Check out the story from Dave Hooker here.
Davis certainly has the best collegiate pedigree out of all the choices and names we've heard in the last week, and I'd be for it. I'm still not entirely certain he's going to want to leave Chapel Hill for many of the same reasons David Cutcliffe won't leave Durham: at UNC, you can be a hero with 9-3 at a university that's always competed on an elite national level at every other sport they play, making you the face of their football program. It's what Bruce Pearl has done with Tennessee Basketball. In Knoxville, 9-3 - in spite of what we've seen this season - means grumbling.
While we're watching Texas Tech play whichever team has the ball last wins, maybe we should pull for this outcome. Davis walked into a difficult situation at a proud program at Miami, and turned the whole thing around. He even put the Browns in the playoffs once before things went sour there. No doubt Butch can get the job done. But we won't know if he will or not until he accepts it.
See, you're thinking about something besides Wyoming already. Just wait til we start talking about basketball.
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3 comments:
Butch Davis left the Cleveland Browns organization in a mess that they're still trying to get out of. He was a paranoid, controlling ego-maniac and an average football mind at best.
I sure hope Hamilton does his homework. The best thing that could happen to UT would be for Butchie to keep his word and stay at NC.
Will,
I have to be honest with you. I see Tennessee a few years and a couple coaches away from being back on top. UT should hire a guy that can do what Zook did at UF - recruit talent, win a few big games, get to a bowl or two - then hire the "next" guy to get the program over the hump.
Here's my question with the whole "rebuilding process" - how did we win the SEC East in 2007?
Trying to stay as logical as possible - which is always tough for me but especially now when it comes to the Vols - Tennessee still has a very good defense in 2008. The problems with this team are upwards of 80% offense related, if not more.
What's so mind-boggling is that the only pieces different from the '07 and '08 offenses are Erik Ainge and David Cutcliffe for Crompton/Stephens and Dave Clawson.
Every other player on the '08 Vol offense started at least one game in '07. Every single one of them.
So while it does certainly create a greater appreciation for Ainge and Cutcliffe, and point plenty of fingers at Clawson...can we really be all of a sudden that far removed from even a decent offense to go with our good defense?
The coordinator and the quarterback are certainly the two most important pieces, and there's no surefire solution to either of those problems for next year. But Tennessee is still very young on offense, and will bring back eight players with starting experience from that unit next year. The defense takes a huge hit at LB but will be sustainable everywhere else.
If these pieces were good enough to win the East in '07 and bad enough to be where we are in '08, to me it leaves everything on the table for '09. We might miss a bowl game again. We're certainly not in the same breath as Florida. But I look back at many of these same players from a championship season in '07 - even if we "backed in" by beating Georgia by three touchdowns - and I'm not resigned to a long process. I think we can still win and be relevant now.
That said, the Wyoming loss was the best thing that could've happened to the new guy. Becuase now, almost anything will be considered an improvement. So we'll have to wait and see.
Do you think Auburn - who as we've both said is so similar to the Vols - is in for a few years of being sub-par before they can compete for titles again?
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