Offensive lineman Dan Skipper from Arvado, Colo., switched his commitment from Tennessee to Arkansas on Monday.

Skipper made the decision after taking an official visit to Arkansas earlier this month.

“It really surprised me how much I liked it, I knew that going in,” Skipper told HawgSports.com. “I was surprised by the academic support staff, I think that was actually what sold me.”

It couldn’t hurt Arkansas that newly-hired offensive coordinator Jim Chaney and offensive line coach Sam Pittman were at Tennessee when Skipper committed to the Vols.

Skipper is the second lineman to switch his allegiance from Tennessee to Arkansas following the transfer of Chaney and Pittman. Honolulu lineman Reeve Koehler previously favored Tennessee but decided to commit to Arkansas on Jan. 19.

Arkansas has 17 commitments for the 2013 class, including pledges from three offensive linemen. Signing day is Feb. 6.

Dismissed Tennessee offensive coordinator Jim Chaney has landed in the Southeastern Conference just as we suspected.  But he’s not headed to his home state of Missouri as we initially tossed out as a possibility.  Instead, Bret Bielema named Chaney his offensive coordinator at Arkansas last night.

In a statement, Bielema said:

“He knows the SEC, having coached at Tennessee, and is familiar with what it takes to be successful in this conference.  He is an upbeat and positive person who has proven at every stop he is an elite coach in our profession…

Jim Chaney’s approach will blend well with my ideas as we work to put together a plan for the team we have and over time develop our specific philosophy.”

Chaney first arrived in Knoxville as the offensive coordinator for Lane Kiffin.  When Kiffin dumped the Volunteers for Southern Cal, Chaney remained as Derek Dooley’s O-coordinator and was handed the play-calling duties (something Kiffin had kept for himself).

While Chaney has plenty of experience having coached Drew Brees and Kyle Orton at Purdue before heading to the NFL and then Tennessee, his appointment still makes for a strange marriage.  Chaney has run a pass-first offense the last three years in Knoxville.  Bielema’s Wisconsin team has finished ranked in the top three of the Big Ten in rushing in each of the past six seasons.  This past year the Badgers ranked dead last in the league in passing yards per game.  Over that same six-season span, Bielema’s team finished in the top half of its conference in passing just once.

So will Arkansas’ offense be pass-happy or run-heavy under Bielema and Chaney?  Only time will tell.

On Tuesday, the Hogs announced that Wisconsin’s Chris Ash would take over as defensive coordinator in Fayetteville.

Missouri’s search for a new offensive coordinator, meanwhile, continues.

Tennessee has made it official - Derek Dooley will not return as coach of the Volunteers.  Athletics Director Dave Hart will address the media at 2:00 p.m. ET.  Dooley will not coach the Vols in the season finale against Kentucky. Offensive coordinator Jim Chaney will serve as interim coach Saturday.

It was hardly a ringing endorsement of his recent play, but Tennessee offensive coordinator Jim Chaney has admitted to improvements quarterback Tyler Bray’s game the past two weeks.  In that span, the junior has thrown nine touchdown passes and just one interception.

Chaney’s take:

“I feel like he has played with a measured amount of discipline.  There’s always two or three plays in the last couple of weeks that we would have liked to have back.  But it’s better than six or seven.  I feel like he’s playing with more discipline or calm in the last few weeks.”

Prior to Tennessee’s game against South Carolina two weekends ago, head coach Derek Dooley threatened to pull Bray if he was “loose” with the football.  Since then his signal-caller has responded.

In his first seven games this season, here’s how Bray performed:

244 attempts, 144 completions, 59.0% completions, 1,914 yards, 16 touchdowns, and 9 interceptions

And here’s how he’s done against Carolina and Troy since being called out publicly:

90 attempts, 56 completions, 62.2% completions, 898 yards, nine touchdowns, and just one interception.

Bray and the Vols face Missouri on Saturday.

Kentucky coach Joker Phillips says he won’t use UK’s 25-year losing streak to Florida as motivation this week
Missouri QB James Franklin is expected to play against South Carolina after a shoulder injury kept him out last week
ESPN’s Mel Kiper says: “I think Alabama is a little overrated.”
A bomb threat at Ole Miss on Tuesday was directed at the school’s football players
Tennessee offensive coordinator Jim Chaney says QB Tyler Bray did watch film of the second half of UT’s loss to Florida…
Though Bray said earlier this week that he did not
Keep up with all your SEC news at MrSEC.com or by downloading the MrSEC app for your smart phone

Two days ago, Tyler Bray said that the second half of the Florida game wasn’t representative of the Tennessee football team.  “That wasn’t our team,” the quarterback told the media.  He then said he didn’t even watch the second half of the 37-20 loss on tape.

When a few Vol fans had a rather natural poor reaction to that revelation and a few in the media raised their eyebrows at such a statement — including this site — The Knoxville News Sentinel went to Vol offensive coordinator Jim Chaney to see if Bray was telling the truth.

He wasn’t.  At least not according to Chaney yesterday:

“‘He’s not telling the whole truth,’ Chaney said with a smile.  ‘We watched the game together.’”

Interesting.  So should fans believe Chaney or Bray from now on?  Either Bray fibbed to the press (and therefore fans) just… well, just because.  Or Chaney is bending the truth now because he knows how bad Bray’s initial statement looks and sounds.  Which one should be trusted the next time he provides an answer on something as simple as “Did you watch film today?”

As we stated yesterday, Bray has an NFL-caliber arm but his decision-making — on and off the field — will be highly scrutinized by scouts and general managers before next April’s draft if he comes out early.  You can now add his decision to claim that he didn’t study the second half of a loss to the list.  Some personnel folks are going to ask him if he does actually watch tape of his own bad plays to learn from his mistakes.  And if so, why would he want to tell the world that he does not?

Last Friday against North Carolina State, Tennessee unleashed a new, faster-tempo offense that helped the Vols roll up 22 first-quarter points, more than 500 yards of offense in the game, and a 35-21 opening day victory.  Not too shabby.  Offensive coordinator Jim Chaney spoke about UT’s new attack yesterday, describing how it can potentially impact an opposing defense:

“The argument is that you can simplify the defense’s calls.  You can’t do a multiplicity of calls.  I would consider that if I’m on their side I can’t do a bunch of shifting and motioning.

The game of football still gets down to when it says, ‘Set, hut!’ can we block them, can they tackle us, can we throw and can we catch?  What happens when you’re going fast-paced is it distorts some of those values of the game a little bit.  You see that once in a while: They get a little fatigued, and they miss a tackle where they routinely might make that play.”

In building a halftime lead last week, Tennessee went almost exclusively with one- or no-back sets during the first stanza.  In the second half — with the lead — the Vols slowed things down considerably, using more two-back and two-tight end formations.

The idea of speeding up on offense to limit a defense’s calls and to wear said unit down is not new, obviously.  Many teams have been using the hurry-up for years.  But this year’s tempo in Knoxville is new.  Mainly because after years of instability and turnover, the Volunteers now have second- and third-year players who have learned one playbook taught by one offensive coordinator.  And that makes a difference in what a team can do and in how fast they can do it.

The Tennessee football team has been in pass-first mode the last two seasons, and not just because they’ve spent time coming from behind.  The Volunteers have ranked dead last in rushing yardage in the SEC for two consecutive seasons… a far cry from the ol’ “pound the rock” days of the late-1990s and early-2000s.

Now a spring of focusing on the run game, a new offensive line coach, and a new running backs coach have offensive coordinator Jim Chaney feeling that his unit is growing more physical on the ground:


“More physicality, an appreciation for physicality.  It’s more of an attitude and a demeanor, that they understand that to run the ball we’ve got to hit people.  I feel like we’ve accomplished that.

Live you measure everything else, (it’s on) our video.  Are we hitting people, do we have a desire to hit people?  Same damn thing you’re looking for on Saturdays.  Does somebody look like they want to hit somebody?  You know, that’s it in a nutshell.  Everybody sees a guy that pulls away from contact.  We’re trying to avoid that, trying not to put those guys on the field.”


With last year’s leading rusher Tauren Poole having graduated, the Vols are likely to try and go the ballcarrier-by-committee route this fall.

When the season began, most in the media expected Vanderbilt to win somewhere between two and four games.  Most in the media expected Tennessee to win either six or seven contests. 

In other words, this weekend’s matchup wasn’t supposed to mean very much.  But, oh, does it.  Vandy can become bowl eligible with a win and it can slam the door on UT’s bowl hopes.  That’d be a heckuva twofer on Nashville’s West End.

The key to the game will likely be Vol quarterback Tyler Bray who’s trying to work his way back into the starting line-up after breaking his thumb in October.  Offensive coordinator Jim Chaney doesn’t sound excited by the progress he’s seen:


“As you watch a kid who hasn’t thrown a football for four or five weeks, which you would expect, there are times when he looks okay, times when he looks really rusty — and you worry about those things.  I don’t know what the rest of the week is going to add up to right now.  He’s in and out.  He looks good, okay.  Sometimes he doesn’t look so good.  It’s an iffy situation for us as we approach every day right now. … We’re just trying to get through it.”


It’s hard to imagine Tennessee trying to get through it without starting Bray on Saturday.  His presence might give a floundering offense a quick injection of confidence.  That is if he’s not too rusty or in too much pain to pass the ball accurately.

Tennessee offensive coordinator Jim Chaney has seen #1 LSU and #2 Alabama up close on back-to-back weeks.  The Tigers topped his Vols 38-7 and the Tide followed that up with a nearly identical 37-6 win.

Yesterday, Chaney was asked what makes those squads’ defenses so special:


“The one common factor in both those teams is they walk on the field every Saturday expecting to win.

You say that about a lot of team, but they really deep in their heart and their soul believe that.

They both really believe they’re going to kick your butt.”


Alabama ranks #1 in the nation in total defense, LSU #4. 

Alabama ranks #1 in scoring defense and LSU #2. 

Alabama ranks #1 in rushing defense and LSU #3. 

Alabama ranks #2 in passing defense, LSU #9.