Derek Dooley, on burning his freshman quarterback’s redshirt in the fourth quarter of a blowout in his team’s seventh game of the season:
“I’ve never worried about redshirts,” Dooley said. “I don’t care. These guys don’t worry about staying for four years anymore, so why should we worry about redshirts?”
Adios, Matt Simms.
Get The Picture 
Burns the redshirt when it’s expected Bray will be back this season. Simms must have really F’ed up.
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Wow. That’s pretty bold. I hate Tennessee. And Derek’s said and done some things in the last year or so that made me start to like him less. But saying what he just said…it makes me like him a little more. That’s balls, my friends (albeit balls confined within some hideous orange pants). Pretty admirable and pretty awesome, nonetheless.
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Sure, but there’s bound to be twist to this on the recruiting trail.. And not to his benefit.
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It was ill considered and impolitic to say the players don’t worry about staying for four years. Probably no consequence, but oops.
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And with that philosophy, he could be burning more than a redshirt.
As in burn the house down before leaving?
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There’s only one sweeping generalization which holds and is that sweeping generalizations do not hold.
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After reading the article, it seems like Precious made an emotional decision in the heat of the moment. So, your second string guy on your young, building team sans its best receiver doesn’t light the world on fire against the #1 and #2 teams in the country and your decision is to burn a redshirt on a promising player in the waning moments of a lost cause?
Is that in the best long-term interests of the program?
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His Mom defended his decision.
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Dooley isn’t worried about the long term at UT. He’s worried about keeping his job. NOW.
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True. But it was stupid. He obviously got too into his own halftime speech when Alabama slept through the first half. It was clear early on in the second half that UT couldn’t hang with a determined Bama. There was no way the freshman was going to save them. So what was the point? Is he going to play the kid after Bray comes back? He just mortgaged the future of his program because he lost composure trying to get a signature win. He has a young team and he is trying to build something. Well, he just cracked the foundation. He was going to get the benefit of the doubt this year. But this gives ammo to his detractors.
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Agreed GD.
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Much like the emotional decision to go-for-it on 4th-and-1 at his own 39 with the game still in the balance. After that, it was 20-6 Bama and his defense appeared to take it “personally.”
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The line forms outside the stadium. How many players are there to select from
I watched the last few minutes of the Arkansas game and Ole Miss yesterday. The play of the Ole Miss QB is sad. Seen better work and play from some current year high school QB. My only exposure to Simms is the last quarter of the Georgia game and some of the LSU game. I think I would dig down the chart and find a player.
Some of the guys just never step oup their game. Competition, skill level, not enough quality PT, not enough off season drills and work, but some of the players do not seem to want to step it up. Frankly, Simms is 2nd on a chart. A good player, but there are possibly better. Bray for sure, and who knows what will Bray be like after his injury.
Somewhat agree with Dooley, depends on the roster, depth, and schedule. Why bank players when many do not even stay the 4 years.
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I agree, there are times to bank players but this is not one of them. Simms is a miserable failure, and there is no reason to enter 2012 with an inexperienced QB behind Bray. If Bray gets hurt in August practice, or early in the 2012 season (which is not an unusual happening) it would be nice to have someone who has taken snaps ready to step up. I wouldn’t want CMR writing off this much of a season and increasing the chance of a disasterous record just to protect one unproven QB’s redshirt.
Who knows? The kid may turn out to be a bust. You have plenty of time to recruit another. Additionally, while Bray has shown the ability to throw the ball well when given time to set up, he isn’t a slam dunk to me. He has never beaten a decent team in his entire career, aqnd he still panics when the pressure makes him hurry a throw. What has he done against us in 5 quarters the past two years? Little Barbara, needs to pull out all stops at this point…burning the shirt is a smart move no matter how the rookie does. I think he is a mobile QB so any success he may have could change the direction of recruiting for the UT staff..
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A case of these Simms boys maybe living off the “Name” of Phil — they would have fit in better at more of a Morehead St., like dad, and been the Big fish there.
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Hold on a minute. What about Nash Nance. I thought he and Da’rick were gonna bring there magic together up to UT? What happened?
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I heard a rumor while in Knoxville that Nance was transferring to the Ivy League.
No word as to whether Da’Rick was going to be included in any kind of package ̶r̶u̶s̶e̶ … er, deal.
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Da’Rick in the Ivy League…Tee Hee.
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Why not? HarRick was at UGA.
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Da’Rick couldn’t even spell Ivy League and he definitely wouldn’t get a free ride like he did at his west GA high schools.
But this oh so funny for Nash Nance. I hope his daddy is proud and all. Couldn’t make the field when your #1 was out and your #2 sucked up the field constantly and the future had a redshirt on. Pretty much shows that it was – indeed – a packaged deal just to get Nash into the school and tell all of his friends in the carpet business that he once played for UT.
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Well, UT is about to enter their November of redemption. I’m sure next spring we’ll hear how (insert QB name here) is the hottest QB in the SEC and should be a sleeper Heisman candidate, all because he lit up Kentucky, squeaked by a fired-up Vandy, and won a last second Music City Bowl against MTSU.
So he’s got that going for him.
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Nah. Bray will be back in time for the Kentucky and Vanderbilt games. He shows up for the easy games but wants to miss the hard ones. That way even wthough UT has a shitty record he can claim to have had a winning record in games in which he was the starter. Padding the old football resume so to speak.
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I looked it up. Bray started 10 games at UT and is 7-3 for those games. Assuming he comes back this season in time for the last 2 games and wins over Kentucky and Vandy at the end of this season he can claim that when he was the starter the team went 9-3. It’s all because of how great a QB Bray is. Yeah, right.
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UT remains a close second behind the Gators on my “WISH THEM NO SUCCESS LIST”. Auburn closes out my “BOTTOM 3” List..
It sure would be Great IF the Dawgs took care of all 3 this year. GATA.
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But…but…i thought colkege football players are really student athletes. They go to UT for superior academics, right? UT says they are committed to achieving academic excellence. Dooley is really focused on a great APR
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Does APR translate to Any Passing Recruit?
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Barbara Dooley is holding on line 1….
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