Josh Heupel introduced
I've been doing this for far too long to overreact one way or another about Day 1 of a new coach.
Personally, I kind of like the hire and have talked myself into buying into the Heup a little bit.
On paper, he's better than a lifelong assistant like Tony Elliott. He's better than Kevin Steele. I know, as Paschall reported, that Albert Haynseworth is alleging systematic racist since Tee Martin didn't get an interview, and whatever floats your boat big Al, but someone without head coaching experience is not ready for this, in my opinion.
Do I think there were better guys out there? Yes. Do I know if they - a Tom Herman, a Mark Richt, a Lane Kiffin, et al. - would have taken it? No, I don't. Other than the three-year slide Heupel has experienced at UCF - and that's a notable concern - his résumé is very comparable to everyone's hot shot Jamey Chadwell at Coastal. And to be honest, I think Heupel is better suited for this than Billy Napier.
But what we think today seldom becomes what we know in two years.
Let's just look around, shall we, and consider some of the universally praised or panned hires. Granted there have been a couple that were slam dunk no-brainers.
Everyone loved THE Ohio State getting a national title winner in Urban Meyer, and it paid off with a title. And a lot of in-staff controversy that left THE OSU with a lot of splainin' to do. Yes, everyone loved the Nick Saban hire, but that happened only after Rich Rod left Bama and Mal Moore at the altar.
I hated the Gene Chizik hire, and he won a natty. I mocked the Ed Orgeron hire, and he won a natty. (That said, who knows how that one ends. Fat Vader, any thoughts?)
I loved the Malzahn hire to replace Chiz and I thought Muschamp was the right guy twice. So that's wrong, wrong, eventually wrong, and wrong times two on Will.
In K-town, Dooley won the press conference and was great with the media and was a disaster. Jones was a fraud who charmed early, wasted Dobbs and Barnett in the middle and was exposed in the end. Pruitt, well, we knew Pruitt was overmatched with this type of responsibility very early on, even if he managed to inspire some sort of belief against a watered-down back half of the 2019 season.
I think, like Weeds wrote this morning, at the very least Heupel's offense will be fun. That can create energy and excitement. (And as Paschall and a lot of the SEC insiders have noted, his defensive coordinator hire could not be more important considering the quick-pace of his O and the challenges that presents for the D. Kevin Steele is still on staff - as Paschall notes here, he is among the few left in the building - and you have to figure he'll get the DC title, right?
And the early returns for Heupel, who White said was his first and only offer, will not be pretty friends. With a mass exodus happening from staff and starters, Heupel will go into his first season with a spring session likely still COVID-impacted short-handed. Sure the nonconference is doable with Tennessee Tech, Pittsburgh, Bowling Green and South Alabama. And yes, Vandy is in a worse spot that UT. But here's betting that with Alabama and Ole Miss from the West, UT is an underdog in the remaining seven (and may be against Pitt).
And that likely would be the truth with anyone this side of Bill Belichick being named the new coach.
Strike one for Danny White
I am not as kind as Mark Wiedmer, who tried to strike balance at the end of his column today on the gaffe Danny White pulled during Wednesday's introductions and discussions of the next football coach at UT.
White, when asked about the famed VolTwitter, which has become a thing unto itself, and the most-turbo-packed bunch of the truly super-charged groups of college football fan bases on social media, had this to say: "Some of you are awesome, but some of you are failing. How can you turn passion into such negativity? How can you not be excited about the future of this place?"
How can you not see reasons for negativity and causes for skepticism Danny?
OK, where do we start?
How about here: Is White wrong? No. But you have to wonder if he understands the universal angst that is a Twitter mainstay and how it's part of the definition and NDA of Twitter? Plus, being accurate is not always the same thing as being right, Danny, and someone in your super powerful and super-well-paid position should know the difference.
If I have gained a few (hundred) pounds because of the pandemic and a few extra CoColas in the down time, is it accurate for someone who has not seen me in 18 months to wonder if I swallowed a lot of aggression, along with a lot of pizzas? Sure, it's accurate. And after I help them up for blackening their eye, maybe we can laugh about it.
But let's look at the assertion there. Does White demand blind loyalty, even less than two weeks on the job? That's not how it works sir, for almost everyone in almost any place of leadership. And in Knoxville, where a fan base has been tortured for more than a decade with one misstep after another - with the noted exception of Rick Barnes - blind loyalty at this point would be closer to blind stupidity than the benefit of the doubt.
Skepticism seems prudent, especially when a new AD comes to town and brings with him the football coach he hired - who has had noticeably worse records in each of his three seasons there - at his previous Group of Five stop. Especially when the fan base has been the Charlie Brown of optimism - heck, I know a lot of folks who tried to talk themselves into believing that Jeremy Pruitt could do this - only to have the UT administration and leadership be the Lucy and yank the joy (i.e. football) out from under them at every step.
Second, if this was some sort of tongue-and-cheek zinger designed on being funny, well, the negative folks on VolTwitter are not the only ones failing Danny. Not funny and worse yet, not smart.
Third, insulting your fanbase (i.e. the rank-and-file customers of your product who buy enough merchandise and tickets and whatnot that the Big Orange brand can afford to pay Phillip Fulmer $37,500 a month to 2023 not to be the AD) seems like a bold strategy Cotton, let's see how it works.
Fourth, here's how any resealable UT fan with the Red and Black, Orange and Blue and Crimson and White burn marks of the dreadful 2010s can be negative:
Look at UT's rivals and the zeniths they are reaching for. Florida gets to the SEC title game in Year 2 of Mullen after he inherited a mess. (And yes, UT deemed Mullen not worthy or could not lure him.) Georgia got tired of winning 10 games a year and fired their guy only to replace him with a dude who won an SEC and has been to the playoffs twice. And Alabama, well, not entirely sure if it's working well for them or not, but seems to be.
Hey, hindsight's 20-20, but this was not a fourth-call call or a fake punt in the heat of the moment. And the AD of a nine-figure annual operation should be better ""Some of you are awesome, but some of you are failing. How can you turn passion into such negativity? How can you not be excited about the future of this place?"
Again, what he said is not wrong - finding universal support for anything on Twitter is finding a needle in a haystack; finding it among a college football fanbase, especially the Vols right now, is finding a specific needle in a haystack of needles. What he said is not the problem, that he said it is.
How about this, Dan, as the leader of a hundreds of millions of dollars a year mega business: "I know there have been mistakes and those mistakes have become debacles. And those debacles have devalued our glorious brand and been a detriment to our greatest asset - the tremendous fans that make up Vols Nation.
"But I am certain that Josh Heupel is the guy to get this back to where we know it can be and where you expect it to be and where our student athletes deserve for it to be.
"I am confident this hire will reverse any and all previous negativity and angst and frustration that our fans have experienced, because I have just landed us a guy who will chase championships - in the state, the division, the conference and the country.
"GBO."
Personally, I think he owes the UT fan base an apology. Will he do it? Doubt it, but there it is. And absolutely overselling Heupel, even if my hyperbole above doesn't come true, it doesn't matter. Because we all know if Heupel doesn't succeed, White will be looking for his next job too.
Whether or not the Vols fans are 'failing' or filled with 'such negativity.'
Side Super story
Next week, as the Super Bowl takes center stage, one of the stories will be about one of the guys telling the stories.
Jim Nantz' CBS deal expires in a few months. He is the voice of the NFL on CBS and will call the Super game with his Super sidekick Tony Romo.
And there's the rub. Nantz makes $6.5 million, which is an awesome chunk of change for the best seat in the house for the best AFC game 20 Sundays a year, the best seat at the best golf event every year and the best seat at the best games of March Madness, even if it may be Mask Madness this year.
That's a dream job for just about anyone. Well, Nantz, who has crafted a well-liked on-air persona but has a lot of questionable sidebars about his likability off camera, believes he's underpaid. As in, way, Way, WAY underpaid.
Nantz wants more than the $18 million CBS is paying Romo. Seriously - across the board.
Yes, this is crazy. That Nantz wants to triple his salary in a pandemic, and that Romo makes $18 million working primarily just NFL Sundays for the network.
But Romo has made himself the most marketable piece in sports broadcasting, and simply put you are only worth what someone will pay you. Because CBS knows that while Nantz' ego demands Romo-level money, there is no network anywhere that can offer Nantz that kind of collection of super-profile events to call.
ESPN? Sure Monday night football and early Masters coverage is close, but no Final Four and no Sunday at Augusta would surely be no Thanks for Nantz. NBC? It has bet heavily on Mike Tirico as its face moving forward.
Plus, there is the very real final conclusion that Nantz must admit. Is there a single play-by-play guy out there that causes you to tune in to hear him or her describe the game? I can't think of one beyond the connections between hometown announcers for college programs.
Yes, there are bad ones - hi Gus Johnson - that cause you to avoid broadcasts, but unless I am missing one, I don't know of a single nuts-and-bolts play-by-play person who makes me say, "Wow, I have to watch game X or golf tournament Y because they are on the call."
Romo has that value, and CBS put it at $18 million. Nantz? He's way more accomplished, polished and experienced.
And no where close to as valuable.
This and that
- Did you see the story about all three of the Jeopardy! contestants Wednesday blanking on a photo of Dave Chappell? That's being book smart and daily doubly dumb in terms of pop culture.
- Way to go Denzel. The one-name Hollywood icon took a hard stand supporting police officers - and soldiers - in a recent interview. It's way to easy in a way too complex issue to jump into the deep end of defunding and God forbid limiting and/or abolishing police departments, which is the stated goal for a lot of the far left political groups. It's doubly easy to do it in Hollywood, but Denzel made it clear where he stands and he stands on the right side of this one people.
- Hey, Alabama is looking into legalizing sports betting, so there's that.
- Also, and the stories are linked above, but Paschall sharing some reports that a) Jeremy Pruitt is headed to the New York Giants and will be on staff there with Derek Dooley. (Uh, Danny White, if you want to see some Vols Twitter negativity, give those two cats a call. It will make the social media skepticism you've receive feel like a rehearsal dinner.); b) Jay Graham is headed to Alabama to be an assistant because Alabama really needed to find a way to hire a young assistant who is a fantastic recruiter; c) A slew of former UT players like five-star tackle Wanya Morris and leading rusher Eric Gray are headed to Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.
- Interesting fantasy football analysis for those of us who enjoy - and succeed - at fantasy football. This story ranks the win percentages of the players rostered in at least 60 percent across all the CBS Sports fantasy leagues: QB - Jalen Hurts (who was my starter down the stretch at 58.6%); RB - hope about this top five with Dalvion Cook, Jeff Wilson, Alvin Kamara, Derrick Henry and Tony Pollard, and yes I added Jeff Wilson and Pollard late; WR - Davante Adams (yep had him too, and arguably the biggest eye-popper on that list was the injured Michael Thomas at 52 among WRs).
- Hey, I'm up for a passionate conversation as much as the next person, but who in the big picture of things has time for haggling about the sexual orientation of the undead on a cable show. Because that's not become a thing apparently, and one of the spinoffs of "Walking Dead" is making a deal over their unargued right to portray zombies with all sorts of sexual preferences. Yes, of all the strange sentences and phrases I've ever written, the "right to portray zombies with all sorts of sexual preferences" feels like a bona fide contender for the crown.
- Hey, AOC, enjoy your 15 minutes and you're not helping. Marjorie Taylor Greene is a crackpot - we said this earlier this week, and the events of Wednesday with the WRCB reporter are so outlandish, they would be funny if they were not scary. But the folks exploiting the divide and expanding it for their personal benefit - looking at you AOC - are certainly not helping matters either.
- Man, there is simply no way that Georgia basketball should be this irrelevant. No reason whatsoever, especially when you consider the dudes playing high school hoops in the A-T-L.
Today's questions
Loads of questions up there friends. Fire away, and remember the mailbag too.
Do you believe the Heup? Feel free to offer a letter grade for the hire and your thoughts on Danny White's comments?
Is there a play-by-play guy that makes you tune in? Also, I know everyone has to manage their own business and look out for No. 1, but shouldn't someone in Nantz' inner circle say, "Hey Jim, let's play this on the down low since you're making more than $500K a month in a pandemic to call sports events. Not the best look to be outraged right now, you know?
As for today, Jan. 28, did you know it's been 36 years since "We Are the World" was recorded? Bigger outlier in the video, young Kevin Costner - this was pre Bull Durham remember - or Dan Aykroyd?
Alan Alda is 85 today. He was born in Canada as Alphonso D'Abruzzo. Seriously.
Gregg Popovich is 72 today.
Rushmore of 'Greg' and be creative. And remember the mailbag.