Recruiting Forum Football Talk III

[BigOrangeVols]

Classy answer by Pruitt IMO.

I guess but what else could he have said...."Hey Philip, we did beat Indiana in a bowl game"

 

[vol494]

Hope and pray for this man. He’s a good dude.

 

[RikidyBones]

No way Shrout comes back. Only QB on the roster now that should return is Bailey.

1. Bailey
2. Salter
3. Grad Transfer
4. One Time transfer QB

Isn't his girl at UT? I think that keeps him here.

 

[snowvols]

I’d say Nebraska has to be the favorite

Yeah, Frost has said in the past he is like a son to him. He has already offered him a coaching job at Nebraska when he is done with football.

 

[Ace]

Mark Richt was at Ga, Bama was bad, Everyone ran a pro style offense so you could still win games 14-10, continuity among his coordinators, he was a great recruiter pre 1999, only major schools played on TV so we won recruiting battles against mid major teams and the admin was in sync. Some can be repeated but today’s climate, the style of play and our horrible administration has me thinking we will have to resort to YouTube to watch TN win on a high level. Just my 2 cents...

Losing to LSU in SEC championship broke Fulmer. If we had won, we would have played Miami for National Championship. It was the beginning of the end. If we win that game, recruiting would have continued to soar. We lost to a back up QB and lost to a team we had beaten convincingly in the regular season. Even Vol fans began to question Fulmer. So much talent for 7 years, yet only two SEC titles at that point.

 

[Volfanatic_20]

Isn't his girl at UT? I think that keeps him here.

May not be his choice

 

[Smyrna ATL Vol]

I’d say they’ll take a good DB if one is out there before ILB or TE. QB is first priority

What do our coaches think we have at ILB? We have Toot.

 

[LA Vol]

We get thumped by Florida and aTm, it’s coaching change season.

These are playoff contenders. They're much more talented teams and they're looking to make a statement to influence the selection committee. So a thumping, while hard to stomach, won't shock anyone. Any movement toward change starts at the top. A very small group of people have say, and while Fulmer is one of them, the pivotal player is Randy Boyd.

That's not crowd control. That's how UT works.

 

[pierce60]

I know this is random, but Dan Harralson might be the worst writer on the Tennessee beat. He just dropped a story talking with a high school coach about what it's like to coach with Hugh Freeze and his ability to motivate players. Why write a story about the coach at Liberty University? Or did Tennessee hire Hugh Freeze and no one knew it?

 

[05_never_again]

I still wonder if the problem after that was Sanders being in over his head, or Fulmer resisting attempts to modernize the offense.

I think Phil had a lot of personal loyalty to Sanders, and was exceedingly hesitant to move on from him even when it became clear he was in over his head. I'm not so sure it was about a resistance to modernize - if Sanders ran a newer style of offense that didn't work, I think Phil also would have been hesitant to move on too because it was a personal thing; he was on the coaching staff when Sanders was a player and probably saw it like a master-apprentice relationship. That's fine at, say, the high school level or lower levels of college football, but not at a big time program like Tennessee. The game was modernizing, becoming more "corporate" and business-like, and I don't think Phil adjusted to that.

When Phil did have his hand forced and he fired Sanders, I think he probably felt out of his element because it was so rare for him to have to make a hire from outside his staff.

 

[pierce60]

These are playoff contenders. They're much more talented teams and they're looking to make a statement to influence the selection committee. So a thumping, while hard to stomach, won't shock anyone. Any movement toward change starts at the top. A very small group of people have say, and while Fulmer is one of them, the pivotal player is Randy Boyd.

That's not crowd control. That's how UT works.

And when you have Randy Boyd type money there isn't much that intimidates you financially, which is a good thing IMO.

 

[05_never_again]

I know this is random, but Dan Harralson might be the worst writer on the Tennessee beat. He just dropped a story talking with a high school coach about what it's like to coach with Hugh Freeze and his ability to motivate players. Why write a story about the coach at Liberty University? Or did Tennessee hire Hugh Freeze and no one knew it?

Dan Harralson gets article ideas from reading VN threads and reading Wikipedia, then puts them on 10 different pages that you have to click through.

 

[Kingston Vol]

These are playoff contenders. They're much more talented teams and they're looking to make a statement to influence the selection committee. So a thumping, while hard to stomach, won't shock anyone. Any movement toward change starts at the top. A very small group of people have say, and while Fulmer is one of them, the pivotal player is Randy Boyd.

That's not crowd control. That's how UT works.

Randy isn't dumb and he is far more aggressive than people in that post over the last two decades. He's got the money lined up to do any number of things.

But he's tight with Fulmer - and if Fulmer advises him to give Pruitt another year, I'd guess he'd do it. But as soon as Fulmer tells him the tide has shifted, it's over.

 

[letsgoUT29]

If Spurrier was in the SEC West, Phil probably would have won the East every year from 1995-1999. If Spurrier was outside the SEC, Phil probably would have won the SEC all of those years too and probably played in multiple national title games.

True, but unfortunately dominated by Nebraska. They were the real deal and we saw that first hand when the Gators were dominated in 95 and us in 97.

 

[RiotVol]

Losing to LSU in SEC championship broke Fulmer. If we had won, we would have played Miami for National Championship. It was the beginning of the end. If we win that game, recruiting would have continued to soar. We lost to a back up QB and lost to a team we had beaten convincingly in the regular season. Even Vol fans began to question Fulmer. So much talent for 7 years, yet only two SEC titles at that point.

I still think we were the only team in the country that had the horses to run with that Miami team.

 

[VOLUNTEERSZN]

What do our coaches think we have at ILB? We have Toot.

They need to move a couple of guys there. Move Morven and Whitehead to ILB, move banks outside plus further development of French. Plus Aaron Willis coming in. We have options. All of those guys were highly rated LBs outta HS and I would expect them to play at a high level with a FULL offseason of development.

 

[revjayp]

Losing to LSU in SEC championship broke Fulmer. If we had won, we would have played Miami for National Championship. It was the beginning of the end. If we win that game, recruiting would have continued to soar. We lost to a back up QB and lost to a team we had beaten convincingly in the regular season. Even Vol fans began to question Fulmer. So much talent for 7 years, yet only two SEC titles at that point.

100%.
That loss and the basketVols loss to Purdue 2 years ago were the most painful moments in my vol fandom.

 

[Aesius]

These are playoff contenders. They're much more talented teams and they're looking to make a statement to influence the selection committee. So a thumping, while hard to stomach, won't shock anyone. Any movement toward change starts at the top. A very small group of people have say, and while Fulmer is one of them, the pivotal player is Randy Boyd.

That's not crowd control. That's how UT works.

The question to me is...does Fulmer feel comfortable heading into what will be a very long offseason carrying water for his 2-7 coach?

It might actually be EASIER to fire Pruitt and start over than to deal with incredible fan apathy, extreme media criticism, plenty of fingerpointing in Knoxville, recruits dropping off one after another, etc., for 9 more months. Easier to sell hope than to keep plugging leaks all over the boat.

And as others have said...the fire starts right back up as soon as Pruitt loses a game in 2021, and he will lose quite a few. Don't see us being better than 7-5 or so next year.

 

[Smokeytom]

I'd like to open this up to folks who are older than me: what was it that made Fulmer successful here as head coach? I was four years old in 1998, my first real memories are the 2001 season, so I've really only seen this program come down.

Is it as simple as David Cutcliffe was just that good? I think that doesn't give Fulmer his due.

Is what he did here replicable in 2020?

Damn Kingston I didn’t realize you were a part of the youth movement. Do you even party, brah?

 

[JAllen18]

Pruitt firmly on the hot seat next year. Will be interesting to see how many offensive staff changes may happen in the offseason..

 

[Smyrna ATL Vol]

They need to move a couple of guys there. Move Morven and Whitehead to ILB, move banks outside plus further development of French. Plus Aaron Willis coming in. We have options. All of those guys were highly rated LBs outta HS and I would expect them to play at a high level with a FULL offseason of development.

Agreed. But I think Morven needs to stay at OLB. And crouch should be OLB.

ILB
Toot
Willis
French
Whitehead

Very unproven and scary depth. That’s why I think it should be priority number two after QB. All IMO of course.

 

[Kingston Vol]

Boyd is also very tight with Peyton and Bob Stoops among a litany of other folks in the coaching community.

Not to suggest either of those guys are candidates for this job, but just that he might be doing his own due diligence right now about the prospective coaching market. If they can get a name they feel comfortable with to commit, that's another thing.

 

[GoBigOrange86]

Losing to LSU in SEC championship broke Fulmer. If we had won, we would have played Miami for National Championship. It was the beginning of the end. If we win that game, recruiting would have continued to soar. We lost to a back up QB and lost to a team we had beaten convincingly in the regular season. Even Vol fans began to question Fulmer. So much talent for 7 years, yet only two SEC titles at that point.

I think losing that game is overrated in terms of why we are where we are. One game doesn’t make or break a program like that. Texas similarly screwed up in 2001 by losing to a team they’d already convincingly beaten in the regular season. They bounced back and kept going.

Our decline was the result of a whole host of factors.

 

[VOLUNTEERSZN]

Agreed. But I think Morven needs to stay at OLB. And crouch should be OLB.

ILB
Toot
Willis
French
Whitehead

Very unproven and scary depth. That’s why I think it should be priority number two after QB. All IMO of course.

I think Crouch should be a RB tbh

 

[TrippieRedd]

Crop dusted the dentist. Oops