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CSI Knoxville?
Feb 19, 2008There’s no truth to the rumor that CSI Knoxville will debut next fall, but the recent escapades of Tennessee’s football team would certainly give a network more than enough episodes for a full season.
The latest embarrassing chapter took place over the weekend as punter Britton Colquitt was charged with DUI and fleeing the scene of an accident after hitting a parked car and a tree stump following the consumption of several alcoholic beverages.
Volunteers coach Phillip Fulmer reacted with what seems like a harsh punishment, suspending Colquitt from the team’s first five games in 2008 and stripping the rising senior of his scholarship.
However, it doesn’t seem that tough when one realizes that it’s the fifth alcohol-related incident in as many years for Colquitt. It also makes Fulmer look worse when one realizes he dismissed RB LaMarcus Coker in November after Coker’s fourth drug incident.
So clearly the precedent is set: Four drug incidents and you’re out, but five alcohol incidents and you’re still allowed to play. Doesn’t make sense ... until you remember Colquitt’s family, which has produced four good punters for the program in the last 30 years, recently donated $100,000 to the program.
If you’re keeping score (and if you are, you probably have writer’s cramp by now), this is nine players who have either been arrested or disciplined for off-field misconduct in a 38-day span. It’s obvious from this corner that the apologists have no rational defense.
“What about the quarterback at LSU?,” they might ask. Sure, Ryan Perriloux has drawn an indefinite suspension from coach Les Miles, but I’m pretty sure LSU hasn’t had nine guys get into trouble in 38 days, unlike its SEC championship game opponent.
“It happens everywhere else,” they might say. True, but not to this extent. Not with the old “Thug U,” Miami, not even with the Cincinnati Bengals, who modeled handcuffs at a dizzying clip for a while.
Simply put, Tennessee’s football program never seems to run out of ways to embarrass itself off the field. In a period where it could have basked in the glow of a good bowl win over Wisconsin, the Vols have become a punch line for every SEC opponent’s fans.
Knoxville News-Sentinel columnist John Adams suggested today that it’s time for a change at the top—i.e., Fulmer. This much is certain: Whatever footing Fulmer gained by UT’s surprising run to the SEC title game last year has now been lost.
Cheer up, Vol fans. At least you have the nation’s No. 2 men’s basketball team. And at least nine of their players haven’t had off-court issues in 38 days.
The refs blew it
Feb 13, 2008Forget all these excuses you’ve heard the last couple of days about “Clockgate,” the fiasco which happened at the end of Monday night’s women’s basketball game between Rutgers and Tennessee in Knoxville.
Rutgers wasn’t robbed of its well-earned win by a clock malfunction. Nor was it human error by the timekeeper.
And while you’re assigning blame, don’t give any to the Lady Vols. In fact, give a whole lot of praise to Nicky Anosike for waiting out about a five-minute delay and then cooly draining the game-winning free throws.
Blame officials Bob Trammell, Tina Napier and Bonita Spence, who completely blew it by failing to use the replay system for what it’s supposed to do—right obvious wrongs.
For those of you who haven’t seen what happened, here’s a quick review: Down one point in the last 10 seconds, UT hunted a game-winning shot.
Shannon Bobbitt missed a jumper. Candace Parker rebounded and missed in the lane. The clock then freezes on 0.2 seconds while Anosike grabs an offensive rebound, tries to go up for a shot and is pulled down from behind.
If there was ever a classic replay situation, this is it. And if there’s a more clearcut call made for replay reversal than this one, I’ve yet to see it.
Yet the officiating crew—led by Trammell, a Final Four veteran—somehow botched the ruling completely, saying that Anosike’s rebound, attempted putback and foul all occurred in 0.2 seconds or less.
If you believe that, you’re either wearing orange-colored glasses or you’re related to one of the officials. ESPN replays later Monday night showed the sequence from Anosike’s rebound to the whistle blowing for the foul took 1.3 seconds.
Now I wasn’t a math major in college (I was more like a playground hoops major, but I digress), but I know 1.3 seconds is longer than 0.2 seconds. And the officials should have had either the competence or the guts to get the call right.
You know what happened after Trammell and Co. turned the endgame into the 1972 Munich Olympics. Anosike, a 64 percent free throw shooter, hit both to give the Lady Vols a tainted 59-58 win.
That sequence highlighted the biggest problem with the women’s game as opposed to the men’s game—weak officiating. As much as men’s basketball insiders criticize Ted Valentine for his showboating ways on the court (and he does love to call attention to himself), do you think he would have upheld the ruling on the court after looking at that replay? Heck no.
Rutgers coach Vivian Stringer said if it had happened to decide a national championship, she would have been out of a job, such was the fuss she would have raised.
A lot of other people should have been raising it, too. But incredibly, the SEC and Big East Conferences, which supplied the refs Monday night, signed off on the endgame.
Apparently, it’s more important to believe every excuse you hear instead of just looking at the facts. And the facts are the officials robbed Rutgers. Period.
Christmas in February?
Feb 05, 2008For many college football fans, the first Wednesday in February ranks right up there with Christmas and New Year’s on the holiday scale.
That’s because it’s National Signing Day, when thousands of high school stars around the nation make their choices known. Or as the ad for a day-long show on one cable network breathlessly screams, “Watch the top programs stock up on fresh talent!”
All true, but all misleading. Recruiting is an inexact science, mainly because it’s all projection with no guarantees that they’ll actually pan out.
Guess right often enough and your school might win a title.
Guess wrong more than you should – often for reasons you couldn’t control, like injuries or grades – and you might be looking for work a year from now.
Which is why you shouldn’t put a whole lot of stock in all those recruiting analysts who seem to grade the same schools in the top 10 every year. The only thing that seems to be different is the order.
Sure, it’s nice to get those “five-star” recruits, but it’s also nice if you can have coaches who can draw that talent out of them once they get there.
Just look at Tennessee since its national championship of 1998. The Volunteers usually recruit well, thanks to the tireless work of coach Phillip Fulmer. Recruiting is his calling card and few coaches in the nation do it better.
Yet what have all those four and five-star guys gotten UT since 1998? Three Southeastern Conference championship game appearances, all of which the Vols have lost, and exactly zero Bowl Championship Series wins.
On the other hand, Virginia Tech rarely gets into anyone’s top 10 in recruiting. More often than not, the Hokies finish between 21 and 25 nationally.
But Frank Beamer’s coaching staff gets the most out of their players. While playing in weaker leagues like the Big East and the ACC has helped, Tech has won three conference titles and played for a national title in the last nine years.
What’s more, you can argue the Hokies’ most disappointing season in that span – 2003 – came with their most-hyped recruiting class playing the key roles. That year, Tech started 6-0 and was ranked third before careening to an 8-5 finish.
Obviously, if you give coaches their choice between the five-star players or three-star guys, they’ll go for the five-star guys every time.
But there is a caveat here – just because you haul in four five-star guys and seven four-star guys doesn’t mean you’ll be playing for a national title in three years.
It helps to be able to coach them some, too.
Crews-ing back into the UT lineup
Jan 25, 2008Not that the Tennessee men’s basketball team was exactly in need of reinforcements, even after a Tuesday night loss to Kentucky, but some much-welcomed help’s on the way.
Sophomore forward Duke Crews could return to the lineup tonight when the No. 3 Volunteers welcome Georgia to Thompson-Boling Arena for a Southeastern Conference game at 7:05 (FSN South).
The 6-foot-7, 233-pound Crews hasn’t played since an echocardiogram Dec. 14 diagnosed him with a potential heart condition. Further examination and tests revealed it was only an “athlete’s heart.”
Crews has practiced fully with the team this week and coach Bruce Pearl said after Wednesday’s workout that he might play against Georgia.
Crews missed the last eight games, but his absence was glaring in the 72-66 defeat at Kentucky, when UT was outrebounded 36-27. A healthy Crews gives the Vols 12-point, 10-rebound potential every night.
Pearl said Crews would be restricted to 10 minutes a game for a while, since his physical activity has been limited for the last month. When Crews gets back into game shape, though, it will allow UT to field the 10-man rotation Pearl prefers.
A second unit of Crews, Ramar Smith, J.P. Prince, Ryan Childress and Brian Williams would give the Vols all kinds of potential mismatches.
PASS THE ROCK, PLEASE: Selfish is the last word which comes to mind when discussing UT.
Yet the Vols strayed from the norm at Kentucky, failing to run their offense with poise and not making their trademark extra pass. They had just eight assists, tying a season low.
Point guard play was an issue. Starter Jordan Howell and backup Ramar Smith combined for two assists and four turnovers in 40 minutes.
Look for a return of the unselfish Vols tonight against Georgia. One factor that will help, besides the home court, is a three-day break between games.
Tuesday night’s game at Kentucky was the third in a six-night stretch, and although the players didn’t want to use it as a crutch, it was evident that their legs weren’t there in the last five minutes. Just look at all the long jumpers which fell short and the lack of turnovers the Wildcats made.
BRUCIE P?: Pearl took a break from his team to comment on the Lady Vols’ game Friday night, working the analyst’s chair on a local telecast with play-by-play man Bob Kesling.
Reviews on Pearl’s guest spot were generally positive, although a Dick Vitale impression early in the first half beseeching Arkansas to “take a TO, baby” came off as forced at best.
You could tell Pearl wasn’t a TV veteran just by looking at his outfit – a peach-colored suit. Most long-time spielers stick with the traditional dark suits.
Orange you in handcuffs?
Jan 22, 2008Another week, another Tennessee football player running afoul of the law.
The latest miscreant is freshman tailback Daryl Vereen, who was arrested early Monday morning outside Gibbs Hall and charged with public intoxication when police responded to a fight outside the Volunteers’ athletic dorm.
This follows an incident earlier this month, when rising sophomore wide receiver Gerald Jones and freshman wideout Ahmad Paige were stopped for having a burnt-out license tag light. When police searched the car, they found a couple of marijuana cigars (a.k.a. blunts), leading to charges of marijuana possession.
What made the first incident even more embarrassing was that Jones and Paige were hosting a recruit. Think Clemson coaches (the other school this recruit is considering) were quick to use this situation against UT?
The snap judgment is to blame coach Phillip Fulmer for not having his players under control. That would be right—and wrong.
While one can wonder why Fulmer keeps bringing in guys who find trouble, you can’t ask him to hold players’ hands 24/7/365. At some point, you’d like to think these guys would figure out the cost of a scholarship doesn’t give them the right to puff weed, get soused, etc., so on and so forth.
That having been said, it sure doesn’t make the program look good when players keep screwing up off the field. Apologists might try to say that it happens at other schools, and they’re right, but how does that justify it happening in Knoxville?
Why not try to be unlike other programs? Why not try to impress earlier upon the players that it’s not all right to light up a joint, get inebriated with officers on the scene or get into needless fights (as other UT players have done in the past)?
Fulmer is assuredly furious over the events of the last week and a half. To get his point across to the players, he returned Monday night from a recruiting trip and made the team embark on a punishment run at 6 a.m. today.
Vereen’s punishment consists of community service with a drug rehabilitation facility, participating in police ride-alongs and a curfew for the entire winter semester.
“These young men need to understand that they represent the University of Tennessee and our football program and these immature actions need to stop,” Fulmer said in a press release issued by the university this afternoon.
Maybe they will. But recent history tells us that sometime before the Aug. 30 opener with UAB—probably well before then—someone will probably forget the 6 a.m. running and Fulmer’s admonitions to stay out of trouble.
