Category Archives: Today on Gameday

Gameday Today: When Al Wilson gets hyped, it’s time to get hyped

Football

We are (probably!) under 100 days (or so!) away from football season!

When Al Wilson gets hyped, it’s time to get hyped. And Al Wilson is hyped about the return of Phillip Fulmer and the arrival of Jeremy Pruitt.

News Flash. An anonymous opposing coach tells Lindy’s that Butch Jones didn’t do a good job last year. If I was still 14, I would say, “Duh.” If I was 8, I’d say, “A-doy.”

Good news. Brad thinks that the lack of expected post-coaching-change attrition may signal that the players currently on Tennessee’s roster actually want to be coached.

A year early, but we’ll take it. Jimmy Hyams hits the gas by reminding Vols fans of the first-year-to-second-year jumps at LSU by Nick Saban, at Alabama by Saban, with Mark Richt and Kirby Smart at Georgia, and Bob Stoops at Oklahoma. He then slams on the brakes:

But you wonder if Saban or Richt or Stoops or Smart faced at their new schools what Pruitt faces at Tennessee.

Yeah.

Saturday Down South asks Pruitt some interesting questions, including his thoughts on how recruiting has changed recently and which positions he thinks have the best opportunity for early playing time.

Coach Pruitt continues to Say Stuff during his Big Orange Caravan Tour, and he’s apparently making more of an effort to not rub fans the wrong way.

Also this: GoVols247 is ranking the entire Tennessee roster. Here’s Nos. 45-31. . . . The Vols have hired VFL CJ Fayton as Director of VFL Programming.

Hoops

Tennessee’s basketball team will play Gonzaga in Phoenix on December 9 this fall. It should be a good one, as the Vols are No. 3 in Gary Parrish’s preseason Top 25 and Gonzaga is No. 5. Tennessee is also likely to host either Kansas (No. 1) or West Virginia (No. 17) in this season’s Big 12/SEC Challenge.

Awwww. Admiral Schofield got up at 4:00 a.m. to watch the royal wedding with his mother.

Other fun stuff

Ladies and gentlemen, Terry Fair:

Tennessee is winning at APR.

SB Nation has everything you need to know about the recent Supreme Court ruling on sports betting.

Gameday Today: Special ICY(&I)MI edition

The end of a couple of long seasons is a fine time to catch your breath and maybe focus on a few things you’ve been neglecting for a bit too long. There will be no condemnation here because that’s exactly what we’ve been doing for the past week. For me, I devoted a day or two to digesting the Loyola-Chicago loss and then became a fan of the team, rooting them on to the Final Four. I’m hoping they win the whole thing. I’ve also been attending to some other business matters in much need of such attention and working on getting our annual magazine on pace to get to the printer on time in late April.

All that is to explain why this is a special ICYMI edition of our usually-more-regular Vols link dump. Mostly, it’s because I would have otherwise missed it, but I’m guessing that many of you might be in the same boat. So, let’s catch up together.

The Vols’ coaching search FOIA data dump

Yeah. This was big, and there’s a lot to process, but one of the best articles on the subject is this one from Celina Summers. Celina, by the way, has contributed an article on the topic to our magazine this year as well. She does a great job, and we’re happy to have her contributing this year.

Say Goodbye to Basketball

Rick Barnes had his post-season debriefing with the media a couple of days ago and said mostly what you’d expect him to say, but it’s still refreshing:

And no, we’re not being picked to finish 13th in the SEC next season. We already being picked first:

Say Hello to Football

The smell of fresh cut grass. The daffodils and tulips sticking their beautiful noses into the sky.

And guys running around in shoulder pads and shorts to the glorious noise of whistles and shouts:

And all of it happening under the no-nonsense leadership of Jeremy Pruitt:

Pruitt is either (a) not big on praise, or (b) lacking much to praise, as sweet nothings from the lips of the head coach are pretty sparse these days. He sounds like he’s in full-on evaluation mode, and he’s not yet drawn any conclusions about anything.

You can, however, begin to discern what is especially important to him from the few words he does utter:

“The first thing we talked about is that we want to become a team, we think that’s important for us,” Pruitt said. “We want to learn how to practice, we want to see how much knowledge we retain at each individual position and we want to see who the competitors are, we want to see who handles adversity.”

So, we didn’t know how to practice, we’re having to re-teach them everything, and we’re not sure yet which ones have the mental fortitude to do what we’re asking. Whew. Okay.

There’s also this bit that I found particularly interesting:

“Sometimes you get beat because the other guy’s better than you, and sometimes you get beat because maybe you don’t execute it the right way,” Pruitt said. “If the other team beats us because they’re better than us, that’s one thing, but when you make mental errors, which we made a lot of mental errors out there today. We were not very focused in the meetings and didn’t take what we went over in meetings to the field. That probably contributed to some of it.”

Most of our recent football-related pain has come in the form of Tennessee losing to teams that were not better, so woo for the focus on jettisoning those first. I think most of us will be happy only losing to better teams. That has to be first, and only after that do you get to actually being the best team every week.

But while we’re not getting any opinions from the head man yet, we do have some actual news. Four players are being tested at new positions: running back Carlin Fils-aime at cornerback, tight end Princeton Fant at running back, defensive lineman Ja’Quain Blakely at tight end, and wide receiver Tyler Byrd at defensive back. Pruitt’s not sure whether any of the experiments are going to work.

Also, Quay Picou has left the program, but the absences of Darrin Kirkland Jr. and Tim Jordan are nothing to worry over, as Kirkland is recovering from a knee procedure and Jordan is recovering from appendix surgery.

And finally, the defensive-minded Pruitt was “ticked off” after practice yesterday, and it made him openly wonder about his defensive bias. Statements like that are likely to cause fans to experience anxiety borne of watching other former defensive coordinators who suddenly found themselves in head coaching gigs running feeble offenses out onto the field and hoping to win every game 3-0.

Fortunately, Pruitt seems to be aware of this potential blind spot and has not only assembled an offensive staff he trusts but has also enlisted help from John Lilly, who’s been hired as executive assistant to the head coach. Check this out:

“The first thing John does is he’s here to help me,” Pruitt said. “I think it’s clear that I want to be involved on the defensive side from a daily organization standpoint, but at the same time, we’re not going to do anything our program that I’m not aware about, that it don’t go through me.
“Now, what I don’t want to do is come in there and ask the offensive staff a million questions. ‘Why you doing this? Why you doing that?’ You’ve got a guy that can explain to me a little bit about what’s going on, so I can eliminate some of the questions.”

So, maybe Lilly is less an executive assistant and more a “Liaison to the Offense.”

Gameday Today: Vols March Madness Game 1 roundup

Survive

Tennessee didn’t just survive and advance in the NCAA Tournament yesterday, they absolutely throttled Wright State.

Pressure? What pressure? No, they are the ones who pressure. And they’ve traded their fancy handshakes for an all-business attitude copped from the 1996 Chicago Bulls.

Highlights of the smothering:

And we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t single out this play because it’s so, so good:

What did the SEC Network folks have to say? Good things, as you might expect:

Also check out this collection of photos from UTSports and this quote from Rick Barnes — now a finalist for national coach of the year — about the “talent” of hard work.

Tennesse wasn’t the only SEC team to have a good day yesterday. The conference went 4-0, and now the pressure is on Texas A&M, Arkansas, Auburn, and Missouri to uphold the good name of the group of institutions formerly known primarily for football.

Advance

So, who’s next for the Vols? The Loyola-Chicago Ramblers, who beat Miami with some flair:


The game isn’t until tomorrow at 6:10 p.m. ET on TNT, but we’re already being ever-so-politely trash-talked by a nonagenerian chaplain:

Gameday Today: Let’s Dance

Let’s dance

Tennessee opens NCAA Tournament play this afternoon at 12:40 p.m. ET against Wright State, and the Hype Machine is already cranked up to 11:

Even the objective media types are adding to the momentum:


But those particular horses must be held, as Tennessee has to get by Wright State first. The Raiders aren’t highly-ranked by KenPom (No. 131 this morning), but they can play defense and score points from the free throw line. They are going to have a real challenge, though, with Tennessee’s physicality.

So what do the Vols need to do to advance today? Well, every time Will has identified exactly what makes the Vols tick, they go full chameleon curveball and surprise everyone by ticking yet another a new way.

So, we’ll just have to see what they have in store for us this afternoon. We’ll have a game thread later this morning for the 12:40 tip on truTV.

ICYMI

It’s not too late to join the Gameday on Rocky Top bracket contest.

Tennessee is one of seven teams that will be featured on NCAA March Madness Confidential, which means we’ll get to see some extra behind-the-scenes stuff peppered into the tournament coverage this year. Nice.

Rivaling the Bruce Pearl Timeline and Brian Williams’ weight loss as the most-repeated go-to talking point for color analysts is the subject of Admiral Schofield’s first name. You may be tiring of it, but I’m hoping to hear it about six more times.

UTSports has an excellent feature on Rick Barnes and how he has positively affected the culture throughout the Tennessee athletic program.

Not to be outdone, the News Sentinel has a great feature on Vol Chris Darrington having to cope with the loss of a friend.

DylanVol takes another look at Vols’ hoops recruiting.

This is about a week late, but I neglected to post it earlier, and because it will never get old, I’m posting it now:

 

Gameday Today: SEC Tourney Time

If you watch only one Vols-related thing this morning . . .

. . . make it this from the SEC Network:

That’s some high-grade and particularly tasty rat poison right there.

Hoops

The thing is, the Vols are really in a nice sort of win-win situation this weekend. They could win the SEC Tournament, which would be cool, but if they lose, hey, they get more rest (and possibly some additional motivation) for the more important NCAA Tournament.

That, of course, does not mean that they aren’t working:

Mississippi State beat LSU last night 80-77, so Tennessee’s opponent at 7:00 p.m. tonight will be the Bulldogs. The game is on the SEC Network. Be sure to check out Will’s preview of the game. We’ll have the game thread posted later this afternoon.

Football

Jeremy Pruitt has added former Alabama nutritionist Rachel Pfister to Tennessee’s staff.

Over at Bleacher Report, Brad says that Tennessee could maybe nab former Clemson running back C.J. Fuller as a grad transfer.

VFL Al Wilson has been inducted into the Senior Bowl Hall of Fame.

Other fun stuff

With apologies for rivals colors on this beautiful orange site, you have to admit that this is pretty funny:

Not funny is this deplorable evidence of a culture problem at a company owned by a prominent Tennessee booster.

SiriusXM now has an SEC radio channel.

Gameday Today: Hoops, culture, and the audacity of Butch Jones

If you read only one thing about the Vols today . . .

. . . make it the VolQuest article on team-building and culture under Rick Barnes. It’s subscription-only, but it’s worth it. Runner-up this morning is a reheat from GoVolsXtra on Barnes’ family and faith.

Hoops

Tennessee is seeking that balance between staying sharp and making the most of the rest afforded by the double-bye they earned for the SEC Tournament.

Despite coming off a historic season, some ESPN dude says they can’t win the NCAA Tournament because they shot worse from 2-point range than their opponents in conference play. Odds are they won’t win it all, but that reasoning is kicking my skeptical face contortions into overdrive.

If you’re looking for an SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament hub, the SEC Network has a good one.

Alvin Kamara

Kamara might be Superman, but he can’t resist Girl Scout cookies, either:


No, really. He didn’t just stop by for a photo, and he didn’t buy just a box or two. He bought them all:


Of course, unlike you and me, Kamara can get away with eating every box of Girl Scout cookies in the French Quarter because he also does stuff like this:


Football

The Vols have added quarterback Jacob Cendoya as a preferred walk-on to the Class of 2018.

Wanya Morris, a 4-star tackle, has narrowed his choices down to Tennessee and Auburn.

Other Vols tidbits

Oh, horror of horrors, Butch Jones is wearing clothes and talking to people!


The Sporting News is reporting that ESPN and Fox are willing to pay Peyton Manning $10M a year to help save Thursday Night NFL football. Even Jon Gruden only got $6.5M to do what he did.

Tennessee baseball lost 21-2 (!) to James Madison yesterday.

 

Gameday Today: Basketball tournament season is here

If you see only one Vols-related thing today . . .

. . . make it this fantastic SEC Championship photo feature from UTSports.com. Some really remarkable images of some really remarkable events in there.

Hoops

Tennessee had a pretty good day with SEC postseason awards yesterday. Rick Barnes won SEC Coach of the Year, and he was notified by his grandkids via an adorable video chat:

Grant Williams won SEC Player of the Year, and Lamonte Turner won SEC Sixth Man of the Year. Admiral Schofield, who’s won the SEC Player of the Week the past two weeks in a row, was also second team All-SEC in the postseason awards.

The SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament begins today, but the Vols won’t play until Friday. They’ll play the winner of LSU and Mississippi State, who play tomorrow. Here’s a hype video to get you ready:

We’re less than a week away from Selection Sunday, and the results of conference tournaments this week could impact both seeding and venue for the Vols. Will’s done the work of identifying what to watch this week if you’re hoping for Tennessee to improve its seeding and stay somewhere close to home for the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.

I was out of town the past three days in mediations, and my computer was not cooperating during my morning writing routine, so, in case you missed it, be sure to check out Will’s The Fate We Make post and DylanVol’s look at basketball recruiting.

Rick Barnes met with the media Monday and said stuff. Here’s the transcript, and here’s the video:

And here are a ton of VFLs congratulating the current team on the regular season co-championship and giving them an important reminder:


Other Vols tidbits

Tennessee baseball beat James Madison 10-1 and is now 8-5 on the season.

The football team has added grad transfer kicker Ryan Tice to the team. He’s from Michigan and has two years of eligibility remaining.

Here’s another thing Peyton Manning can do that I can’t: Quit Papa John’s.

Gameday Today: Hoops sharpens the scissors, football working like heck

If you read only one thing about the Vols today . . .

. . . make it this one from Will: This One’s for the Scissors.

Hoops

After all, it is March, and few things are more fun than March basketball.

Rick Barnes, though, is still All Business:

We’ve already covered yesterday just how big tomorrow’s game against Georgia is, so today we’ll just add that Admiral Jelly Ace Boogie Schofield has been waiting for this game since the last time the two teams played.

I’m posting this just because the picture is adorable:


Football

Stanford quarterback Keller Chryst has committed to playing for the Vols this fall as a grad-transfer.

Reportedly, Butch Jones’ picture isn’t the only one being removed from the Neyland Stadium Jumbotron next week. They’re all coming down, although word is that another of General Neyland is going to be substituted for his current one. Rumors of the other two include Al Wilson and Jason Witten as candidates.

Mike Griffith has an in-depth (34+ minutes) video interview with incoming running back Jeremy Banks.

The Vols’ football strength staff is going to collectively earn $250k more than Jones’ prior staff. If dollars are an upgrade, cool.

247Sports has an in-depth look at the linebacking corps for this fall.

VFL John Kelly is taking VFL Alvin Kamara’s advice to just be himself at the NFL Combine.

Lady Vols

The Lady Vols banked in a last-second three-pointer to beat Auburn last night and advance in the SEC Tournament.

 

Gameday Today: SEC Championships and bracketology updates

If you read only one thing about the Vols today . . .

. . . make it this column from VolQuest’s Brent Hubbs, giving props to Rick Barnes for not only doing something special but also doing it the right way.

SEC Regular Season Championship

The last game of the regular season for the Vols basketball team is sold out. It’s not just that it’s the last home game of the season or that it’s senior night for James Daniel III or even that Tennessee’s attendance has been pretty good this season (9th in the country with an average of 15,779.)

It’s that the Vols are in the running for an SEC regular-season championship. Whether they earn it depends not only on whether they take care of business against Georgia at 6:00 p.m. Saturday at Thompson-Boling Arena, but also what Auburn does on their home floor against South Carolina the same day. And in case you’re thinking that a regular season championship doesn’t mean much to a team in a tournament sport, well, Lamonte Turner would like a word, please:

“We are definitely playing for a championship,” Turner said after scoring 12 points at Mississippi State. “That’s big. Coming into this game, we knew it was a must-win if we wanted to even have a chance at winning a regular-season championship. Yeah, it’s big for us.”

So yeah, both Grant Williams and Admiral Schofield implored Vol Nation to attend this weekend, and the fans responded.

Always listen to Ace Boogie. It will be only the third sell-out of the season, the other two being the North Carolina and Kentucky games.

SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament

Regardless of what happens Saturday, the Vols have at least locked up the coveted double-bye in the SEC Tournament, meaning they get to rest on Wednesday and Thursday and won’t play until Friday. If they earn the 1-seed, they’ll play at 1:00 p.m. ET on Friday, March 9, and if they are a 2-seed, they’ll play at 7:00 p.m.

Behind Tennessee and Auburn, the field is a heaping pile of poisonous snakes:

The NCAA Tournament

Regarding the Big Dance, the Vols are currently slotted firmly in as a 4- to 2-seed in the Bracket Matrix, with the 3-seed being the most prevalent.

ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has the Vols as a 3-seed in Wichita against Charleston and in a bracket with Nevada, Purdue, West Virginia, and Virginia.

CBSSports also has Tennessee as a 3-seed but playing against TCU in Dallas. Others of note in the Vols’ portion of the bracket there include Purdue, Clemson, and Kansas.

And SB Nation has the Big Orange as a 3-seed in Dallas against Murray State and in a bracket with Rhode Island, Purdue, Wichita State, and Xavier.

It seems that everybody is anticipating a Tennessee-Purdue rematch. Except for USAToday, who has the Vols as a 3-seed against Charleston in Dallas and in a bracket with Houston, North Carolina, Arizona, and Xavier.

Other Vols tidbits

The football team is getting to work:


Grad-transfer quarterback Gardner Minshew has chosen Alabama (raise your hand if you think an ECU QB is going to beat out both Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa), which means that Tennessee is likely now all-in with former Stanford QB Keller Chryst.

WVLT is reporting that the removal of that picture of Butch Jones from the Jumbotron is scheduled to start Monday, much to the relief of way too many people way too worried about the wrong things.

The Lady Vols open play in the Women’s SEC Tournament tonight at 7:00 ET against Auburn and are embracing expectations:

 

And look at that, the Vols baseball team is now 6-3 after a 9-1 victory over Arkansas Pine Bluff yesterday.

Gameday Today: Jelly’s wild night in Starkville

If you read only one thing about the Vols today . . .

. . . make it Will’s post about the Vols basketball team putting it all together at just the right time.

Vols hoops dominates Mississippi State

So yeah, Tennessee basketball put all of the pieces together (same link as above) and played excellent basketball against a Mississippi State Bulldogs team fighting to stay on the bubble and beat them 76-54. It must have been the shoes.

The player of the game once again was Admiral Schofield, whom Wes Rucker called the Magnolia State Manimal. That’s appropriate, as Schofield flexed his entire skill set last night, including his muscle:


But State coach Ben Howland credits not just Schofield but also Grant Williams and says Tennessee is hard to beat partly because “they have those two bulls.”

And the rest of the guys are really beginning to come into their own as well, including Yves Pons. By the way, can you imagine having to do an interview with media while you’re still learning the language? Here, this will help you imagine that. (That’s a video of Pons’ post-game interview, which I would have embedded but for the auto-play feature I couldn’t turn off. But be sure to watch it.)

After that, this happened:

Also, Arkansas beat Auburn last night, so the Vols are now tied for first in the SEC with one game remaining. Tennessee has Georgia at home Saturday, while Auburn has South Carolina at home.

Highlights:

And post-game commentary from the SEC Network:

And wonder of wonders, Rick Barnes was again actually saying nice things about his team after the game:

Maybe it’s just that he’s finally satisfied that his players are going to evaluate and criticize themselves now (this video also features Schofield talking about peanut butter and jelly):

Other Vols tidbits

The Vols baseball team beat Middle Tennessee 5-4 yesterday.

Trevor Daniel, Rashaan Gaulden, John Kelly, and Kahlil McKenzie are all scheduled to participate in the NFL Combine this week.

VFL Scotty Hopson has signed a 10-day contract with the Dallas Mavericks.

ESPN’s Chris Low has a really good in-depth feature on Jeremy Pruitt’s challenge of rebuilding the Vols football team.