3rd Saturday in Blogtober

Vols fans were duped by BB

It was March 16, 2009, a day I hammered  the “Refresh” button like a carpenter on crack, waiting, anticipating the impending decision of Bryce Brown. The No. 1 player in the nation according to Rivals.com was going to pick where he would supposedly spend the next four years of his life. A Tennessee hat was on that table, and we needed another top running back in the stable.

I’ll never forget Brown — the talented but tainted running back from Wichita, Kansas — putting on that orange cap, donning the Power T. It was recruiting glory in all its raw euphoria. It was calling my buddies and WOOOOO!ing like some fools do when they sing Rocky Top. It was puffing out our chest and putting in the rear view the frustrating past few years. It was smack-talking with everybody who dared say anything about Lane Kiffin that the man was doing work. It was a sign, that day at least, that the Big Orange was back.

In reality, it was all a lie that has turned into another chapter in an embarrassing few years. Brown played us for a fool, much like Kiffin.

“His mouth’s movin, ain’t it?”

Everybody thought that Brown was the Next Great Tennessee Running Back. He was the big coup that everybody may say was damaged goods but in a couple of years, they’d wish he was theirs. He was an open window to jawing at the rest of the college football world. And he left us with egg and frustration on our faces. Who else does that sound like?

It seems only fitting now that the recruiting crown jewel of Kiffin’s Tennessee tenure would be fool’s gold. And that’s what Brown has become to every single Vols fan — including myself — who has allowed himself to get caught up in his second recruiting circus that has played out much like the first one. Brown was in Knoxville the past couple of days, leading many to believe that he would finally have that sit-down meeting with new head coach Derek Dooley and either ask to return to the team or ask for his release. As it turns out, the meeting never happened, and reports have leaked that Brown either texted or emailed Dooley letting him know of his intents to go to Kansas State.

Who knows anymore? The only thing that seems clear to me anymore is that Brown won’t be wearing the orange uniform this year or anymore. That’s probably for the best, but it does kind of leave a hollow feeling of unfulfilled promises along with a bad taste in my mouth.

[In case you've been living under a rock, we'll rehash Brown's past couple of years in drive-by mode. He was given the top-ranked player in Rivals' class and was thought to be a lock to join his brother Arthur in Miami for the longest time, yet dragged his recruitment out of high school long past signing day. After a whirlwind visit tour, Brown made a last-weekend sneak into Knoxville before committing on March 16 of 2009. He played last season and performed admirably as Montario Hardesty's backup, not fumbling once in 111 touches, though he never played like the top prospect in the country as he battled nagging injuries. Then, Kiffin left Knoxville -- long after Brown's top recruiter Eddie Gran bolted for Florida State -- and Brown began asking questions. Dooley was hired, and before spring practice, he told the media he expected Brown would be on the football field with the team. Opening day of spring came without Brown, and it was rumored that he was transferring. Since then, he has failed to participate in any team drills, went back to Kansas, returned to Knoxville multiple times and yet never met or talked with Dooley. Now, here we are a month from football season, and his career is in limbo. As Crimson Daddy said yesterday, it almost appears he doesn't want to play football anywhere.]

Instead of worrying about the one person who isn’t here, Dooley is concerned about the guys who have proven they want to be Vols.

“I said (earlier) that I was open to Bryce coming back on the condition that he wanted to unpack his bags and put his heart into this program,” Dooley told Rotary Club members yesterday. “I fully expect Bryce not to be on our team. The reason it has continued on is because Bryce has not come to me, looked me in the eye and said I want a release to so-and-so school. At some point, that’s got to happen.”

It still hasn’t happened.

“Everybody is worried about (Brown’s status) except me,” Dooley told the Rotarians. “I view him as not on our team.”

That’s a big problem with UT fans these days. We went so many years talking about Alabama fans living in the past, and now, we continually worry about the past. Seven months ago, we were a mess, forced to take up for our idiot coach every day for running his mouth, worrying constantly about breaking NCAA rules or committing secondary violations and not caring about the quality of kid who was committing to Tennessee as long as they were quality players. Looking back, it could turn into perhaps the darkest period of Tennessee football history ever, much less in just our lifetimes. Yet, here we are, worried about primadonna players from that time, and we still concern ourselves way too much — and talk way too much — about that fool who coached us, who duped us into believing that we were right and everybody else was wrong, that we were the smart ones for siding with him and everybody else were idiots.

It was a big ol’ lie that whole time. When the opportunity for Kiffin to bolt presented itself, he left us like a fleeing thief in the night. Why try to build USC East when you can have the real thing? When things got rough on Brown, when the water got a little ripply, Brown left, too.

Flash forward to today. The Vols have a coach who actually wants to be here, feels privileged to have the opportunity to be here. They’re recruiting the right kinds of  kids who want to be representatives of our university, want to put us back on the map and will stay long enough and probably work hard enough to do it. And we’re griping that we didn’t hire a marquee coach and aren’t recruiting higher-rated players. It’s maddening to me, the entire process. No, they aren’t the five-star talents that Brown are, but what did Brown do for us? What did Darren Myles Jr. do for us? What did Nu’Keese Richardson do for us? Isn’t it better to have three-star players for four years than have highly rated players who do nothing at all?

I say yes. I also know how far down we are and, while I don’t know how long it’ll take for us to get out, it’s easy to see some of the main reasons we’re here in the first place. Read the paragraphs above.

It takes more than euphoric moments, hollow words and high-rated, low-character players to rebuild a program. It takes commitment. It takes leadership. And, most importantly, it takes time.

Regardless of what you may think now, we’re better without Kiffin, whether we’re “better” with Dooley or not. We are better without Brown, too.