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From what he had to deal with when he took over..just to have Gameday here from where they were last year is an improvement..Florida is a better team...period..Yes UT has improved with Dooley recruiting and getting Juco players but it is what it is..As much as UT has improved so have other teams like Florida..There is no magic bullet..UT will get better but firing the man after this game is stupid

Agree.

I'm pretty patient, but to see UT lose the same way game after game is what is killing Dooley in the eyes of the fans, myself included. Now, I don't think he will be fired during the season (right now), but what from tonight's game makes you think we have a chance to win against Bama, UGA, or USCe? I'd say the Miss St and Mizzou games are both toss ups, probably 40% chance of winning against Miss St and 60% winning against Mizzou. If we split those and sweep Troy, Vandy and UK we finish 7-5. I don't think that is enough for Dooley to keep his job, especially if the Bama, UGA, and USCe losses are all second half meltdowns. And, if that's the case I really don't think he would deserve to. If those three games are all competitive losses, the Vols beat Miss St AND Mizzou, AND he has an excellent (at least top 15) recruiting class lined up I would be in favor of giving him another year.

Bargain bin coach and it shows.

7-5 is generous...You are chalking up wins against Vandy and Kentucky who both play us close every year.  I'd say the Vandy game is a toss up at best...especially if Vandy plays inspired like they did against USC.  

Don't put too much into GameDay being in Knoxville...the only reason they were here is because Arkansas got beat last week by LaMonroe.  It's STILL a sad state in UT football.  Dooley is in way over his head in the SEC.

I'd take Charlie Strong of Louisville,He would be an improvement

I'm just tired of the DAMN EXCUSES.............................I JUST WANT TO SEE SOME WINS.

I am not happy with our short stent in the TOP 25, and when GAME DAY COMES TO KNOXVILLE YOU SHOW THE HELL UP AND PLAY LIKE YOU DESERVE TO BE IN THE SPOTLIGHT.  WE LOOKED LIKE shizzle LAST NIGHT IN THE SECOND HALF, and Florida is not a great football team at all.  We had much better skill position players, and we overall faster than Florida.  WE gave up and quit last night, just like last season!!   So you tell me why DOOLEY DESERVES to keep his job??






AGREE 100%...........................HAVE SAID THAT BEFORE.
 :powert:

So I guess having the lead in the 3rd quarter, after a 80+ yard drive doesn't count as the 2nd half?

you know what I mean.....................................We quit blocking well, running good routes............tackling..........................IF YOU WERE OK WITH WHAT YOU SAW AFTER HALFTIME, THEN THATS WHERE WE ARE WAY DIFFERENT.....................YOU COULD FEEL THE IMPLOSION COMING, JUST LIKE A F_ING TRAIN WRECK!!

 :powert:

Lol at blaming Dooley being a "knee jerk" reaction.

I just want to see us improve.....................we are not in the games after halftime.........................just like last year.....................
"THE REST OF THE SEC WILL NOT HAVE TENNESSEE TO KICK AROUND ANYMORE"??  AFTER WHAT I SAW LAST NIGHT I CALLBULLshizzle ON THAT.
Just tired of the excuses..................................we should be better that what i saw last night........................NO EXCUSES!!

 :powert:

When you are able to discuss the game, rather than your EMOTIONS we'll continue.  Untill then, I'm done with this exchange, period, dot.

My emotions are gone..............all spent up last night...............LOL

MY wife said the ESPN COMMENTATORS TALKED ABOUT THE Vols giving up

 :powert:

My problem is I want to see him succeed but after two years and a chance to fine tune his staff and recruiting (at least to some degree) this is where we are. His biggest win thus far (some refer it as a signature win) was over a basketball school thats middle of the road in football in the ACC. Before that it was over the bottom feeder, Vandy, in overtime. I don't see being competetive in the SECE for some time to come. Solution? Maybe a coaching change (and I STILL want Peterson) is the only answer but I hate to see us become a revolving door school, but Bama was there for a while but got things repaired fairly well. This crap is so depressing.

I agree that firing Dooley will not help, he is rebuilding, and we have gotten better. Firing him and his staff would be a setback, hurt recruiting, and we'd fall back about 3-5 years. However, Dooley needs to get us a SEC OC. Chaney is not getting it done

I agree. I'm sick of Dooley right now, but we're eally not in a position to change coaches again so soon. If he had 3 years after Fulmer, maybe, but the Kiffin debacle necessitates more time for the program to be more stable.  Chaney must go immediately and I believe Dooley will not be too far behind. The timing is just not right now.

Agreed

Dooley is the CEO, and needs to make the right hires to get it done. He has done so for the most part, but Chaney ball isn't going to get it. He also waited way too long to hire a RB coach.

Agree that we can't really fire Dooley at this time.  But I don't believe in him at all and believe more than ever he's in over his head.  He will not take us back to relevancy.

It's bittersweet. Dooley has been great in getting the program back on track, but I cam't see him taking us much, if any, further. I hope he proves me wrong bc I like him. As far as I'm concerned, he owes us an upset.

We can fire him, and if he doesn't produce this season that is exactly what we should do.

My take is also that firing Dooley would be bad for the program at this point.  In spite of the debacle last night, our program is clearly better and on the right track.  Going for a reset now will just generate more chaos and turmoil.

I don't think replacing Chaney will solve the problem either.  Is our offense the problem?  I don't think so. Our D has looked better this year but got sliced wide open by Florida late in the game last night.  I think some of that might be that they are still adjusting to Sunseri and that it can improve as the season goes on.

Which is the other point.  Dooley has a chance to finish strong.  A win over Uga or USC would almost wipe out the Florida loss, and a win over bammer would pretty much make the season. Hell, he could lose to vandy if he beat bammer.

Beating any of those top three is unlikely, I'll admit, but I'm sure not conceding anything ahead of time, no matter how what my opinion of Dooley might be.   In spite of last night, this team is simply miles and miles ahead of last year's team.

Can you name another game against a good SEC opponent last year where we were leading late in the 3rd quarter?  No?  That's cause there weren't any.

And forget the top three opponents left, if we beat the other 6 teams (MSU, Missouri, Vandy, Troy, Kentucky, Akron) and go 8-4, it's still a big step forward from last season.  I think we are very capable of it.

At this point, I don't know how you can say that this team is "miles" ahead of last year.  After three games, both have blowout wins over a 1-AA opponent and a mediocre BCS team.  But the margin of defeat to UF was greater this year (no matter how it happened), the game was a home, and unlike last year, all of our key players were healthy (while several of theirs were hurt).  I think it's too early to say for sure, but judging by the first three results only, I'd have to say we've regressed a bit.

Yes, and my point elsewhere about UF is that THEY are much better this year, and I think that opinion will be proved correct later this season.  However, I certainly won't shed any tears for them if I am wrong, so I actually don't even care if I am right that much.

But assuming I am, we played well enough to win this year, and just made some mistakes late in the game.  My hope is that it's just been so long since we have been up late in a big game that we don't know how to handle it and that this will come later in the year, partly based on learning from last night.

If you will recall, we got down big to Florida last year, then furiously rallied and scored late to make it look closer than it was.  They also had almost no experience at DB last year and are greatly improved this season.  Hunter is back, but I think last night showed he still needs to shake some rust off.  Our run game is much better this season.

Finally, consider if last year Hunter and Bray were healthy all season.  That's where we are right now.  So yes, assuming they all stay healthy, we are much better.  I was including the injuries in the comparison and I wasn't talking about the game last night so much as I am the prospects for the coming season.

But to partially concede your point, the improvement from the pre-injury team we took against UF last year is more modest.  However I dosee improvement on the defensive line and run game, two areas we greatly suxed at last year.

regardless of how much better UF *might* be, or how much improvement we think has been made, the simple fact is UT quit last night and Dooley did nothing (from what I saw from 22 rows back) to stop them from quiting. He is in fact over his head, and he is not a leader, but a manager. IMO, he is not what the UT football program needs, and he needs to go.

We need to get the fizzle off the purse strings and do what every other competing SEC program has done and hire a legit coach.

I'll still see what the final tally is even though I'm not hopeful. If we get to 8 wins I'll evaluate, if we get to 9 he's good, and 7 or less is cause for dismissal. We're certainly better in some respects this year (defense and running game), but we need more.

I find it unbelievable that Tennessee fans would suffer in mediocrity in the name of coaching stability. We are afraid of firing THIS guy? I'm not sure who they hire... I don't really care... But Dooley is, to quote Vinnie, a bargain bin coach.

Yeah, if he needs to go he should go. Again, I'll withhold judgement until more games have been played, but it (a good enough season) doesn't look likely now. If he can't go at least 4-4 and probably 5-3 in the SEC with this bunch things aren't going well enough.

I don't think the team quit, and if they did, it wasn't until the last 9 minutes when the game was basically out of reach.  I would have liked to see more fight, but it was still IMO a huge improvement over last season.

No one is tolerating mediocrity and it's not about "coaching stability".  It's about, if we bring another guy in, he's probably going to rip off another losing season or two, and may not do any better.  It would be far better for Dooley to continue to build and bring in some solid recruits, have a good enough season to get by and then if we get most of our skill players back we could actually challenge for the SEC next year.  That would be the best thing for the program.

Not only that, if Dooley builds the program a bit better it might make the program more attractive to a big name coach if we decide to make a change later.   A good example is how Shula left bama when Saban came along.  I don't think we are quite there yet.  Hell, half the reason we hired Dooley is because probably no coach worth his salt would touch the mess we had become.  Which was true when bama hired Shula also.

It's also about not over-reacting to ONE GAME early in the season, no matter how a big a rival, how many times in a row they have beaten us, or how weak they SEEM to be coming in to the game.

Here's the deal...I don't mind a lot of you guys being down on Dooley at all.  Heck, I was down on him for much of last year.   But using logic and not emotion, he does have a chance to turn things around.

I don't want to give any odds on his chances of doing so, but there are plenty of games and opportunities still ahead to make this a successful season.  I am going to wait and see how it goes.

It's not about coaching stability? I'd suggest you read some of the posts here.

You don't fire a mediocre coach because you're fearful that the next guy will suck? With all due respect that's a loser's mentality.

And it makes me laugh that anybody thinks this is about one game. The one game is just my tipping point.

I actually admire anyone who can "let it play out" but I think your stance is the one grounded in emotion rather than logic, not the other way around. The team I saw last night will not beat SC, UGa, Mississippi State on the road and have no shot against Alabama. 7-5 at best. How long are we willing to put up with it?

They quit.

They might have, but I still think my point in Pirate's 2nd quarter review about a lack of substitutions has merit. You can't gas your own guys. Look at the number of plays Burton had been in versus the number of plays Teague was in. The fresh guy wins that race every time.

14 down with 9 minutes to go should, in theory anyway, NOT be considered "out of reach".  But the hallmark of Dooley's teams is shizzleting the bed at the slightest hint of adversity, so the whole stadium knew it was over at that point. 14?  Might as well have been 140. :frown:

When Tennessee fell behind 27-20,I had a feeling Tennessee was finished. :rolleyes:

It was over when Florida punched our guys in the mouth and tied the game.

 :powert:

Nobody else on the schedule turns the coaches/players into head cases like UF.  We'll see what lessons the team has learned with this loss and how they respond to adversity.  There's a lot of football left.

Yep.

Its not about the talent or lack thereof........its the lack of heart on display year after year.