I know hearing that I'm giving up on Tennessee is going to come as a huge shock to many people. For the last few months, I've been here on Daily Kos on an almost daily basis, talking to y'all. I've been explaining why we should all focus on Tennessee and why it's crucial that we win in Tennessee. I've argued with those of you who said that we can't win in Tennessee. And I truly believed in what I was fighting for.
However, there comes a point where you have to take a step back and face reality. You can no longer believe the hype being fed to you. You come to realize that it's not worth fighting for anymore, and you wonder if it ever was. You have to take a deep breath, admit you were wrong and that this is a lost cause.
Let's face it folks--Tennessee is not going to get into a BCS bowl game this year.
Tennessee started out the season with such promise. They needed to have a great year after last season's 5-6 debacle, which culminated in a 28-24 humiliation, at home, at the hands of the Vanderbilt Commodores (bwahahahahahahaha). And by all accounts, they hit the ground running. They opened the season by whooping Cal, a team that everyone thought would be a contender for the national title. They made huge statements in the SEC, soundly defeating archrival Georgia and beating South Carolina, coached by -Satan Incarnate- Steve Spurrier. They stumbled a little bit against Florida, but you get a tiny bit more leeway when you come from a conference as hard as the SEC. It looked like this would finally be the year when Phil Fulmer would turn this team around and return the Volunteers to their former glory, which had seemed lost since the days of Peyton Manning.
But somewhere along the way, the "perfect season" went awry. Florida and Auburn started pulling off more impressive wins, with a harder schedule. Arkansas and LSU began surging too. But the Vols remained high in the rankings, and we refused to give up. But yesterday, Tennessee suffered a heart-breaking loss to LSU. At the same time, Florida clinched the SEC East by (barely) beating Vanderbilt. The SEC West will presumably be won by either Auburn or LSU (probably Auburn), and the winner of the SEC Championship will more than likely play in the national title game, probably against whoever wins the Ohio State-Michigan game. We can argue about Texas and Louisville all yall want, but I'm sticking to my analysis.
But as you can see, this equation leaves almost no room for the Volunteers. Whoever loses the SEC Championship will likely still get a BCS bowl (Orange or Sugar). LSU and Arkansas will end their seasons higher ranked than Tennessee, so they'll be in line for a BCS bowl first. So that means that the Volunteers will find themselves in a familiar situation--headed to either the Peach Bowl or the Capital One Bowl. Don't worry about them though. Vanderbilt fans would KILL to have that problem.
It's becoming painfully clear that there's no use hyping Tennessee anymore. They're not going to a BCS bowl, and it's a waste of time to pretend like they are. However, when Kos said that he was giving up on Tennessee, I think he was secretly gloating over it. Think about it. This is an Orange coloured site, dedicated to a Blue purpose...Kos is clearly a Florida fan!
The landscape in other parts of Tennessee looks similarly bleak. After showing a breath of life the last two games, the Tennessee Titans barely avoided a shutout against freaking Jacksonville. You know, the same team that we so humiliated back in the 1999 AFC Championship that it took them years to recover?
Granted, this shouldn't come as a surprise. It's hard to win games when your offense is based around a rookie and half your defense is in jail on any given Sunday. If the Titans end with yet another losing season, there will be finger-pointing all around. Some people say we should fire Coach Jeff Fisher, but I disagree. I think we need to fire whoever told GM Floyd Reese that it would be a good idea to draft Pacman Jones.
So, I'm sorry everyone. I believed my own hype, and drunk my own Kool-Aid. I shouldn't have pretended that Tennessee could win, when it was painfully obvious that they can't. Mea culpa.
P.S. Harold Ford Jr. for U.S. Senate