Defending Fulmer

#1,151
#1,151
LawVol13 said:
Just face it, blaming Clawson for Fulmer's demise is beyond ridiculous. Even if you like the man, you just need to face the fact that it was past time for him to go.
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It's "beyond ridiculous" to claim it was "past time" for Fulmer to "go" as long as every objective measurement of Tennessee football, over any multiple of years, shows us worse off without him in every category of consequence.
 
#1,152
#1,152
zjcvols said:
Who cares if you beat your rivals when you don't win titles?
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Because beating your rivals has a value of its own. Because that "title-or-bust" philosophy turns a 9 win program, typically ranked all season, NYD bowl games, national relevance, fun games, into a 7-win program, unranked all season, no NYD bowl games, national irrelevance, few fun games, and a few embarrassing coaches & scandals to boot.
 
#1,153
#1,153
Its the whole generation gap thing again. For us 40 somethings, Alabama is still the game. It's still an SEC game, and is the most special game of the year. If we can beat one of them this year and its my choice, we will be 2-1 after 3 games.
Nothing like the cigar after beating Bama, and not having to hear the damned rammer-jammer song.
 
#1,154
#1,154
VegasVol said:
Because beating your rivals has a value of its own. Because that "title-or-bust" philosophy turns a 9 win program, typically ranked all season, NYD bowl games, national relevance, fun games, into a 7-win program, unranked all season, no NYD bowl games, national irrelevance, few fun games, and a few embarrassing coaches & scandals to boot.
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Or in Fulmers case you can do neither in beating your rivals or winning titles. We are more competitive now than we would be if Coach Worklikeheck were still here talking about how even though UF beat us by 39 we were only down by 2 TD's in the 3rd quarter.

But according to Vegas, nothing was wrong with the program and everything was going along fine.

Vegas starts with a V. Vickie also starts with a V. Coincidence? I think not.
 
#1,158
#1,158
Whether you think he should have been fired or not. Whether you think he stayed too long or was fired prematurely. No matter what you think, can we all agree that he did alot of good things as HC? Seriously.
:good!:
 
#1,160
#1,160
Big Orange 1 said:
Whether you think he should have been fired or not. Whether you think he stayed too long or was fired prematurely. No matter what you think, can we all agree that he did alot of good things as HC? Seriously.
:good!:
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I am not a Fulmer hater and readily appreciate all he did for our program and his loyalty to The Vols.

Alot of peoples animosity toward him, IMO, comes from a few things. One is that during his last few years he lashed out at fans who were upset with losing seasons and seemed to act like it's no big deal, I can fix it. What he was saying in interviews about "we didn't quit", "we always play hard", etc wasn't what we were seeing on the field.

Secondly and most importantly I think fans are/were upset that Fulmer didn't seem to think anything was wrong and that we were still the dominant program he helped build in the 90's. Most of us saw that losses to top teams were not only piling up but we weren't competitive in them anymore. He referred to our loss at UCLA in 2008 as a trap game.

Probably don't need to relist all of those things, but I will agree with you and others in that he did far more good things than bad, but in the end it was like John Ward said..."It's Time".
 
#1,161
#1,161
PandamoniumReigns said:
This is my first and only post in this thread: Did Gibby let Phil eat some Krispy Kremes off his junk or something? Your overwhelmingly biased view of the unemployed former coach is absurd.

I am now dumber for having read this thread. I will never regain the I.Q. points I've lost reading Gibby and BigOrange's posts. Oddly enough, the amount of I.Q. points I've lost might come close to Gibby's and BigO's IQ combined.
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I love the three cornered hat.

Unfortunately, my "overwhelmingly biased view" of Fulmer is grounded in the real world outside the back door.

By every conceivable metric, we have gone backwards, so much so that "sometimes you go two steps backwards to go forward" is a now ubiquitous refrain on the board.

THEN, we get to the really "overwhelmingly biased view": that "Fulmanure" ran the program into the ground. And yet, said program was better with him than it has been without him by every conceivable metric over any multiple of years including the "mediocre" ones.

So, one has to ask, did Phil kick the GoF in the junk one day??????
 
#1,162
#1,162
99gator said:
i will attempt to end this fulmer nonsense once and for all with several points that i would think most could agree with.

1. fulmer did a very good job the majority of his time at tennessee. Indeed

2. despite, taking over a program in good shape, fulmer took the program to another level that everyone would love to get back to. the 90's are the standard that everyone is trying to get tennessee back to as most acknowledged that the neyland era ain't gonna happen, but the 90's could. Very true, and lost on most of the younger generation here. However, Fulmer was also mostly responsible for the program he inherited.

3. fulmer needed to go. tennessee had slipped as a program and it was time. He definitely let his foot off the gas, a la Michael Jordan in basketball. BUT, I felt like he was hungry again for one last run. He got very unlucky in 2001 / 2007.

4. it will be difficult for anyone to duplicate the success he had for the first 10 or so years as head coach. [I]Very, very, very difficult.[/I]

5. because of #4, the man deserves respect. Doubtless for any true Vol fan.

6. because of #3, no one should sit around and cry about fulmer being shown the door and act like everything would be peaches and cream if he were still around.

Incorrect. Things are assuredly not peaches and cream now that he is gone. In fact, there is ZERO evidence we are "on the up" so to speak. Mid-table SEC recruiting rankings / 7-win vice 9-win seasons. Meanwhile, we humiliated our second greatest coach, made the worst hire in 60 years of SEC football, luckily will probably avoid major infractions with the fortunate departure of said coach, and could not hire a proven winner the second time either.
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Not a bad effort for a gator, but you miss the forest for the trees (as many do) by the time you get to #6.
 
#1,165
#1,165
utgibbs said:
THEN, we get to the really "overwhelmingly biased view": that "Fulmanure" ran the program into the ground. And yet, said program was better with him than it has been without him by every conceivable metric over any multiple of years including the "mediocre" ones.
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Fulmers last two years 15-10 with losses to UF and Bama by a combined scored of 89-26 to UF and 70-26 to Bama. No bowl games and losing seasons two of his last 4 years and absolutely no confidence of being able to do anything without Cutcliff there to help right the sinking ship.

Add on that, terrible recruiting classes his last 4 years and it's amazing we've actually improved our record every year since Phil's last year.
 
#1,167
#1,167
VegasVol said:
Because beating your rivals has a value of its own. Because that "title-or-bust" philosophy turns a 9 win program, typically ranked all season, NYD bowl games, national relevance, fun games, into a 7-win program, unranked all season, no NYD bowl games, national irrelevance, few fun games, and a few embarrassing coaches & scandals to boot.
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The bold is not true.

We weren't nationally relevent.

We won 9 games twice in four years. And five twice.

We made it to two NYD bowl games. And didn't make a bowl game twice.

I honestly don't remember fun games other than Cal in 2006 and Georgia in 2007. I remember getting beat by Florida/Bama by almost 100 total points. Losing to USClite by 23, losing to a mediocre Penn State team, and watching a 3 win Wyoming team come into Neyland and beat us.

Edit: Not to mention we weren't a championship program under Fulmer.
 
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#1,168
#1,168
utgibbs said:
Not a bad effort for a gator, but you miss the forest for the trees (as many do) by the time you get to #6.
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Three things:

2007-2008 regular season: 14-11

2009-2010 regualar season: 13-12

Wow. Huge step back.

He didn't get unlucky in 2001 or 2007. He got outcoached in 2001 and got beat by a better team in 2007. There's no luck involved there.

And where was this "hunger" to make another run after losing the 01 SEC title? 8-5. How about after losing 04 title? 5-6. Losing the 07 title? 5-7. Where was the hunger? Show me he had one more run, because all evidence shows he wasn't.

After losing an SEC title game: 18-18. Where's the hunger? Cause it seems like he got lazier.
 
#1,169
#1,169
zjcvols said:
Three things:

2007-2008 regular season: 14-11

2009-2010 regualar season: 13-12

Wow. Huge step back.

He didn't get unlucky in 2001 or 2007. He got outcoached in 2001 and got beat by a better team in 2007. There's no luck involved there.

And where was this "hunger" to make another run after losing the 01 SEC title? 8-5. How about after losing 04 title? 5-6. Losing the 07 title? 5-7. Where was the hunger? Show me he had one more run, because all evidence shows he wasn't.

After losing an SEC title game: 18-18. Where's the hunger? Cause it seems like he got lazier.
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You can't see the forrest because your in the middle of the ocean.
 
#1,170
#1,170
I like people simultaneously arguing he was the most loyal and dedicated Vol ever, but also let his foot off the gas while accepting raises and contract extensions.
 
#1,173
#1,173
Big Orange 1 said:
Yeah, people turn down raises at work every day. Nah, keep it boss.

152-52
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The point, which went so far over your head as to require a telescope in order to view it, was that a guy that's so dedicated wouldn't fall asleep on the job. He shouldn't need to be continually reminded that "fire" and "hunger" (words he loved to use as reasons he needed another chance) are necessary for ever seasons, not just the ones following epic disappointments.
 
#1,175
#1,175
kptvol said:
The point, which went so far over your head as to require a telescope in order to view it, was that a guy that's so dedicated wouldn't fall asleep on the job. He shouldn't need to be continually reminded that "fire" and "hunger" (words he loved to use as reasons he needed another chance) are necessary for ever seasons, not just the ones following epic disappointments.
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Just say one good thing about CPF, KPTVOL, just one. You can still love Lane, just say one good thing.

1998 National Champions
 
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