Hey, all y'all Rocky Top Talkers, commenters and lurkers alike.Football season is three weeks away, and this site has grown from extraordinarily humble beginnings back in 2006 to a merely humble existence today. Hey, thanks to a link on the front page of CBS Sports yesterday, we had about the same number of folks reading in a single hour that we had reading the entire first month of our existence four years ago. So woo for growth and stuff.
In two weeks, we'll dust off a lot of the RTT football season features. We'll have the game previews, the game recaps, the quick and lively open game threads, the BlogPoll ballots, the podcasts, the Hail Mary Haikus, the animated drive charts, and more. The animated BlogPoll may even make a triumphant return in syndication after (possibly) prematurely jumping the shark last season, depending on time, inspiration, and resources.
Here's the problem: I'm still lawyerin', Will's still pastorin', and Hooper's still thinking us all into oblivion in chasing that nuclear engineering Ph.D. We're busy, we're often absent from the site at long intervals due to that whole paycheck and edumacation thing, and we could seriously use some help from y'all to keep the content flowing during football season.
Here's what we'd like to have in addition to what we three plan to contribute:
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Somebody to do the morning Talking Points. Regular readers know what these posts look like, but how's the morning sausage made? Read all of the local media devoted to the Vols -- the Times Free Press, GVX, Inside Tennessee (Scout.com), VolQuest (Rivals.com), etc., etc., etc. (I have lists!) and serve as the community aggregator of news. What's happened since yesterday that we haven't yet talked about? What juicy bits and quotes are buried somewhere after the lead paragraph? Basically this: what should Vol fans be talking about today? List those things, drop in a humorous, insightful, or snarky comment, and publish. The buttons and knobs behind the curtain have a clipping function that makes the process fairly easy. The post generally goes up around 7:30 a.m. EST.
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Somebody to monitor the Twitter feeds of those on the Vols and SEC beat. This is how news breaks these days. Follow the right people. (I have lists!) When you see a Tweet, sniff it, and if it smells like news, Blackbird Pie it or FanShot it. If we get enough people interested in doing this, we could have like shifts and stuff. Or watches. Like an army. Yeah, just like an army.
- Somebody to keep tabs on in-season recruiting. Hooper's still going to be our main recruiting guy after the football season, but as we get commitments and other news in-season, we'd love to have someone look into these guys and let the rest of us know what's going on with them.
- Other. Got an idea for a weekly feature you think is cool and you'd be willing to do throughout football season? Let us know. RTT Wants You.
[Note by Joel, 08/13/10 7:29 AM EDT ] Oops. Forgot the call to action. If you're interested in contributing this season, please email me at rockytoptalk@gmail.com. We also welcome general comments about the season and the planned features below. Thanks.