Vols are cure for Brady Hoke's SEC fatigue
Once upon a time, Brady Hoke, like much of the rest of the country, suffered from the malady dubbed SEC fatigue.
While head coach at Michigan in 2013, Hoke said in a radio interview that "people get a little overly zealous when they think the SEC is (the only conference) that plays good football.''
Now he's among the zealots.
And he likes it.
Hoke is Tennessee's new defensive line coach. It occurred to me observing practice Tuesday that it's not every day you see a former head coach at Michigan drilling Tennessee players on Haslam Field.
Hoke grew up in Ohio and coached mostly in the Midwest. He also did a couple of West Coast stints as head coach at San Diego State and, last fall, as defensive coordinator at Oregon.
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But until now, Hoke had always viewed the SEC from afar and as a rival. His 2012 Michigan team lost to Alabama in the season-opener and to South Carolina in the Outback Bowl.
That 2012 season was high times for the SEC. Alabama won the BCS title for the second consecutive year, one year after beating LSU in the championship game. It capped a decade in which the SEC won eight of 10 national championships.
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SEC fatigue was an epidemic. Most folks were grateful when Florida State beat Auburn for the 2013 championship and when Ohio State eliminated Alabama in the 2014 semifinals of the new playoff format.
Alabama won again in 2015. When the Crimson Tide lost to Clemson in a thriller to cap the 2016 season, hardly anyone felt sorry for the SEC.
So the league has won only one national championship in the past four years. SEC fatigue has waned a bit.
But back to Hoke, who, by the way, was Michigan's defensive line coach when the Vols beat the Wolverines 45-17 in the Citrus Bowl after the 2001 season.
"I always thought it was a great conference,'' he said Tuesday of the SEC. "There are a lot of great conferences. You've got a lot of great teams in every conference. From that standpoint, a lot of respect, just the standard that's been set.
"That's what I really do like about being here, because of the standard and the expectations you all have and everyone else has. That's a good thing.''
Expectations are more prominent than championships in Tennessee's recent past. At least the Vols can say they've delivered their own personal brand of SEC fatigue on the Big Ten, punctuating the past three seasons with bowl wins over Iowa, Northwestern and Nebraska.
However, the mission is to get to the point where Tennessee enjoys that level of consistent success against its SEC brethren. That's why Hoke is here.
Butch Jones, looking to his fifth season at UT, brought in four new assistant coaches and promoted Walt Wells from quality control to offensive line coach. A major staff overhaul indicates Jones believed change is needed to get the Vols to another level.
Perhaps it's coincidence that the new assistants had hardly any ties with the SEC. Kevin Beard, the new receivers coach, was a quality control clerk at Georgia last year. That's it as for SEC references on resumes.
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"They've brought a whole new energy,'' Jones said. "They've brought a different perspective. ... The chemistry has been remarkable in a short period of time.''
Like Hoke, the other new faces no doubt had a dose of SEC fatigue somewhere along the line. Now their job is to perpetuate it.
Reach Mike Strange at mike.strange@knoxnews.com and on Twitter: @Strangemike44.
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