When Kids Fall Through The Cracks: The Ryan West Story.
The young men who don the orange and white on autumn Saturdays live under a pretty harsh microscope, on and off the field. For every Robert Meachem and Aaron Sears, there’s a Daniel Brooks, a James Banks or a Roshaun Fellows off-the-field incident or several to counter the strides the Vols make on the field.
But there’s one young man who seemingly slipped through the cracks of both coaching and publicity: Ryan West. And he’s taken the first step to join former Vols like Eric Parker and David Martin who had okay careers as a Vol, but flourished in the NFL.
When Chris Low broke this story in yesterday’s Tennesseean, a big collective “Who?!?” resonated throughout the south, on message boards and presumably on call-in shows.
Ryan, the former Vols’ long-snapper, was signed to a free-agent contract by the Falcons after Sunday’s NFL draft and has a chance to compete for the Falcons’ deep-snapper position. He walked onto the UT squad, finally going on scholarship before his senior season.
But here’s where it gets interesting, over on Gridscape, aka “Home of the Sheep-Felching Homers,” a poster (we’re guessing former PK James Wilhoit’s dad) offers up the following gem:
“No one coached ryan west…After talking with him he will tell you that he had to achieve success DESPITE coaching. His first two years the coaches tried to change everything about his snapping and eventually he was able to go back to his old form from high school to snap at a high level. There is no one on that staff that can develop a kicker, punter, or snapper. A head special teams coach is needed and until we get one we will consistently lose in the kicking game. Credit can’t be given to the development of Ryan West as an NFL snapper.”
Way to go, Ryan. Congrats on getting a FA contract, in spite of the coaching.
And way to coach ‘em up, Phil, you walking, talking pootbag. With all our O-line woes, why didn’t Ryan see action sometime other than fourth down?
Vote here
A shart tag??
Turd12 looks pretty foolish in that thread.
there are some that believe that corey anderson will flourish in the NFL too