Tennessee Vs Alabama

This weekend Tennessee plays Alabama in football. For 7.5 seasons now I have been asking for Fulmer to be fired. I haven't officially asked anyone who could accomplish this, nor would any of those people listen to me, but I haven't been pleased with the situation since the national championship.

Most would say our championship just spoiled me. I don't think this is the case because I was just as surprised to see that season unfold as most other people should have been. I am not saying we weren't good enough to win it nor we didn't deserve it, I just think that several "miracles" had to happen to even get us to the game. Thus I was nothing but pleased to win that championship.

Since then we have gotten worse and worse. A lot of people think that Casey Clausen was a great college quarterback. I find it hard to give someone this kind of a credential when they throw too many screen passes(pad stats), win more on the road then at home, and win 1 in 4 bowl games.

Even after Clausen left we still had too many problems so exit Randy Sanders and bring back Cutcliffe. Well, that worked out well.....so bring in a new offensive coordinator. I understand that Fulmer has to get to know Clausen before he will get full control of the offense but I find it very frustrating that we bring in someone new who is supposed to be more explosive and we seem to be running the same offense as before. Could this be because Fulmer is in control?

Now Clausen deserves his fair share of criticism. There is no excuse when one abandons the run against UCLA when they were gaining 7 yards per carry. I think that game could have and should have turned out differently.

It was obvious when Fulmer was given the chance at a contract extension that too many people were satisfied with last season. I was happy to see us make it that far but it felt more like our championship season where the cards had to fall just right. We spend too much money on stadiums, parking, coaches, recruiting, etc. not to control our own destiny every year. We are not the type of school that should need the cards to fall just right; we should be the dealer and the deck should be stacked in our favor. When your fans are paying $70 a ticket for big SEC games there are no excuses why you aren't winning. It's not fair to ask your fans to wait and see what happens. At this level you are expected to win. I am not asking for SEC titles every year. I am not asking for national championships every year. What I want, what I expect is to be in the hunt, the discussion, year in and year out.

So finally to my point. While I want UT to win every Saturday, or greedy Sun/Mon they play, tomorrow night I want UT to lose and lose big to Alabama. To answer my critics, I want change more than I want a win. As I type this we are 3-4 (1-3 Conf) and sit at the bottom of the SEC East and all I can think about is how I saw this coming 7.5 seasons ago. I am getting tired of "now that we can't win the SEC we need to beat Alabama to save our season" because I don't want it to get so bad that we have to beat Vanderbilt to "save" our season. I dont' know a great deal about football but I have seen what I felt was too obvious:

Our offense was weak and predictable. We ran and ran up the middle too much. We passed and passed short too much. We didn't pass over the middle enough. We didn't utilize our TE enough. But we kept winning! How?!? DEFENSE. Our defense has traditionally been good enough to keep us in the close games and help us blow out the easier ones.

So now I have the answer to the question I asked so many years ago. What happens when our defense isn't as good as it has been and the offensive line isn't as good?

This election year I vote change and I hope the rest of you vote with me!