Carpetbaggery

I’m not a Vol fan, but this saddens me nonetheless:

… More troubling than the money madness, though, is the professionalization of UT football. Perhaps it’s somewhat understandable. Kiffin came from the Oakland Raiders. His father was with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Defensive line coach Ed Orgeron last coached for the New Orleans Saints.

But the professionalization goes disturbingly deeper. The News Sentinel’s Dave Hooker last week documented how displays at the Neyland-Thompson Sports Complex flash photos of pro players, some from UT, others who played at other schools for one of UT’s new coaches. The message to recruits: We can get you to the NFL.

In the News Sentinel this week, Athletic Director Mike Hamilton was asked about selling the NFL instead of promoting UT’s football tradition. “That’s the reality of it,” Hamilton said. “A lot of (recruits) are not as concerned about traditions and probably don’t know our traditions.”

No sense of place ultimately means no loyalty.  I get that Junior and his dad probably don’t care, but the guy I don’t understand in all of this is Hamilton.  He’s been regularly quoted as being proud of the “new model” employed by Tennessee football.   Spending more money to create a better pipeline for the NFL doesn’t seem like much of anything to brag about to me.

I guess if UT doesn’t make it back to the SECCG anytime soon under Junior, Hamilton will be satisfied with the state of the program as long as the Vols put more kids in the NFL than ever before.  Somehow, I doubt his constituents will share that feeling.

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UPDATE: Obviously this kid isn’t pro material.

Beat that dead horse one more time.

Looking at the final national stats, here’s something to ponder:

Georgia finished 22nd nationally in both total offense and total defense, yet finished 29th in scoring offense and 59th in scoring defense.

Red zone mediocrity (Georgia was 49th in red zone offense; 45th in red zone defense), disappointing special teams and turnover woes (73rd nationally in turnover margin) – fix that crap and you can go a long way towards overcoming the losses of Moreno and Stafford.

That’s Mr. Honky MOFO to you.

Since the Felton firing has obviously sucked most of the oxygen out of the room, blogospherically speaking, and since I don’t really feel like obsessing over the decision making process of certain seventeen/eighteen year old kids, that makes today a pretty slow news day.

So if you’re starved for something footballish, how about this post from the always detailed Trojan Football Analysis that breaks down the various cover defenses, as well as an introduction as to what sort of reads a college quarterback has to make against each of these coverages.  He goes into what works and what gets exposed with every one of these schemes.

Here’s one example – the Cover 2 zone.

There’s plenty of good insight into the chess game that goes on with each snap.  Besides, you’ll learn what ‘MOFO’ really means if you read it.