Sweet Hummer!

The news ain't all good outa Old Rocky Top here lately. GoVolsXtra.com, The Knoxville News-Sentinel's top notch UT sports site, has reported troubling signs from our football team's spring practice sessions:

@ QBs basically suck. Of course we knew that already.

@ Receivers are struggling. "Other than quarterback, receiver may be UT's most pressing concern this fall. Junior Gerald Jones is a proven commodity but otherwise inconsistency reigns."

@ Worst of all -- and this is my observation -- I fear that the hosebag offensive coordinator who helped get Phil Fulmer fired last year (who shall henceforth remain nameless on the BOVB) may have left his crummy residue all over our beloved football program.

When said hosebag was hired, he warned fans that his offense would take at least two years to take effect. He was wrong. It took effect immediately and resulted in the 5-7 2008 record. But what if it is a scheme that really will be around another year? Could he have messed with our players' heads that badly? Seems possible. Yikes.

So I reckon that, for the time being, we'll have to look to other sources for the Orange lining to those dark clouds.

One is the Lady Vols tennis team, which is rockin. GO VOLS!

Another is this sweet Hummer. I spotted it at the St. Johns Town Center in Jacksonville April 11. It's clearly not Tennessee Orange but it's sure as heck more fun to look at than UT's 2008 offense.

Kiffin: Lamborghini or old Beemer?

It's one thing to read about all the great coaches Tennessee has hired since the end of the 2008 season. It's quite another, though, to see how much they are being paid as a group: $5.3 million, according to the Associated Press. That's about $12 million for coaching salaries when you count the $6 million it cost UT to get Coach Fulmer out the door.

Some are understandably displeased, especially after tuition increases and cuts in faculty pay. It may not be apples to apples, though, because AD Mike Hamilton says the money generated by a winning program will help fund all athletic programs and thereby free up university dollars for other expenses.

Whatever. But here's my point: The embarrassment of 2008 will pale compared to the grief and humiliation we'll feel if Kiffin and Co. don't come out strong in 2009. Kiff might — might — be allowed to lose to Florida one time, but that's it. But he better whoop everybody else. For $5.3 million, I don't see how we can expect anything less.

Let me explain it in terms of Orange vehicles. Let's say you put up the money for the sweet Lamborghini Murcielago pictured here, but when you went to the lot to pick it up, you found this weathered old BMW instead? Yes, they're both sports cars. But you'd be pretty PO'd, I reckon (especially since the Beemer is closer to UF Red than true Orange).

Jeff

BGSU: Talent- and colorblind

The verdict is in: former UT offensive coordinator Dave Clawson knows nothing about offense and he knows nothing about Orange, neither.

Exhibit A: The 2008 football season. The Vols ended the season with a 5-7 record and a ranking of 115th out of 119 Division I-A teams in total offense.

Exhibit B: Former UT wide receiver Josh Briscoe told GoVolsExra.com last week the team was repeatedly told to give Clawson’s complicated offense time to work — that it would take two years to work. “Coach, we don't have that time. We're struggling right now," Briscoe remembers telling a UT assistant.

His trust in Clawson cost Coach Fulmer and his staff their jobs.

Which leads us to Exhibit C: Despite his dismal performance, Clawson lands the head coaching job at Bowling Green State University.

Like Florida, Texas, Syracuse, Oklahoma State and many others, BGSU is a school that claims Orange as one of its colors. But a visit to the school Web site proves the university is as colorblind as it is talent-blind.

Some page headers are close to Tennessee (i.e., pure) Orange. But then you see safety Orange ball caps and football helmets as Gator red as this weathered VW Bug spotted by L. last week in Boulder, Colo.

Vol Nation now passes sentence on Clawson: May there be enough faux-Orange around to constantly remind him what a rotten job he did at UT.

Jeff