You get what you pay for.

[Dudleys87]

Time will tell, but seats will be empty starting this weekend. It is fine to take time to "rebuild"...however 2 things:
1) Rebuilding for 10+ years is not really rebuilding
2) after 10+ years of irrelevance, right or wrong, fans will not put up with much failure

And If this happens I don’t want to hear complaining when Google + coach is hired and we’re set back, again.

 

[Roustabout]

UT has tried to give big money and has been turned down. You can’t force a person to take the job. In turn Fulmer has opened the pocket book for staff salary. They stole away UGAs OC. They got a top paid NFL coach. WTF do expect them to do?

 

[Dudleys87]

And I’d by some chance Tennessee opened the books again and hired a big name what happens if they too fall flat? We gonna run them off too at the first sign of trouble?

 

[Nationdom]

Right now, if Pruitt wins 3 games he's safe. Going into season, I still think this team had talent to win 5-6 games, if we had Thompson and Bituli. Obviously Ga St loss is on CJP. So now new baseline is now 4-5 games. I never counted BYU as an automatic win.

I did

 

[Dudleys87]

UT has tried to give big money and has been turned down. You can’t force a person to take the job. In turn Fulmer has opened the pocket book for staff salary. They stole away UGAs OC. They got a top paid NFL coach. WTF do expect them to do?

It was said during the last search that coaches didn’t want to come here because of the fans over the top expectations

 

[LargeOrange1]

Tennessee has gone cheap on its last three coaching hires over the past 10 seasons (dating back to Dooley) and the results are exactly what you’d expect:

Zero division championships
Zero top 20 finishes
Five soon (soon to be six) losing seasons
0-9 vs Alabama
1-8 vs Florida
2-7 vs Georgia
4-5 vs Vanderbilt

My God, that’s depressing to type. During that time, we hired three coaches in Dooley, Butch and Pruitt with zero HC experience at the P5 level. Dooley and Butch were spectacular failures (Dooley much more so than Butch), and Pruitt appears to be the same. I see some people around here still defending Pruitt and saying to give him more time....NO. He needs to be gone after this year. He’s had two offseasons to instill his culture and put his mark on this program, and the result of that was getting dominated in the trenches by a 2-10 Sun Belt team and following that up with a embarrassing loss to BYU plagued with mental errors. He is NOT the guy, and the longer we keep him around, the longer we prolong the long road back to relevance. While it’s easy to spend other people’s money, I maintain it’s much more expensive to keep the wrong guy than splurge on hiring the right guy. If you don’t believe me, check out all the empty seats at Neyland for the rest of this season (except for the UGA game, which will probably be 1/3 Dawg fans, if not more). It’s beyond perplexing to me that Tennessee invests gobs of money into building spectacular football facilities and isn’t willing to hire a proven coach who can use those facilities to build an elite program.

We all wished for a guy like Gruden, and while he would’ve been awesome, it was never happening. But our failure to land a Gary Patterson or a Chris Peterson or a Dan Mullen or a Mike Gundy has us where we are today — a national laughingstock. Not only does Pruitt need to be canned in November, but he needs to be replaced with a proven P5 head coach. Don’t worry, I’ve made a list of candidates:

Tier One — Grand Slams

Urban Meyer - I find it hard to believe that his comment about UT being a top ten job last weekend wasn’t calculated, seeing as how he’s one of the most calculating people on the planet. Regardless of your thoughts on him personally, he’s a bona fide winner with three national championships to his name who would immediately have us in the Top 25 and competing for the CFP in year 2 or 3. He’s that good. He’ll turn 56 before next season and I think his “health issues” are BS — I can’t imagine he is actually done and never coaches again. Biggest issue would be we’d most assuredly be behind ND and USC on his wishlist if those jobs were to come open.

Bob Stoops - Another bona fide winner with “health issues,” although given what happened with his dad I do think he may actually be done for good. If not, he’d be an absolute dynamite hire who would immediately turn this program around. He’d be 60 next season.

Brian Kelly - I don’t think Kelly gets enough credit for what he’s done at ND. He transformed that program by going into SEC country and getting the type of guys you need to be competitive nationally. ND is a hard place to recruit compared to other national powers; the leash would be off at UT and I’d take him in a heartbeat. One negative — he’s a complete jackass, worse than Urban. It does seem like there’s rumblings about him and ND not being happy with each other every other year or so, and those rumblings could get louder if ND thinks they can get Urban.

Tier Two - Home Runs

Chris Petersen - Offensive mastermind and simply put one of the best coaches in the country when it comes to doing more with less. I don’t know if he’ll ever move his family from the west coast, and we’ve obviously been turned down by him before, but he’d be a home run hire nonetheless.

David Shaw - The last two years where Stanford has fallen off a bit don’t worry me; he’s another guy who’s won big at a place where it’s VERY hard to do so. I doubt he’d ever leave Stanford for another college job, though.

Gary Patterson - I don’t think he’s ever leaving TCU, but I’ve always wondered what he could do at an powerhouse program with elite facilities that can recruit with anyone, seeing as how he’s consistently whipped better programs with 3-star recruits for 10+ years. We really, really missed out here in 2009 or 2010 or whenever it was.

Tier Three - Well Hit Doubles

Gus Malzahn
Mike Gundy
Matt Rhule
Kyle Whittingham
Bill O’Brien

Tier Four - Better Than Pruitt
Joe Moorhead (might move up a tier if he wins 8+ again this year)
Bronco Mendenhall (moves up a tier with a top 25 finish this year)
Pat Fitzgerald
Mike Leach
Dave Doeren
Steve Addazio

Is your novel available in paperback?

 

[Dudleys87]

Right now, if Pruitt wins 3 games he's safe. Going into season, I still think this team had talent to win 5-6 games, if we had Thompson and Bituli. Obviously Ga St loss is on CJP. So now new baseline is now 4-5 games. I never counted BYU as an automatic win.

If we keep improving I dont really care where we end up at this point. We’ve got a hell of a hole to climb out of and there’s no better man for the job than the one we got.

 

[Roustabout]

It was said during the last search that coaches didn’t want to come here because of the fans over the top expectations

What about all the times before that?
Do you want a list?

 

[Dudleys87]

What about all the times before that?
Do you want a list?

The same was said I’m sure. We haven’t changed as a fan base since we started this roller coaster

 

['Boro-vol]

It was said during the last search that coaches didn’t want to come here because of the fans over the top expectations

I heard that too, and flatly disagree with it. Nobody, at least nobody rational, is expecting playoffs and National Championships. All anybody is asking is to not get beaten by teams we have to pay to play us, and compete in the East. That should be the expectation. If you have a chance to win the East, you get more opportunities. But that is where it starts.

It all boils down to....don’t be embarrassing.

 

[JohnD13]

Tennessee has gone cheap on its last three coaching hires over the past 10 seasons (dating back to Dooley) and the results are exactly what you’d expect:

Zero division championships
Zero top 20 finishes
Five soon (soon to be six) losing seasons
0-9 vs Alabama
1-8 vs Florida
2-7 vs Georgia
4-5 vs Vanderbilt

My God, that’s depressing to type. During that time, we hired three coaches in Dooley, Butch and Pruitt with zero HC experience at the P5 level. Dooley and Butch were spectacular failures (Dooley much more so than Butch), and Pruitt appears to be the same. I see some people around here still defending Pruitt and saying to give him more time....NO. He needs to be gone after this year. He’s had two offseasons to instill his culture and put his mark on this program, and the result of that was getting dominated in the trenches by a 2-10 Sun Belt team and following that up with a embarrassing loss to BYU plagued with mental errors. He is NOT the guy, and the longer we keep him around, the longer we prolong the long road back to relevance. While it’s easy to spend other people’s money, I maintain it’s much more expensive to keep the wrong guy than splurge on hiring the right guy. If you don’t believe me, check out all the empty seats at Neyland for the rest of this season (except for the UGA game, which will probably be 1/3 Dawg fans, if not more). It’s beyond perplexing to me that Tennessee invests gobs of money into building spectacular football facilities and isn’t willing to hire a proven coach who can use those facilities to build an elite program.

We all wished for a guy like Gruden, and while he would’ve been awesome, it was never happening. But our failure to land a Gary Patterson or a Chris Peterson or a Dan Mullen or a Mike Gundy has us where we are today — a national laughingstock. Not only does Pruitt need to be canned in November, but he needs to be replaced with a proven P5 head coach. Don’t worry, I’ve made a list of candidates:

Tier One — Grand Slams

Urban Meyer - I find it hard to believe that his comment about UT being a top ten job last weekend wasn’t calculated, seeing as how he’s one of the most calculating people on the planet. Regardless of your thoughts on him personally, he’s a bona fide winner with three national championships to his name who would immediately have us in the Top 25 and competing for the CFP in year 2 or 3. He’s that good. He’ll turn 56 before next season and I think his “health issues” are BS — I can’t imagine he is actually done and never coaches again. Biggest issue would be we’d most assuredly be behind ND and USC on his wishlist if those jobs were to come open.

Bob Stoops - Another bona fide winner with “health issues,” although given what happened with his dad I do think he may actually be done for good. If not, he’d be an absolute dynamite hire who would immediately turn this program around. He’d be 60 next season.

Brian Kelly - I don’t think Kelly gets enough credit for what he’s done at ND. He transformed that program by going into SEC country and getting the type of guys you need to be competitive nationally. ND is a hard place to recruit compared to other national powers; the leash would be off at UT and I’d take him in a heartbeat. One negative — he’s a complete jackass, worse than Urban. It does seem like there’s rumblings about him and ND not being happy with each other every other year or so, and those rumblings could get louder if ND thinks they can get Urban.

Tier Two - Home Runs

Chris Petersen - Offensive mastermind and simply put one of the best coaches in the country when it comes to doing more with less. I don’t know if he’ll ever move his family from the west coast, and we’ve obviously been turned down by him before, but he’d be a home run hire nonetheless.

David Shaw - The last two years where Stanford has fallen off a bit don’t worry me; he’s another guy who’s won big at a place where it’s VERY hard to do so. I doubt he’d ever leave Stanford for another college job, though.

Gary Patterson - I don’t think he’s ever leaving TCU, but I’ve always wondered what he could do at an powerhouse program with elite facilities that can recruit with anyone, seeing as how he’s consistently whipped better programs with 3-star recruits for 10+ years. We really, really missed out here in 2009 or 2010 or whenever it was.

Tier Three - Well Hit Doubles

Gus Malzahn
Mike Gundy
Matt Rhule
Kyle Whittingham
Bill O’Brien

Tier Four - Better Than Pruitt
Joe Moorhead (might move up a tier if he wins 8+ again this year)
Bronco Mendenhall (moves up a tier with a top 25 finish this year)
Pat Fitzgerald
Mike Leach
Dave Doeren
Steve Addazio

The sad thing is you think any of these coaches would come here. You do realize how many people turned us down the last two coaching searches right?

let me ask you, how much did you contribute to coaches saslary last two times? Oh that's right NONE.

 

[Dudleys87]

I heard that too, and flatly disagree with it. Nobody, at least nobody rational, is expecting playoffs and National Championships. All anybody is asking is to not get beaten by teams we have to pay to play us, and compete in the East. That should be the expectation. If you have a chance to win the East, you get more opportunities. But that is where it starts.

It all boils down to....don’t be embarrassing.

While I agree, we also needed someone to evaluate the entire roster. I think this is being done now and it’s hard to stomach for some of us. Recent coaches must filled the cupboard that doesent mean it was quality food.

Again my opinion

 

['Boro-vol]

While I agree, we also needed someone to evaluate the entire roster. I think this is being done now and it’s hard to stomach for some of us. Recent coaches must filled the cupboard that doesent mean it was quality food.

Again my opinion

There is enough there to compete. We are stuck in a cycle of coaches that are unable or unwilling to develop players. To me this is evident when you see how many transfers we have that end up successful elsewhere.

At the very least a good coach should be able to put the best of what he has on the field, and game plan to their strengths....enough to compete.

We are missing an ingredient somewhere. Just my opinion.

 

[EZE]

Tennessee has gone cheap on its last three coaching hires over the past 10 seasons (dating back to Dooley) and the results are exactly what you’d expect:

Zero division championships
Zero top 20 finishes
Five soon (soon to be six) losing seasons
0-9 vs Alabama
1-8 vs Florida
2-7 vs Georgia
4-5 vs Vanderbilt

My God, that’s depressing to type. During that time, we hired three coaches in Dooley, Butch and Pruitt with zero HC experience at the P5 level. Dooley and Butch were spectacular failures (Dooley much more so than Butch), and Pruitt appears to be the same. I see some people around here still defending Pruitt and saying to give him more time....NO. He needs to be gone after this year. He’s had two offseasons to instill his culture and put his mark on this program, and the result of that was getting dominated in the trenches by a 2-10 Sun Belt team and following that up with a embarrassing loss to BYU plagued with mental errors. He is NOT the guy, and the longer we keep him around, the longer we prolong the long road back to relevance. While it’s easy to spend other people’s money, I maintain it’s much more expensive to keep the wrong guy than splurge on hiring the right guy. If you don’t believe me, check out all the empty seats at Neyland for the rest of this season (except for the UGA game, which will probably be 1/3 Dawg fans, if not more). It’s beyond perplexing to me that Tennessee invests gobs of money into building spectacular football facilities and isn’t willing to hire a proven coach who can use those facilities to build an elite program.

We all wished for a guy like Gruden, and while he would’ve been awesome, it was never happening. But our failure to land a Gary Patterson or a Chris Peterson or a Dan Mullen or a Mike Gundy has us where we are today — a national laughingstock. Not only does Pruitt need to be canned in November, but he needs to be replaced with a proven P5 head coach. Don’t worry, I’ve made a list of candidates:

Tier One — Grand Slams

Urban Meyer - I find it hard to believe that his comment about UT being a top ten job last weekend wasn’t calculated, seeing as how he’s one of the most calculating people on the planet. Regardless of your thoughts on him personally, he’s a bona fide winner with three national championships to his name who would immediately have us in the Top 25 and competing for the CFP in year 2 or 3. He’s that good. He’ll turn 56 before next season and I think his “health issues” are BS — I can’t imagine he is actually done and never coaches again. Biggest issue would be we’d most assuredly be behind ND and USC on his wishlist if those jobs were to come open.

Bob Stoops - Another bona fide winner with “health issues,” although given what happened with his dad I do think he may actually be done for good. If not, he’d be an absolute dynamite hire who would immediately turn this program around. He’d be 60 next season.

Brian Kelly - I don’t think Kelly gets enough credit for what he’s done at ND. He transformed that program by going into SEC country and getting the type of guys you need to be competitive nationally. ND is a hard place to recruit compared to other national powers; the leash would be off at UT and I’d take him in a heartbeat. One negative — he’s a complete jackass, worse than Urban. It does seem like there’s rumblings about him and ND not being happy with each other every other year or so, and those rumblings could get louder if ND thinks they can get Urban.

Tier Two - Home Runs

Chris Petersen - Offensive mastermind and simply put one of the best coaches in the country when it comes to doing more with less. I don’t know if he’ll ever move his family from the west coast, and we’ve obviously been turned down by him before, but he’d be a home run hire nonetheless.

David Shaw - The last two years where Stanford has fallen off a bit don’t worry me; he’s another guy who’s won big at a place where it’s VERY hard to do so. I doubt he’d ever leave Stanford for another college job, though.

Gary Patterson - I don’t think he’s ever leaving TCU, but I’ve always wondered what he could do at an powerhouse program with elite facilities that can recruit with anyone, seeing as how he’s consistently whipped better programs with 3-star recruits for 10+ years. We really, really missed out here in 2009 or 2010 or whenever it was.

Tier Three - Well Hit Doubles

Gus Malzahn
Mike Gundy
Matt Rhule
Kyle Whittingham
Bill O’Brien

Tier Four - Better Than Pruitt
Joe Moorhead (might move up a tier if he wins 8+ again this year)
Bronco Mendenhall (moves up a tier with a top 25 finish this year)
Pat Fitzgerald
Mike Leach
Dave Doeren
Steve Addazio

Matt Campbell needs to be high on the list.

 

[BraseltonVol]

Understood, but we didn't play last year's team.

If that's what makes you feel better. Its still GA STATE!
And we would have lost that one too.

 

[VolBricks]

Where do you win and lose games in football? The line of scrimmage. Our OL looked better against BYU running and pass protecting than it has looked in 7-10 years. I am reserving judgement until we start seeing some SEC opponents and I wont judge based on FL alone as they have one of the best DL in the country. Our tackles are both true freshmen and FL will get 8-10 sacks just because JG holds the ball too long. But by the time we get to November I expect to see our OL hold up against the lower half of the East teams.

Our DL is another story. We just do not have the studs with any experience or enough meanness to get the job done. They are on the way in the next two signing classes.

With that said I believe this coaching staff is making improvements in this team even though we are not seeing the wins come, YET.

 

[jctenn1]

Gus Malzahn really
He is lucky to be coaching Auburn this year...
He is fighting for his life this year with the boosters to keep his job...

 

[Proud Army Wife]

Thank you for that insightful analysis. We seem to have a lot of experts with inside knowledge of UT's fb program. Maybe you should forward your resume to Fulmer. Worth a shot.

 

[Memphisvol87]

The irony is when you combine all the buyout money with how much we payed coaches. We could have easily thrown a 10mill/ year to a grand slam in the first place. Great job by university leaders.

 

[VolsFan-TX]

It was said during the last search that coaches didn’t want to come here because of the fans over the top expectations

I remember hearing that In social media, but was it ever confirmed that coaches were concerned? If a coach doesn’t want to go to a school because their fans expect too much, then perhaps coaching in the SEC is not for them. Whenever a TN coach gets this thing turned around, these same “over the top” fans will be the ones screaming for the Vols in the stands, buying t-shirts, and talking smack to the rest of the league.

 

[VolsFan-TX]

The irony is when you combine all the buyout money with how much we payed coaches. We could have easily thrown a 10mill/ year to a grand slam in the first place. Great job by university leaders.

Agree, but I don’t think they expected to have to pay the buyout money. Wishful thinking by the administration.

 

[JoAllan]

“You get what you pay for.”

This may be true, but I’m not convinced Vandy is paying players to come there.

 

[JMSqb11]

UT has tried to give big money and has been turned down. You can’t force a person to take the job. In turn Fulmer has opened the pocket book for staff salary. They stole away UGAs OC. They got a top paid NFL coach. WTF do expect them to do?

And it ain't just football either. Barnes is about to sign the top class in the nation and baseball program is trending upward as well.

 

[tnmarktx]

Another dumb thread based on a false premise.

Why do all of the irrationals also have a seemingly endless supply of time on their hands to write this stuff up?

Why does Tennessee's fanbase have such a great number of apologists? Do they not know that Tennessee has been historically a college football powerhouse? Do they not think we deserve a top tier coach?

 

[The Original Fade]

Our best shot at one of the names on the OPs list is actually for Pruitt to be successful, build a good foundation, then leave for another program. THEN I could see a more proven coach actually giving us a look