The CheckerBoard

Well when your stadium holds 102,000 and your not selling out it's not hard figure out . Judging by the comments even if we had won this game their would still be all these calls for Dooley's firing he's in a no win situation with this fan base . Hope you guys get your wish , because I must the only Volunteer fan that disagrees with this. There is no coach available at this point that I would even consider replacing Dooley for and losing in 4 overtimes hardly constitutes this type of reaction .

Great article. Wes sums up most peoples sentiments. I was rooting for Dooley like crazy. I hate to see the program searching for a new leader, but I've just list respect for Dooley after this game and our team is too talented to lose games like this. I wish nothing but the best for Dooley in his future jobs, but there's no way UT can keep him on and take anymore chances.

I'm not a big fan of David Cutcliffe. Chavis's defenses at UT were good (though his 3rd down calls sometimes gave me heartburn and prevent defense calls often made me want to tear my hair out). But Chavis also had talent-laden defenses to work with -- like he still does at LSU. The D coach who really impresses me in hindsight is Wilcox. He took less talent/experience than Sunseri had this year and playing a harder schedule had the #25 defense in the country. You want to find a guy like that who can do more with less -- because he's going to have to be competitive (at least) with less talent the first few years until recruiting gets back on track. Can Chavis do that? Has he ever _had_ to do that? Dunno. And would he even come back to UT (esp as DC, a lateral move for him) when he's on a winning team now at LSU? Seems kinda risky to me. Would you leave a stable, good job for a high-risk position to rebuild a program? Maybe if he was offered the head coaching job? Would he be a good choice to rebuild UT right now?

Jay Graham I'd keep. But I'm ignorant about the careers of Tee Martin & Dale Jones. Do they have some kind of significant coaching (and recruiting!) experience that would give them a good background for being on our coaching staff?

Personally, I'd look for coaches who 1) can do more with less 2) are great recruiters and 3) respect and perpetuate our traditions. Dooley had no previous ties to UT, but at the very least did #3. Wilcox had no previous ties to UT but did at least #1 (and as far as I know, #2 & #3 too). Someone with those 3 qualities are good enough for me. If push comes to shove (and it often does, especially in situations UT's been in in the past 4+ years), I'd rather have coaches who can build us up for the future -- and if we had to sacrifice UT connections to get that, so be it.

Doc,

I don't know which shocks me more; the 4thQ fiasco or your comment. How can you claim that this game doesn't constitute 'this type of reaction.' Seriously, where have you been for the last 3 seasons? Heck, where were you today? We scored 48 points today and LOST to a team that previously had 1 conference win and ranked 113/120 in total offense per game. Re-read that line and let it sink in. Having 48 seconds left on the clock with 2 TOs remaining with the 28th ranked offense on the field and not even taking a CHANCE on trying to win constitutes 'this type of reaction.'

You had a rational point you were trying to make before your last sentence, and I mostly agree. I believe our coaching options may have been better after next season. All Derek Dooley had to do was win out and it would have probably given him (and the coaching search) another year. But he managed to once again do what he has done his entire tenure here; lose. Here we are in his third year and our conference record looks like it did in his first year. That constitutes 'this type of reaction.'

When your fan-base (paying customers) are seriously questioning if the team can beat Vanderbilt you're in trouble, big trouble. Look at the empty seats in Neyland. The paying customers have stopped buying the product.

I hope you never run a business, Doc.

I've been on the fence all season long. I was going to be rational about it.

I was giving him the benefit of the doubt because at least the team played most of the games we were underdogs in close. But then Troy happened. And there are no "if's" on if we won. We didn't. And it's pretty apparent on why we didn't. A multitude of coaching decisions. IF we had a coach with some cojones maybe we would have won in the fourth quarter when there were 48 seconds left.

I've done some soul searching this week. Dooley said we weren't going to have a team to kick around anymore. Guess what? We do. Tennessee shouldn't be losing to mediocre programs. Does Missouri really have that much more talent than us? Why do we have no speed in the secondary? When everyone was talking last year about the calvalry coming and they recruited in all those DB's, did no one stop to think 'hey, we don't need just bodies, we need speed because this is the SEC.'

Yes, Dooley inherited a mess. But it's time to stop using that crap as an excuse. The fact is, are we better than we were three years ago?

No.

Sometimes you have to do what you have to do and you can't sit around dreaming that the dream candidate is going to be out there on your schedule. Everyone keeps saying that there may be more possibilities next year, but I have yet to hear why there would be more. We could wait a year and see the same exact thing. What are we supposed to do? Name him interim and give him one year contract extensions with a clause that says once we find our dream coach you are out?

Don't know about Jones, but Tee is a great recruiter and, by most accounts, a good position coach. I would be very happy I see him come home.

After reading tons of your meaningless posts, you'll have to understand that your criticism means nothing to me. You are obviously not in any position to be critical of what anyone else can do in a written format.

I'm not the one that started the sniping - I commented on the remarks about there needing to be an "immediate" statement made about Dooley, then he came back with the smart-aleck response. But there seems to be an epidemic of unwarranted swipes at fellow posters on this board lately, and it's starting to annoy me...