It's one fricken game.....
Opinion: While Tennessee Vols are stalled under Jeremy Pruitt, Rutgers has new life with Greg Schiano
Within the world of Extremely Online Tennessee fans — somewhat affectionally known as Vol Twitter — there’s a deep belief that they saved their program from ruin on Nov. 27, 2017.
That morning, word began to leak out that Tennessee was going to hire Greg Schiano to replace Butch Jones.
Most Tennessee fans and media members barely knew a thing about Schiano other than he had been fired as an NFL coach and that his career record at Rutgers had been 68-67. Regardless, people with loud voices deemed this résumé not good enough for mighty Tennessee, which has been mostly irrelevant since 2007, and actively tried to kill a coaching hire that was all but signed, sealed and delivered. They ultimately succeeded, and the dysfunction wrought on the program that day allowed former coach Phillip Fulmer to execute a bloodless coup, installing himself as athletics director and Jeremy Pruitt as coach.
Saturday should have been a poignant moment for Tennessee fans to assess how it has worked out thus far. As Pruitt fell to 15-15 after a non-competitive 48-17 loss to Alabama, Schiano re-emerged as a conquering hero at Rutgers, leading the Scarlet Knights to a season-opening win at Michigan State.
Obviously, one weekend of results doesn’t close the book on who was right and who was wrong. But from that moment until now, Vol Twitter hasn’t even considered the possibility they might have been wrong or that they might have actually harmed the future of their program.
Opinion: While Tennessee Vols are stalled under Jeremy Pruitt, Rutgers has new life with Greg Schiano
Within the world of Extremely Online Tennessee fans — somewhat affectionally known as Vol Twitter — there’s a deep belief that they saved their program from ruin on Nov. 27, 2017.
That morning, word began to leak out that Tennessee was going to hire Greg Schiano to replace Butch Jones.
Most Tennessee fans and media members barely knew a thing about Schiano other than he had been fired as an NFL coach and that his career record at Rutgers had been 68-67. Regardless, people with loud voices deemed this résumé not good enough for mighty Tennessee, which has been mostly irrelevant since 2007, and actively tried to kill a coaching hire that was all but signed, sealed and delivered. They ultimately succeeded, and the dysfunction wrought on the program that day allowed former coach Phillip Fulmer to execute a bloodless coup, installing himself as athletics director and Jeremy Pruitt as coach.
Saturday should have been a poignant moment for Tennessee fans to assess how it has worked out thus far. As Pruitt fell to 15-15 after a non-competitive 48-17 loss to Alabama, Schiano re-emerged as a conquering hero at Rutgers, leading the Scarlet Knights to a season-opening win at Michigan State.
Obviously, one weekend of results doesn’t close the book on who was right and who was wrong. But from that moment until now, Vol Twitter hasn’t even considered the possibility they might have been wrong or that they might have actually harmed the future of their program.
