Rightly bumped to the front page.  Very well-deliberated thoughts from XRayVol.  Also, don't miss Getoffmyvols's take here.  --hooper

Hello RTT. Good to see y'all again. I've been uncharacteristically quiet over the last few weeks. Some of that is due to technical difficulties, some because, well to be honest, I didn't know what to say.

Over the last few weeks, I saw our team get handled by Florida and Georgia, underachieve at Auburn, come back to play a near perfect game with Miss. St. and go on to flummox with two big rivals. The season has been tumultuous to put it mildly. I have experienced sheer heartbreak this season, as I'm sure you all have. We couldn't not have.

One phrase, I think, can summarize this season:  "Technical Difficulties"

Let's be quite frank. The last thing that anybody can say about this team is that they didn't try. The results of this season to date have most definitely not been due to lack of effort.  On ANYBODY"S part. Certainly, not Coach's. But we'll get to that. Everybody has been working hard. Of that, you CAN be certain.

Technical difficulties. That's what it all has been. Think about it. Our worst enemy this season has been penalties. Mental Errors. Drive Killers. Momentum Killers. We have played some really sloppy football. But the one game. The one game that we executed well and played smart and disciplined, we handled Miss. State.  No offensive penalties in that game. And what happened? 34-3 happened. Now, given, it's MSU, but still! You get what I'm saying. On top of that, and I warn you, these are all things that can be refuted but are my opinion and I think a fairly good point, you bring in a spankin' new OC with a spankin' new complicated playbook and give him a bunch of kids who are trying to pass classes at the University of Tennessee and learn this thing. Oh! And by the way, we're gonna give you a quarterback who is almost completely untested and has only started one game in his short career, to run that complicated offense. We all saw how well that worked. So, hey! I know, let's give you a completely untested sophomore who has NEVER started an SEC game in his LIFE! And we'll see how that works out. Mmmkay?

And what did we do? "Hey, Clawford, or whatever your name is, you gotta make this thing work RIGHT NOW. Today. You have ZERO room for errors. Mmkay. Good luck." That poor guy never even saw the fire as he walked right into it. Or else he saw it and decided to go in anyway. In which case he deserves a lot of respect. Even if he does need to work on his playcalling.

To be honest, in my opinion, this offense never really had a chance. I know! Let's debut this shiny new offense with it's shiny new quarterback against friggin' UCLA. But it's cool because we have three whole weeks before we play FLA., Auburn and flippin' Georgia. Take a ten year old, show him a couple of Karate moves and then let him fight a pack of Ninjas. See what happens.  It was always going to take more than one year to get this thing going. But then, no one could have predicted the internal hemorrhaging we'd suffer during the strengthening process. Or the broken neck we suffered when Jon Crompton turned out to be a bust. Stephens has made a pretty good brace for that neck but hey, the kid's got some growing to do, naturally. So things didn't work out the way anybody wanted, it was bound to happen sometime, but I really think we can chalk it all up to Technical Difficulties.

Difficulties that, for some reason, evaded fixing. Why? Who knows. Was it the coaching? Was it the kids? Who knows?  I find it really hard to believe that our coaches are inept and/or our athletes are uncoachable. Doesn't make sense. I think it was just unrealistic of us to think this would be anything more than a rebuilding year. All the signs were there. But we, in our infinite fandom, over-expected and we got hurt. We got emotionally injured. And we lashed out. We lashed out BIG. And what generally happens when you make an emotionally charged decision? It usually comes back to bite you in the arse. Stay tuned.

They just needed more time. And understanding. Which brings me to my point.

I only saw about the last season of Johnny Major's career. And I have seen every year of Fulmer's. I rode the wave of excess in the 90's and have ridden it as it has slowly beached itself this year. We have seen the highest of highs and the lowest of lows during the last 17 years. We have experienced the thrill of important victories, hard fought battles, and decisive routs. We've felt the sting of upsetting losses, and I don't  just mean the games (I'm looking at you Inky Johnson), public embarrassment, and the unfulfillment of championship dreams. A lot of things have happened in the last 17 years, not all of them good. And I have to tell you, I love the University of Tennessee and I always will, but what they did Monday was wrong. It was a bad decision. Nevermind that Fulmer, one of the NCAA's winningest and cleanest coaches, should have been allowed to leave on his own terms, but to do it with three game left. Shameful. If you're going to fire the guy, at least wait 'till the season's over. Sheesh. I don't like the decision to fire him. I think it'll cause more trouble than it'll fix. Personally, I think they should have had one more year. If they couldn't make the thing work by the middle of next season, then you start thinking about a new coach.  NOBODY installs a new offense and makes it work immediately. NOBODY. Especially not with green quarterbacks. It was bad. And I say that knowing that Fulmer could've turned it around eventually and that now we are very dangerously close to becoming the newest seat on the Coach Carousel.

I love Fulmer. I think he is one of the classiest, most genuine, dedicated, resilient, fervored coaches ever. He bleeds Big Orange more than most. He has worked like heck for us and the school and especially his athletes. Who I was damn proud of, seeing them at the press conference. That's loyalty people! Have you seen any other coaches' players line up behind them during their conferences. I think not. Phillip Fulmer was at the center of something special at the University of Tennessee. And now it's gone. I feel the worst for the players. Even though we've questioned Fulmer's discipline with his players, no one can question his dedication to them. It's sad to think that the football program won't be the program anymore. What will it become? What will we become? Will we be the next major university to become the girl you wanna take to the "movies" but not the one you wanna bring home to mom? Or will we meet the guy? The guy who will restore order to our lives and treat us well and stick around. (ed.s note: I'm not a scorned woman, or a woman at all, I just can't think of a better analogy right now.) I just hope this decision doesn't come back to bite us like I think it might. I really do.

I'm going to miss Phillip Fulmer and the whole staff, should it be discarded. And I had to get that out of my system. I guess the only thing to do now is move forward, and hope that Hamilton, whom I'm not a big fan of right now, makes a very good decision to fix the bad one he just made. Well, it won't fix it but it could eventually take away the sting.

God bless Phillip Fulmer and I wish him and his family nothing but the best as well as all the coaches we might lose. I hope they go on to continued success. Now I'll just sit back and cross my fingers and hope for the best. God help us.