What kind of gravy goes with crow?

Well... Go Vols. Hurray, we won a game. I've got that same kind of numb feeling that I had following the win over Memphis. To be honest, I'm kind of ambivalent. Perhaps if we had lost that would have meant a real shake-up (though we appear to be sloughing off assistant coaches like so much dead skin).

I've just come back from the expat Thanksgiving dinner which was organised through various alumni associations and of course football was discussed. Thankfully I didn't have to eat too much crow along with my turkey. P - a native Brit, but die-hard Texas fan (he hates teams that wear red even more than I do) had a few little jibes, but did ask rather solicitously about my brother's mental state. I had to say that VolBro wasn't too pleased with the current state of Volunteer football. A Vanderbilt graduate was supposed to come, but didn't make it. He had warned me in advance that I would be ribbed mercilessly.

I don't need a Vandy grad to torment me about the loss. I can feel it. Besides, the Vol-in-Law seems to be developing some sort of weird affinity for Vanderbilt and has been tossing the pro-Vandy bon mots around like Halloween candy. He went to Oxford himself, so maybe he sees them as some sort of fellow high-tone school. (I don't even think he's aware that Ole Miss is in Oxford.)

Hopefully, finally, we can put this season behind us and go move on to victory in 2006. One VOLuminous reader has a list of why Tennessee football bites. It's a dreadful catalogue of sins of ommission, commission and failed mission, but the variability of Tennessee orange has to be my favorite:

Pick a shade of orange and mandate its consistent usein your licensing agreements. There is no reason why those Orange Nation student t-shirts should be closer to Texas or Virginia orange than to Tennessee orange. Gather all non-compliant clothing and donate it to the poor in third world.