Tick...tock...

 

It has been over a month since Tyson Helton left to become the head coach at Western Kentucky and his replacement has still not been named.  There have been many names that have been mentioned and many of those names have either declined the position or have taken a position at another school.

There has been speculation and reports that Tennessee has offered the job to Mike Yurcich.  If this is true, I hope he accepts the job.  There are rumors circulating that Ohio State has now expressed interest in Yurcich.  And this scares me, because Yurcich is an Ohio native.  If Yurcich does accept the job with Ohio State, then Tennessee has been playing the waiting game for nothing and will possibly have to settle on an OC.

If Tennessee does have to go back to the drawing board after the start of the New Year, the candidate pool will be very slim in the college ranks.  However, there are two names that keep floating around from the NFL ranks:

 

Freddie Kitchens

Kitchens name has been tied to the Tennessee job since the vacancy sign was first placed out front of Neyland Stadium.  After watching what he was able to do with the Cleveland Browns offense and Baker Mayfield after taking over halfway through the season, I'm all in favor of Tennessee offering him the job if Yurcich declines the job.

However, there is a major development that might keep Kitchens from being the next OC.  Cleveland.com is reporting that the Browns will interview Kitchens in their search for a new head coach.  So this means that Pruitt might not even be able to land his college roommate to be his next OC.

 

Steve Sarkisian

Sarkisian's name has surfaced in the past few days as a serious candidate.  While people say he meets all the Pruitt requirements (pro-style offense, familiarity, great recruiter, former Power 5 head coach), I am not a fan of this candidate.

I have major concerns with Sarkisian.  His off the field battle with alcoholism does not bother me, but it does scare me.  One slip up and he can easily fall off the wagon and become the man that cost himself the head coaching position at USC.  Where I am really concerned is with his on the field decision making.  Sarkisian's play calling as an OC the past several seasons has been choppy and unbalanced, while his red-zone decisions has left football fans scratching their heads.

In two seasons as the OC for the Atlanta Falcons, his offense has ranked outside the Top 10.  Sarkisian may be a "great offensive mind", but he was a casualty of Black Monday in the NFL  Reporters and analysts may call Sarkisian a home run hire, but I call him a hard sell.

Whomever Tennessee decides to hire, regardless of who it is, there is one thing that all Volunteer fans will agree with:

A Petty Penny

 

“You could visibly see guys with their fists balled, talking trash to our guys. It was almost like a standoff.”

Those are the words from Memphis men's basketball coach, Anfernee Hardaway after his team was beaten on their homecourt by Tennessee, 102-92.  Does the first year COLLEGE head coach not realize that this isn't the high school or AAU level?  This game was broadcasted on ESPN, and I'm sure if the situation Coach Hardaway described in his post-game press conference had actually happened, the broadcasters for the network would have said something on air about it.

What actually happened was the on-court leaders of the Tennessee basketball team came over to the Memphis side of the court following a timeout to get Jordan Bone away from Memphis guard Alex Lomax.  Bone and Lomax had both just been given a technical foul along with Memphis Jeremiah Martin.

Jordan Bone said he should have kept his head cool when Lomax began trash talking him right before the timeout was called, and deserved his technical foul.  However, Hardaway sees it differently, "Alex is a kid that’s not gonna talk trash, so obviously Jordan Bone said something to him disrespectfully.  He protected himself by, you know, saying something back."

Really Anfernee?  The video footage clearly shows Lomax say something to Bone, which causes the Volunteers junior guard to then get in the freshman's face and start the verbal confrontation.  Hardaway said, "If you just watch the film I’m not making anything up. We even had it on the phone."  Everyone has watched the film, Anfernee, and you are the only one who sees it your way.

It would have been nice if that is where this blog post stopped.  But thanks to Anfernee Hardaway's press conference on Tuesday, there is now more to this story:

On Monday, Tennessee coach, Rick Barnes said on Vol Calls, the referees were calling the game closely and to the letter of the law.  He just wished that there was a rule in place for flopping.  Vol fans know that Barnes was saying it tongue in cheek since he is very light hearted on the call in show.  But apparently Anfernee Hardaway didn't like the comments, "No matter how he’s trying to make things seem, and I think it's kind of low class how he’s trying to downgrade my guys for flopping and all that. Man, come on, give me a break."

Coach Hardaway wasn't finished. “As a coach you’re going to try to teach charges, you’re going to try to teach to be smart," he said. "We were smaller. They played a physical game, and we knew that and the calls just didn’t go our way. As far as flopping, that’s not something that we teach. We don’t even understand that term but he seems to be focusing on the wrong thing, man. He’s blessed to have the No. 3 team in the country and he should be happy with that. And we will see each other again, for sure.”

To me, it sounds like Anfernee Hardaway is focusing on the wrong thing.  He is trying to keep his team and his name in the media by trying to start a war of words with Rick Barnes.  All he is doing is sounding petty and immature.  If he wants to talk about low class, maybe he should take a long, hard look in the mirror.  Coach Hardaway, you are at the University of Memphis now, not Memphis East High School.  You should try to emulate how Rick Barnes is on and off the court, instead of sounding like a petty high school coach.

Note:  In this blog, I refused to call Anfernee Hardaway by his nickname.  What little respect I had for him as a player when I used to call him "Penny" Hardaway is gone.