KNOXVILLE — The rain that fell nearly all Sunday in Knoxville seemed appropriate.
For the Tennessee football program, the weather was especially fitting for the first day of an offseason that began much earlier than anyone associated with the Volunteers would have liked. The loss Saturday at Kentucky ended UT’s bowl hopes and signaled rock bottom for a program that lost once by 42 points and twice by 31. How the Vols, who lost seven SEC games for the first time in the program’s long, rich history, respond from the disappointment of the program’s first back-to-back losing seasons since 1910-11 starts with the players and coaches, though it goes beyond that.
“It’s really disappointing,” said Derek Dooley, who is 11-14 and 4-12 in the Southeastern Conference in his two seasons at UT. “It’s something that shouldn’t happen at Tennessee, and hopefully it’s something that won’t happen again for a long time.”
That’s going to take a full offseason of development in a number of areas, from physicality to handling adversity to finding leadership. Dooley spoke after Saturday’s loss of starting a climb from the low point, and it starts with the core group of sophomores who will be juniors next season and the handful of freshmen that contributed in key roles. The first immediate steps in that process, though, likely won’t fully begin today, at least for the players.
“We’ll give them a week off, have a team meeting and start reshaping a new football team,” Dooley said. “There’s a lot that goes into it.”