Tennessee’s head coach Derek Dooley watches his team as they play against Montana in this file photo.KNOXVILLE – If you don’t think coaches are eternal optimists, forever looking at glasses half-full, forever certain that tomorrow’s national championship (or at least an SEC East crown) is only a few plays away, you haven’t yet listened to the University of Tennessee’s six new football assistants.
The rest of the Big Orange Nation may darkly assume that the 2012 Mayan Apocalypse will strike Neyland Stadium first after enduring three losing seasons in the last four years and a stunning defeat to Kentucky for the first time in 27 Novembers — that loss made more shocking by the woeful Wildcats playing a string bean of a wide receiver who couldn’t throw the ball at quarterback.
Just don’t try selling that negative attitude to new defensive line coach John Palermo.
“Tennessee always has been and always will be the personification of a first-class university and first-class program run by first-class people,” said Palermo, who worked at Middle Tennessee last season.
“When you can put 102,000 people in Neyland Stadium, it’s obviously a special place.”