Friday, October 20, 2017

Tennessee Volunteers Vs Alabama Crimson Tide: Hold My Beer, Er, Trash Can

I don’t usually take pity on an opponent who must face my beloved Crimson Tide.  I’m making an exception this Saturday as the hapless Volunteers of Tennessee take the field at Bryant-Denny Stadium at 3:30 PM ET.

In their 2017 season opener, the Vols beat the Jackets of Georgia Tech 42-41 in overtime.  They lost to Florida in heartbreaking fashion on a Hail Mary play in the final seconds of that game and then got steamrolled by the Jawja Bulldawgs 41-0 the following Saturday.

How humiliating must it have been to honor the Volunteers’ hero quarterback Peyton Manning as he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame only to suffer the worst lop-sided home loss since 1905 to Vandy. That’s the second worst home loss after a 56-0 defeat at the hands of Kentucky in 1893.

The Tennessee football program looks lost this season and continues to disappoint the Vols faithful and they are howling for Coach Butch Jones to be fired because Rocky Top has become Rocky Bottom.
If they canned Butch the school would owe him $9.2 million.  The money is clearly what has Athletic Director John Currie dithering.  If Vols fans stop showing up to their games the AD will have every reason to pull the trigger on Jones’ contract.
In 1992, Tennessee announced in mid-November that Johnny Majors wouldn’t be retained as head coach. In 2008, with three games remaining, UT announced Phillip Fulmer wouldn’t be coming back.
In 2012, Derek Dooley managed to go slightly deeper into the season before he was fired. UT let him go after a 41-18 loss to Vanderbilt on Nov. 17.
Why can’t Butch be classy like Oregon State Head Coach Gary Andersen and just leave?  Andersen left the Beavers sitting at 1-5 midway through his third season at OSU waiving the remaining $12 million on his recently extended contract.  His record at Oregon State was 7-23 in his two-plus seasons there.
“Coaching is not about the mighty dollar. It is about teaching and putting young men in a position to succeed on and off the field. Success comes when all parties involved are moving in the same direction,” said Andersen.
Some guy with a Twitter handle of Not Jerry Tipton summed up Tennessee football in 2017 with this tweet:
The cringe-worthy motivational gimmick has been the butt of merciless jokes.
TennesseeTrashCan (@TheTNtrashcan) joined Twitter in September 2017 and has yet to post a single tweet but here’s one from TrashCanTeam121:
Tennessee’s bye week and a change in quarterbacks didn’t do much to spark the Volunteer offense against the Gamecocks of South Carolina.
During last Saturday’s game, one of ESPN’s cameras caught a shot of a pack of South Carolina fans wearing red t-shirts that read “KEEP BUTCH JONES.” Jones’s fate was the shadow that loomed over the game─and may still for a few more weeks─and the shirts captured just how far the Jones saga has advanced; the coach is so widely blamed for 3-3 Tennessee’s woes that opposing fans are hoping he remains in Knoxville in perpetuity.
The ESPN Matchup Predictor is giving Tennessee a 2.1% chance of victory against the Tide.  With the Vols allowing an average of 252.6 yards rushing and Bama averaging 301.7 yards rushing it’s clear the guys from Knoxville are outmatched in the running game.  The Tide is only allowing opponents to score an average of 10.3 points per game compared to Tennessee’s 25.6.
Alabama owns the series history 53-7-38 and has a ten-game winning streak.
This will be a fun game to watch for Bama fans.  Not so much for the Vols Nation.

ROLL TIDE ROLL!
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