After sorting through my emails, I checked the calendar to make sure summer hadn’t come and gone and September was right around the corner.
All my literary contributors wrote about football this week. What does that tell us?
It tells us that college football has more seasons than ever, and that those seasons often overlap.
The regular season lasts from late August to the end of November. The postseason stretches from early December to late January. Spring practice takes up March and April. Preseason practice runs from late July to late August.
And the NIL business lasts all year long.
Glenn writes: Nico’s dad did quite a number on him. Left a successful program and good QB coach for a floundering program and less money.
There is a saying amongst stock market investors that “pigs get slaughtered.” This is what greed does for you. Forfeited in excess of 2 mil for what he has now.
Too bad for Nico, but his dad got what he deserved. Collectives and schools are going to have to put buyouts in all these NIL arrangements.
My response: I wonder what Nico will give his dad for Father’s Day next month. Maybe he can find a piggy bank at an antique store.
Vols Mark writes: In the modern NIL-fueled college football world, a quarterback isn’t a legacy — he’s a fungible biological unit. When one transfers out for a higher bidder, it’s not betrayal; it’s economics. Coaches/Fans need to stop agonizing over lost loyalty and start thinking like logistics managers: replace the departing unit with another of equal or greater efficiency.
It’s not about who left. It’s about how fast you can swap out the part and keep the machine running.
Kudos to Coach Heupel. He gets it. No panic, no pleading. Just reload and move forward.
In this new era, it’s not sentiment that wins championships. It’s adaptation.
My response: Kudos to you for injecting fungible biological unit into my column. That inspired me to watch a video on the “Fungal Life Cycle and caused me to reflect on how long I have had a fungus on my right little toe.
Also, congrats for using a semicolon properly.
Don writes: Why give Derek Dooley a pass when writing about the poor production from Butch Jones and Jeremy Pruitt?
My first Neyland Stadium game was Vols and Vanderbilt in 1951. Got bitten and have stayed loyal to UT for 75 years.
My response: I apologize for not trashing one of Tennessee’s former coaches. Dooley’s record – three consecutive losing seasons – speaks for itself.
But your email gives me an idea for a future column: Ranking the worst games of Tennessee’s worst stories.
Coming soon.
Parker writes: Enjoyed your articles on ranking Coach Heupel after four seasons and Coach Barnes’ recruiting success. What stood out to me was just how great General Neyland was as a coach and how amazing the turnaround Josh Heupel has brought to the Tennessee football program.
My response: Neyland didn’t just win at a high level. He won in four different decades.
He won his first game in 1926 and his last in 1952. And no matter how much the game changed during that time, he kept winning.
Neyland went 8-1 in his first season and 8-2-1 in his last.
James writes: There were some who said TN did not deserve to be in the playoffs. I just looked at Boise State‘s 2024 schedule. Other than an early game with Oregon (L) and a playoff blowout loss against Penn State, they played no one.
The Mountain West Conference is a joke. Only two teams won more than eight games, and seven of the 12 had losing records.
If running backs Ashton Jeanty (Boise State) and Dylan Sampson (Tennessee) had switched teams, their totals would have been much different. The playoffs need a major revision.
My response: Tennessee did belong in the playoffs. But it didn’t belong on the same field with Ohio State. Few teams did.
Your disdain for the Mountain West Conference is noted.
I thought about forwarding your email to MWC commissioner Gloria Nevarez in hope of a rebuttal but decided to clean out a closet rather than search for her email address.
John Adams is a senior columnist. He may be reached at 865-342-6284 or [email protected]. Follow him at: twitter.com/johnadamskns.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Readers won’t stop writing about Tennessee football, Nico Iamaleava
After sorting through my emails, I checked the calendar to make sure summer hadn’t come and gone and September was right around the corner.
All my literary contributors wrote about football this week. What does that tell us?
It tells us that college football has more seasons than ever, and that those seasons often overlap.
The regular season lasts from late August to the end of November. The postseason stretches from early December to late January. Spring practice takes up March and April. Preseason practice runs from late July to late August.
And the NIL business lasts all year long.
Glenn writes: Nico’s dad did quite a number on him. Left a successful program and good QB coach for a floundering program and less money.
There is a saying amongst stock market investors that “pigs get slaughtered.” This is what greed does for you. Forfeited in excess of 2 mil for what he has now.
Too bad for Nico, but his dad got what he deserved. Collectives and schools are going to have to put buyouts in all these NIL arrangements.
My response: I wonder what Nico will give his dad for Father’s Day next month. Maybe he can find a piggy bank at an antique store.
Vols Mark writes: In the modern NIL-fueled college football world, a quarterback isn’t a legacy — he’s a fungible biological unit. When one transfers out for a higher bidder, it’s not betrayal; it’s economics. Coaches/Fans need to stop agonizing over lost loyalty and start thinking like logistics managers: replace the departing unit with another of equal or greater efficiency.
It’s not about who left. It’s about how fast you can swap out the part and keep the machine running.
Kudos to Coach Heupel. He gets it. No panic, no pleading. Just reload and move forward.
In this new era, it’s not sentiment that wins championships. It’s adaptation.
My response: Kudos to you for injecting fungible biological unit into my column. That inspired me to watch a video on the “Fungal Life Cycle and caused me to reflect on how long I have had a fungus on my right little toe.
Also, congrats for using a semicolon properly.
Don writes: Why give Derek Dooley a pass when writing about the poor production from Butch Jones and Jeremy Pruitt?
My first Neyland Stadium game was Vols and Vanderbilt in 1951. Got bitten and have stayed loyal to UT for 75 years.
My response: I apologize for not trashing one of Tennessee’s former coaches. Dooley’s record – three consecutive losing seasons – speaks for itself.
But your email gives me an idea for a future column: Ranking the worst games of Tennessee’s worst stories.
Coming soon.
Parker writes: Enjoyed your articles on ranking Coach Heupel after four seasons and Coach Barnes’ recruiting success. What stood out to me was just how great General Neyland was as a coach and how amazing the turnaround Josh Heupel has brought to the Tennessee football program.
My response: Neyland didn’t just win at a high level. He won in four different decades.
He won his first game in 1926 and his last in 1952. And no matter how much the game changed during that time, he kept winning.
Neyland went 8-1 in his first season and 8-2-1 in his last.
James writes: There were some who said TN did not deserve to be in the playoffs. I just looked at Boise State‘s 2024 schedule. Other than an early game with Oregon (L) and a playoff blowout loss against Penn State, they played no one.
The Mountain West Conference is a joke. Only two teams won more than eight games, and seven of the 12 had losing records.
If running backs Ashton Jeanty (Boise State) and Dylan Sampson (Tennessee) had switched teams, their totals would have been much different. The playoffs need a major revision.
My response: Tennessee did belong in the playoffs. But it didn’t belong on the same field with Ohio State. Few teams did.
Your disdain for the Mountain West Conference is noted.
I thought about forwarding your email to MWC commissioner Gloria Nevarez in hope of a rebuttal but decided to clean out a closet rather than search for her email address.
John Adams is a senior columnist. He may be reached at 865-342-6284 or [email protected]. Follow him at: twitter.com/johnadamskns.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Readers won’t stop writing about Tennessee football, Nico Iamaleava
