His seat isn't hot, but the expectation to win will be high next year. The title of this thread proves a very harsh reality: We're fairly close and somehow still far away from being a Top 10 team.

Before the season started, I said I would be happy with 8 wins. We're on pace to do that. It's a 2 win improvement over the regular season last year. That's measurable progress.

The seat that is hot: Mike DeBord. When the Tennessee offense is playing like it needs points, it gets points. If our team is ahead, the play-calling tightens up, the yards become hard-earned, and other teams catch up to us and win the game. Anyone who watched any of our losses has seen this. If you watched our game against North Texas, you've seen it.

When you look at the talent that we do have on offense and then watch the plays that have been designed and are being called for them, it looks like a pretty good team is trying to run another team's playbook. With Dobbs being a dual threat (and much better at running), and Hurd and Kamara in the backfield, I'd expect to see more read-option plays, some wildcat, jet-sweeps, etc. Those plays aren't there. The offensive plays look like they were designed for a team Debord wants, not the one he has. The designed runs have not looked very successful. We haven't found a good way to put a run through the line and yet the same ineffective play is called often without any changes to it. I haven't noticed a lot of audibles being called by Dobbs. This is a sharp contrast to a player that Butch touted loudly and often would have to be a "CEO Quarterback" and own the offense.

That said, this team has a lot more moments of looking like a complete product than anything we've seen since Fulmer. It sucks to say, but the offense is still a work-in-progress. I just really hope Mike Debord isn't a gigantic road block to that progress.