Fulmer’s legacy?

How do you view CPF’s legacy as a coach and AD?

  • Good

    Votes: 227 63.8%

  • Neutral

    Votes: 89 25.0%

  • Poor

    Votes: 48 13.5%
  • Total voters
    356
  • Poll closed .
#26
#26
BigOrangeMojo said:
Here are 7 things as an AD where he failed miserably (beyond hiring Pruitt). I'm not buying the excuses....he was Hamilton bad without the Top 5-7 revenue or a Pearl type hire win....


Culture of non compliance

Extended Holly

Hired a WBB who imploded at her prior P5 job (Kellie)

Neglected Barnes to point where it took an overmarket extension to keep him

Took Top 7-8 revenue athletic dept. and fell behind peers to around 20

Extended Pruitt

Kevin Steele hiring
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He wasn’t great. He just came after so many bad ADs it’s hard to rank. White is so much better than anyone we’ve had in several years.
 
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#27
#27
superdave1984 said:
As a coach he brought home a national title and a handful of SEC titles. Could have and should have been more SEC titles, but Ol Ball Coach was a step ahead of him nearly every year. I think Phil should have been let go sooner than he was. I think if he had been canned after 05 we could have gotten maybe a Gary Patterson to come to UT and been a perennial top 5 team and gotten a couple more national titles. Instead the whole thing went sideways faster than kids could cash in their Pilot cards. There is no excuse for what happened to this program between Fulmer and Heupel. I can overlook one bad hire, but 4 in a row?
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Patterson wanted the job and I mean wanted it badly. He’s talked about it fairly openly. Hamilton bungled that deal so badly Patterson wouldn’t even pick up the phone when Kiffin left.

People think Kiffin would’ve been successful here. It just never was going to happen. Great recruiter, good offensive mind but he was dealing with a lot of personal demons. He was going to crash and burn and possibly take the program down with him. The way he left insured he will never have a job affiliated with Tennessee football ever..
 
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#28
#28
DaddyChad said:
Patterson wanted the job and I mean wanted it badly. He’s talked about it fairly openly. Hamilton bungled that deal so badly Patterson wouldn’t even pick up the phone when Kiffin left.

People think Kiffin would’ve been successful here. It just never was going to happen. Great recruiter, good offensive mind but he was dealing with a lot of personal demons. He was going to crash and burn and possibly take the program down with him. The way he left insured he will never have a job affiliated with Tennessee football ever..
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That last statement should have applied to Doug Dickey as well
 
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#30
#30
superdave1984 said:
As a coach he brought home a national title and a handful of SEC titles. Could have and should have been more SEC titles, but Ol Ball Coach was a step ahead of him nearly every year. I think Phil should have been let go sooner than he was. I think if he had been canned after 05 we could have gotten maybe a Gary Patterson to come to UT and been a perennial top 5 team and gotten a couple more national titles. Instead the whole thing went sideways faster than kids could cash in their Pilot cards. There is no excuse for what happened to this program between Fulmer and Heupel. I can overlook one bad hire, but 4 in a row?
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A handful of SEC titles? Try two - 1997 and 1998.
 
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#31
#31
DaddyChad said:
Patterson wanted the job and I mean wanted it badly. He’s talked about it fairly openly. Hamilton bungled that deal so badly Patterson wouldn’t even pick up the phone when Kiffin left.

People think Kiffin would’ve been successful here. It just never was going to happen. Great recruiter, good offensive mind but he was dealing with a lot of personal demons. He was going to crash and burn and possibly take the program down with him. The way he left insured he will never have a job affiliated with Tennessee football ever..
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For all the goodwill that Hammy got for hiring Bruce, he lost it trying to pinch pennies with Gary P and then with Lane's buyout...
 
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#37
#37
personally I think it’s unfair to Fulmer to combine the 2.

He won a lot of games as HC and took the program to another level until 2005 when he had started being lackadaisical with his duties.

Do I think he should have won more games? Absolutely. He made some boneheaded decisions in the heat of the moment. He blew some incredible opportunities to win it all (1995, 2001). He owned Bummer and had the Vols in prime position to win the SEC and compete for titles for over a decade.

As an AD, I don’t think he could have been much worse, for all the reasons that have already been stated ITT.

That’s why he got a Good and a Neutral from me.

He deserves to be honored for his accomplishments in the 90s, but let’s not get too carried away by renaming stuff or building statues. The only statue we need is already there.
 
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#38
#38
BigOrangeMojo said:
Here are 7 things as an AD where he failed miserably (beyond hiring Pruitt). I'm not buying the excuses....he was Hamilton bad without the Top 5-7 revenue or a Pearl type hire win....


Culture of non compliance

Extended Holly

Hired a WBB who imploded at her prior P5 job (Kellie)

Neglected Barnes to point where it took an overmarket extension to keep him

Took Top 7-8 revenue athletic dept. and fell behind peers to around 20

Extended Pruitt

Kevin Steele hiring
Click to expand...
In addition to the above. When he “quit/resigned“ as AD, he got a nice buy out.
 
#39
#39
best recruiter we ever had. Haslem hamstrung him the whole time behind the scenes. I remember his pay being middle of the pack along w/ his asst coaches. When he won the natty he was giving a 1mill a yr raise that he promptly donated back the school. He wasn't a great game day coach but his love for the program was undeniable.it was probably time to move on to a more offensive minded guy but we handled it horribly.
 
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#41
#41
DaddyChad said:
How much better does Fulmer look as a coach if Spurrier wasn’t at Florida?
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Maybe better in a not-yet nationally dominant SEC … but it’s probable that he still would have had his terrible under-performing efforts pop up in bowl games and recruiting, especially in the latter years.

I remember watching embarrassing no-shows against Nebraska, Clemson, and even Maryland in bowl games - and that failure to win the SEC championship game against a back-up LSU QB in 2001 when literally everything was aligned for a victory still makes me sick to my stomach. Fulmer’s decline in recruiting led directly to the rise of Dabo and Clemson at our expense. He gets credit for the national championship, but he went to steady (and fairly steep) decline afterward, leaving the program in bad shape … and, as we’ve all seen, it just got worse under some bad ADs until Fulmer returned in that role … to make it even worse.

As an AD, I was one of those who had high hopes. Unfortunately, his tenure was a disaster on every level leading the Athletic Department.

We should rate his coaching and AD legacy separately. Taken together, you get ‘neutral.’
 
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#42
#42
If you asked just as a coach, I would say good, though he was not elite. He was noticeably less effective without Cutcliffe to run the offense, but I'd still say good overall. He'd never have let the program sink to the depths his successors did. That said though, his tenure as AD was an absolute unmitigated disaster and tarnished his legacy IMO.
 
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#43
#43
#1fulmerite said:
Now that he has been away from the program for a few years now, what would you rate his TOTAL legacy combining both his coaching era and his tenure as AD? I know most of you fellow posters will want to split these into two different judgements but, how do you view his overall legacy now that he has been away from the program?
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I went with good. Regardless of the negative and his dismal time as AD, it's hard to ignore a four year record of 45-5 (and when only 11 regular season games were played) and back to back SEC Championships. And, we played for what, 3-4 more SEC's? A better bounce of the ball, and we very easily could have won those, but at least we got to play for a championship. An overall record of 152-52 is nothing to sneeze at either.
 
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#46
#46
orangebloodgmc said:
I believe he had a winning record vs. Alabama. Did that help it?
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Yea, 7 wins in a row, 9 of 10 and 10 of 12 versus the Gumps, tea-baggers, tree-killers, and sucker-punchers. You want to see a Bammer's face turn red? Mention the Albert Mean case and Fulmer's 11-5 record versus Bama and you might need to call for medical help.
 
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#47
#47
#1fulmerite said:
I’ve always thought and said he hired Pruitt because there was virtually no one else that would either take the job or, any better at that time. Did what he had to do.
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I know many will hold their nose at this, but there were other people who were chomping at the bit for the job.

Kiffin would have taken it and even was quoted as saying that he would crawl to Knoxville for a second chance and that he had made a mistake leaving when he did.

Freeze would also have taken the job, and I get it he did some regrettable things in the past, but who here has not?

Fulmer would not hire Kiffin because he embraced Majors when he got the job and brought him back to campus and the games.

I have to think there was still some bad blood with Freeze from recruiting in the past as well as the issues that got him canned from Ole Miss.

But when you see what Kiffin has done with Ole Miss you can't help but think he could have done much more with Tennessee as there are way more resources and tradition to recruit to.
 
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#49
#49
EconVol92 said:
I know many will hold their nose at this, but there were other people who were chomping at the bit for the job.

Kiffin would have taken it and even was quoted as saying that he would crawl to Knoxville for a second chance and that he had made a mistake leaving when he did.

Freeze would also have taken the job, and I get it he did some regrettable things in the past, but who here has not?

Fulmer would not hire Kiffin because he embraced Majors when he got the job and brought him back to campus and the games.

I have to think there was still some bad blood with Freeze from recruiting in the past as well as the issues that got him canned from Ole Miss.

But when you see what Kiffin has done with Ole Miss you can't help but think he could have done much more with Tennessee as there are way more resources and tradition to recruit to.
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Kiffin says a lot of things in the media that are to get attention that have little to no basis in reality...

No way we could have hired Freeze at that point. Too toxic, especially after Schiano Sunday.

Even if you give Fulmer a pass for having to hire Pruitt, he did enough stuff after that to show he was woefully incompetent for the AD role..
 
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#50
#50
It's tough to lump the two together because as a head coach he was very good, especially in recruiting. As an AD he had never done the job before and it seemed like he was just a temporary stop-gap brought in to "fix football". To me his legacy is he was a HOF level head coach and he tried his best at the AD role but was in over his head.
 
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