Musings from 37,000 feet en route to Knoxville.

Having been delayed a day due to weather, I finally made the first leg of my journey home from Wyoming to Knoxville for the next semester.  Thanks to a pleasantly welcome 3-hour layover, I had the chance to log in, catch up on email, and clear out my feed reader.  (By the way, kudos to Denver International Airport for abandoning that stupid pay internet service and going to a free w/ad system.)  As is now the custom for this time of year, my sports feeds consisted mostly of (a) empty articles written by recruiting sites who are waiting for actual recruiting news, (b) articles containing novella screeds about the BCS, college football playoffs, bowl games, etc., and (c) articles I actually bothered reading because they don't fall under (a) and (b).

Having read through the interesting material in my feed, I still needed to kill some time in the airport while waiting for the plane.  Knowing that the recruiting articles would be dead space, I skimmed through a few of the BCS-related entries.  Unsurprisingly, the only changes in the articles over the last couple of years are the names of the teams.  Go back 2 years ago, replace Boise State and Oklahoma with Utah and Alabama, and the ’07 Fiesta Bowl write-ups could be read as the ’09 Sugar Bowl write-ups without really missing anything of importance.  This year, Texas will serve nicely as the ’04 Auburn Tigers, though you would have to ignore the whole “undefeated” term that our plainsmen brothers have in their arsenal.  I guess my point is this:  the “BCS sucks” meme had already matured into its current form years ago; all we’re seeing at this point is the same complaints applied to a new year.  While that neither bolsters nor diminishes the argument itself, it does make for some tiresome reading and exchanging of opinions during the football season.  Except for the hope of finding some new insights and interesting takes from some truly outstanding writers across the web, I could really save myself a lot of time by turning off about half of my feed reader once the BCS rankings start appearing and turning it back on sometime in March (once the basketball tournament kicks in and people are sufficiently distracted from the previous football season).

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All you really need to know is this:  at halftime, Rutgers led the Lady Vols 33-13; by game's end, the Lady Vols had won 55-51.  Those familiar with the Lady Vols basketball program know what happened in between those two scores.  Pat Summit furthered her legacy as one of the best basketball coaches ever - men's, women's, amateur, pro, take your pick.

This Lady Vols team is very young.  When you lose 5 starters in an offseason, you have to expect some growing pains.  When you're down by 20 in a hostile environment against a very good team that has every reason to hold a grudge against you (national championship tourney loss 2 years ago; controversial loss in Knoxville last year) and you're starting a bunch of sophomores and freshmen, things are bleak.

I didn't get to catch anything of the game except the last 14 seconds when Rutgers missed a shot on their last possession, but they did replay one thing from halftime: Pat Summitt explaining to Angie Bjorklund exactly why it was unacceptable for her to not take a shot during the first half and exactly why lapses like that were the reason the team was behind.  No punches pulled, no feel-good tactfulness, just straight-up Summittizing of the players.

Ask any former Lady Vols player and they'll all tell you that the hardest thing to get used to is to not take Summitt's criticisms as personal attacks, but simply the bare-bones, objective realities that the players need to understand to improve.  If the players don't figure that out, a halftime like that could cause them to cocoon within themselves, never to re-emerge for the rest of the game.

But this Lady Vols team got it.

In the second half, they simply outworked Rutgers, never allowing an opportunity to pass.  They consistently battled back, holding Rutgers to an 18-point half themselves and slowly bringing the score even, then finally ahead.  Angie took her shots to end second on the team with 12 points (Stricklen had 16) off of 4-6 FG, 2-3 3-pt and 2-2 FT.  That's just one example of many individual efforts that stepped up and contributed to an entirely different team dynamic in the second half -one that we're used to seeing from a Summitt-led team.

We can't assume that this team will win all of their games from here one, but we can assume this much; they'll never count themselves out of a game until the final buzzer sounds.

Congrats, Ladies.

In answer to Joel's assertion of my whereabouts last week sometime, I am indeed there.  Real or not, I'm in a wonderfully cozy little cove int he middle of Wyoming where the water comes out of the ground packing heat to the tune of about 140 F, even in winter.  Having spent the bulk of the morning soaking in said mineral waters (cooled down to a balmy 104), I'm well and wonderfully rested up.  Having also ditched the in-laws for the day (daytripping to go look at sheep), I finally have the time necessary to actually log in and read up on all the wondrous things I've been missing.  I've noted that:

• Monte was kind enough to join the Vols staff as early as possible rather than slogging through the playoffs.  What a guy.
• Chism combined his up/down in one game, leading the Vols before an injury.  Hey, that's efficiency for you.
• Has any SEC team played a bowl game yet?
• Stupid Broncos.  The game against the Chargers should never have even mattered.  It's a shame they can't draft Berry this year...

Despite my absentia, I do plan on getting some stuff up for you all soon.  I have some photoshops pictures proving the existence of my little dreamland; once I get a few more, I'll toss up a photo montage of one of my favorite places on Earth.  (You don't want to visit.  Nope.  Nobody else needs to see it or move in.  Nothing to see here; just keep moving.) 

Until then, enjoy the remains of 2008.  You might; it's not like agonizing over the pain of the year will help anything.

	December 20, 2008 3:00 EST TV: ESPN Internet TV: ESPN360.com Radio: Vol Network Phone Broadcast: TeamLine Live Stats: UTSports
7-2 No. 16 (AP) No. 19 (USA Today)		4-3   NR(AP)   NR (USA Today)

Jackson the Mule says . . .

. . . do they carry their AARP cards while playing?

Leave your pre-, in-, and post-game thoughts below.

Go Vols! Hulk smash . . . seniors!

In which the real world rears its ugly head and laughs at my hope for free time.

We're all in the same boat, I'm sure, so I won't belabor the point about lack of time.  Short story:  runup into conference; conference; catchup between conference and holiday travels; Christmas shopping somewhere in there; honey-do list.  That said, I'll take it over Joel's head cold any day.  Back to the regular programming:

• Wir haben einen neuen Gerät.  Woo! for Arthur Jeffery, whose name is causing endless trouble on the recruiting sites.  As someone who has their last name misspelled constantly for no apparent reason, I sympathize.  He's coming off a knee injury, so he may redshirt next year, but he's still a huge pickup in a position of dire need.
• 991 and counting!  Pat Summitt is up to 991 career wins after the Lady Vols ended a long home winning streak for Old Dominion.  It wasn't a dominating win, but a solid one on the road against a good team.  For such a young squad, that's good news.  Looking ahead:  if she does break 1,000 at home, it'll most likely be either against Mississippi State on January 29th, or Georgia on February 5th.  If one of those dates appears to be the big shiny round number breaker, does anybody want to go?
• Teague confirms his commitment to Florida.
• Kiffin is taking from the Spurrier again.  I don't know much about the new S&C guy.  Does anybody know anything about his philosophies/reputation/etc?  Are we in for any Eeee! moments of our own?  At the very least, expect a cute comment or two from the Spurrier shortly.  (Also, did you notice how we're picking off coaches from staffs that are still in season?  These are guys who aren't looking for work that we're getting; they're coaches who already had next year lined up.)
  
• The RTT Bowl Game Pickem is still open if you're interested.  I won't repeat the whoe spiel here; just click on the link and follow the instructions if you haven't joined and would like to play.
• Will at SESB is moving.  Joel has already posted the formal introduction, so let me also say that I'm thrilled to work with him.  Will's an absolutely terrific writer.