Prefatory note: I fully intended to take this week off. It’s a rare weekend when both my in-laws visit and it’s Wrestlemania weekend so I wanted to thoroughly enjoy it. Then some unpleasantness happened late last week, and I had to say something.—CLS

Junior:

In the words of a man far wiser than I, “Sit down. I have something to tell you and it’s going to make you sad.”

No matter how special Daddy Nick tells you your arm is or how much of a generational talent he claims you are to NIL collectives, you’re a mediocre sophomore QB who’s just not worth four million dollars per year.

Sure, that Carson Beck guy who signed with Miami got $4 million to go play there. But here’s the thing, Junior: even though Beck looks like a college aged Beavis with prison ink he’s got this habit of making clutch throws when needed. You, on the other hand, showed the Vols repeatedly last year that you’ve got two defining talents: flashes of potential and a complete inability to read defenses without a coloring book and crayons.

Your arm? They said it was like a laser cannon. In reality it was more like one of those Super Soakers you buy at the Dollar General that spit a weak stream about two feet and leak all over you. Forget about you not hitting the broad side of a barn, son—you couldn’t hit water if you fell out of a boat. Defenses didn’t need to plan for you because they knew if they sneezed menacingly at you it’d rattle you completely. And bless your heart, every defense with a pulse in an SEC team dog-walked your ass at their leisure. Junior, for the love of Manning, your completion percentage is lower than the approval rating of a DMV clerk processing Real ID applications.

Sweet merciful Smokey, your inability to deal with any team that had a pulse was depressing. You’d read their defense like a toddler studying Dostoyevsky, all confused, squinty and throwing tantrums. See a blitz? You’d hold the ball longer than a Vol fan’s grudge against Lane Kiffin and then take a sack harder than a freshman coed’s Monday morning hangover. Your definition of scramble involved you tripping over your own oversized ego and face-planting into the turf. Kangaroos with pouches full of moonshine have better pocket presence than you.

What’s really disappointing to most, son, is that you had so much promise. You were the chosen one the Collective paid an astounding EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS GUARANTEED OVER FOUR YEARS. In return for this astronomical sum most college kids will never see, you were supposed to make Rocky Top echo from the damn stars. And what did you do, Junior? You gave us performances flatter than a plate full of piss on a Kansas highway.

It’s not like we didn’t have faith, Junior. We believed in you harder than Joel Osteen believes in private jets and you repaid us with stat lines that read like a cry for help. For fuck’s sake Junior, the Vanderbilt game is supposed to be a cake walk and you played like you were trying to lose a bet with an OnlyFans girl!

At the end of the day, Junior, the accountability wagon has to stop somewhere and it did when you decided to hold out on practice in the hopes of getting more money this year. You then found out what happens when you try to shake down a coach with a set of balls. Now you’re playing for UCLA for one year, $1 million deal.

But sure, you can have Daddy Nick and his pals say it wasn’t about the money. It wasn’t about the money for Tennessee, either. Hell we had our state Attorney General sue the NCAA on behalf of your ungrateful ass. He did such a bang up job with it the NCAA said “screw it, we’re going completely hands off NIL for a while” and you didn’t even say thank you once, did you Junior?

Who knew “Iamaleava” was Samoan for “Entitled brat?” All of Knoxville damn sure does now.

In sum, Junior, you weren’t a $4 million QB star. You were a glorified hype machine with a side hustle in heartbreak. You left UT fans with dashed hopes and a highlight reel shorter than a TikTok ad. Enjoy UCLA and your pay cut, you little prick.

You may go now.

Dear Coach:

Thank you for standing up to the madness of the children running rampant over college football. That decision wasn’t easy, but you did all of us who bleed orange proud.

May the good Lord bless you and Vol Football.

Godspeed and Go Big Orange, sir!

See you guys next week!