If the annual series is DOA within the SEC, one alternative is for each school to schedule the other as an out of conference game; it would not count in the SEC standings, but would still retain national ramifications and preserve the series. We had a limited series with Ole Miss prior to divisional alignment that was done for similar reasons.

One drawback would possibly be not getting the cooperation from the conference for a late October game date, but if they vote out the annual series possibly Slive can twist some arms, or throw a bone or two, in order to entice some cooperation with the remaining schools on schedule date leniency. As for Alabama, Saban has said if the conference did approve the nine game SEC schedule, Bama would still play at last one big out of conference game each season, so my above scenario with scheduling one another wouldn't affect Alabama in having that big game out of conference, nor should it Tennessee.

The issue comes down to some schools not wanting such a strong schedule for potential bowl reasons. Teams such as Kentucky don't want their 6-6 season with a bowl bid turning into a 5-7 year with no reward. However, the upper tier teams would still have a decent chance of getting two teams in the playoff due to increased strength of schedule. Regardless, if TV viewership is lacking for the SEC Network package of games, the conference will probably be forced into the nine game season.  



BG

The way UT's luck has been running, whoever is the qb will look like an all pro when we play. Still it is my great hope kiffin torpedo's your team with his divisive personality.    If there is any coach who can alienate the players and turn them against each other it is kiffin.

I try to pretend he's still associated with some other school...any other school just not this one! 


BG

I don't know about the other 13 videos, but that first one with that deep booming voice was some kind of awesome!

BG

Yep.  When I was growing up, our schedule came down to bammer and Auburn, and then everyone else.  In fact, UT/AU was THE early season must-see game in the SEC for a while.  That was a fun rivalry, and I miss it.

It was a great series. Besides being the first game I attended, I usually went to the game as a kid when it was played in Birmingham as did many Tide fans.


BG

I'm for 9 conference games.  
Three reasons
1) given a 14 team league it allows teams to play each other more often, perhaps going to the rotating hom and home that occurred prior to expansion.
2) should keep us playing bamer every year.  Though it is more often played on the 4th Saturday now the 3rd Saturday in October means something special to me and a lot of other fans, of both schools.
3) One less Sisters of the Poor game each year!

Agree with the entire post, but unfortunately I think unless something unforeseen happens very soon this annual series is over. Just read Saban said there was a coaches meeting this morning, and while he still favors nine games he is in the minority and doesn't think 9 games will happen. Let's tailgate again in about 2020


BG

That's good stuff right there.

Isn't it! Great post by CW! Vinnie, I wish your dad posted here. I bet he's got all kinds of great stories about this series. 

Also, you would have really liked CelticVol. His dad played for Tennessee, and he has been to the Alabama-Tennessee game since the 1940's in both Knoxville and B'ham/T-town. He was an ex-Marine Colonial and what a classy guy!!! I've read that UT asked him to speak to the team just a few years ago before the game.


BG

bg none of us held a candle compared to Celtic

I spent hours, and I mean really hours, talking Bama-UT with Celtic. Well, not so much me talking, but me listening and soaking up every word and story he told. Just loved the guy.


BG

It's inevitable, and I absolutely hate it. In my "formative years," coming of age as a Tennessee football fan, I can tell you every play of every Tennessee-Alabama game, because each of them are forever seared into my mind. Because the Alabama game was IT.

1990 - Tennessee lining up for the game-winning FG, having it blocked, and Alabama winning on a FG of their own.
1991 - Tennessee falling behind 24-6 before Andy Kelly engineered a 4th quarter comeback that included two TDs and UT getting the ball back before a late INT sealed it.
1992 - A really stout Alabama D holding UT out of the end zone before a touchdown pass from Shuler to David Horn in the back of the end zone cut it to 17-10, but UT just didn't get another chance.
1993 - Having it in the bag before freakin' David Palmer ruined the day.
1994 - Peyton's unfortunate 4th down incompletion on the goal line after missing a wide open receiver . . . and Brandon Stewart's mom standing and cheering.
1995 - Pure bliss.
1996 - Leonard Little vs. Freddie Kitchens. And Jay Graham's run.

It didn't matter if every other game of the season was overlooked, there was something special about the 3rd Saturday in October. The fall foliage was usually at its peak in East Tennessee, the afternoons were crisp and refreshing, and I listened to John Ward and Bill Anderson call many of those games sprawled out in my grandparents' living room eating apples from the trees out back, or playing football in the front yard trying to mimic the action. I was Chuck Webb or Tony Thompson or Andy Kelly, and the big oak tree at the end of the yard was the goal line. In '91, I was 12 years old and helping my grandmother with her crafts booth at a steam train festival here locally. The Autumn Leaf Special made the trip from Chattanooga to Oneida with 800 passengers aboard. I had my Walkman, listening to the game. Person after person stopped by my grandma's booth to ask me the score. At the time I wondered how they knew I was listening to the game. Years later, I realized that it was pretty obvious...it was the 3rd Saturday in October, and I was a 12-year-old with a pair of headphones on in East Tennessee. What else would I be listening to but the UT/Bama game? I was crushed that day when Kelly threw the INT at the end. He was my hero.

I hate it. I absolutely hate it.

Great post, CW! Couldn't agree more. I have those same type of memories and they are all so special.


BG

Hope it happens......When USCe , GA and Florida play Bama every year then fine......Until then we are on a different playing field.

Hate to do this,but here I have Auburn it's due. Until conference expansion, they played Georgia and Florida ever year. In fact ended their SEC schedule with Florida, Georgia and Alabama every season. When the conference took away their Florida game, they were not happy and had fought hard to keep it for tradition sake.


BG

If some programs don't care about traditional rivalries, then let's put that to the test.  Let's just drop divisional play and rotate all 14 teams equally through each other's schedule.  That would mean that in some years, we'd lose the Iron Bowl.  Or the WLOCP.  Or the Egg Bowl.  I would bet that those schools wouldn't be so keen on THAT idea.

They don't care about anyone else's traditional rivalries, but when THEIR rivalries are threatened, they'll sing a different tune.

Yep, and the those traditional games are what make the conference so special. Those are the match-ups that for me are all must see games every season.


BG

Count me as "No" vote for playing that red team in the future.   

Ok, but why?


BG

I'm in favor of continuing the annual rivalry, but I have a feeling that we'll be outvoted.   It seems that outside of the four programs in question, no one else seems to care.  And whether it's now or in the future, the league will go to a nine game schedule.  The SECN is going to demand it (no one is going to want to watch games like MSU/Prairie View every week), and SOS will probably come into play with the new playoff.

I hate this, BDV. This is my favorite series. I'm into the history of this conference and the traditions that made it so special. There is nothing as "traditional" in the SEC as the great Crimson Tide-Volunteer series. While Auburn-Georgia is an older series, it never carried the attention of all SEC fans, and national fans in general, as the Tide-UT game in the formative years of the conference. I love this series so much, and that's why I post here and why I posted as one of the first members of Grid's Volchat (now Scout's UT site)  in the early nineties. He was good to me as the entire board was, and actually welcomed my post. Again, I just hate this!


BG

The conference powers that be will decided in Destin in late May the future of the series and the Auburn-Georgia game.

Quote from Slive yesterday, "We're looking at eight games with or without permanents, nine games with or without permanents and maybe one off-shoot of that."

Saban is on record favoring an 9 game SEC schedule that would allow our annual series to continue, but as of last season Bama was either the only school favoring the 9 game schedule, or at the least, one of the very few.

What is UT's position on the nine game SEC schedule?

What is your personal opinion? Should the annual series continue? Do you care?

As I've said, I'm a traditionalist and this conference was virtually built on the back of this series. For decades it was THE series in the SEC. I'll say it again, Bryant and Neyland will roll over in the grave if this annual series is done away with. Your opinions please.


BG

Wait, are you saying Saban finally has an achilles heel? And in the year he has to visit Knoxville?

WWFDY.

If our QB situation is no better than what we showed, the docs may have to surgically remove that achilles heel. Hopefully Sims will get better, and Coker will arrive in June, and while he has talent he also has very little experience. I've seen many talented QB's with great arms become average on the field. It takes a lot more than just talent.


BG

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/10808657/quarterbacks-struggle-alabama-crimson-tide-spring-game

I noticed from the score that there were not a lot of points in the (g)Aday game.

I know, I know...spring games mean nothing, but still, I am not surprised.  AJ McCarron is gone, and ... oh yeah, some guy named Kiffin is the OC.   

Other than following the Vols, I am mostly looking forward to watching bammer's offense this fall.  I hope it's a train wreck.   

The truth is "underperform" is a generous way of putting it.

BG

This is the sort of situation where, if you're not "local", and haven't been taking the temperature of this fanbase for the past few years, then you really have no idea what you're talking about.  

One of the overriding themes I keep seeing in these national articles is that Martin took over a program that was "crippled by NCAA sanctions" when no one else would.  Oh really?  And what WERE those "crippling" sanctions, exactly?  They gave Bruce Pearl a 3 year show cause.  That was it.  No scholarship restrictions, no recruiting restrictions, nothing.  Yet they make it sound like Martin had rebuilt the program from scratch after a 5 year death penalty and overcame the odds to win a championship with Jimmy Chitwood and a bunch of nobodies.  I guess the truth just doesn't fit their narrative.

A lot of truth in this. When the national press gets hold of an issue involving a school, they often are so ignorant of many issues and facts their article comes off as nothing more than a semi-visual scan of the true story, and appears so elementary to those locals who have kept up with the facts involving the issue for months or years. They really need to do their homework before jumping in the fray.


BG

Forde says, "Why wait?"

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/frank-haith-merely-the-latest-african-american-coach-to-leave-sec-for-lesser-job-060826346.html

Think about it: No way we would see this article if it wasn't involving the SOUTHeastern Conference. South in caps by design. All of the coaches mentioned job performances put them on the hot-seat, not the color of their skin.

BG

"This is Kent Dorfman, he's a legacy from Harrisburg Pennsylvania"   

When the movie first came out, I heard it was a must see. I went and watched and laughed so hard I couldn't stand it! Never laughed as hard at a theater!


BG

Breaking news!  Nike is giving a sneak peak of their new line of PSU coaches' sideline apparel for 2014:


 

  Franklin needs to check his ego at the door. His pic is beyond stupid! If I were a PSU fan, I seriously would be embarrassed for him, and having met many of them over the years, I bet some are.


BG

I have Direct, but as far as I know they have not yet completed a deal with the SEC TV Network and Dish has. Some say this is not surprising as Direct will wait until the last minute before negotiating the deal in order to get better terms. If they don't, then hello Dish.


BG

Vern needs to be stationed at the 16th at Augusta and that is it.  His misses are now becoming noticeable in basketball.  Gary D. has to correct him all the time in football.

Vern seems like a really good guy, but he sure misses on those names. He went an entire half calling Rolando McClain Rolando ***McCain***. By that time, I think Gary had just given up on correcting him.

BG

With Vern's mush memory, he probably was calling the point guard's name as CJ Mosely.

BG

Along with the rake and lawnmower, Kiffin now lives comfortably in Saban's garage.


BG

Allbarn.

Barn.

BG

Pearl will dominate this state in the BB related media for the immediate future. This is bad news for those of us in Crimson. The only silver lining I can fathom is this may make Bama have to anti-up and go after a big time coach if/when Grant is fired, and if he doesn't produce big next season he will be. Can we get one is another question. Many here are disgusted Battle didn't make the move now.


BG