Sad Start to UT's SEC Season

Hello Tennessee and SEC football fans in the Chattahooche Valley/West Georgia/East Alabama.

In the early minutes yesterdays of the Tennessee - Florida game, I almost thought I had fallen asleep and was having the recurring nighmares of past Vol-Gator games. Memories of the 1998 National Championship, and the solid UT teams under Doug Dickey and Johnny Majors and 1990's under current coach Phillip Fulmer are still engrained in all Tennessee Volunteer fans. Stories of the great Tennessee teams of 1951, 1938, 1939 are remembered with pride by many. Undefeated, untied and unscored upon. This feat by the 1939 Tennessee team will almost certainly never be duplicated.....but enough of that....back to today's reality.

How could this possibly be happening again? Predictions of a decent team with strengths which would allow it to be competetive in the SEC had come into question during the season opener at UCLA, but I preferred to think that the mistakes in that shocking loss would be corrected prior to the Florida game, and that we would be competetive with Florida in Knoxville. Were it not for the mistakes, we would have been.......but, mistakes aside, Florida was the superior team, and probably would have won in a close game......not the emabarassment we witnessed.

Even though the Vols outgained Florida in total yardage, and had an equal number of first downs, they were outplayed and outcoached. The explosive offense we were promised under new offensive coordinator Clawson has not yet materialized. QB Crompton has not yet matured into a QB of the mold of recent Vol QB's. In fairness to him, the numerous tight games UT found themselves in last year did not allow Coach Fulmer to get him enough game experience to step in and replace Eric Ainge without growing pains.

Can Phillip Fullmer dupicate what he has done in past seasons after slow starts, i.e, last years SEC Eastern Division Championship with questionable experience and multiple injuries at several positions? Can he bring UT back to a level of competiviness and respectability UT fans expect and deserve? More parity of recruiting and talent levels among SEC teams and the addition of more excellent coaches in the last few years make it a challenge to avoid the Vols being relegated to middle of the pack in the SEC, without a doubt the strongest and most competetive conference in the country. We will have to wait and see. I believe he can.

Hats off to Florida, Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Auburn and Vanderbilit, who continue to make us proud of the SEC. They are playing well and deserve our respect.

True Tennessee and SEC fans will continue to look forward to the exciting matchups next Saturday, including Tennessee at Auburn and Alabama at Georgia. A good Tennessee showing at Auburn is absolutely essential to restoring some level of confidence among Volunteer fans.
Go Vols!