Tennessee Football: Vols Are Bragging Too Much Ahead of 2016 Season

Tennessee football has a lot of hype going into the 2016 season with so many players back. But the Volunteers are beginning to talk too much.

Bob Shoop has yet to coach one game for the Vols as defensive coordinator. Five-star junior college recruit Jonathan Kongbo has yet to even set foot on campus and practice with the team. But those two guys have been at the forefront of talking trash to other teams and bragging about what Tennessee can do.

Related Story: Jonathan Kongbo Predicts Wins vs Alabama and Florida in Upcoming Season

Kongbo started it last week by saying the Vols will beat everybody they play. He went back to that on Tuesday, emphasizing in another interview that he really wants to beat Alabama.

Players often talk like that. But now it is disturbing because a coach has gotten involved. Shoop went on with Jimmy Hyams on WNML-AM Radio Monday night and said that nobody would be able to run on the Vols.

Seriously? Yes, Shoop is a great coach, and Tennessee is expected to have a great front seven. But two main members of the defensive line rotation in that front seven have not yet practiced yet, one of whom is still suspended indefinitely, and two more are coming back after season-ending injuries.

Let’s also mention that depth at linebacker is still a work in progress, and we all know injuries could strike at anytime. Is Shoop seriously going to say nobody will be able to run on them right now, with four months to go before the season begins and so many things that could possibly go wrong until then?

This has been a theme of the Vols recently. They are starting to talk a lot more than they have in the past with such high expectations. But how about accomplishing something before they prove it given the fact that they have flopped before with these same expectations.

Tennessee had its first nine-win season in nearly a decade last year. It was also the first Top 25 finish in the same timeframe. The Vols are basing that fact along with a plethora of returning starters to start talking.

But is it really enough. What gives them the right?

Given that Alabama seems to be a major target, it might be prudent to bring them up. They have won three SEC titles in four years and four national titles in seven years. Do you see Tide coaches running around promoting what other teams can’t do to them?

No.

And they actually can brag considering the fact that they are coming off of a national title.

Sure, on paper the Vols should be great with a rising star in Bob Shoop at defensive coordinator along with a ton of returning starters and Butch Jones at head coach. But before we get all excited, let’s remember that Shoop, Jones, and all Vols players have never tasted any championships at this level. So it’s a little premature to talk this much.

This isn’t new for Tennessee in recent years either. In 2015 the Vols were expected to surprise everybody and win the East, but fans and players realized they still had to develop after choking away games they should’ve won. Going back to 2012, Tyler Brady guaranteed an SEC Championship at SEC Media Days.

How’d that work out? Oh yeah, they went 5-7.

But we can even go all the way back to 2005, when Phillip Fulmer was promoting the program on national television as much as possible throughout the summer to make sure that if Tennessee were undefeated at the end of the year, they would have enough national exposure to not be left out the way the Auburn Tigers were the year before.

The Vols went 5-6 that year. Maybe Fulmer should’ve focused on the team as opposed to that national promotion.

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So amidst all this, yes, the Vols and their fans have reasons to be excited this year. Yes, there is a very good chance that the program has its best year in over a decade. And yes, expectations should be extremely high.

But maybe they should stop bragging about things they have not done yet or have not proven. Just a thought.