As someone who was in college during the Manning/Tee Martin Era, this stat/number is almost impossible for me to fathom, but Tennessee has not won more than SEVEN (7) freaking football games (even if you include last year, where they WON a bowl game, and were still only at seven after that) since the 2007 season.
The have now had seven full seasons of wallowing in mediocrity, and they appear to be in the midst of their eighth as we speak. Tennessee fans have always kind of reminded me of slightly more rednecky/sidewalk alumni-esque version of Gamecock fans. Much like Gamecock fans, they have been telling themselves for a better part of a decade now that "Coach Fulmer will turn it around.......errrrrrr.... Coach Dooley will fix everything.....errrrrrrrrrrr.......Butch Jones will....." (you get the picture).
Meanwhile, the reality is that is hard for a program like USC to win at the rate they won at from 2010 - 2013. It was a perfect storm of: coaching chaos at Clemson, Tennessee, and Florida; incredible instate recruiting (which has not been seen since, and apparently won't be seen again until the 2018 class, at the earliest); and having a great staff of their own.
I just look at where this season is going for them (a/k/a right in the crapper), and I don't see how it gets markedly better in 2016 when they are pretty talent-less now and looking at an outside the Top 40 recruiting class this year.
To me, the new staff's best-case scenario is to right the ship well enough to salvage some of the 2017 class and then get a strong 2018 class. Problem with that is the fact they will have then had 4 straight crappy seasons, so what will they be selling to recruits?
In short, I think the Football Gods are about to make it up to us in spades for what we had to endure from these dickwads during the streak.
The have now had seven full seasons of wallowing in mediocrity, and they appear to be in the midst of their eighth as we speak. Tennessee fans have always kind of reminded me of slightly more rednecky/sidewalk alumni-esque version of Gamecock fans. Much like Gamecock fans, they have been telling themselves for a better part of a decade now that "Coach Fulmer will turn it around.......errrrrrr.... Coach Dooley will fix everything.....errrrrrrrrrrr.......Butch Jones will....." (you get the picture).
Meanwhile, the reality is that is hard for a program like USC to win at the rate they won at from 2010 - 2013. It was a perfect storm of: coaching chaos at Clemson, Tennessee, and Florida; incredible instate recruiting (which has not been seen since, and apparently won't be seen again until the 2018 class, at the earliest); and having a great staff of their own.
I just look at where this season is going for them (a/k/a right in the crapper), and I don't see how it gets markedly better in 2016 when they are pretty talent-less now and looking at an outside the Top 40 recruiting class this year.
To me, the new staff's best-case scenario is to right the ship well enough to salvage some of the 2017 class and then get a strong 2018 class. Problem with that is the fact they will have then had 4 straight crappy seasons, so what will they be selling to recruits?
In short, I think the Football Gods are about to make it up to us in spades for what we had to endure from these dickwads during the streak.
