Fulmer’s Legacy at Tennessee

[Jeepkuntry]

When I think about Fulmer's success, I immediately think of Cutcliffe. Every time he left, the team went downhill. Fulmer wasn't that great of a coach. And he got complacent. Once USCe and Ga got their programs up and running we went downhill. Most of our line came from SC. Most of the talent in DB and the entire offensive side came from Ga.

 

[PlanetVolunteer]

When I think about Fulmer's success, I immediately think of Cutcliffe. Every time he left, the team went downhill. Fulmer wasn't that great of a coach. And he got complacent. Once USCe and Ga got their programs up and running we went downhill. Most of our line came from SC. Most of the talent in DB and the entire offensive side came from Ga.

His incompetence kept the 99 and 01 teams from the national title game thats for sure.

Its amazing to me how Randy Sanders kept his job that long. That would never happen nowadays. We were LSU under Les Miles before LSU under Les Miles.

 

[1982Alum]

The whole complacent line is a lot of bull. If we labeled every coach that didn't repeat as national champs, we would have a lot more former coaches than we hav now. WasCoach Bill Bellichick complacent in 2007 when the Patriots went 18-0 before losing to the Giants? No. They lost in 99 and 01 for reasons beyond "being complacent". Good try....................

 

[USAFgolferVol]

The whole complacent line is a lot of bull. If we labeled every coach that didn't repeat as national champs, we would have a lot more former coaches than we hav now. WasCoach Bill Bellichick complacent in 2007 when the Patriots went 18-0 before losing to the Giants? No. They lost in 99 and 01 for reasons beyond "being complacent". Good try....................

Yes, the complacency excuse CAN be BS. It can also apply to certain situations, but in UT's case it isn't remotely analogous to Belichick going 18-1. Good grief

 

[volsknx]

I'm sure he was fired. I think it's crap that he gets to burn the program to the ground, pretend to retire while being feted like he was the savior of Tennessee, and get his buyout as if he was fired. He's sucked enough money from the University over the years as it is.

He made millions upon millions while coaching and then received a six million dollar buyout to walk away! Does anyone remember when he inquired about being a special assistant to the president so that he could get health insurance (after receiving that six million dollar buyout) and Volnation went beserk? Seems it was stated at the time the salary was coming from one of the big boosters.

You know this how?

At the time, it was reported that he made several calls to one of the boosters.

"Fulmer was named Tennessee's new coach the day after the win against the Commodores, and on the Sunday night he was hired he had to deny reports from that day's Knoxville News Sentinel that he orchestrated a behind-the-scenes coup with Tennessee athletics director Doug Dickey, president Joe Johnson and booster Bill Johnson."
Playing the what-if game: The tumultuous 1992 season

Things went to another level on Nov. 29. McGee remembers Majors walking into the studio for the final taping of “The Johnny Majors Show” with a copy of the Knoxville News-Sentinel in his hands. In it was a story citing phone records that showed Fulmer and trustee Johnson — formerly a close friend of Majors, a teammate and fraternity brother at UT — spoke 24 times on the phone between Aug. 28 and Oct. 30. The reaction was forceful. Karen Majors, then-wife of Joe, wrote an open letter to Fulmer in the Nashville Banner that read in part: “Those 20 pieces of silver are in the mail, Phil. That was the going rate for Judas Iscariot, and you fit his modus operandi to a ‘T’ for Tennessee.”

Johnny Majors took the fight all the way to the end

The reason I asked if he was ever offered a HC job anywhere after he left UT was I was curious, that’s all. As far as your question goes, you are right, it doesn’t matter.

If he really was valuable someone would have offered him or went after him. I'm pretty sure everyone in college football athletics knew it was the "program" that he inherited and not one that he necessarily built. It does seem that he put his hat in a couple of job openings only to not receive a whiff.

Like many others in 1992, I "thought the future was brighter with Fulmer at the helm" and it was. If he only could have beaten Spurrier more in the mid 90's. We should have played in at least two more NC games. Not saying we would have won but should have at least played in them. I have to give him credit for backing into the last two SEC games he played in. Honestly, to be fair, Majors won the SEC twice that way because of the Florida probation. I'm not sure just how much credit Fulmer actually deserves. He took over a football machine built under Majors and he won a NC which Majors could not do here. However, he had two losing seasons in his last four years. Add in the dismal seasons after the '01 season and the writing was on the wall for him to go.

Have to look at his AD tenure objectively. The chancellor at that time was in very hot water and was trying to stave off an embarrassing situation. I'm sure the only thing she could think of was how to somehow turn a bad situation positive. My guess is she hastily promoted him to AD thinking that would cure her professional ills but it didn't.

 

[vettefool]

A lot of wins and 1998 is all anybody will remember.

Kind of like with Johnny Majors . . . he had an ugly end, but it wasn't long before all anybody remembered were the big wins.

I was going to give my true feelings about the lazy, fat, money grubbing, over rated coach, but I suppose if you can’t say something nice.....

 

[brockytop]

How will Phillip Fulmer and his lasting legacy to the University of Tennessee be remembered?

Took a football Mercedes, turned it into a Ferrari, and then let it morph into a Chevy with no air conditioning. Also a guy that claimed to be a Volunteer to the core while gladly taking over $7.5 million dollars not to work with close to $1.5 mil as he lamented to others the financial hit his athletic department took due to Covid.

 

[GUNTERSVOL]

He made millions upon millions while coaching and then received a six million dollar buyout to walk away! Does anyone remember when he inquired about being a special assistant to the president so that he could get health insurance (after receiving that six million dollar buyout) and Volnation went beserk? Seems it was stated at the time the salary was coming from one of the big boosters.


Have to look at his AD tenure objectively. The chancellor at that time was in very hot water and was trying to stave off an embarrassing situation. I'm sure the only thing she could think of was how to somehow turn a bad situation positive. My guess is she hastily promoted him to AD thinking that would cure her professional ills but it didn't.

Objectivity of his AD tenure would require we look at the status and trendlines of ALL the sports during his 3 years or so.

MBB Got to #1 ranking last year and though confusing still got a shot this year to advance.
WBB Not back to Pat levels, but firing his friend and bringing in KH has led to great strides. More than moral victories.
Baseball Trending up for sure... hate we lost a great shot last year to COVID 7-2 start now
Softball... Weekly's doing their thing. early returns 12-1
Track and Field.. Not back to Chuck Rohe levels but still trending Check out NCAA meet coming up...
Tennis at it's highest rankings in years..Men at #3 Women at #20 nationally
Swimming keeps it's head above water Men 3rd women 5th in SEC
Soccer finished 13th nationally last fall.. lost leader with 7-4-1 start.
volleyball ??? not sure what is going on there either way.

Did not mess with rowing or golf. Feel free.

Don't think we are ALL Sports trophy level but don't see many or any lower division SEC programs other than FB.

The big dog is and will be suffering from his forced rush hire which resulted in Pruitt. He owns it lock stock and barrel, but he owns the rest of his programs as well. Whether leading or getting out of the way he left us where we are. This at least allows DW to concentrate of working with JH to get the bell cow on the mend.

Go check out the main site and drill down on each sport....

 

[TNnative]

He did hold it together in 98. That was great for certain. His run from 95 thru 98 was
also very good, but not stellar and that's it. He had a real nice run that gets over-stated.

He didn't recruit Peyton Manning. Watch the ESPN Biopic: Manning. David Cutcliffe inked him.
And, he backed into the '07 SEC CG after Florida and Georgia lost twice. Cutlciffe bailed him out
in '06 and they did not progress in '07. But, they won the bowl game in '07 to get to 10.

He had 2 conference titles. He couldn't beat Spurrier when it counted, and lost to him when it
didn't matter (05, 08), 5-9 all-time. Got jack hammered in '98 Orange Bowl by Osborne, started
then losing to Saban at LSU right off the bat, then onto Richt and then Meyer. That's about it for
him. Oh, this fiasco of course with Pruitt. He's no saint.

In a way, it's as dodgy as the Majors-Fulmer debacle. 50-50 at best. Like it or not, that's the facts.

**I did forget and was reminded his record versus Alabama was stellar when they had lame coaches.

I remember just before he got fired. If memory serves, it was about three days before. I had a suit I needed dry cleaned, and the older gent who owned the joint was a big Fulmer fan. The lobby is decorated with plenty of Tennessee football plaques and pictures. He asked me if I thought they could ever fire him. Now, this was far from the first time I had been asked this. But I told him if they did fire him, I would hate it. But I was afraid the number of players being arrested was not doing him any good. When I went back to pick up my suit later in the week, his stepping down speech was on the TV.

Before all those arrests, Fulmer was revered, win or lose. But his lackluster responses to the arrests and incidents started the calls for a new direction with a new coach. Up to that point, Tennessee was not a place where head coaches got fired and replaced every few years. Back then, Tennessee fans would still pack the stadium for Majors or Fulmer. Did players get arrested here and there before? Sure they did. But it was not huge numbers. That year? Hell you could not pick up a newspaper without reading about an arrest of a Tennessee football player. And you couldn't go to a barber shop without it being a topic of discussion.

Now the losses and the terrible way Clawson's offense led to them firing him, but the arrests was the gasoline thrown on it. You folks living in Nashville and Chattanooga might not have realized that. But those of us living in and around Knoxville? We had a ring side seat to that part. Had Fulmer done something a little pro active about that situation? He might have weathered the losses. But both? That is what got him shown the door.

 

[LTVol]

Yes. To this day people still argue about the Majors situation. To this day they argue about his move on the AD job. In the future they will argue about it. Some will defend him. Some will blame him. The fan base will argue over him for years to come.

As VN is now

 

[Backwards K]

First Ballot Hall of Famer, National Championship, SEC Championships, a lot of winning 152-52. 2nd best coach in UT history and 3rd place (Dickey) is not that close.

Will not be remembered as an Athletic Director.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Yes. To this day people still argue about the Majors situation. To this day they argue about his move on the AD job. In the future they will argue about it. Some will defend him. Some will blame him. The fan base will argue over him for years to come.

As VN is now

I sometimes feel like it's just us here and our counterparts over on Volquest who are still arguing about this.

Never hear about it on the sports radio shows, at least I haven't.

Never hear about it among my family and friends who aren't fanatic enough to come to volnation.com.

Certainly never hear it on the local news, or any other tv program.

I think it's just us keeping this whole thing alive. Because we're bored, it's either argue about one of the 50 or so regular vn.com topics, or finish that report for the boss. Ah hell, he's not gonna ask about it today.

 

[MAD]

I sometimes feel like it's just us here and our counterparts over on Volquest who are still arguing about this.

Never hear about it on the sports radio shows, at least I haven't.

Never hear about it among my family and friends who aren't fanatic enough to come to volnation.com.

Certainly never hear it on the local news, or any other tv program.

I think it's just us keeping this whole thing alive. Because we're bored, it's either argue about one of the 50 or so regular vn.com topics, or finish that report for the boss. Ah hell, he's not gonna ask about it today.

Well if you aren’t on Volnation you aren’t a real fan
What is this Volquest?

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Well if you aren’t on Volnation you aren’t a real fan
What is this Volquest?

Imagine you have to pay to log into Volnation.

Then imagine the site isn't as nicely set up, even though you're paying for it.

That's VolQuest.

 

[volsknx]

TOS

 

[sjt18]

Fulmer's legacy has been muddied by everything he did since 1999. He had two HC careers- one with Cut and one without. Without Cut, he was a pretty average coach. With Cut... he was a contender.

The odd thing is that Fulmer never really learned how to hire the right people. Sanders was able to live on Cut's afterglow for a few years but was a bad hire. Clawson was so different from Fulmer that he should not have been hired considering Fulmer's tendencies toward micromanagement. Pruitt was very obviously a guy stuck in the 90's like Fulmer.

Sad really. I thought he'd make a good AD but he couldn't learn how to do his job and let those below him do theirs. His "legacy" had been permanently damaged by the NCAA scandal. When someone puts his career in perspective... they're going to associate the off the field problems that got him fired to the problems that occurred on his watch as AD.

He would have been a lot better off living on his investments.

 

[VolinMichigan]

How will Phillip Fulmer and his lasting legacy to the University of Tennessee be remembered?

It’s hard to say he hasn’t tarnished his legacy. If he would have gone into retirement gracefully in 2008, he would be a beloved legend of UT football.

Maybe it was ego, maybe it was bitterness about the way he was let go - not on his terms. He exploited a weak administration and booster support to get a job he was clearly not qualified for. And UT was dumb enough to hand him the keys to the entire Athletic Dept. His meddling with football was detrimental to Jeremy Pruitt’s success. I’m not saying Pruitt failed at UT solely because of Fulmer, but it seemed like Fulmer was way more involved in the program than he should have been. Of course Pruitt wasn’t going to speak bad about Fulmer because he knows that would have gone very poorly for him, but having Fulmer around was probably like working for your nosy father in law that really wants your job.

The game had passed him by when he was let go in 2008. Yes, he did win the east in 2007 but he never beat Urban at UF, never beat Saban at Bama and his record against Richt was so so. The writing was on the wall. His last recruiting class was one of the worst in years. The trajectory of the program was downward when he was let go.

I’ll always be appreciative of his contributions to UT as a coach and he deserves to be associated with the glory days of UT football along with Johnny Majors and Gen. Neyland. But his tenure as AD was awful and it may have dealt a death blow to the program he claims to love so much. It’s a shame, but it’s fact. Definitely a mixed legacy.

 

[GUNTERSVOL]

Pruitt is walking around with a giant knife sticking out of his back that Fulmer put there with the help of Tee. This nonsense about Phil not knowing what was going on is silly. I think the endgame was to rid themselves of Pruitt without a buyout and no one would want the job once they blew the whistle on their own team and are likely to be sanctioned. So Phil tells Tee, hey if you turn them in you can be offensive coordinator for a year or two and Ill be the head coach then turn it over to you. I think once folks in Knoxville saw Phillip's play they ushered him out the door. Should he get a dime? Absolutely not, but I think the university is doing it to save themselves the embarrassment of revealing what really happened.

That is not consistent with Plowman got a hot tip and initiated the internal investigation info she shared at the presser. If there are really over 50 violations Pruitt can’t play the victim card. The FACT they fired 7 admins reporting to Pruitt is pretty telling that this is not an oops situation. I do hope we find out who ut the info on her desk.
A Show Cause will nail the For Cause down.

 

[Boca Vol]

That is not consistent with Plowman got a hot tip and initiated the internal investigation info she shared at the presser. If there are really over 50 violations Pruitt can’t play the victim card. The FACT they fired 7 admins reporting to Pruitt is pretty telling that this is not an oops situation. I do hope we find out who ut the info on her desk.
A Show Cause will nail the For Cause down.

Do you honestly think no one in the UT admin knew what was going on? LULZ!

 

[LTVol]

I sometimes feel like it's just us here and our counterparts over on Volquest who are still arguing about this.

Never hear about it on the sports radio shows, at least I haven't.

Never hear about it among my family and friends who aren't fanatic enough to come to volnation.com.

Certainly never hear it on the local news, or any other tv program.

I think it's just us keeping this whole thing alive. Because we're bored, it's either argue about one of the 50 or so regular vn.com topics, or finish that report for the boss. Ah hell, he's not gonna ask about it today.

Its the silly season, between last bowl game and spring practice. We're Vol football addicts here and need to constantly think/ talk about it. If theres nothing much happening with the team, we have nothing else to talk about except beating dead horses ( metaphorically speaking).

 

[onevol74]

First Ballot Hall of Famer, National Championship, SEC Championships, a lot of winning 152-52. 2nd best coach in UT history and 3rd place (Dickey) is not that close.

Will not be remembered as an Athletic Director.

WOW!! Why is he not still the coach at UT? LOL!!!!!

 

[volcop1]

Like a beer burp.

haters got to hate

 

[volcop1]

Fifth best, at best.

second winnest coach only to Neyland, only coach in decades with a NC

 

[volcop1]

He has destroyed Tennessee football 3 times.
If you include the way Majors was pushed out.

Johnny got on the bottle, it was well known

 

[GoodlettsvilleVol]

Very decent human being who loves Tennessee with his heart and soul.