Chris Low's comments really IRKED me !!

#1
VolnTEARS?

VolnTEARS?

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 24, 2004
Messages
543
Likes
232
#1
On George Plaster's show yesterday Chris Low was on there giving his take.

He said he felt it was a 50/50 chance that Fulmer was gone by the end of the year.

I went to get a direct quote from him but 104.5 doesn't archive their shows apparently so I couldn't get his exact words.

I will try and be accurate at the gist of what he said.

It went something like this:

"Tennessee fans have to have reasonable expectations. They have to realize that they have Nick Saban in the West and Florida and Georgia in the East and they can't expect that they're going to get a top tier coach out there. Also, because of those other coaches they are going to have a much tougher time recruiting because the state of Tennessee doesn't have great recruiting and those other coaches are locking up recruits in their areas."

So what I got from his comments was that Tennessee fans shouldn't expect to attract a top level coach like Alabama did. We shouldn't expect to attract a top level coach like Florida has and to think that we could be as highly touted as a Georgia program so much so to draw recruits away from those other programs.

Are you kidding me? I was about to fall out of my truck listening to him. We have averaged 105,176 fans over the past nine seasons. It was reported on television a game or two back that we have the largest recruiting budget of any school in the entire nation.

Why shouldn't we expect to draw the best coach available? He mentioned something about how UT fans shouldn't expect that Pete Carroll is going to come running to Knoxville. My question is, "Did Alabama think he was coming? Could Florida lock him down? Would he come running to Georgia if Richt steps down?

So my question to the Vol Nation is what should we expect? I don't expect Carroll to come a running? Why would he? Now let USC start losing for a couple of years and, sure, he may want to visit Knoxvegas.

No school that I know of could lure Carroll away at the moment.

I just thought Low's comments were a bit over the top.

You danged right we should expect the best coach available. You danged right we should expect our new coach to go in and snatch recruits out from under Saban, Meyers, Richt, and Meyer.

He better...or he can pack it too.

That's why I wrote in a post a few days ago that hiring a new coach is NOT the answer. The answer is hiring the RIGHT coach.

High expectations baby. That's right...that's what we've got.

That's how champions roll.

Go Vols.
 
#4
#4
I waited an hour in Nashville traffic yesterday to hear Chris Low's comments and all I got was Mickey Dearstone logic about "who are you gonna get"...

Probably Chris Low's worst interview in a long time.
 
#5
#5
Also loved how this guy Plaster asked Low if David Cutcliffe was an obvious choice to replace Fulmer during the conversation. :no:
 
#6
#6
Low usually is good but yeah yesterday he was pretty bad. He sounded like someone who hadn't followed UT football very well.
 
#7
#7
"Reasonable expectations" are fine. The problem is that "reasonable expectations" is usually code for something like, "oh well, now that UGA and UF and Bama all have good coaches, the best UT's going to be able to do is win 8 or 9 games a year now because the talent isn't going to be as good." No. Two things:

1. My main expectation is that we field what at least appears to be a well coached, disciplined team. We don't. That doesn't have anything to do with talent. Don't tell us that our expectations are unrealistic because of a talent gap, when the talent that we do have isn't being well coached.

2. There's no question that we're at a significant competitive disadvantage compared to our rivals because our instate talent is so crappy. The way to help bridge that gap is with outstanding coaching. The way you get better coaching is with money. If we're serious about being competitive in the SEC, we need to identify whoever we think is the absolute best guy for the job and offer him an insane amount of money to come to Knoxville. Start at the top of your pie-in-the-sky list and offer him $2m/yr more (or whatever you think it would take) than he's making now. If he won't bite, go to the second guy. That's not being unrealistic; that's simple economics.

(And that's not to say that the guy at the top of your pie-in-the-sky list has to be a "big" name; maybe it is, maybe it isn't. You just find the guy whom you think would be the best at the job and do absolutely everything you can to get him in Knoxville. You make it so that if he turns us down, it's not about money.)
 
Last edited:
#8
#8
2. There's no question that we're at a significant competitive disadvantage compared to our rivals because our instate talent is so crappy. The way to help bridge that gap is with outstanding coaching. The way you get better coaching is with money. If we're serious about being competitive in the SEC, we need to identify whoever we think is the absolute best guy for the job and offer him an insane amount of money to come to Knoxville. Start at the top of your pie-in-the-sky list and offer him $2m/yr more (or whatever you think it would take) than he's making now. If he won't bite, go to the second guy. That's not being unrealistic; that's simple economics.
Click to expand...

Great reply and I agree. If you want the best you have to pay the best. We can go out with guns a blazing and offer the next coach less money than the other top four in the SEC.

Very well said indeed.

People say, "well we can't pay what Alabama pays." Why not? Why can they pay it and we can't?

Are they a state school?

Are we not supported by boosters too? Oh, the Alabama boosters are richer? Well kiss my grits I didn't know that.

Does the University of Tennessee not rake in millions of dollars and do they not have a business department that can crunch the numbers?

You invest 5 million in a coach and because he comes and wins your revenue increases 100 million a year?

That's easy math to me folks. I actually read an article where an investment guru ( can't remember who now ) made the case that comparing Saban's salary to the revenue generated by hiring him showed that he was actually under paid.

So you get the right guy and VOLLA....you're in the cat bird seat.

I just want somebody with some fire in his belly that will kick some kids in the butt and not put up with any nonsense.
 
#9
#9
VolnTEARS? said:
we have the largest recruiting budget of any school in the entire nation.
Click to expand...

I agree with your post in general but I had to take issue with this point. I hear alot about the large recruiting budget but that is not a good thing. All it is really saying is that the Vols have expenses that other programs do not have. This is not a good thing.

As for the rest of your post, yep, have to pony up the bucks.
 
#10
#10
VolnTEARS? said:
Great reply and I agree. If you want the best you have to pay the best. We can go out with guns a blazing and offer the next coach less money than the other top four in the SEC.

Very well said indeed.

People say, "well we can't pay what Alabama pays." Why not? Why can they pay it and we can't?

Are they a state school?

Are we not supported by boosters too? Oh, the Alabama boosters are richer? Well kiss my grits I didn't know that.

Does the University of Tennessee not rake in millions of dollars and do they not have a business department that can crunch the numbers?

You invest 5 million in a coach and because he comes and wins your revenue increases 100 million a year?

That's easy math to me folks. I actually read an article where an investment guru ( can't remember who now ) made the case that comparing Saban's salary to the revenue generated by hiring him showed that he was actually under paid.

So you get the right guy and VOLLA....you're in the cat bird seat.

I just want somebody with some fire in his belly that will kick some kids in the butt and not put up with any nonsense.
Click to expand...

Great post. I bet the revenue we lost this year would more than pay for salary difference between Fulmer and Saban. Not even considering a bowl game because doesn't a school make money off bowl apperences.
 
#11
#11
There's no question that Tennessee is having more trouble now than it used to going into other states and getting the recruits we want, and that unchecked, that trend dooms us to the middle of the pack in the SEC. I get that. But you can either have "realistic expectations" and just accept that as inevitable, or you can accept that the only way to fight it is by throwing money at the problem. And recognize that you're probably going to have to "overpay" to get exactly the guy you want. It's either that or don't compete.
 
#13
#13
The only reason Tennessee didnt hire Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, Butch Davis, etc is because they didn't offer them the job. They would have come to Tennessee had the position been open and had they been offered similar money.
 
#14
#14
oklavol said:
The only reason Tennessee didnt hire Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, Butch Davis, etc is because they didn't offer them the job. They would have come to Tennessee had the position been open and had they been offered similar money.
Click to expand...

yep.
 
#15
#15
oklavol said:
The only reason Tennessee didnt hire Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, Butch Davis, etc is because they didn't offer them the job. They would have come to Tennessee had the position been open and had they been offered similar money.
Click to expand...

Excellant point.
 
#16
#16
Uh, I heard that interview. He said that all those states have large recruiting bases(true), that someone taking over the UT job would be at a disadvantage recruiting wise(true), and that a coach getting paid at a similar rate to what we would offer in a smaller BCS conference would have an easier time winning 10+ games a year there(true). What are you taking issue with? I love Tennessee, I am a student at Tennessee, but all of you people who think it is a job people across the country are lining up for are insane. A number of BCS schools can offer similar pay, similar facilities, similar fan support, and a much easier place to recruit to.

We bring tradition, but ask Nebraska how that's going now that they are getting squeezed out of their traditional recruiting bases in Oklahoma and Texas(OU, OSU, Texas, Texas Tech, A&M, hell they're even fighting Baylor for some 3 stars). I'm not trying to be negative here, and I'm sure we'll find a good coach, but we're either going to have to overpay or take a chance on an up and comer. Don't shoot the messenger when he says there are 4-5 schools in the SEC that offer 90%(or more) of what we offer tradition wise who also happen to have a bigger pool of local talent. Add in the fact that those 4-5 schools almost all have highly paid, successful, proven coaches at them and that UT fans will not accept rebuilding years at all and you're going to be hard pressed to convince some established coach to come here without throwing him Saban money.

That's reality people. We should learn to deal with it.

Edit: Meyer was from Utah, a similar level to a Chris Petersen or someone like him. Saban was from Michigan State originally(Brian Kelly at Cincinatti would be similar), then from a pro job he obviously didn't enjoy and at the whim of a 5 million dollar offer(are we going to offer that in the middle of a recession?). Richt was a highly thought of assistant. There are plenty of guys out there that fit the first and third criteria, but the only guy who meets the middle one(ie, an established BCS championship level coach) is Butch Davis, and we would have to throw the same kind of money at him Bama did to get him to leave a school that A) has large financial resources due to basketball, and B) is in an easier conference to win in. Throw in C) He wins 8 games a year there and he's a saint and D) He wins 8 a year here and we'll want to run him off and you tell me why he would come here for less than 5 mill a year?
 
Last edited:
#17
#17
oklavol said:
The only reason Tennessee didnt hire Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, Butch Davis, etc is because they didn't offer them the job. They would have come to Tennessee had the position been open and had they been offered similar money.
Click to expand...

I'm not arguing that we would literally have had to pay Meyer, Saban, Davis, etc. more money to come to Tennessee than they took to go elsewhere. I'm making more of a generalization -- that if we're going to compete, we've got to have top-tier coaching, and in order to attract a top 5-caliber coach to a top-15-ish job, we'll probably have to open up the wallet. Especially if he has a already has a job he's happy with. (Which, if he's a top-5 caliber coach, he probably does. Which is why Bama had to pay Saban $4m a year.)

The other route is to identify a top-5 caliber coach before he scores a big job -- Urban Meyer at Utah is an obvious example. You don't have to pay as much money for this approach, obviously, but you run a much higher risk of being wrong. It worked out for Florida, obviously, just like Saban worked out for Bama. I don't care which route UT goes, as long as they get the right guy.
 
#18
#18
When we already have the #1 recruiting budget and we go all over the country to recruit, I don't see what the big deal is. We schedule west coast opponents, so the family can see them play, not too mention the rest of the country. You take the UT job if you want to prove you are the best coach in the best conference with all the resources to make you successful. And...you sit in a stadium 100,000 strong willing to pay I guess whatever to win EVERY week! If I'm a Head Football Coach with the ego to match, This is the only job I want.
 
#19
#19
vol66 said:
When we already have the #1 recruiting budget and we go all over the country to recruit, I don't see what the big deal is. We schedule west coast opponents, so the family can see them play, not too mention the rest of the country. You take the UT job if you want to prove you are the best coach in the best conference with all the resources to make you successful. And...you sit in a stadium 100,000 strong willing to pay I guess whatever to win EVERY week! If I'm a Head Football Coach with the ego to match, This is the only job I want.
Click to expand...

You have orange colored glasses. You don't think the atmosphere in Chapel Hill will be electric if they become a perennial top five program(easy to win 10-11 games a year in the ACC)? He was considered one of the best coaches in the country when he had success at Miami, he doesn't have to come to the SEC to get the same kind of respect from the media and his peers. You think UT offers significantly more resources than UNC? I don't. UNC also has a reputation as an academic school, something UT does not have. The only reason Butch Davis, a guy with no tie to this university, would have to make that switch is dollar signs.
 
#21
#21
Titanic said:
You have orange colored glasses. You don't think the atmosphere in Chapel Hill will be electric if they become a perennial top five program(easy to win 10-11 games a year in the ACC)? He was considered one of the best coaches in the country when he had success at Miami, he doesn't have to come to the SEC to get the same kind of respect from the media and his peers. You think UT offers significantly more resources than UNC? I don't. UNC also has a reputation as an academic school, something UT does not have. The only reason Butch Davis, a guy with no tie to this university, would have to make that switch is dollar signs.
Click to expand...

North Carolina.... Football...I didn't say one word about Butch Davis, come to think of it...he's not even in my top 10.
 
#23
#23
Titanic said:
you're going to be hard pressed to convince some established coach to come here without throwing him Saban money.
Click to expand...

That's my point. What's wrong with throwing the coach you want Saban money? (It worked for Alabama.) If we're going to compete, top-tier coaching is a sine qua non. You do what you have to do to get it. Otherwise we can give up because our borders have been sealed off. We'll be just like Ole Miss, except with the Vol Navy instead of the Grove.

You identify the guy you want. If he's a Saban type, he's going to cost you up front; if he's a Meyer type, he's not going to cost as much until he has the success you expect him to. Either way you do everything you can to get him in Knoxville.
 
Last edited:
#24
#24
What is everyone going to do if Duke beats UNC in FOOTBALL the last game of the season? I know it's a huge if, but...is it possible? Carroll, Gruden, Cowher, Lovie Smith, Kiffen and daddy too(they want a package deal). There's 5 off the top of my head.
 
#25
#25
if/when tennessee drops fulmer, they will be spending at least 4 million/season to get a coach that will appease the fanbase. I agree that TN doesn't have the recruits of a FL or GA and it will take a big move to put us the in the position of a future national power. sad but true.
 
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.
Advertisement



Back
Top