GoVolsXtra’s Mike Griffith reports that he was wrong about a lot of things this season, including Rick Clausen:

Well, I just should have known you can’t count him out. Goodness knows, I’ve written plenty of articles about his older brother’s never-say-die attitude and heroics in the final moments of big games. I’m beginning to think the only way you can kill a Clausen is with a wooden stake to the heart. If nothing else, the brothers have proven they compete like few others.

News flash. Just about everyone (anyone know of an exception?) wrong about some aspect of the Tennessee Volunteer football program this season.

Mark Burgess reflects on Rick Clausen’s career (subscription required) from his life as a backup quarterback for the LSU Tigers to his rollercoaster ride as sometimes-backup, sometimes-MVP quarterback for the Tennessee Volunteers.

Don’t miss the comment by “Birwin,” who speaks for the silent majority.

Meanwhile, John Pennington is thinking about Florida quarterback Chris Leak:

How different would the SEC look right now if UT and Chris Leak (and Papa Curtis) could have worked out their differences 3 years ago?

Leak was expected to be THE QB to replace Casey Clausen. But when everything went South with big brother CJ, Chris (and Papa Curtis) stuck it to the Vols and went to Florida. Florida… a passer’s dream. The Vols’ nightmare. They’d show UT.

Instead, Leak led the Gators to three of their poorest seasons since 1990 in addition to leaving the Vols in a lurch.

UPDATE: Pennington has polished the above post into another excellent column for the main GoVolsXtra site.

Following the Tennessee Volunteers’ tough loss to South Carolina, the student section was chanting “Fire Sanders.” SportsAnimal99 reported that fans were throwing objects at the players as they left the field.

On his radio show yesterday, Jimmy Hyams told listeners that, based on his observation of Sanders’ interaction with his wife and two daughters following the game, he believed that Sanders’ decision yesterday to resign was primarily due to the impact of all of this on Sanders’ family.

Sanders did, however, downplay the significance of public criticism, saying, “It’s not a response to any criticism. It’s a response to what I see. I’m trying to be accountable for how we have played.”

Hear Hyams’ re-telling of Sanders’ emotional meeting with his family, Sanders’ press conference, and Fulmer’s press conference for yourself.

Here’s a quick roundup of news and bloggers’ posts:

Voluminous has several posts, including transcripts of portions of the audio linked to above and a picture of The Rock on the UT campus, which recently had the painted message, “Fire Randy Sanders, Please.”

Countertop Chronicles, who’s been advocating for Fulmer’s termination, says it’s a start.

UTSports.com has the official word.

GoVolsXtra.com (subscription required) cites an unnamed source as saying that “former UT offensive coordinator David Cutcliffe has been contacted to replace Sanders,” but also reports that “Cutcliffe said he has not been offered a job by UT and is more concerned with Sanders, who is a close friend.”

There’s also this, from the same article:

Sanders said he would have actually benefited monetarily had he been fired and not resigned.

“I’m not trying to beat him to the punch,” Sanders said, referring to Fulmer. “I’m not resigning to keep from getting fired.”

Some people will probably criticize Sanders even for this, saying he failed to recognize and capitalize on his financial incentive to be fired rather than resign. I say he’s a true Volunteer.

John Pennington has the scuttlebutt on the rumors of other imminent coaching changes that are yet to be confirmed, and, in another post, says they got the wrong guy:

From radio hosts to sportswriters to TV guys, the consensus seems to be that there are bigger problems that must be corrected before UT can right the ship. Sanders wasn’t one of them, at least not according to the majority of folks who cover the team.

John Adams echoes that sentiment.

UT players — and their parents — are shocked:

“I’d heard two or three people say Coach (Randy) Sanders was resigning, and I was like, nahh, that’s wrong,” Sears said. “I didn’t believe it because Coach Sanders doesn’t deserve this. He didn’t fumble, he didn’t miss a block or drop a pass.”

The news was so shocking that receiver Bret Smith broke his three-year self-imposed media silence Monday night.

“I was surprised; I didn’t understand why he did it,” Smith said. “We were disappointed. There’s nothing we can do about it now … hopefully something good can come out of all this.”

Some have said that getting Cutcliffe on board would drastically improve Tennessee’s chances at getting coveted quarterback Jimmy Clausen, the younger brother of Casey and Rick, to Tennessee, but here’s what their father has to say about that:

“I’m sure they’ll come at us with (David) Cutcliffe, if they get him, and say he’s all the things Randy wasn’t,” Clausen said. “But you look at how some things have been handled. Really, what will be different for Jimmy?”

Big time college football is a tough business.

John Pennington makes the case for a change in the Tennessee Volunteers’ football philosophy.

Like any good argument, Pennington’s starts by establishing a solid factual premise. The stats, he says, clearly show that the Volunteer football program is on the decline:

• The Johnny Majors Era. From 1985 to 1992, Tennessee got blown out (defined as losing by 13 points or more) only once every season on average.
• The Phillip Fulmer Era, Part I. From 1992 to 2001, the Vols got blown out, on average, once every two and a half seasons.
• The Phillip Fulmer Era, Part II. Since 2002, the Vols are being blown out about twice per season.

Having established the first premise, Pennington sets up the second, that the reason for the decline is a failure to adapt to changing times:

But I do believe that Fulmer needs to realize that the game has “caught up” with him a bit. Since the Vols’ terrible 2nd half vs LSU in 2001 (that cost them a slot in the BCS National Title Game), the Vols have gone from GREAT to GOOD.

In other words, what worked with Manning & Lewis, Martin & Henry and Shuler & Garner… hasn’t worked as well with Clausens, Houstons, and Riggs running many of the same plays. (Those are all good players, but they’re not early-round NFL draft pick-type players).

* * * *

This isn’t a unique phenomenon. Steve Spurrier ruled the SEC roost for nearly a decade, only to see the rest of the league catch up to him around the turn of the century… dropping his Gators to a yearly 9-2 level. (Still quite good, but not a National Title contender.) Rather than adjust, Spurrier fled to the pros. Now that he’s back in the SEC, will he adjust his system to match his talents? We’ll see.

Pennington then concludes that Coach Fulmer should remedy the failure to adapt to the times by reconsidering his football philosophy. Perhaps a “tweak,” sort of like Joe Paterno’s, whose chucking of the I-don’t-play-freshman world view has led to Penn State’s best start in years.

Or perhaps something more drastic, like Bear Bryant’s legendary 1971 scrapping of Alabama’s traditional offensive scheme in favor of the wishbone, which Pennington said “was equivalent to the Mississippi River running backwards.”

Pennington’s conclusion:

The point is this, if a coach isn’t moving forward, he’s moving backward. The coaches with the greatest longevity and success are the ones who are able to re-invent themselves (or at least “tweak” their systems) when there are signs of cracks in the foundation.

I believe the stats above show cracks in the foundation. The SEC and the nation are catching up to Phillip Fulmer. Will he be willing to make some changes? Or will he suffer the consequences of standing still?

Time will tell.

Certain Florida Gators seniors have parlayed their painful memories of watching Tennessee Volunteers celebrate victory on their turf into a campaign to Take Back the Swamp.

Todd McCullough recalls watching UT quarterback Casey Clausen climb the drum major’s ladder after a UT win in 2003 to direct the UT band in yet another rendition of Rocky Top. McCullough says:

“Tears were almost rolling down my cheeks,” said McCullough, a senior linebacker. “I hated it so bad. It ate me up. It wrenched at me. It was just like a knot in your stomach watching that. I won’t ever forget it.”And he doesn’t want to see it happen again.

My question: Will the UT band bring two ladders, one each for quarterbacks Rick Clausen and Erik Ainge?