Tennessee sleepwalked through long stretches Saturday night. The players looked flat. The staff looked confused, bored or both. At times the whole operation had the urgency of a Wednesday walk-through.

Naturally, the REDACTED message board needed answers.

Gentlemen. Check the fucking mirror.

For decades, LWSVol and OldBullsGapVol have warned that the athletic department watches the board. Coaches watch it. Opponents especially watch it, because this may be the only message board in the SEC where actual tendencies, personnel information and game-planning ideas occasionally get discussed in public.

Sources and methods, of course, are never revealed.

The better information moves through backchannels now, like a hillbilly dark web. Personnel. Matchups. Weaknesses. Recruiting intelligence. Game-week material apparently requiring clearance and a reference from the county quarterback club.

The board spent the week looking toward Texas, settling old grudges, creating new feuds and discussing nearly everything except the team Tennessee was about to play.

Then Tennessee took the field and treated Kennesaw with roughly the same respect.

Now the board is hurt, pissed and searching for somebody else to blame.

By postgame, the quarterback couldn’t see the field, the roster lacked enough depth to survive an SEC season, Jeremiah Telander was responsible for linebacker play in several different time zones, and Texas had somehow turned into the 1985 Chicago Bears.

Tennessee won 56–9.

Nobody seemed particularly relieved.

General Neyland Never Had a Fourth-Quarter Song

The mourning period for Dolly Parton apparently ended sometime this week. Some would place it somewhere between the third and fourth quarters Saturday night.

Tennessee played “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” and the board immediately began debating fourth-quarter music as if General Neyland had left a sealed envelope marked OPEN DURING TEXAS WEEK.

BeattieFeathers was in. George Cafego was in.

The concept of a designated fourth-quarter song probably would have confused General Neyland, who coached in an era when stadium entertainment consisted mostly of football, cigarettes, whiskey and hoping your son came home from Korea.

No matter. Tradition had been threatened.

Tennessee could sleepwalk through Kennesaw. Play the wrong Dolly song and somebody needed to answer for it.

Did You Ever Play Football, or Are You Just a Non-Athlete?

The quarterback thread began with the ordinary diagnosis that Tennessee’s quarterback wasn’t seeing the field. Soon the important question became whether the people discussing quarterback vision had ever played football themselves—or were they simply non-athletes?

This is how serious message-board analysis works. Before questioning a read, please provide your varsity letter and the name of your former high-school athletic director.

User Pantone was particularly useful in moving the discussion from football disagreement into personal credentials. Keep an eye on Pantone. We may have a nasty boarder developing.

Telander Somehow Remains Employed

Tennessee football has certain constants. The Power T. Checkerboards. Rocky Top. John Ward. Bob Kesling. Brent Hubbs. Angry Rob Lewis.

Add somebody deciding Jeremiah Telander has ruined the program.

Kennesaw offered another opportunity. Several men who have presumably never shared a linebacker room with anybody, including themselves, concluded that Telander remains a serious problem.

Texas is next. There is no time for patience. Or Telander.

The Big Dark Empty

Kennesaw also exposed something much worse: the depth chart. Or the alleged emptiness of it.

By postgame, one lackluster night had become evidence that six years of roster construction had produced approximately seven football players and a couple of emergency contacts.

The board wondered how this could possibly happen.

Again: Gentlemen. Check the fucking mirror.

You spent the week looking past Kennesaw. Apparently everybody did.

The Offensive Line Is Still Guilty

The offensive line had been bashed all night. Then VolNavyMan pointed out something inconvenient: there had actually been some enormous running lanes.

That lasted about six seconds.

It’s Kennesaw. The holes therefore did not count. The offensive line remains guilty.

Which brings us back to VolNavyMan.

VolNavyMan Found the Guardrail

VolNavyMan has been around this place for nearly two decades. That is enough time for most people to mellow. It has not had the desired effect.

A board member had helped set up a GoFundMe for another poster dealing with a serious pulmonary illness and the bills that came with it.

VolNavyMan took the opportunity to attack. Not question it. Not wonder aloud. Attack.

At one point he fired off: “Don’t you have a GoFundMe to go set up or contribute to or something?”

The rest of the board seemed to recoil.

Even REDACTED has guardrails. VolNavyMan found one and drove straight through it.

New Heels

We are also developing some fresh talent: WaylonVol. Bigun. VolNavyMan. And Pantone is making a push.

No need to crown anybody yet. They’ll provide plenty more evidence on their own.

The Tennessee “Oh Shit” Postgame Temperature Gauge

Tennessee won 56–9. This has done almost nothing for morale.

The quarterback can’t see. The depth chart is empty. Telander remains loose. The offensive line’s good plays don’t count because Kennesaw isn’t good enough. The fourth-quarter song is wrong.

And the next opponent is Texas.

A 56–9 win has somehow become evidence of the coming disaster. The board isn’t enjoying the win. It is already trying to determine exactly how humiliating the next loss will be.

92% TENNESSEE ORANGE