Behind the replies, the Board’s old guard is running a quiet search.

4-minute read

Three men have been selected by the Message Board’s old guard for a trip to the Tennessee–Arkansas game. At least that’s the cover story. Their real assignment is to swing through Hot Springs and find out whether Sam Pittman has any interest in coming back to Knoxville.

The Board’s old guard has spent more than twenty years on Tennessee message boards, watching coaches come and go.

Think of the deacons at a Baptist church up on Sand Mountain, gathering in the back room to assemble a pulpit committee and send three men to look over the next preacher. Same idea, except Glen Elarbee is still preaching.

THE OLD GUARD SENDS THREE MEN

The Board could have drawn from its considerable bench of seasoned executives, captains of industry and men who have been telling Tennessee how to run a football program since dial-up. Instead, it picked three knuckleheads. PorchVol, a Rogersville small-engine shop owner with 18,771 posts, got the chairmanship. CheckerboardCharlie, an Athens car-finance man with 8,419 posts, would handle money. Exit81, a Lenoir City freight dispatcher with 5,608 posts, would drive.

Nobody knows who called the emergency meeting. The signal appeared inside an innocent-looking Braves–Dodgers thread. The old guard knew to report to a virtual Teams meeting.

At the Teams meeting, BeattieFeathers hinted that someone inside UTAD had informally requested help. No names. LWSVol maintains that UTAD monitors the board, and some veterans believe UT staffer Bill Martin quietly passes messages between the staff and the Board. They regard this as helping Heupel with matters Knoxville’s left-wing drive-by sports media can’t be trusted to handle.

Whether anybody inside UTAD actually asked is beside the point. The Board can act as though the athletic department has blessed the mission, while the athletic department need never acknowledge it. PorchVol, Charlie and Exit81 got the assignment.

Their first stop will be the Benton Buc-ee’s, where Pittman is a regular. He was spotted there buying swim trunks and two bags of jerky—mesquite pepper for himself, teriyaki for his wife. The three hope to run into him on his next visit, casually mention Knoxville, and call it a chance encounter.

The younger crowd has “can’t coach, can’t recruit, can’t develop” circulating on Facebook, Instagram, X and every other football feed it can reach. The old guard is trying to rein them in. They don’t have to like Elarbee to see what that might do to recruiting.

Imagine being a high-school tackle Tennessee is recruiting. You look up your prospective coach and find his own team’s fans telling the world he’s an idiot. Hell of a sales pitch. Georgia can leave the brochures at home.

THE BEER REPORT

On Tony Basilio’s show, somebody asked what Sam Pittman was doing. LWSVol reports that he’s retired and drinking beer.

How the hell does LWSVol know? Is he sitting on Pittman’s dock counting PBR cans?

The committee had permission to float two options, not make a job offer. First, Pittman could return as a Saban-style off-field analyst. That would give the Board and, presumably, UTAD time to nudge Elarbee toward early retirement for supposed “health concerns.”

Second, if Arkansas became another Texas-style sack disaster, Heupel could fire Elarbee and Pittman could step straight in. Compensation would be extraordinary, they were assured, but dollar figures were off limits.

Officially, the three men were going to the Arkansas game. Hot Springs was an unscheduled detour. If anybody caught them sounding out Pittman, the Board and UTAD would deny knowing a damn thing about it. The committee would be on its own.

The committee wants a proven offensive-line coach. Fine. Strip the names, schools and years from two coaching résumés. Which one belongs to the savior?

Category	Coach A	Coach B
Joe Moore Award	Multiple semifinals	multiple semifinals
Rushing offense	Top 10 nationally	Top 10 nationally
All-SEC linemen	Five straight seasons	Multiple selections
All-Americans	First-team honorees	First-team honorees
Rimington Trophy	Finalist	Finalist
NFL Draft	First-round pick; others drafted	Multiple first-rounders; others drafted

One résumé has more first-round NFL linemen, spread across a longer career. No getting around that. But both feature Joe Moore recognition, top-ten rushing production, All-SEC and All-America players, Rimington finalists and NFL draft picks. So which one can’t coach? The Board has an answer. The résumés aren’t nearly so cooperative.

But sure. Can’t coach. Can’t recruit.

Ten sacks against Texas? Hammer the coach responsible for it. Fair. But when every achievement becomes an accident, the Board isn’t evaluating anybody. It’s keeping an urban legend alive.

The advance party will report to the Board’s inner circle. Glen will still have a job. Pittman may still be drinking beer.

Give US six weeks. WE can fire him, too.

These are real public discussions held by real Tennessee fans.

Related: VolQuest Came for Elarbee. PinhotiVol Brought a 2×4. · Somebody Forgot to Tell Glen Elarbee He Can’t Coach