By Alex Norman
If you spend any time listening to local sports talk radio you know that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of people out there that could do a better job than Butch Jones and members of his coaching staff at Tennessee.
We know this because the moment a pass is dropped or a punt is shanked or another loss is racked up, the callers are the ones that have the answers to why things went so wrong.
Well guess what… here’s your chance to make a difference!
The other day I was on “the Twitter” when I saw a posting from Football Scoop.
Tennessee: The University of Tennessee is seeking to fill a quality control position working with the receivers. Seeking applicants who have coached, or served as a grad assistant working with, receivers in the past. Please send resume and references to director of player personnel Bob Welton at Bob.Welton@utk.edu.
Yes folks… this is a prime opportunity to show that you have what it takes to make a difference for “Team 119.”
Now, you won’t be calling plays and probably won’t be doing much in terms of on field instruction, but let’s face facts… you will be working with the wide receivers. How hard is it to catch a football anyway!
(Just to be clear. I’ll be fairly sarcastic in this article. Catching a football while people are trying to hit you so hard your cousin feels the pain would probably be extremely difficult.)
Tennessee is known as “Wide Receiver U” and there is a crop of pass catchers on the roster that has the potential to add to the legacy of Willie Gault, Carl Pickens, Peerless Price, Joey Kent, etc…
If you are hired, maybe you’ll be the guy that cuts up video clips to show Von Pearson how he can better use his 6-3 height to reach the football at its highest point.
If you are hired, perhaps you will be the guy to get through to Josh Malone to harness all that 5-star talent into someone that has a breakthrough 2015 season.
If you are hired, maybe you can find a way to keep Josh Smith and Jason Croom and Cody Blanc from getting injured. Actually, maybe you can follow the entire wide receiving corps around campus and be ready to surround each player in bubble wrap so that ACL’s stay untorn, shoulders remain unseparated and ribs unbroken.
Wide Receivers coach and Passing Game Coordinator Zach Azzanni will find your talents in playing football video games so impressive that he asks you to look over the gameplan during Florida week. Maybe you’ll suggest something that no one has figured out and be the reason the Vols beat the Gators for the first time in 11 years!
It’s possible that Azzanni will be offered an offensive coordinator job in the near future at another school. When he offers to take you with him and make you his wide receivers coach you need to jump at that chance!
Five short years later, when you have already replaced Azzanni as OC and come up with an innovative offense that puts up 55 points a game, you and Sammy Hagar re-make the “I Can’t Drive… 55!” song and video for a new audience. They debut at the 2020 National Championship Game, a game your team wins 55-54 on a last second two point conversation in which your top wide receiver THROWS for the winning score to an eligible offensive lineman.
This innovation will catch the eye of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who is looking for a replacement for Bill Belichick after it was discovered the Pats were actually using Nerf footballs during their entire dynasty.
You will become the Patriots head coach for the 2021 season. Over the next ten years you will win ten Super Bowls. The NFL will actually force you out of the league because you are simply too dominant a force.
So you’ll come back to Tennessee as head coach in 2031, and immediately lead the Vols to their first National Championship since 1998 with Marshall Manning throwing touchdown pass after touchdown pass. Peyton Manning says that he is proud of his Heisman Trophy winning son, but that he couldn’t coach him as well as you did.
All of this is ready to happen. All it takes is that first email to Bob Welton.
Or you can just wait until the commercial break is over and tell the sports talk radio host that Butch Jones needs to get Marquez North to be more explosive off the snap.
Either way… you are making it happen!
