It's like 10 straight years of irrational exuberance for Tennessee. I don't mind being ranked low but -- below Auburn? That's just downright mean.
Why would he have anything good to say about us? We fired him. He fired 2 assistant coaches and we didn’t give him a chance to hire new coaches and fix the problem.
Although, in his list, it seems about right based on who we have beaten (past performance). The teams behind us should be behind us. The teams ahead of us should be with the exception of Aubie maybe. And Tenn seems a little too high.
If I recall he was pretty much spot on about us last year. It bothers me a whole lot more that we are in the condition we are in verses what he says.
I agree with this, though, I also think he should have fired Grantham’s dumb ass after the 2020 season. Everyone could see it was inevitable. What’s done is done. I completely anticipate Mullen to be down on our school and to have barely suppressed glee when Napier has seasons like the last two. It’s Napier that needs to change that, not Mullen.
He fired himself. He became complacent and maintained the status quo for far too long with respect to his staff and it bit him in the ass. I would have moved on from Grantham after the 2019 season. It’s not like he was providing a Mark Richt level of performance/recruiting and we got rid of him. The defense went from good/great to a dumpster fire and he refused to make changes until they were forced on him.
You are more patient than I am. I wanted Grantham gone after the 2019 season. The defensive issues were beginning to show that year, and they fully manifested in the following years. The pass rush in 2019 helped mask some of those issues, but the holes were there.
It's crazy how some continue to claim Mullen was fired too early given his trending performance in every aspect of the program. Record, discipline, position rooms, adaptability, etc etc. Other than offensive performance, what aspect of the program did Mullen improve by the end of year 4?
Rankings and projections are often based upon an anticipation of losses. Just look at November: Nov 2 vs #1 GA Nov 9 at #4 TX Nov 16 vs #13 LSU Nov 23 vs #6 Ole Miss Nov 30 at #10 FSU I know it's beating a dead horse, but geez. Five top 13 teams week-to-week with no off week. I guess they couldn't fit in the Ravens and Chiefs. For FL to be better than 12th in conference, they're gonna hafta win some games like UK, Ole Miss, LSU, A&M. Shouldn't expect to win all of those, but they need to be at least .500 in conference. Side note: Anybody feel it's weird that we are not playing USCe and Mizzou this year? I'm not sad about it, but it's a wildly diff SEC than what we grew up with.