Dooley Explains His "We Needed to Lose to Kentucky" Comment And Jarnell Stokes Vows To Beat Them In Rupp

by Joel Hollingsworth on Feb 3, 2012 8:13 AM EST in Rocky Top Talking Points

Quickie Talking Points this morning:

Dooley's fate at UT depends on wins, not recruits | The Tennessean | tennessean.com
Um, yeah, but winning sorta depends on recruits.

UT Vols join SEC list with offers for Ridgeland High School’s Vonn Bell | timesfreepress.com
Vonn Bell’s list of football scholarship offers grew by one Thursday, and it was the one he had been waiting on for some time.

VolQuest.com - Dooley talks pressure, the off-season and more
"The fear always makes the wolf bigger than it is."

VolQuest.com - Dooley talks state of program in Q-A
"And I also made the comment that upset a lot of people that we needed to lose that Kentucky game for the long term health of the program. People didn't like to hear that. That didn't mean that I wanted to lose. And that doesn't mean I didn't work my tail off to prevent something like that from happening, but I knew we weren't right in a lot of areas. I knew that had we won and gone to a bowl and everyone feels like we are still on track that it would have been harder to correct a lot of issues that I felt needed to be addressed to get this thing right. When you lose a game like that, it allows you to sharpen your focus. It brings a group together. You find out who's really ready to roll up their sleeves and get this thing going. And I have seen a total attitude change in our football team in a positive way and that excites me. Sometimes you have to get knocked on your face before you can get to the top."

SEC Signee Comparison; MrSEC Rankings 2012 | MrSEC
Pretty interesting three-way breakdown of the SEC's recruiting classes.

Source: Derrick Ansley added to UT staff " GoVolsXtra
More connections to Alabama, although this one's a bit more tenuous.

Jarnell Stokes ready to get more physical " GoVolsXtra
"I saw it was all over ESPN; I'm definitely not used to getting my shot blocked,'' the 6-foot-8, 270-pound Stokes said Thursday. "That's something I will learn from. I have to stay with my mechanics, using my left hand and throwing my body into them, that's how you defeat a shot blocker, and something I'll do next time. "It definitely made me more hungry. I definitely wanted to win,'' he said. "If anything, I want to win at Rupp Arena. I plan on winning, before I leave, at Rupp Arena. I'm saying that on the record right now. It made me more hungry and made me dislike Kentucky more.'

'Know Your Role: Renaldo Woolridge

Video: Les Miles mocks Gunner Kiel’s ‘chest and ability to lead a program’ to the delight of LSU fans | Dr. Saturday - Yahoo! Sports
On three-star chests and five-star arms.

0 recs | 44 comments

Comments

4th in the Mr SEC recruiting rankings?

It’s really hard to disagree much with their methodology either.

Also, it’s kinda embarrassing when the utsports site can’t correctly spell the names of our opponents (Siena, by the way). They did it twice too, so it’s not a typo.

Incipient_Senescence - February 3, 2012 reply

This is the first time I've really looked at rankings.

I’m surprised LSU didn’t have a better recruiting year. Not that their year was bad, but they’re tied with us on Mr. SEC, and they just played in the NC game.

TennesseeTyrants - February 3, 2012 reply

Vonn Bell

Is a monster, and if everything goes well on his Feb. visit, he’ll probably pull the trigger. Already UA and UGA offers.

Monster.

Go Vols!

Brad Shepard - February 3, 2012 reply

I love it, Jarnell!

You’re supposed to hate UK! Dislike is a good beginning.

sddbaker - February 3, 2012 reply

Also...

David Climer is a jackwagon.

sddbaker - February 3, 2012 reply

Also...

people who don’t understand what Dooley is saying about the Kentucky loss are just lacking in intelligence. Please note I didn’t say “agree”.

sddbaker - February 3, 2012 reply

Yeah I understand what he was saying

it’s called a spin-job. Or maybe he’s just “looking on the bright side of life”.

http://youtu.be/WlBiLNN1NhQ

Still, I love Dooley as a person. We’ll see about the coaching part.

PdxVol - February 3, 2012 reply

Yeah I see what he is saying,

but its definitely a spin-job. I think its naive to say that the team is better off losing and not getting 30 extra days of practice (or how ever many it is), than winning and getting it. The extra practice and game could definitely have helped out a lot with our younger guys for next year.

VolfanatETSU - February 3, 2012 reply

Generally I agree but given the set of circumstances of last year

I think that team was just done, baked, burnt out and not sure a bunch of extra practices and a crap bowl game was the better option this year.

This was a team broken by just a freaky string of bad luck injuries to the most critical players then they had to play one of the toughest schedules in the country and being as young and physically and emotionally immature on top of that they just needed to shut it down.

I expect this team to post 9+ wins this year. I really, really want a 10 win season even if the 10th win comes from the bowl game. It is time.

phil g - February 3, 2012 reply

And finally...

I had not read anything over at ASOLOL in a while, so I took a look. Gee, I forgot what arrogant homers some of the folks there can be. Makes me love and appreciate RTT even more, especially the great guys who run it and write for it.

sddbaker - February 3, 2012 reply

I like a lot of the folks there

but seriously, one of them commented that if their QB is decent, they definitely should win in Knoxville this year. In football.

Incipient_Senescence - February 3, 2012 reply

VolBrian - February 3, 2012 reply

Trippy

If you concentrate, you can reverse the direction that the LOLs are flowing.

danmarcel - February 3, 2012 reply

That is trippy

kidbourbon - February 3, 2012 via mobile reply

Agreed

I thoroughly enjoyed the last two minutes of my life playing that little trick. And I’m not even kidding.

Joel Hollingsworth - February 3, 2012 reply

So they actually flow out of his mouth?

I’ve always reversed that, for whatever reason.

Chris Pendley - February 3, 2012 reply

There's a right brain / left brain test very similar to that.

A silhouette of a dancer that’s rotating. If it’s rotating clockwise, you’re right brained (or left, I can’t remember which). If it’s rotating counterclockwise, you’re the other brained.

But I see it backwards too.

David Hooper - February 3, 2012 reply

Ah.

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/left-brain-right-brain-and-the-spinning-girl/

And they say the right brain / left brain thing is bunk. Still, I always see clockwise.

David Hooper - February 3, 2012 reply

I just see large breasts

VolBrian - February 3, 2012 reply

But I do see them rotating counter-clockwise.

VolBrian - February 3, 2012 reply

I also see a female with very nice proportions

But I see her rotating clockwise.

kidbourbon - February 3, 2012 via mobile reply

I finally got her to rotate counter-clockwise

It took some effort, though.

kidbourbon - February 3, 2012 via mobile reply

Uh huh.

That’s why you stared so long. ;)

danmarcel - February 3, 2012 reply

Have to admit

She was probably the most aesthetically pleasing optical illusion I’ve encountered.

Whoever drew that silhouette didn’t have to make her hot, but they went ahead and went that extra mile and did make her hot. And that was nice of them to do.

kidbourbon - February 3, 2012 via mobile reply

I saw clockwise

after about 45 seconds, I saw counterclockwise for about 15 seconds, and then it changed back. I definitely can’t control which one I’m seeing. The switch just happened

Incipient_Senescence - February 3, 2012 reply

I finally got to the point where I could flip it back and forth.

kidbourbon - February 3, 2012 via mobile reply

What's interesting is that for some people...

…the switch will just happen. For me, I had to make a conscious effort to change it. She would have kept going clockwise forever.

kidbourbon - February 3, 2012 via mobile reply

I tried and tried and tried and couldn't flip it

and then I blinked and it was flipped. And then I blinked again about 15 seconds later and it flipped back. After a minute of consciously trying to flip it and failing

Incipient_Senescence - February 4, 2012 reply

That's the test

for something else…

sddbaker - February 3, 2012 reply

Huh.

I guess I’ll take that down, flip it, and reverse it.

In my brain.

Chris Pendley - February 3, 2012 reply

She just keeps changing back and forth on me, although the first time I looked at it, I got clockwise.

sddbaker - February 3, 2012 reply

same

It’s a total pain to intentionally change direction, but it does it on its own quite well.

Caban - February 3, 2012 reply

Ha! I finally got it to change direction.

My goodness that took forever.

VolfanatETSU - February 3, 2012 reply

That's how I discovered it

Because whenI first saw it, they were flowing into his mouth. But from the dog, it appears that you’re supposed to see them flowing out. So I stared a bit longer, and made it go the other way.

danmarcel - February 3, 2012 reply