As rants go, Chuck Smith’s is pretty damned entertaining, right down to the self-proclaimed “Vol for life” wanting to coach elsewhere in the SEC East against Tennessee.
But it’s Bruce Feldman’s “business as usual” observation that’s depressing.
Fred (Florida)
Just saw your tweet about Chuck Smith DL coach from Tennessee being fired right after signing day in which he signed 7 high profile commits. How must these recruits feel that UT waited until recruiting season was over to fire him.
Bruce feldman
(2:13 PM)That 25 minute rant that he had is one of the more bizarre things I’ve seen from a coach in a while. I’d heard a lot about how there was a lot of friction with Smith and the UT defensive staff all season and that Smith probably was gonna be pushed out. UT waited till after signing day so it wouldn’t affect their recruiting class. It’s a fairly common move and you heard it from him apologizing to recruits for “lying” and saying he would be there to coach them. I’m sure he would like to still be there to coach them.
At least Dooley didn’t oversign, though, right?
Get The Picture 
Like sands through the hour glass, the days of our lives at UT continue.
Meanwhile, the NCAA…….
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Chuck Smith, the contradictions go on forever.
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painful to watch
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Dooley should be glad Chuck didn’t walk into his office give him the Ramsey treatment.
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Chuck Smith should have walked into Dooley’s office and given him some sort of treatment, though.
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Little Vince is turning out to be a lot more orange than we originally thought. I thought he would be different than the usual Vol coaching type but after his handling of the Cop Stomp last summer, and now this, I wish he had changed his last name. The decision to cut Smith was made long before NSD so DD had plenty of time to get other recruiters involved and be upfront with those kids. Maybe there is something in the water around Knoxville that makes people accept anything if the offender is wearing orange, or likes Rocky Top.
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More yellow than orange, IMO.
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Orange corrupts, Absolute Urgne corrupts absolutely.
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+1
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Awesome.
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I don’t think we can say much about the timing of his departure considering the exact same thing happened with UGA and Warren Belin in terms of the timing of his departure.
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Belin wasn’t fired. He was offered a chance to go to a “better” job and he took it. Not the same thing.
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Really? How far in advance of NSD was Richt informed about Belin’s decision?
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“the exact same thing…” as in there are few similarities between the Smith and Belin stories. One was fired and receives unemployment benefits. That firing happened to be immediately after signing day. The other was promoted to professional football, received a substantial raise, and came after the Redskins hired a new head coach. Exact same situation, huh?
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Favorite signing day meme “you commit to a school not to a coach.” You sign away 4 years of your life in return for 1 sure year of a scholarship. I’m with you Senator fairness would dictate a four year ride or cut the NLI to a one year commitment.
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Not arguing with your thought that reform is needed but could you imagine the turnover every year in CFB if the players became “free agents” after every single year? Now that would be a free for all.
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What might be interesting would be if coaches were allowed to offer variable scholarship commitments to recruits. Saban, for example, might be forced to offer a four-year deal to a kid in order to match a similar offer from Auburn. A marginal recruit might weigh a one-year offer from an SEC school versus a four-year offer from a Sun Belt program.
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+1.
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That’s a pretty good idea. The recruiting sites would have to totally revamp their star rating system to allow for that, not to mention re-rating players who had become free agents after Saban, Nutt, Spurrier or whomever had used them up for their own purposes.
Of course, you’d have to stipulate that once a student’s one, two or three year scholarship had expired, the athlete could not re-sign with that school in order to prevent the aforementioned from gaming the system that way. Also, you’d have to consider redshirts.
There are some holes which I’m sure the NCAA would completely fail in addressing, but it’s a fun one to brainstorm.
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Another good take I’ve seen: four year scholarships for people who sign a NLI, and one year coach-renewable scholarships for walk-ons.
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Maybe I’m misinformed (again), but doesn’t walk-on = w/o scholarship?
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Sorry: former walk-ons who receive scholarships.
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If we add another variable, it would definitely need to be strictly adhered too or those who like to play in the gray area would use the flexibility to fudge even more. Limited number of 4 year schollies at any one time (45?) and balance in 1 year offers (55?) Would allow for lots of variables but works against the alledged premise that these are for “student athletes”. Cough! Cough!
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Chuck and Derek go way back. They played high school ball together, so I am sure this wasn’t an all-of-a-sudden decision.
Just another UT “bidness decision” that was made long before signing day.
Just a lot of B.S. going on around that men’s athletic program.
I bet if they put Pat Summitt in charge, the B.S. would stop.
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Nope. Let’s keep things in KnoxVegas exactly as they are.
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Seriously. I would be quite apprehensive if Summitt was made AD at UT after she retired.
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Pat head Summit is the most competent person currently at the University of Tennessee and the best coach there in any sport since General Neyland. Actually, she should be President of the University.
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In Chuckie’s rant he mentioned that he had not spoken with Little Vince for 20 years………….
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Dooley’s various policies suck. Didn’t he institute a “statewide” 300 mile radius or something like that? And there was some arbitrary distance for transferring away too.
Oversigning crusaders care about crappy treatment of players and will criticize situations like this where recruits are being lied to and manipulated, but it’s not clear what policies can prevent this.
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Anytime there’s trouble up on Rocky Top it puts a smile on my face. But this dust up involving Dooley and Smith does make me nostalgic for my days at UGA. Friday night partying didn’t begin for me until AFTER watching the Gladiators kick somebody’s ass. What a program Billy Henderson built! I can’t believe it’s been a 26 years since I first saw John Kasay kick a field goal…and he’s still kicking ’em.
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“At least Dooley didn’t oversign, though, right?”
Maybe Derek shouldn’t get too much credit for that because as Chuck knows, “Lance Thompson is the head coach of that (bleeping) team. He runs the show.”
While Chuck’s prepared farewell remarks would ordinarily be a dealbreaker of Leachian proportions when Chuck tries to look for work elsewhere, there is an outside shot that Nick Saban will sign Chuck just to **** with Lance Thompson some more. http://www.govolsxtra.com/news/2009/jan/24/saban-tells-mccarron-not-visit-ut/
Also Nick knows just how Chuck feels when Chuck says, “How many times have I heard that I’m too big for the program?”
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