Yep. There may have even been a little black in there somewhere as well. But the grey is for sure.

You, officially, do not know of that which you speak. As for the Orange and White we know today, it wasn't that color back in the early days of Tennessee Football. I suppose we should go back to that weak hued version of the color orange we had back then?

I basically agree. Neither option is an option. We will not only beat Florida to snap the streak, but we will also beat Alabama... at least once. Only question is which one? Beat them during the regular season. It is no given we would even face them again in the SEC Championship game. There are a couple other West teams that will have something to say about that though I'm sure Bama is still the favorite.

5 of the 9 recent commits held an offer from Alabama, and several of those also had offers from LSU, Notre Dame and/or USC, Texas A&M. Look at the offers before commenting on the "mere" 3 stars. Most of these will be at least 4 stars before signing day. Look also at the measurables on these guys. That said, I doubt all of the guys currently rated as 3 stars will actually sign. Butch has a way of pulling off signing day surprises with higher rated recruits. So, we'll see. As for your ACC comment, Clemson and FSU are in the ACC. How they been doing lately?

O I don't know, but we've done okay the past few years.

Several of these "3 stars" were recruited by the best teams in the country, including Alabama, USC and LSU. Obviously they know something about these guys that hasn't fully been recognized yet by the recruiting services. Expect to see at least half of them move up to a fourth star during their senior season.

I agree. If one assumes that our Vol's offense improves its passing game, then yes we should be ranked at the top of the SEC East in that category. But that is an awfully enormous IF right now. Our air force has been largely left stranded on the tarmac for the past several years.

That number hasn't been disconnected; it simply doesn't exist.

Huge Tennessee fan, but my Vols have not earned that #7 spot yet. Having said that, we could very well finish at or very near that this year. But why would anyone pick us as a preseason #7 based on what we've actually done thus far? Team 120, to quote CBJ, has done nothing yet. And Team 119 lost winnable games to Florida, Oklahoma, Arkansas and even Alabama. Can we get over the hump this year to win those type of games? Love my Vols, though. GBO!

O, and I left out Josh Malone in the list above...

Yeah, I just want CBJ to be more candid and honest instead of constantly using "coach-speak" and contradicting himself. He can't avoid the obvious: we were out-coached. Yes, he just needs to own up, and we would all feel much better about this.

Multiple 3 and outs by our offense in the second half of that game gassed our defense like it would any defense that wasn't 4 deep at every position. It is a team loss, and it falls ultimately on CBJ.

I disagree with some of what you state, and I am definitely not one who thinks coaches should be fired. Yes many of our players are still young. No they are not lacking talented depth. Experienced depth? Yes, in a few positions, but not talented depth- thanks to the great recruiting efforts of our coaches and CBJ over the past couple of years. My prediction for this year was 8-4 which they could still attain. But the pattern that seems to be developing is that this staff cannot close out games. The effort of the team is not questioned (as it was under Dooley). And for the most part they are performing as they have been coached. We have simply been afraid to utilize every weapon at our disposal when it comes to 2nd half play-calling. And that includes grossly neglecting the development of our passing game while we have receivers available like Von Pearson, Smith, Johnson, North and Williams as well as converted QB, Jennings. We went to Jennings on a big play (the double pass) in the 1st half and never came back with any variants of that set. We split Hurd and Kamara out in the 1st half and Dobbs had a big run. In the 2nd half we ran the same play with the same option, and Florida stuffed Dobbs (of course). Is that the only option we have with that set?! Nothing else came of anything like that which we did in the first half. It is like we shut it down in the 2nd half and played "not to lose." That is what we are upset about. There is nothing unrealistic about that. Granted, some fans out there think we should win every game this year- and if we don't, they think we should fire someone. But the most of us are not in that boat. We just think the coach ought to be big enough to admit when they got out-coached. Hey, I'm with you when it comes to those "crazys" out there that want to fire someone everytime their team loses. But I don't think most of our fans fall into that category. As for Phillip Fulmer, he brought that on himself. His failure was not being able to find an offensive coordinator to effectively replace Coach Cut. What most of us are upset about is that we see (for the most part) even more potential in this year's team than we were truthfully expecting, but the coaches still cannot close out the games. And that is obviously a conclusion not coming JUST from the fans. You cannot reasonably watch the Oklahoma and Florida games and not conclude that the Vols should have won.

In the past, we just didn't have enough talented depth so our starters simply got winded in the late 3rd to 4th quarters. That is no longer the case. We are coaching not to lose instead of coaching to win. The frustrations will continue until this Head Coach recognizes that and changes his mindset. The coaching staff is a mirror of him. It won't help to fire any of them. He needs to recognize the real issue and make the change.

We have some basic rules posted on our mixing board at church. The first rule is one that is applicable to a great many situations: Don't make any changes abruptly. I'm not for knee-jerk reactions. The Head Coach ultimately controls the calls. I'm not blaming any of the coordinators at this point. This is on CBJ. He needs to correct it. He was willing to make some uncharacteristically high risk calls in the first half that paid big dividends. The failure to do that in the second half is all on him. When you play in the SEC, you've got to call those plays and make use of all your weapons in order to be successful. My hopes is that the same thing that motivated him to coach the way he did in the first half will prevail upon him for 60 minutes in the next one. He can't blame either of his coordinators for either of these losses. Thus, there is not yet any basis for firing either of them. He'd have to fire himself first.

I certainly hope it doesn't come to that. Butch "gets it" was the fan's cry when he was hired and began to recruit top talent back to Tennessee. I certainly hope he "gets this" before it is too late. There was just too many questionable coaching calls in this one, and it was very similar to the Oklahoma game. He actually made a few adjustments in the Florida game and called some plays he wasn't willing to in the game vs Sooners. But a couple of trick / gadget plays wasn't enough in the end; he called nothing special in the whole 2nd half. We should have put the Gators away in the 2nd half and just didn't let the players do it a la fear of risks. Hopefully, he will learn from this. We have a maxim that states: carry the fight to the opponent and keep it there for 60 minutes. He had done it for 30 minutes in the two losses we've had against better opponents. He needs to coach the same way. A great first half doesn't win the game. Sorry for the venting, but I need to get this out. :)

I stand by my statement that Tennessee is now "arguably" more talented, especially on the offensive side, than Florida this year. Most teams would kill to have the WR talent we have. We threw to 6' 4" Preston Williams once. He tripped on the play. We never threw to him again. He is built to win the 50/50 throw. We don't throw to him. Coach's fear of losing is trumping his love of winning. He is overrating risks and underrating reward when it comes to calling the plays that will win in the SEC. This will continue until he admits that and changes it. We are 2-2 with the talent and experience to be 4-0 right now. We will lose against Arkansas this weekend if adjustments are not made. And we certainly should NOT lose to Arkansas. We will certainly never win against a top tier program until this changes. Make the call, coach. Give the players a chance to win the game. We left way too much in reserve Saturday in the Swamp. Go Vols!

I rarely agree with analysts, but on this topic I am totally with them. I'm tired of hearing coach-speak at this point because he is starting to contradict himself with it. "I take full responsibility for the loss..., but I think we coached well enough to win." When the players play well enough to win, and the coaches coach well enough to win- and you arguably have the better team, you will win. Coach, we didn't win. And it is because you didn't coach well enough. Don't blame the football gods, this and that thing that happened simply because "it's all part of football", etc. We have a pattern at this point, coach. You've done a lot of positives. Now man up and admit your errors. You expect it of the players, and we expect it of you. Go Vols!

Amen to that!

Still, this is very bad timing to lose a starter on the DL with the OU air attack coming into Neyland Saturday. Gotta step it up!

I just read where our starting DT O'Brien has been suspended for violation of team rules... indefinitely. Well, I guess we'll see more from our 5 star freshmen, McKenzie and Tuttle this Saturday.

Our defense was very vanilla against BG, staying in man-to-man the whole game. The BG OL is a Top 5 OL when it comes to experience. The QB figured out our defense quickly. Bringing pressure was the only real solution to that. We showed nothing else on defense. It still brings concern regarding that weak side of our defense. Sutton did his job all day. Couple being vanilla with the loss of our DB coach for that game, and it pretty much explains what we saw. BG is no slack of an offense, but it is a MAC offense. We still looked better than OU vs the Zips. Akron isn't nearly the team BG is, and we will see that as the year progresses. But we will definitely learn something about our Vols and the Sooners real soon. Don't think either team will hold too much back in this one.