor or the equivalent of a December bowl - it's a championship.

And yeah, our goals include higher things too. And the lows last season were unfathomably low. But to me, that made 2007 a great story - it wasn't my favorite season of all time, but you'll be hard pressed to find one that was more interesting.

I've read several places that the Vols were one play against lesser teams like South Carolina, Vandy and Kentucky from being an 8-4 nobody playing in a December bowl. And that's true. But the Vols were also two Erik Ainge throws away from beating the eventual National Champion and winning the SEC. If that happens instead, does everybody unanimously agree that the season was great? Is the line really that thin?

As we've seen, the goal is always Atlanta because if you get to Atlanta anything can happen, you can make or break your fortunes. If you think 2007 was a failure, does that make 2001 a failure too? I think the National Championship spoiled all of us and it's harder to appreciate things, especially when we're awarding contract extensions for eight wins for a coach who's averaged almost nine and a half per season. But to me if you win your division, you get a concrete title and a season that, on the whole, should be considered a success.