"My Bid" by Joe Biddle

11-23-11 Wilson Post My Bid

Vanderbilt travels to North Carolina where it will play Wake Forest.

Tennessee will travel to Kentucky where it will meet the Big Blue’s football team.

If Vanderbilt and Tennessee win their games, both teams will be bowl eligible with the minimum requirement of six victories.

That only goes to further prove there are far too many bowl games in college football.

The Tennessee-Vanderbilt game was filled with bad play, and even worse officiating. Both coaches were doing their best Saint Vitus dance impersonations on the sidelines.

Did anyone expect anything different? You had Tennessee entering the game 5-6, looking for its first win in SEC play. You had a 5-5 Vanderbilt team that beat SEC bottom feeders Ole Miss and Kentucky.

You now have two SEC teams who have to win their final game of the season to become bowl eligible. That would mean they won half their games, lost the other half.

The teams Vanderbilt beat have a combined record of 18-36, with FCS school Elon having the best record of 5-6. Vanderbilt plays Wake Forest having lost six of its last eight games.

Tennessee has been outscored 212-85 in conference games. The Vols won their first SEC game Saturday, beating Vanderbilt in overtime.

After escaping in overtime, Vols Coach Derek Dooley turned a non-word into a verb when he said: “We just gritted out a win.’’

Vanderbilt left Neyland Stadium feeling they gave the game away. In many ways, they are correct.

Place-kicker Ryan Fowler misfired on two short range field goals. Quarterback Jordan Rodgers had his worst game since moving into the starting role, throwing three interceptions and fumbling away the ball that led to Tennessee’s first touchdown.

They managed to turn a 72-yard pass that put the ball on Tennessee’s one-yard line into an 85-yard penalty, thanks to the knucklehead play of Josh Jelesky. The offensive lineman committed a blatant clipping penalty half a field away from the play. Jelesky is a junior who should know better by now. It makes me doubt that all Vanderbilt football players are rocket scientists.

Tennessee had its share of gaffes. Their field goal kicker hit his only attempt so low it flew under the radar at McGhee-Tyson airport, nearly decapitating a lineman or two.

Quarterback Tyler Bray was not as sharp as he was before breaking a thumb. This was his first time back and the rust was apparent.

Even the coaches set the stage for next season as James Franklin took exception to what leaked out of Tennessee’s locker room in the form of Dooley telling his team that they were Tennessee and Tennessee always beats the (expletive) out of Vanderbilt.

Franklin took his turn during Monday’s press conference to respond.

“That’s a wound that I’ll leave open,’’ Franklin declared. “I won’t forget it.’’

Them’s fighting words, way I figure it.

Emotions were high. Sure, Tennessee players celebrated as Franklin pointed out, like they won the Super Bowl. Why not? They had been kicked around much of the season, losing three of their SEC games to teams ranked 1-2-3 in the BCS standings.

Emotions were high for Franklin after his team beat Ole Miss earlier in the season. He wiped away tears in the post-game press conference. Nothing wrong with what either coach did.

It’s college football. It’s why unranked Iowa State upset then No. 2 ranked Oklahoma State last Friday night.

In the SEC, every team better drain its passion bucket every Saturday or they will be the team that walks off a loser.

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The Tennessee Titans clubbed the Carolina Panthers Sunday.

It was impressive, 30 to 3 impressive.

Chris Johnson ran for 130 yards, caught four passes for 44 yards and showed signs of the Chris Johnson Titans fans have been searching for.

Wide receiver Damian Williams continued to earn the starting role he was given Oct. 2. Williams caught five passes for 107 yards with a 41-yard touchdown reception being the highlight.

From the local media coverage Monday, one would surmise the Titans are Super Bowl shoo-ins. Will they ever lose another game?

One publication promoted its columnist’s opinion on Page 1-A and he didn’t even cover the game. It must have been a slow news day.

Hey, it was the Carolina Panthers. Can we chill a little? It’s a team that has two wins this season. It’s a team that came out flat and paid the price. It has happened to the Titans this year. It happens to all but the elite NFL teams. Neither the Titans, nor the Panthers are in that conversation.

But I need more proof that this is a Titans team that has truly seen the light. We will see if that is indeed the case when they play the Falcons in Atlanta Sunday.

Atlanta Coach Mike Smith’s team has taken on his persona. They will bloody your nose. The next move is all yours.

Smitty was a defensive coordinator at Tennessee Tech before Brian Billick saw something in him he liked and took him to the NFL. Smitty was a blue- collar linebacker at East Tennessee State, never played a down in the NFL and doesn’t begin to compare resumes with Titans Hall of Fame player and current coach Mike Munchak.

Smith gives his team chances to win games. Although they lost a tough 26-23 game in overtime Sunday to New Orleans, Smith went for it in overtime on a fourth-and-one from his own 29. It came up short, but too often Smith has punted in those situations against the Saints, only to never see the football again.

“I stand behind our coach, behind our players,’’ Falcons linebacker Curtis Lofton said. “I would have done the same thing. If we convert, our offense drives down the field and we score to win the game.’’

You can bet the Titans will get the Falcons’ best shot Sunday. Two 5-4 teams stand at a crossroads in the season. The winner fights to have a respectable season.

The loser, well, 5-5 is just what it appears to be.

If the Titans come up short in Atlanta, it erases all the positive vibes they earned in Carolina. They cannot afford to stay around the .500 mark and hope to catch AFC South leader Houston.

And the playoffs are out of the question unless they win a division that is as bad as it has been ever since Peyton Manning got past his rocky rookie year in Indianapolis.

The Titans last seven games will tell the story of this season. Four of them are on the road. Four of the opponents have winning records. The only punching bag is 0-10 Indianapolis.

They finish up head-to-head with Jacksonville and Houston, two division opponents they lost to earlier.

They can write their own script. They know one game does not a season make.

Contact Sports Columnist Joe Biddle at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

The mysterious vanishing act that is Titans running back Chris Johnson continues to escape logic. How does the one-time fastest running back in the NFL change from a thoroughbred into a Clydesdale? Johnson has no burst, no acceleration – even on those rare occasions when he finds himself in space.

Cynics claim Johnson’s wallet is slowing him down. I guess lugging $53.5 million around would get tiresome. Former Titans defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth took his money and ran. Johnson took his money and he can’t run, at least the way he did two years ago. 

Titans quarterback Matt Hasselbeck played at Seattle with former Alabama running back Shaun Alexander. Alexander was headed to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He peaked in 2005 when he ran for 1,880 yards. The Seahawks rewarded him with an 8-year, $62 million contract. It was guaranteed for $15.1 million, and the team paid him $15 million in the first year of the new contract. At the time, it made Alexander the NFL’s highest paid running back.

“I see a lot of similarity,’’ Hasselbeck said Sunday. “Just in terms of when you’re so successful and you produce in such a major way with Fantasy Football and all of that stuff and people are just expecting it to happen.’’

Alexander broke his foot three weeks into the 2006 season. It began a decline that escalated when Alexander fractured a wrist and suffered a sprained knee and ankle in 2007. He was cut in April of 2008 and the Redskins cut him after four games and 11 carries that year and he was out of the league, just three years after having his best season.

  “It’s hard to be that elite all the time, so people got on him real quick, real easy,’’ Hasselbeck said of Alexander. “He probably got a little too much credit when things were good and definitely got too much blame when things were bad.’’

Fans at LP Field and those watching on flatscreens across the country see a different Chris Johnson. The boo-birds are in full throat. When asked, Johnson denies losing a step. He claims to be the same runner he was when he piled up 2,006 yards two seasons ago.

He averaged 125.4 yards a game in 2009. It dropped to 85.2 yards a game last season and is now averaging 43.1 yards a game -- 2.8 yards per carry. That, my friends, is pedestrian. That’s a mule crashing the Kentucky Derby field.

Even if he came back out of shape, Johnson has had seven games to get his mojo back. He may be regressing, as the Colts came into the game ranked second to last in run defense. New Orleans piled up 557 yards and 62 points a week before the Colts arrived at LP Field.

And, Johnson was shown up Sunday by Colts quarterback Curtis Painter, who lumbered 79 yards on just seven runs for his life.  Johnson managed 34 yards on 14 carries.

“It’s something we have to get going if we want to continue to win and make the playoffs. Our goal is to win the Super Bowl,’’ Johnson said.

To use one of former NFL coach Jim Mora’s legendary rants:  Playoffs? You’re talking about playoffs? Playoffs?

Mora faced reality. I’m not sure Chris Johnson has.

Sports Columnist Joe Biddle can be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .