Randy Smith: Now, What Will We Do?

  • Monday, April 27, 2015
  • Randy Smith
Randy Smith
Randy Smith

Tennessee football fans now have a big dilemma. There are 132 days remaining until the start of the 2015 college football season and with the momentum that head coach Butch Jones has built after only two seasons in Knoxville, most of the Big Orange faithful are wondering, "Now, what will we do?"

The annual Orange-White spring football game drew 63,000 fans to Neyland Stadium. Make that 63,000 rabid, hungry and excited fans. The Orange team which consisted of the first team defense outlasted the White team, with the first team offense, 54-44.

Defensive back Cam Sutton had the highlite play of the day with a tipped-ball fumble recovery for a touchdown, as he foiled a trick play attempt by the White team. The fans who came to the game certainly got their money's worth on a sunny beautiful spring afternoon.

Now however, the waiting and anticipation kicks into high gear. 132 days to read newspapers, magazines and listen to sports talk shows. 132 days to gather at the water fountain or coffee pot at work to discuss how the 2015 season will go. 132 days to get your tickets and parking spots wrapped up or buy that big-screen television set you've been thinking about buying. 132 days to agonize about all of the Volunteer players staying healthy and out of trouble until they get back on campus.  132 days until.........well, I think you get my point.

The Volunteers were a much better football team by the end of the 2014 season than they were in 2013. Coach Jones has also had three straight banner recruiting classes locked up, and the Tennessee talent base is almost back to the levels we saw under Phillip Fulmer in the 1990s and early 2000s. The national championship Tennessee won in 1998, and should have won in 2001 created all this hunger and anticipation. The lean seasons from 2008 through 2014 only made it worse. Now Tennessee football is relevant once again.

I doubt that any discussion about a potential national championship run will include any mention of Tennessee in 2015. A much more realistic thought might include an SEC East title and a shot at the SEC Championship. "I just want a decent shot at getting to the SEC Championship Game," one devout Big Orange follower was overheard saying after the spring game. For the first time in years, that could very well be a realistic goal. The Vols will still be very young but also very talented, The 2016 season however, may be the one that puts Tennessee football back in the national championship picture.

Until then, especially for the next 132 days, Tennessee fans need to be patient, as they pass the time until the season opener with Bowling Green on September 5th. Don't mouth off too much with Alabama fans, because no matter how much disdain for the Crimson Tide you have, they will win any argument. So just smile and keep evil thoughts to yourself. Also don't get into it with Georgia fans because they have their own problems. Other than a couple of back to back wins over Tennessee in games they should have lost, they have no other real bragging rights; though they think they do. And there is that nine game losing streak to the hated Florida Gators, which by all counts should end this coming season, but watch what you say about that. 

132 days until Tennessee kicks it off for real, or if you read this tomorrow, it's 131 days. We must remain optimistic.  

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Randy Smith has been covering sports on radio, television and print for the past 45 years. After leaving WRCB-TV in 2009, he has written two books, and has continued to free-lance as a play-by-play announcer. He is currently teaching Broadcasting at Coahulla Creek High School near Dalton, Ga.

His career has included a 17-year stretch as host of the Kickoff Call In Show on the University of Tennessee’s prestigious Vol Network. He has been a member of the Vol Network staff for thirty years.

He has done play-by-play on ESPN, ESPN II, CSS, and Fox SportSouth, totaling more than 500 games, and served as a well-known sports anchor on Chattanooga Television for more than a quarter-century.

In 2003, he became the first television broadcaster to be inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Area Sports Hall of Fame. Randy and his wife Shelia reside in Hixson. They have two married children, (Christi and Chris Perry; Davey and Alison Smith.) They have four grandchildren, Coleman, Boone, DellaMae and CoraLee.

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