Photo from Google Images
I love going to Knoxville to watch the Vols play. I love the pageantry that goes into SEC football. It Just Means More is a slogan of the SEC and it shows at every home campus across the conference. Saturday’s down south are rich in traditions and competition. Teams are respected and revered. Fanbases are beyond loyal. When the BYU game was announced as a night game, I booked my flight. Neyland under the lights is one of the best atmospheres in college football.
The opening game of the season, the Vols lost to Georgia State 38-30 in one of the most embarrassing losses in conference history. I was mad, but I didn’t take the loss nearly as hard as I took the Sweet 16 loss to Purdue. It wasn’t even close. I woke up from the basketball loss with puffy eyes and was sports depressed for weeks. We had a bleeping awesome team and they deserved to keep winning. This team playing football for UT is just flat out awful. We have no quarterback. NONE. Jarrett Guarantano is the worst, and I mean the worst to ever play the position for the University of Tennessee.
He’s a kid, I know. I’m trying to be nice, but he is playing a man’s game and it is passed time to grow up! As a four-star recruit from New Jersey, he was hyped to take UT back to the SEC Championship. I have never been sold on “Jersey” as I like to call him. I gave him a lot more respect last year after he took sack after sack and didn’t die out there. Coach Pruitt said this was his year to be one of the best QB’s in the SEC. (Let me know when you stop laughing.) Whaaaat? This kid looks worse, not better. What am I missing here? Maybe his vision needs to get checked out. Seriously!
His coaches and his teammates love him and they both stand by him. What are they seeing that we are not seeing? He’s too slow to get rid of the ball and most of the time when he does throw the ball, it’s nowhere close to anyone in orange. He can’t read a defense, he can’t adjust on the fly and his ability to hit an open man is cringe worthy.
Put Juan Jennings in at QB, run the wildcat, do something, do anything other than count on Jarrett Guarantano to win games.
Losing, again was shocking. Losing 29-26 in double overtime to BYU when we had a 99% chance of winning with less than 30 seconds left was hitting rock bottom. In the words of Barney Boy Trotter, this team is a sorry sack of shit!
The University of Tennessee is now 0-2 after facing Georgia State and BYU, both at home. The last time UT started the season 0-2 was 1988. They went 0-6 before finishing the season 5-6. Maybe this season will look more like 1981 when they started 0-2 and finished 8-4. Are you laughing? You should be. Finishing 8-4 is like me saying I’m going to be six foot and 2 inches tall at the end of the season. No matter how much I pray for a second vertical growth spurt and no matter how many vitamins I take, it’s not going to happen. I’m a solid 5’0 without heels. I stopped growing vertically in the 6th grade. I blame my twin brother for getting all of the breast milk and I got the add water and stir formula. But it doesn’t matter how many adjustments I make moving forward, I’m not getting any taller. I’ve accepted my vertical challenges, but I will not accept this sorry sack of shit from the University of Tennessee football. In the words of the guy in the Falcons jersey in the Atlanta airport “Y’all have to do better”. And he is 100% correct. We. Have. To. Do. Better.
Firing Pruitt is not the answer financially. We are still paying Butch Jones big money to stay away and Pruitt’s buyout is around $10 million. Despite an article on Saturday’ Down South that said because of Pruitt the stadium is empty. Neyland is not empty. I was there. Over 92 thousand fans filled the seats in the 103 thousand seat stadium on Saturday. Sure, it wasn’t a sellout, but nowhere near “empty”. Again, it just means more in the SEC and the fans are loyal. Even when your team could struggle with the local high school team, the fans still show up.
It’s going to be a long, shitty season and I’d love to be proven wrong on Jersey. But the bottom line is that We. Have. To. Do. Better!