How not redshirting Tee lost Fulmer his job

#51
#51
VolForLife83 said:
Trust me, from the title alone, your not thinking anything I didn't. And I do not agree with it, but it is interesting, or punishing to think if we had a few more of these guys for an extra year. I would have loved to have had Tee, Ice Man, Ainge for an extra year each. I wasn't going to share, but it is the offseason and figured as ridiculous as it is, some may enjoy the read.

Tennessee football: How Vols not redshirting Tee Martin got Phillip Fulmer fired
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This article...BIG time stretch...and all the while, I thought it was established fact that 2001 LSU SEC Championship game was the official start of the demise. After which, no amount of "working like heck", "watching the tape", Bryce Brown's, shower discipline or 5* hearts could bring it back. Maybe Pruitt's no nonsense approach to exorcising the demons of bad decisions of historic proportions over the course of past 10-12 years throughout everything Vol football related will work.
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#52
#52
My Lord.... the cause and effect what if game. What if Peyton would’ve have gone to Ole Miss?
What if Chris Simms had come to Tennessee, what if Ken Dorsey has come to play here? What if Auburn didn’t cheat their ass off to get Cadillac Williams there instead of KTOWN? What if Fulmer were tougher on Kelly Washington and others? What if CJ Leak didn’t suck and have his little bro throw a hissy fit all the way to Gainesville? What if James Banks or Coker could’ve laid off the weed more? Or Ainge could’ve taken time away to get his life straight and Rick Clausen ran 2005?

There are a million what ifs for not just our team, but every team. Dave Clawson has his shortcomings, but the buck stops at Fulmer. I say that knowing that I love coach Fulmer, but he needed his nucleus to be truly successful. He didn’t want to be the discipline guy after Cut left. IMO Phil’s best jobs coaching were when expectations were low. 04’ and ‘07 specifically come to mind. We were decent and scrapped and clawed our way to Atlanta those years.

In ‘06 we were a point away, one graze of a fingernail from going to the National Title, that’s the hypothetical that no one ever talks about and is much more realistic than a red shirt. I’ve said that about the ‘06 team for years and I still stand by it.
 
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#53
#53
The article's premise is a huge stretch.

The reality is much simpler. Fulmer was never as good without Cutcliffe. With Cut, Fulmer could contend for the SEC and national titles, Without him, we occasionally had good teams, but we were much more inconsistent. We were close in 2001 and 2003 + 2004 were good seasons, but 2002 and 2005 were bad. Cutcliffe comes back and we immediately improve in 2006 and 2007. Cut leaves and we fall apart in 2008.

The most telling stat IMO is this:

Fulmer's record with Cutcliffe: 86-19
Fulmer's record w/o Cutcliffe: 66-33

In some fairness, Fulmer was right about Clawson being a good coach, but just had bad timing. Clawson's style didn't fit what UT had been doing under Cutcliffe, so it ended up being a poor fit. But in reality, we would probably have been better off waiting 3 years for a transition under Clawson than what we eventually ended up doing.
 
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#57
#57
Toujours Pret said:
Phil won by having superior talent and catching a few breaks. Hard to think of a time when he beat someone based on schematics .
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Yep. That's how basically all college coaches win, at least over long periods of time. You can find a particular game where a coach might have out-schemed someone, but Saban, for example, is successful over long periods because he routinely brings a more talented team to the field than his opponent.
 
#58
#58
05_never_again said:
Yep. That's how basically all college coaches win, at least over long periods of time. You can find a particular game where a coach might have out-schemed someone, but Saban, for example, is successful over long periods because he routinely brings a more talented team to the field than his opponent.
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That ‘07 games still chaps me though. No reason we should have lost that game.
 
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#60
#60
FLVOL_79 said:
Wtf?

Title should read "How Fulmer hiring Dave Clawson cost him his job". Simple.
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True, but originally Clawson wasn't even on Phil's radar for OC. You may recall that Hamilton + whoever was actually pulling all the strings refused to pay what was necessary to hire the top quality OC candidates who Phil wanted including Mike Debord who was fresh out of Michigan at the time. You might also remember the search dragged out for a long time, and the list of possible hires grew shorter and shorter. Then, there was all the hullabaloo about Phil wanting to continue running an "old fashioned" pro style offense while a vocal group continued their loud yammering to adopt the new, wide open "spread". Well, Clawson was finally hired, and the idiot powers that be ultimately got what they were maneuvering for all along which was an excuse to fire Phil. Maybe that gives us some insight into Phil's motivation to shell out the big bucks necessary to give Pruitt what he needed by hiring Jim Chaney. Successful AD's support their coaches, they don't set them up to fail.
 
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#61
#61
Not ripping on the OP, but hindsight articles are comical to me. I could write an article and basically point out if Tennessee would have done "this", we would have won a NC every year for the past 50 years. I'll read some just for entertainment but I usually avoid them. Just brings out too many angry feelings and then I have to go kick a bucket of light bulbs.
 
#63
#63
Volgrad98 said:
Not ripping on the OP, but hindsight articles are comical to me. I could write an article and basically point out if Tennessee would have done "this", we would have won a NC every year for the past 50 years. I'll read some just for entertainment but I usually avoid them. Just brings out too many angry feelings and then I have to go kick a bucket of light bulbs.
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Yeah you could go back to 1954 and ask what would have happened if Bobby Dodd would have been hired instead of Bowden Wyatt(Coach Dodd wanted the Tennessee head coaching job) or go back to 1970 and ask what if Johnny Majors or Barry Switzer had been hired instead of Bill Battle(Johnny Majors and Barry Switzer both wanted the Tennessee head coaching job)
 
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#64
#64
I may get blasted but UT ADMIN should have let CPF go after 2005 season ended. I know we had a solid 2006 and a SECCG appearance in 2007 but Fulmer had clearly lost his mojo. That 2005 squad was absolutely stacked with talent at every level and to finish 5-6 was a complete shame. Fire away.
 
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#66
#66
RDU VOL#14 said:
That ‘07 games still chaps me though. No reason we should have lost that game.
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Really started to wonder how much longer Phil was going to stick around after that loss. I know we played for the SEC that season, but we totally backed into the game. Uncompetitive loss at Cal to open the season. Blowout losses against Florida and Alabama. Needed Vandy to miss a FG as time expired to beat them, and needed 4 OTs to beat Kentucky. Then we somehow almost (should have) beaten LSU in the SECCG, who went on to win the national title. That was just a weird season.
 
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#67
#67
Just talking granular here and not the specifics - but sometimes it's not so black and white. You can risk the incoming player transferring on a redshirt. Maybe the player said up front I will not be here for 5 years and would graduate and leave as a redshirt JR, then you might as well keep him active.

IDK - just think it's not so black and white as a lot may think
 
#68
#68
peddi631 said:
David Cutcliffe leaving cost Fulmer his job.
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This for sure. Plus letting Rodney garner leave for Georgia really hurt recruiting. He really brought in some big time recruits. I do think he may be a little suspect in his methods though.
 
#69
#69
CTVolsfan14 said:
Just talking granular here and not the specifics - but sometimes it's not so black and white. You can risk the incoming player transferring on a redshirt. Maybe the player said up front I will not be here for 5 years and would graduate and leave as a redshirt JR, then you might as well keep him active.

IDK - just think it's not so black and white as a lot may think
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That's another good point. To blame the downfall of an entire program under a coach because of a few redshirting decisions on QBs is just ridiculous.

If not having a particular QB for a certain year took your program from being national title-caliber to 5-7, then obviously there were serious deficiencies in other parts of the program (which there were).
 
#70
#70
LOSING CUTCLIFFE Is what cost Fulmer! And Phil's unwillingness to HIRE THE BEST REPLACEMENT! Phil was too afraid of someone NEW stealing his thunder. I LIVED IT; I remember it well, I knew Cut when he was at UT.
 
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#71
#71
Fulmer's horrendous lack of recruiting on both sides of the line in his last 5 years is what got him fired. JMO though.
 
#72
#72
I don't agree with the article but it's a decent read seeing as I'm at work and considering suicide via letter opener. The article seems to forget how unlucky Fulmer was in the later years, we lost a ridiculous amount of close pivotal games in the mid 2000's. Fulmer was more unlucky than anything and our administration was to blind to see that
 
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#73
#73
BigOrangeMojo said:
UGA hiring Richt, UF hiring Meyer and LSU hiring Saban had more to do with Fulmer getting fired...

Those 3 coaches plus to a lesser degree Stoops, Carroll, and Tressel significantly reduced our national recruiting pipeline...
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South Carolina hiring Spurrier hurt - we used to get the best players out of South Carolina but Spurrier was able to convince kids to stay home. Now with Clemson back as well, we not only don’t get their top kids but have been losing our top recruits as well.
 
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