Orange Blur, Karns graduate and self-appointed talent scout, briefly surfaced on the On3 message board with an explanation.
Blur had developed an unsavory reputation on the board for allegedly encouraging promising Tennessee football players in Knoxville and Nashville to consider Memphis and Vanderbilt instead of Tennessee, which had made him persona non grata on the board.
Subsequently, his post was quickly deleted by board moderators, apparently on account of his previous trolling antics. Fortunately, somebody got a copy before it disappeared. We have it below.
There it is. The revenge narrative can be put away. DeSean Bishop wasn’t trying to settle a score with Alex Golesh. The kid from Karns was just raised right. Golesh had seen something in him, Heupel gave him an opportunity at Tennessee, and Bishop apparently wanted to express his gratitude.
He chose to show his gratitude with the traditional East Tennessee thank-you note: 34 carries, three touchdowns and 158 yards after contact. Nothing vindictive about it at all. “Young’un got manners and all”.
Of course, the following post directly contradicted Orange Blur’s supposed inside knowledge. WolfpackVol had his own source—somebody “close enough to know”—and an entirely different version of events.
WolfpackVol: “Folks, I was told this by somebody close enough to know. Golesh was THE single obstacle between Bishop & UT. Didn’t want him on scholarship. From what I was told, didn’t even want him as a walk-on!!! Think about that. Knoxville kid gets told he isn’t good enough, stays home anyway, earns the scholarship and then runs for 220 against the guy who didn’t want him. If that doesn’t make you love this kid I don’t know what will. This game was PERSONAL!!!”
You decide what you want to believe.
Bill Martin, Tennessee football’s senior associate AD for strategic communications, enjoys unusual standing with the board. They have more or less appointed him their communications link to UTAD—the source who presumably carries the Board’s schemes, personnel recommendations and general instructions back to the football complex.
After Bishop went for 220, Martin started pushing. SEC Player of the Week. Doak Walker. Heisman long-shots.
For once, everybody was working off the same plan.
By now, the Elarbee-can’t-coach stuff has crossed over from criticism into urban legend — message-board folklore, the kind of scary story Chattanooga parents tell the kids to keep them from going parking at Bragg Reservation on Missionary Ridge after dark. Ten sacks. No development. Can’t recruit. Can’t coach. Repeat it often enough and eventually somebody swears they saw it moving between the monuments.
Then Cole Cubelic looked at the tape. He decided to debunk the BS.
Cole Cubelic is not some nerd with a podcast and a ring light. He was an Auburn center and team captain, has spent years breaking down SEC football for ESPN and SEC Network, and does film-room work on offensive and defensive line play. In other words, a real, respected ball-knower — and an Auburn one at that. When Cubelic points at what Tennessee is doing up front, it carries a little more weight than the latest telling of the Elarbee ghost story.
And since Glen Elarbee gets blamed for every sack, busted protection and crooked shoelace, he gets a little of this too: somebody coached the offensive line that helped Tennessee run for 220.
Hat tip, Elarbee. Enjoy the next 11 minutes before the board fires you again.
Bishop did the hard part. He ran through Auburn.
The board will handle the paperwork.
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