It may well have been Fulmer's playbook, but he sure as hell didn't know how to use it. With a mixture of poor discipline practice, lazy recruiting, piss poor game planning, and unjustified loyalty to outdated assistant coaches, CPF was basically laying the groundwork for taking UT football from prominence to poverty.
Posted via VolNation Mobile
What planet are you from? What color is you sky?
Fulmer had the winningest percentage for a coach in the NCAA when people started talking about his "unjustified loyalty" What most people mean when they say "unjustified loyalty" in knoxville is "you only won 10 games? no Title? off with someone's head!" Expectations I might add that didn't really exist pre Fulmer....he sat the bar he later failed to meet. You don't tally his career record with pisspoor anything......and I would think the gamecocks would be experts on that topic pre Spurrier.
He was the one that took the Vols from medocrity to prominance in the first place....
Year win% Coach
1977 0.167 Johnny Majors
1978 0.5 Johnny Majors
1979 0.5 Johnny Majors
1980 0.5 Johnny Majors
1981 0.5 Johnny Majors
1982 0.5 Johnny Majors
1983 0.667 Johnny Majors
1984 0.5 Johnny Majors
1985 0.833 Johnny Majors
1986 0.5 Johnny Majors
1987 0.667 Johnny Majors
1988 0.429 Johnny Majors
Fulmer becomes Offensive Cordinator,
60's playbook is updated
1989 0.858 Johnny Majors
1990 0.715 Johnny Majors
1991 0.715 Johnny Majors
1992 0.625 Johnny Majors, Phillip Fulmer
Guess who coached three losses?
1993 0.875 Phillip Fulmer
1994 0.625 Phillip Fulmer
1995 0.875 Phillip Fulmer
1996 0.875 Phillip Fulmer
1997 0.875 Phillip Fulmer
1998 1.000 Phillip Fulmer NC Title
The Decline
1999 0.75 Phillip Fulmer
2000 0.625 Phillip Fulmer
2001 0.875 Phillip Fulmer
2002 0.626 Phillip Fulmer
2003 0.75 Phillip Fulmer
2004 0.875 Phillip Fulmer
2005 0.375 Phillip Fulmer
2006 0.625 Phillip Fulmer
2007 0.75 Phillip Fulmer
2008 0.375 Phillip Fulmer
With exception of 2005 and 2008 even the decline kicks Pre Fulmer wins.
Most every program in the SEC has cyclical events on team, what makes Fulmers stats remarkable is that his poor rebuilding years don't even show up until he's been coaching 13 years as head coach.....
I dunno.....very few coaches in the SEC have achived his sort of success and before him we were NOT a power house for many years.
Even General Neyland had 1936-37 47-49....had Phil bashers been alive then they would have talked about him "taking UT football from prominence to poverty."
Vols who do not remember Pre Fulmer, or were just too young Pre-fulmer are spoiled....He won so often and so long that any hiccup to that and it was the "end of the world" Well I promise you we're gonna see a lot more hiccups then that over the next decade most likely.
Dooley has what it takes turn this team around, but if he has 1 bad year will Vols stand by him? or lop his head off and start the decades of self destruction Alabama went through after Bryant?