Questions At Tennessee…

Lloyd Carr and the Michigan Wolverines aren’t the only college football team in America with some big time problems.  Yes, they are the only team that lost to a 1-AA program this weekend, but Saturday was a rough day for those on Rocky Top as well.  Saturday alone doesn’t bring much comparison between Michigan and Tennessee except for an 0-1 record.  Michigan participated in what some are calling the greatest upset in college football, if not sports, history; and Tennessee lost on the road to a good Cal team that was looking for some big time revenge.

As far as history, pride and tradition go, Tennessee and Michigan share elitist status that only a handful of other college football programs can compare with.  Both consistently lead the nation in attendance with Neyland and the Big House being the two largest stadiums in the country.  National Championship trophies have travelled to Knoxville and Ann Arbor within the last 15 years.  Among all this winning and tradition, the two programs share something that have fans on both campuses worried.  Both the University of Michigan and the University of Tennessee have football programs  whose spirals toward mediocrity have become apparent.

Saturday night when the clock hit zero on the Tennessee-Cal football game fans witnessed the beginning of the end.  Never has a Tennessee team opened a year with so many questions on both sides of the ball and never has the answer to those questions been, “no.”

Answers after the jump.

Let’s start at the most obvious place, wide receiver.  Questions coming out of fall practice flooded the wide receiving core.  Is Austin Rogers a vertical threat? Does Lucas Taylor have what it take to be the go-to guy? Is 5-star juco recruit Kenny O’Neal going to help fill the wholes at wide reciever? No, No and no.  Saturday night, there was no vertical receiving threat.  Ainge looked very good and his performance is more impressive given the lack of good receivers and any vertical threat.  Cutcliffe used running backs as best he could in the passing game but you can’t win consistently without a true threat at wide receiver.    To put it bluntly, Kentucky and Vanderbilt have better receiving units than Tennessee.

It was obvious the secondary spent the entire fall covering a bad group of wide receivers.  Is the pieced together secondary going to be able to cover good wide receivers?  No.  All the blame doesn’t fall on the secondary.  The front seven was plain bad and covering the best wide receiver in the country (DeSean Jackson) can be extremely difficult.  Speaking of the front seven.  Could Tennessee replace Marvin Mitchell, Justin Harrell, and Turk McBride up front? No.  The front seven got pushed around, stood up, and were just plain poor tacklers all night long.

There are many more questions that must be addressed.  By no means should any team be judged by only one game, especially a game on the road against a top 25 team.  The question is not about the 2007 Tennessee football team.  The question is about where the program is heading.  How does a premier SEC team and a program built on such tradition have so many questions?  Coach Fulmer has the highest winning percentage of any coach in the country over the last ten years, a National Championship, and SEC championships.  It’s his great resume that complicate the answer to the question.

With such a great resume, why after just one game is the ship starting to slow downand appear to be beginning to even sink?  The football landscape is changing.  It’s becoming a world full of innovative, creative and big-risk-big-reward coaches.  The spread offense is tough to defend, and getting athletes the ball in space has become the path to victory.  Recruits coming out of high school are being drawn toward the energetic, creative coaches.

Even with his winning percentage, Fulmer and staff are notorious for being conservative.  Their play calling is plain and becoming predictable, even with the return of Cutcliffe.  The defense has struggled to find the answer to the spread offense and speed SEC teams are now putting on the field.

The game has evolved into a faster, quicker game full of unique schemes and exotic play calling.  Tennessee needs to adapt to the changing landscape that is college football.  If they don’t adapt and do it very soon, mediocrity will rule on Rocky Top.  The good news is that there is time for change.  The bad news is that the change has to be at head coach.  It’s time for Rocky Top to be rejuvenated with an energetic creative coaching staff. 

So now the question is, will Tennessee change? Don’t know.