HOOVER, Ala. -- If Tennessee football coach Butch Jones has said it once, he's said it at least 1,165 times, which is the number of days he's been head coach of the Volunteers as of this morning.
So upon arriving at the Wynfrey Hotel on Tuesday for the Vols' turn at the Southeastern Conference's annual preseason football media event, Jones once more proclaimed: "Expectations are always high at Tennessee."
If he's right, the Vol Nation has been overwhelmingly disappointed of late. UT has posted five losing seasons in the past seven years. The Big Orange have won as many as 10 games only once since 2005 after winning at least 10 games seven times from 1995 to 2004.
The only expectation for most Volniacs over the past six autumns and three head coaches has been to harbor no expectation of anything good.
At least it was that way until rising junior quarterback Josh Dobbs staged that stunning comeback at South Carolina last season, UT won four of its last five games, including an obliteration of Iowa in the Taxslayer Bowl, and Jones delivered this assessment of last year's squad on Tuesday: "You're judged by does your team overachieve or underachieve. And I thought last year's team, Team 118, overachieved."
And all of this - the unofficial start of Season 119; the neat, crisp appearance of Jones, Dobbs, Curt Maggitt and Cam Sutton in their suits and ties; an air of confidence throughout the Big Orange traveling party - appeared to spur UT super fan and frustrated Birmingham resident Tammy Johns to drink the Orange-ade enthusiastically as she patiently waited more than three hours for her favorite college football players' autographs.
"Whenever I dream, I dream big," said the Alabama Power employee who moved to B'ham 17 years ago from Middle Tennessee. "I think we're going 14-0 this season."
That record might actually not be possible. Thanks to the SEC title game, should the Vols somehow reach 13-0, they'd almost assuredly be invited to the College Football Playoff, where they could finish 13-1, 14-1 or 15-0. On the other hand, to go 14-0, they'd have to go undefeated in the regular season, win the SEC title game, yet somehow fail to impress the selection committee enough to reach the playoff.
But you get the point. Fair or not, the Vol Nation is expecting a big jump from last year's 7-6 finish.
Or as Jones noted: "Our team now understands what it takes to win football games. Now the great thing for us is that we expect to win. We just don't hope to win."
No one expects to win more than South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier, who's coached 22 years in the SEC at both Florida and SC, winning at least nine games on 15 occasions and at least 10 games 12 times.
Apparently believing that Jones may have made too much of last year's 7-6 mark, which was identical to the Ol' Ball Coach's 2014 mark with the Gamecocks, Spurrier took a shot at the Vols a few months ago, stating, "In Knoxville, they're still doing cartwheels because they went 7-6 and won a bowl game."
Someone might have reminded Spurrier that he has yet to beat a UT team coached by Jones, but the Vols boss took a different tack.
"Now I want to make one thing clear," Jones said early in his turn at the main podium. "Contrary to reports, there were no backflips and no somersaults."
And that was all he said about that.
But it is clear that both the players and Jones expect more.
"We know what message we want to get out," Dobbs said. "We want our fans to know that UT football is on the rise."
Said Maggitt: "Me leading Team 119 is pretty much why I came to Tennessee. I feel like we're a really close team. I feel like we can be special."
When someone later asked the redshirt senior if he was motivated to prove the NFL wrong for not drafting any of his former teammates this past May, Maggitt sternly replied, "I'm playing for something bigger than that."
If Jones has displayed one strength above all others thus far, it might be the team-first approach his players seem to embrace at all times. On the field and in the weight room you hear nary a word of selfishness or sloppiness.
These guys understand teamwork and hard work.
Nor does Maggitt seem to be alone when he says, "I feel blessed to have an opportunity to play this game."
That doesn't mean that one fan's expectation of a 14-0 or 15-0 season isn't overly high or unrealistic. UT must visit Florida and Bama. Spurrier surely will pull out every stop to avoid a third straight loss to Jones, even if the game's at Neyland Stadium. Visiting Oklahoma won't be a pushover, either. Neither will home games against Arkansas and Georgia.
So perhaps it's better to quote Gadsden, Ala., resident and lifelong Tennessee fan Andrew Clements, who arrived at the Wynfrey nearly three hours before the Vols in hopes of getting a football autographed for 5-year-old son Peyton, who was wearing a Dobbs No. 11 jersey as he sat perched atop his dad's shoulders.
Said Clements: "I think they'll go 9-3."
When your son's named Peyton and he began wearing that Dobbs jersey long before the player became a star, 9-3 might be a level of expectation worth embracing. But just in case the Vols somehow reach 14-0, cartwheels, somersaults and backflips should overwhelm the Volunteer State just before proof of them is forwarded to Spurrier.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com