Pre-game

By late October, the Tennessee Volunteers had lost to its three biggest rivals. Special teams goofs had cost the team the Florida game. The Georgia loss was directly attributable to a punt coverage breakdown and a slew of penalties resulting in awful field position for most of the game. Against Alabama, the opportunity cost of two fumbles inside the ten and a muffed punt at midfield combined to result in yet another heartbreaking loss.

The Volunteer Nation began its root cause analysis, and everybody had their opinions. Doesn’t winning necessarily follow excellent recruiting classes? Was it just fluke after fluke after fluke? Was it just because four out of six opponents were ranked in the top 5 at the time we played them? Was it the Spotlight Effect? Was it the season-ending injury to Jason Allen?

And what would happen now that Gerald Riggs was out for the season? Was Arian Foster really in the same league as USC’s Reggie Bush?

One thing we did know for sure: when Steve Spurrier returned to Neyland Stadium for the Volunteers’ next game, he’d be bringing his bag of tricks. While the Volunteer offense seemed unlikely to encounter the suspicious powdery substance, the defense might be able to induce Darth Visor to grimaces like never before because this time his Storm Troopers were armored in garnet and black instead of blue and orange.

The game

Rick Clausen’s excellent performance in the LSU game was growing smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror, and on this day it would melt completely into the horizon. Clausen got the start, but threw an interception on his first pass of the second offensive series. The Gamecocks capitalized on the mistake with a touchdown three plays later.

Ainge then came in and drove the team 72 yards in 12 plays for a touchdown. On the next offensive possession, a possible touchdown pass to Jayson Swain was ruled out of bounds, but the team did drive 32 yards for a field goal. Arian Foster was running exceptionally well, and the offense appeared to have found its rhythm with Ainge.

Like most good news this season, it was short-lived.

The offense failed to capitalize on two South Carolina fumbles in the first half. When the Gamecocks fumbled on their own 30 yard line, the Vols lost a yard on three plays and then missed a field goal. When SC later fumbled on their own 18, the Tennessee offense drove 18 yards only to fumble inside the one yard line.

Look at the mess on that drive chart on both sides of the ball. Interception. Fumble. Field goal missed. Field goal missed. Safety. Fumble. Fumble. Interception.

The Vols were ahead at the half, both in points and in lost opportunities.

Britton Colquitt put together a pretty nice game with six punts for 226 yards. Three of his punts were inside the five yard line and another was inside the 20. You could convince yourself that Arian Foster also had a good game if you were able to repress the memory of his fumble within a blade of fescue of the goal line. He averaged almost six yards on 25 carries for a total of 150 yards.

In the end, though, Spurrier had worked his mojo against the Vols yet again and strolled of Rocky Top with a 16-15 victory.

Post game

Might Tennessee, who began the season with national championship aspirations, had just lost to the perennial 4th-in-the-SEC-East South Carolina Gamecocks. They had fallen to 3-4 overall and 2-4 in the SEC. They were 0-3 in the SEC East, which they had been pre-season favorites to win.

The horror of the loss was captured best by GoVolsXtra’s John Adams:

You can’t comprehend the magnitude of the loss unless you know a little something about the winners.

South Carolina lost by 23 points to Alabama and by 41 to Auburn. It ranks 111th in the country in rushing and 85th in rushing defense.

There’s more.

The Gamecocks start two walk-ons on offense. They lost arguably their best player, wide receiver/quarterback/running back Syvelle Newton, to a season-ending injury last week.

Their injury situation only got worse against the Vols. They lost two more wide receivers — Carlos Thomas and Noah Whiteside — to game-ending injuries in the first half.

With all that stacked against them, the Gamecocks would have to play a mistake-free game to have a chance, right?

Not hardly. They lost two fumbles and threw an interception in the first half. They were penalized 10 times.

And still, UT had lost.

Things had gone from downright Rosy to downright ugly on Rocky Top. Players were beginning to openly fuss at each other on the field. Both quarterbacks were dazed, glassy-eyed, and exasperated. Someone painted “Fire Randy Sanders, please!” on the Rock on the UT campus, echoing the chant by a pocket of fans toward the end of the game. Local radio reported that some fans were throwing objects at the players as they left the field.

Having had an emotional meeting with his family immediately following the game (audio link), Sanders fell on his sword the following Tuesday. He would serve out the rest of the season, but would give up the offensive coordinator role and play calling duties. Players responded to the news with shock and hostility, some engaging in a full-on rant with media microphones recording it all. Many media guys and bloggers could relate, some saying they had the wrong guy or that it was a good start.

Not pretty. Not pretty at all.

And it wasn’t over yet.

John Adams’ Monday column — Sanders: Fall guy still is Vol guy — has generated a lot of discussion on Rocky Top over the last couple of days. The argument provoking excerpt:

Imagine how Sanders felt when he heard UT football coach Phillip Fulmer’s comments about last spring practice. Every time Fulmer praised new offensive coordinator, he buried his former offensive coordinator by implication.

“David has improved the toughness of our team,” Fulmer said in the spring. “We’re fundamentally better. He has been very demanding of tempo and execution.

“The daily practice habits improved. Not that we were practicing poorly, but not the cross-your-t’s-and-dot-your-i’s extent that we are now.”

It’s as though in his departure, Sanders was given power and responsibility he never realized he had as an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

“I have heard (Fulmer’s comments),” Sanders said. “I’m not going to get into a debate or discussion over that. There were a few things I would have liked to have done differently that we weren’t necessarily allowed to do differently. For this to come out as such does bother me some.”

The talk has centered around whether Fulmer or Sanders is most to blame for the 2005 season. On the one hand, as the offensive coordinator, Sanders was responsible for the offensive woes. Fulmer had delegated this responsibility and Sanders had failed. On the other hand, word is that Fulmer may have delegated the responsibility for the offense to Sanders without actually giving him sufficient authority. In other words, Sanders could only do what Fulmer wanted him to do, and so the onus is on Fulmer.

Me? I think it’s probably a little bit of both and a little bit of neither. A lot of little things were allowed to slide by both Fulmer and Sanders, and by the time they realized the magnitude of the problem, the situation had veered out of control so far that no one could regain traction. Fulmer’s comments about recent practices being better in a multitude of ways has some to do with new OC Cutcliffe, but probably more to do with the attitude adjustment of everyone from the head coach to the water boy resulting from the horribly disappointing season.

What do y’all think?

GoVolsxtra.com is reporting that former Tennessee Volunteer offensive coordinator Randy Sanders will coach quarterbacks for the Kentucky Wildcats next year.

Sanders apparently accepted the job on Saturday after it had been offered to him Friday.

More from the Tennessean:

Tennessee Coach Philip Fulmer shrugged off the irony of having Sanders in the same division.

“It’s just the nature of the business, and he’ll do a good job for them,” Fulmer said. “We play them every year, so there’s not a lot of secrets anyway.”

Kurt Roper spent last season as the Wildcats’ quarterbacks coach, but was hired earlier this month to coach running backs at Tennessee. Roper was a graduate assistant at UT from 1996-98.

Sanders, who resigned last season after seven years as the Vols’ offensive coordinator, will step in for Roper at Kentucky. Sanders will not be the offensive coordinator at Kentucky. Joker Phillips enters his second season as the Wildcats’ play-caller.

Former Offensive Coordinator Randy Sanders on his future:

It has been a great December as far as putting things in priority. I don’t think I ever realized how much time I was missing with my kids until this past month.

That doesn’t mean I’m not ready to jump right back into it and do it again, but I think having this month has provided a lot of perspective and done a lot of rejuvenating in a lot of ways.

[Regarding the generally positive response he’s received from other programs,] “It has been good. I had been at Tennessee a long time and hadn’t really been approached about any jobs and not really pursued any. I didn’t really know what the outside perception in the coaching world was of me or my abilities.

From conversations with people and the opportunities that have come along, and will come along in the future, it shows me there are a lot of people out there who had respect for how we tried to do things. There has been a lot of positive reinforcement.

* * * *

I’m definitely in the market to stay in coaching. I’m still trying to decide if I want to coach in college, or coach in the NFL, or possibly even coach at the high school level. I love coaching and I can’t really see myself doing anything else.

This past month has been rejuvenating in a lot of ways. The criticism when things don’t go well gets old, but I’m not afraid to jump right back into it and do it again.

When you don’t have a job, you’re not real picky, especially when there’s not a ton of jobs out there. In the right situation, in the right place with the right people, do I have to be a coordinator? No. Would I like to be a coordinator? Yes. I’d still like to be a head coach.

Is Tennessee’s 5-6 season an anomaly or a harbinger of things to come?

Penn State fan The Nittany Blog offers perspective from someone who’s been there:

What exactly went wrong at Tennessee? I don’t know. I can only offer an outsider’s point of view. However, as a Penn State fan who watched our proud program crumble to nothing from 2000-2004, I have a fair idea of how something like this happens. And unfortunately for the Vols, the conclusions are not pretty.

* * * *

The downfall of a traditionally successful program typically occurs because of one or more of the following- poor recruiting of late, poor coaching, NCAA violations and just bad lcuk. Penn State’s downfall was caused by the first two and the last. The Nittany Lions strategy of taking the first players they offered and not waiting on the “big fish” were what produced the 2003 and 2004 seasons. The 2000 and 2001 seasons were just a lot of bad luck. There was more talent there than on the 2003 and 2004 teams. Poor coaching has already been tabbed as a contributing factor after Randy Sanders resigned as offensive coordinator. Obviously bad luck has contributed to it as well. The fumble near the goal line against Alabama and the touchdown by Vanderbilt late in the fourth quarter were two of the biggest.

I think Fulmer will right the program and Tennessee will get back to a bowl next season. There’s too much talent at his disposal to suffer another disappointing season like 2005. A couple years from now, 2005 will just be looked back upon as a hiccup, not the new norm.

I wonder, what was Joe Paterno’s response to the losing season? Did he shake up the coaching staff like Fulmer did? It sounds like he started recruiting differently, and I’ve heard that he started coaching differently, at least by utilizing star freshmen sooner rather than later. But how soon did he react? Did it take four or five years to recover even though he acted immediately?

Coach Fulmer has responded swiftly to the Vols’ losing season.

But was it the right response, and how long will it take to see results?

Time will tell.

Been sort of out of pocket for the last several days during the whole sifting of the Tennessee Volunteer coaching staff. This post should serve as a record of me catching up.

Of course, it all started Sunday with head coach Phillip Fulmer announcing the firing of offensive line coach Jimmy Ray Stephens and receivers Coach Pat Washington.

“I appreciate everything Jimmy Ray and Pat have done for Tennessee over the years,” Fulmer said. “This was a difficult decision to make, but I feel it is in the best interest for the future of our football program.”

On Monday, the Vols officially announced the re-hiring of David Cutcliffe as assistant head coach and offensive coordinator to take the place of former offensive coordinator Randy Sanders, who fell on his sword on October 31, 2005.

Some key info about Cutcliffe:

Under Cutcliffe’s tutelage as offensive coordinator from 1993-98, Tennessee twice led the Southeastern Conference in total offense and three times was the league’s rushing leader. The Vols finished no worse than fifth in scoring offense, including leading the SEC in 1993 and placing second nationally with an average of 42.8 points per game.

The Vols were 63-11 during that span with three SEC Eastern Division crowns, two league championships and the 1998 national title. Cutcliffe received the Frank Broyles Award in 1998 as the nation’s top assistant coach and was a finalist for the honor in 1997.

* * * *

. . . Cutcliffe supervised the development of future NFL first-round draft picks Heath Shuler and Peyton Manning as they rewrote the Tennessee records book. Before them, Cutcliffe mentored Andy Kelly, who has gone on to a long and noteworthy career in arena football.

All told, Cutcliffe has coached eight players who became first-round NFL draft picks, including Ole Miss quarterback Eli Manning and running back Deuce McAllister. The Manning brothers both were overall No. 1 draft picks.

The early reaction has been generally positive. SportsAnimal99 host Dave Hooker said on his radio show that he went to the press conference thinking Cutcliffe was a “very good hire” but left thinking he was a “fantastic hire.”

I hear what he’s talking about, and I think it’s because Cutcliffe is saying all the right things. Have a listen to Hooker’s interview with Coach Cutcliffe (subscription required), especially Cutcliffe’s response to the question about whether the team will change its run-blocking scheme, which begins the 6:55 mark. The key comment concerns the aggression (or lack thereof) of the former scheme: “It is very difficult to be on defense offensively.” Music to fans’ ears.

John Pennington has more on the David Cutcliffe Love Parade and Cutcliffe’s quarterback knack, including this insightful bit:

I also think it’s important to remember that Cutcliffe had a knack for putting his QBs in good situations for THEM. Heath Shuler wasn’t asked to be the Check-Machine that Peyton Manning was. Manning wasn’t asked to run draws like Shuler and Tee Martin were.

Pennington cautions Volunteer fans not to get too excited, though:

Smart move? Yes.

Guaranteed success? No. But what move would have been?

The lead story on GoVolsXtra this morning has this interesting tidbit:

View Up Top: Fulmer anticipates quarterbacks coach Randy Sanders staying in the press box the rest of the season.

“I thought it went fine (at Notre Dame),” Fulmer said. “David, uh, Randy was really on top of the game and knew exactly what was going on.”

David?

David Cutcliffe was quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator from 1993-98 and is considered a leading candidate to replace Sanders, who resigned as offensive coordinator last week.

Was Cutcliffe up there calling plays? Quick! Someone break out the tape!

Even if Coach Cut wasn’t up there, is it evidence of who Coach Fulmer wants as his new Offensive Coordinator?

Voluminous was the first to pipe up, saying at least the Vols are consistent.

Shots Across the Bow has a message for those still sounding the “it’s the players” meme:

And for all you radio pundts who claim that it isn’t coaching, because it;s the players themselves that fumble, drop balls, miss blocking assignments whatever; let me remind you of two well known sayings in football.

You play like you practice.

You practice like you’re coached.

It IS the coaches you dunderheads! They’re job, they’re only job, is to get these players ready for game day. Can anyone seriously make the argument that, defense excepted, UT has been ready for any game this season?

Countertop Chronicles should expect another spike in traffic this week from people Googling “Fire Phil Fulmer.”

And check out my post-Notre Dame update to the question Is There Life After Death Valley for Erik Ainge?

John Pennington tosses out some names of candidates for the Tennessee Volunteer Offensive Coordinator position.

He’s betting on David Cutcliffe, former Ole Miss head coach and former Vol offensive coordinator, who’s now living in Knoxville.

That former Offensive Coordinator David Cutcliffe is going to take the place of recently-resigned Randy Sanders is still just speculation.