Back off already.
That’s what I have to say to University of Tennessee football fans. The Vols are losing and people don’t like it.
Tennessee is having a down year. They’re 2-3 going into this Saturday’s battle with Alabama.
Now before I’m called a Vol hater, I would like to say I do not hate Tennessee and I have a lot of respect for their program. Phil Fulmer is a great coach and a good man. But for some reason, I have never bled orange.
My blood runs blue and gold, with a shade of maroon. Of course my blood runs blue and gold because I am a student here. I have followed the athletic programs here for years and I am a true Buccaneer, like all of us should be. This is our school and we should support it better than we do.
Even though I’m a Buccaneer, my blood runs another shade of blue, the royal blue of Duke. I’ve been a Duke fan for 15 years and I pull for them in everything, but especially basketball. Don’t call me during a Duke basketball game. I won’t answer.
I’ve loved the Bucs and Blue Devils for a long time, but in recent years, I’ve adopted the Virginia Tech Hokies in college football. I respect the class program that Frank Beamer runs and also the fact they recruit many players from Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee. But don’t get me wrong, I would still pull for Duke if the two schools played.
Now that you know who my teams are, I would like for everybody to respect those teams and others.
This leads me to my point. It seems to me if Tennessee is losing, they have to put down everybody else. One example is Virginia Tech.
I was in the Culp Center last week, watching highlights of the Hokies 48-20 romp over West Virginia, when somebody sitting nearby said, “If Virginia Tech played in the Southeastern Conference, they would have three losses.”
Nobody who follows college football carefully could believe that. The SEC does not have a quarterback like Michael Vick and the conference as a whole is down.
I’ve heard comments like this for over a year now and I don’t understand it. I also don’t understand why Tennessee fans believe teams that beat them are great all of a sudden.
Last year was Virginia Tech’s breakout year. They enjoyed an undefeated regular season and led Florida State in the fourth quarter of the Sugar Bowl. But all throughout the year, Tennessee fans bothered me talking about how overrated the Hokies were and that Nebraska should have been the team in the national championship game.
Well, Nebraska’s schedule wasn’t much tougher and they did lose to Texas. But the Cornhuskers beat the Vols in the Fiesta Bowl.
One of my fellow media members is a Nebraska fan and he even admitted the Cornhuskers had no business being in the national championship game.
Teams have to play the schedule that’s given to them and Beamer’s troops did that. They won most of their games convincingly and showed they belonged. Whether or not Virginia Tech should be in the national championship game this year will probably be decided on Nov. 4 when they play at Miami.
I think this is just jealousy. Virginia Tech and Tennessee share this media market, a market that is starting to hype up the Hokies heavily. Tennessee fans want to see their team on the six o’clock news, and it’s the same for Tech supporters. If you want this problem solved, Tennessee fans should watch WJHL-TV, while Hokie fans are probably better off watching WCYB-TV.
I’ve noticed that Tennessee fans seem to talk about any team that is not in the SEC or Big Ten as being weak. You have to give other teams credit. It’s not fair to put a team down because of their schedule.
The thing that really bothers me about these fans is how they either blame a call for a loss or they blame the coaches.
Tennessee fans can talk about how they got cheated against Florida, but they should never have been in that situation. They needed touchdowns instead of field goals.
The thing that should bother a true Tennessee fan is the fact some people want Fulmer fired as head coach. This is the same man who led the Vols to a national title in 1998 after losing legendary quarterback Peyton Manning and playing with inexperienced players.
That has to hurt because Fulmer is a true Volunteer and I even had the privilege to interview him (along with a group of 10 other reporters) in August. He talks very highly of his players and is truly a classy individual. But he loses three ball games with a young team that everybody says will be great next year and people want him to leave town.
You have to support your teams, but you also have to be objective fan. I want Vick to win the Heisman Trophy, but if I had a vote, it would go to Clemson’s electrifying quarterback Woody Dantzler. They have similar styles, but Dantzler has far better numbers and has made fewer mistakes.
Trust me, if Vick doesn’t win it, I won’t blame it on Chris Fowler or Lee Corso. And if Virginia Tech loses a game this year, I won’t blame it on a fluke catch.

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