🏈 Inventing traditions: Tennessee tries, and it backfires.

[TerryP]

{If given the opportunity to laugh at Tennessee, it's a mortal sin if you choose not to do so. BET. )

SI has an article up this morning that does a pretty good job encapsulating a lot of my thoughts last night.

If you were watching Monday's Tennessee–Georgia Tech game, you might have seen a trash can bearing Tennessee’s classic orange and white pattern. On Tennessee’s own sideline. During a nationally televised game when there would be no hiding from the onslaught of obvious memes.

Confused? You should be. Tennessee decided to motivate its defense by having an assistant coach hoist a large trash can over his head during the game. When the Vols force a turnover, the players take the ball over to the sideline and make a show of dunking it in the trash can, which is emblazoned with the acronym ”HTB“—Hide The Ball.

If this sounds absurd, it looks even worse.







This gimmick is made even better when you consider the source. Tennessee coach Butch Jones was pilloried last year for defending his outgoing senior class, which graduated out without ever winning the SEC East, as winners of “the championship of life.” This February, as he landed the seventh-best recruiting class in the SEC, Jones said that “the only five-star that we even concern ourselves with is a five-star heart.”

The optics were no better during Monday’s game, as Tennessee struggled against the Yellow Jackets, projected by most as a middling ACC team, and one of the Volunteer assistant coaches is holding up a giant trash can on the sideline like it's the Stanley Cup. The Volunteers’ late rally to tie the score at 28 quieted the memes momentarily.

Irony is not dead.

Tennessee's sideline trash can gimmick backfires​

 

[TerryP]

Considering Clay is a Tennessee fan ...



Tennessee fan, used to work for MCA, was the mouthpiece of Roy Adams...

 

[Tidestalker]

LOL. WTF.

 

[TUSKtimes]

So far I've seen the pimp-pole, the garbage can, and the rap-chain. They say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery, but in these cases, it feels like our turnover belt was the last good idea.

 

[bamachine]

I – I just hate Tennessee, man. Like and I hate Neyland Stadium. It looks like a garbage truck worker convention and I hate all they quarterbacks. I just – I hate Tennessee, man.

 

[rocknthefreeworld]

When you have to wear that color orange you either have to go with a prison theme or garbage collection theme. Too many of their players know what the inside of a jail looks like so that narrows the choices some.

 

[bamascw]

Guess they are a tad bit jealous of our Axes and belts. :doh2:

 

[BamaFan334]

All trying to replicate our Ball Out Belt.

 

[Rolltide24]

It's awful and almost too funny to be real. But... they forced 2 huge turnovers that kept them in the game. Who knows, maybe the allure and excitement of getting to dunk the ball in that can motivates them to hustle and cause those turnovers.

 

[Bamabww]

I guess this falls under "you can't fix stupid, but you can laugh at it."

 

[UAgrad93]

Had to be one of the dumbest things I have seen or heard in college football!!

 

[50+yeartidefan]

Its just TN.....what acomeback though....
GT had that gamewell in hand...and then...magic....
Must have watchedUCLA n AnM....

 

[JoshB]

When I saw it during the game I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out wtf the point was... other than "it's Tennessee."