Things aren’t going too well for Tennessee football.
I’m talking about the Volunteers, of course, not for the whole state. Former Vols’ quarterback Riley “busa gon be clean” Ferguson is having an incredible season at the helm of the Memphis Tigers’ offense this year.
Ferguson’s father, Don, is clearly enjoying his son’s on-field success and is thankful for the position that Riley is in with Mike Norvell and the Tigers.
In fact, he is enjoying it so much, he took to Facebook to let people know how glad he is that his son is no longer playing under Butch Jones and the Vols:
Dad of former #Vol Riley Ferguson had some comments Saturday pic.twitter.com/Zf32AGotyz
— Andrew Darago (@AWDarago) October 9, 2017
Ferguson left the Vols in May of 2014 after redshirting his freshman season due to a leg injury. The North Carolina native then chose the JUCO route and attended Coffeyville C.C. in Kansas before signing with Memphis in 2016.
Ferguson threw for 3,698 yards and 32 touchdowns as he helped lead the Tigers to an 8-5 record in his debut season as an FBS quarterback.
Through five games this season, Ferguson is already halfway to reaching last year’s passing touchdown total — he has 16 touchdowns to go along with his 1,535 passing yards. He is also coming off of a seven-touchdown performance in a 70-31 win at UConn on Friday. Oh, and he he threw for 398 yards and six scores in an upset of a top-25 UCLA team in September.
It’ll always be a big “what if?” in thinking what could have been if Ferguson ever got to see the field at Tennessee. Of course, this could have affected the career of Josh Dobbs and the outcome of many games during the early Jones era at UT, but it’s still an interesting alternate sports history topic, nonetheless.
But the reaction of the elder Ferguson is just another indictment on the current state of Vols football. For a lifelong Tennessee fan to declare on social media how happy he is that his son is playing football at a Group of Five school over an SEC program in the same state is troubling to say the least.
