The CheckerBoard

Excuses, same people making excuses for Dooley's losing are now making excuses for his recruiting failures. Blaming posters on message boards for posting facts is really funny. If you people would get this worked up against the man responsible for all this it might help the situation, but you choose to ignore the facts and try to place blame everywhere but at his feet.

If Dooley's image or reputation is so badly damaged by his losing record to the point he cannot get even a lifelong Vol fan like Vonn Bell to go to UT then he should be fired for the good of the program. If you don't feel this way then you are the one who isn't a fan of the best interests of the Tennessee program.
All time SEC Record 368-184-29 66% winning percentage
Battle was 22-18 -2 in the conference 55% winning percentage FIRED
Majors was 57-40-3 in the conference 57% winning percentage FIRED
Fulmer was 98-34 in the conference 74% winning percentage FIRED
Kiffin was 4-4 in the conference 50% winning percentage
Dooley is 4-15 in the conference 21% winning percentage

Majors had 2 losing seasons in the conference including a 1-5 season his first year but then had 10 straight seasons of at least .500 record in the conference.

Losing has never been acceptable at Tennessee. there has only been 1 other time in Tennessee history where we had 3 straight losing records in the SEC. Guess how many coaches we had in that 3 year period?

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First of all, I think we have to give Dooley one more year to get his recruits in and see what he can do with 4 years of his players. I am a donor and have traveled across this country to support my Vols, including 2 trips to California to see us lose. I will be in Neyland on saturday screaming my lungs out for this team and coaching staff. All that said, this is a message board! People have the right to say what they think about this staff and team and it won't be much of a board if all we have is positive posts and no real discussion about the state of our program. I appreciate Wes' writing and opinions but not everyone is going to think like a 30 year old who has no kids. No doubt, he is more entrenched on the middle of this than any of us are but you cant just take one persons opinion and present it as fact. Of course, kids want to play for a winner but to think that a few posts on this board calling for Dooley's head is making a significant difference in a recruits decision is just not true in my opinion. Sure they might hear about it and think about it but, to me, seeing our facilities, meeting the coaches, seeing the gameday experience in Neyland, our tradition, the ability to play in the best conference in America are just a few of the many more reasons than a message board that affect a recruits decision. Heck, if a coach can't overcome some negative recruiting by other coaches he is in the wrong business. Bama had no problem bringing in recruits when their fanbase was calling for Shula's head. Georgia has continued to recruit very well in the face of many fans calling for Richt to be fired. James Franklin is recruiting on par with us this year and you know he has all kinds of other coaches telling those players that Vandy is a dump and you can't win there. Obviously each situation is different but i just don't think that if we try to silence those who have an opinion that Dooley is not the guy for the job that we are going to see this class jump from a 20th ranked class to a 5th ranked class. The bottom line is that the football coach of Tennessee needs to win more than 7 games a year and when that winning returns, recruiting will be much easier for whomever the coach is. The best way to silence negative posters is to win big games and beat a team that you are not supposed to. I enjoy this board because people can express their opinions and not get roasted for them. I would hate for us to lose that and just become a board with no differing opinions. I say keep posting your opinions and and let's have good discussions about our program and its future.

"Not sure how much it hurts, but I know it doesn't help. Kids are sent emails and texts of the things UT fans say about players on message boards and stuff."

All do respect he doesn't say anything about coaches in this quote. In fact he doesn't say anything like "coach hating kills recruitng" as your title would indicate but rather "Not sure how much it hurts". I personally don't say anything negative about players (Ok maybe I said something about Palardy but c'mon...). I have no problem with going on a message board and voicing an opinion...that's what its here for. Now the rock incident is a different story. When you log onto a board you are seeking out opinions. You know when you log onto this site you will see things you dont agree with. That's good, it makes for good debate and the members of this board have shown the ability to do this while not attacking each other, players or even coaches on any personal lever. The volatile situation at UT centers around Dooley not producing W's not the message boards. Back to the rock incident, that's as public as public gets. Shouldn't happen IMO because whether you want to see it or not you are subject to one man/groups opinion. Just my two cents...deuces!