But thankfully unlike in football, you don't have to stuff the roster with five-stars to win and win big.  Just get 1-2 really good players, surround them with the right role players, and get them all to stick around for 2-3 years.  Look no farther than the Wisconsin team that knocked off Cal's pseudo-NBA roster in the Final Four last year.
 
I don't think Barnes will ever recruit like Cal or Coach K, but if builds his roster correctly, I think he'll succeed in Knoxville. 

Agree 100%. Also, 3 of the 5 recruits he's got coming in have been bumped up to 4 stars. Looks like Barnes and staff have a eye for talent.

Best 2nd half of the season IMO. UT wanted it more.

Barnes gets us 2-3 type players we need we can be pretty darn good. I like Barnes, good X&O coach.

Was unreal here in West Tn. today too. Kroger's was packed at 9:20 this morning.

What's the deal with milk, bread and eggs? Does snow make folks want to eat French toast?

Hype means zero. Got to win between those white lines.

...that's hardly worth a fuss. Although I guess all the milk and bread are gone. What do people do with all that milk and bread? 

Here they buy milk, eggs and bread. Snow must make folks want French toast around here.

Jennings needs to move there...period. Dot.

Wasting his talents on offense where he's getting the balls in his hands about 2 times per game or less. We've got other WRs that can catch the WR screen or the 3 yard out!!!!

Based on what I I've seen/heard Butch and company asked him to greyshirt or blueshirt (I get these colored shirts mixed up). The Summer he'd be on his own dime and then in the Fall be on scholarship. Kid said no.

Believe he was hurt this past HS season and didn't get to play much. Word is he visited the U of Memphis this past weekend.

Hoping Denver but saying PATs win

Yep....Good show.

I've seen all the Super Bowls to this point....and several of the championship games before the Super Bowl started.

Be interesting to see what the committee does about having the semis on NYE. IMO that was stupid of them.

I did read something the other day that made sense.....It said the low viewer numbers were probably not as bad as it seemed....A lot of people were watching it at gatherings and restaurants, etc. I know here on NYE you couldn't get in the door at Buffalo Wild Wings....I'm sure 300 or so were watching the game in there in just that one place. So I'm sure a lot of that was going on across the country.

http://nfldraftgeek.com/pighoward-nfldraftinterview.html

Clemson pi$$ed that game away....Gave up 21 easy points to Bama.....if not more.

I wish the announcers would study "old fashioned" announcers who covered the game, as opposed to trying to be a part of it
IOW, shut the fizzle up!

No kidding.....Wish someone would stick a sock in Herbstreit's mouth.

METEOR, METEOR, METEOR

Go down to Tiny Knee and sacrifice a goat, sheep.....or anything to give the Crimson Turds some bad JuJu!!!

I hate Bama!!

Damnit!!!

Fundamentals need work.  Tackling was, at times, horrendous.  Coverage, closing on the ball, not good.  The DL had the best fundamentals, IMO due to Coach Strip.  While the LBs improved and were/are very good athletically all too often they were out of position - why?  Zone coverage in particular needs work.  FWIW we played zone much better in the bowl game (man under, zone over the top, more than we had been during the season).  For a number of years, through several DCs, our safeties have been bad in zone (really, really bad under Chavis).  I hope that improves under Shoop.

Agree, Pirate....Good post!

Based on what I've read on some Penn State boards Shoops has some weakness on that backend of his defense....Ouch!

It's nice to see UT hire a coach that's considered a HOT name....been a while since we've seen that here. But......I'll wait until a Florida, Bama, A&M etc. game where we are up 2 points with 3 minutes left in the 4th quarter to make a judgment.

 IMO, this is where Butch made his decision to part ways with Jancek. We were never safe late in a game with our defense under Jancek the past 3 years it seems. This season look no further than OU...Florida...Ark...Bama. My gosh, just give me 2 of those games as wins!!......And even in some wins it was nail biting time. UGA took the ball over on the 1 foot line and drove the field to where we had to bat a ball down at the goal line to preserve the win. IIRC....USCe took over late on about the 15 and drove down the field and if not for a fumble on our 8 we most likely lose that game because we COULD NOT stop them the 4th. quarter.

Welcome aboard Coach Shoop......Now, get us some stops in nut-cutten time!

I saw it. The last 3 minutes was a total cluster if you are a Bengals fan

I'm in a lotto club of 16 people.....we won $8.00 last drawing. Expecting to at least double that tonight.

Prayers sent!

He turned down LSU too. Would be a good hire IMO.

This started the last 2-3 years before Pat retired. It has gotten worse under Holly. The women's game has changed, they are more athletic and know how to score and coaches know how to coach offense. We are still in the dark ages that defense will win.....if you hold them to 50 and you score 46...you lose. IMO, there's not a coach on this staff that can coach a lick of offense and that goes back to the last 2-3 years of PHS too. Times have changed in the women's game and UT hasn't. Holly's offense is it either goes in or it doesn't and we do little to set up a offense or get the ball into a player with a hot hand when we actually have a hot hand. To me, Holly looks clueless and when things go South during a game she has no clue what to do. It looks to me the players don't respond to her and they pretty much free lance and play on both ends of the court when they want to. Holly has said no less than 3 times I've heard after games that her team didn't follow the game plan.....really....who's fault is that?

I was all for giving Holly a shot and not really sure a top-notch coach would have followed PHS at the time.....I don't see us being a final-4 team under Holly...we have the talent but not the heart. Holly has ZERO commits so far for this upcoming class and last I checked the top 100 recruits have committed to other programs....The top player in Tennessee committed to UConn....

Something is wrong in the program....They will win games because of talent not much on coaching. IMO also, Holly will be here for a while. If I was the AD and wanted to make a change.....The first place I'd look is the staff at UT Martin. Period.

Not surprised.......Unlike most all other positions, only 1 QB can play at a time. With Dobbs back for another year....Dormady as the number 2 and Gitmo coming in something had to give.

Jones is getting closer to home.....and I wish him the best.

He got canned by Tampa tonight and he's a former UT coach.