End of the Vols Dark Ages

[VFL-82-JP]

Yet Fulmer is still a hero to many Vol fans. SMH

...

It is possible to fill an entire page with Coach Fulmer's significant accomplishments, but we don't need to repeat them here. You've clearly been willfully ignoring all that, so it wouldn't help.

So I'll just leave it with two simple stats which, all by themselves, show just how silly your post was:

1. Fulmer coached 161/2 seasons. Vols had 10 or more wins in nine of them. Another six had 8 or more wins.
2. 1998 National Champions.

 

[KBVol]

I think people will be happy with 8 regular season wins provided one of them is against UF, UGA, or Bama, with UF being the most likely.

9 regular season wins is still my prediction, but I won't kick any light bulb buckets if we only win 8.

7 wins or less means we either had devastating injuries or the coaching staff failed.

Completely agree. 9 is a good season because it means we likely went .500 with the best teams on our schedule (Oklahoma, Georgia, Florida, Arkansas, Bama and Missouri).... at this point in the rebuild, I think that's fair and acceptable. I think 8 is the floor and 7 is completely unacceptable barring some catastrophic key injuries.

 

[KBVol]

Yet Fulmer is still a hero to many Vol fans. SMH

Yep, being the 2nd winningest coach at an all-time national football power.....winning 3 out of every 4 games he coached over 16 seasons....1 Natl championship.....2 SEC titles.....6 times best record in the SEC East....9 10 or greater win seasons in 16 seasons.....10-6 vs Bama.....responsible for nearly 20% of Tennessee's all-time 811 wins (over 118 seasons) in only 16 years.....responsible for bringing in some of the greatest Vols all-time (Manning, Wilson, Lewis, Henry, Shuler, Little, etc, etc)...... Yeah, why the hell would anybody be extremely grateful for what Phil Fulmer did for making our team a national power again and winning out first National Championship in 47 years??

 

[thebjd]

Yep, being the 2nd winningest coach at an all-time national football power.....winning 3 out of every 4 games he coached over 16 seasons....1 Natl championship.....2 SEC titles.....6 times best record in the SEC East....9 10 or greater win seasons in 16 seasons.....10-6 vs Bama.....responsible for nearly 20% of Tennessee's all-time 811 wins (over 118 seasons) in only 16 years.....responsible for bringing in some of the greatest Vols all-time (Manning, Wilson, Lewis, Henry, Shuler, Little, etc, etc)...... Yeah, why the hell would anybody be extremely grateful for what Phil Fulmer did for making our team a national power again and winning out first National Championship in 47 years??

Drops mic and logs out of Volnation.:hi:

 

[velovol]

I believe we will climb out when we climb out.
Not doing a cartwheel quite yet

 

[jbr82]

I would say TN has stunk since 2008 - TN won 10 and 9 games in 2006 and 2007.

Your right. I just started that first losing season fulmer had 05. Even tho bama started losing in 97 they had a couple of 10 win seasons sprinkled in. I figured ours was sprinkled in back to back right after 05

 

[jbr82]

Yet Fulmer is still a hero to many Vol fans. SMH

I've experienced the high and the low in UT football in my 25 yrs of paying attn and after I saw TN wasn't going to go after a rockstar coach after Dooley I was ready to take Fulmer back! I believe he would be refreshed and ready to do what's best for the program. But I do have faith in Butch. He is bringing in horses. His in game coaching is still questionable at times. But even saban can't win them all

 

[APK290]

2008, I was a freshman. Graduated with my undergrad in 2012. Graduate in 2013. Ugh.....

 

[VFL-82-JP]

I've experienced the high and the low in UT football in my 25 yrs of paying attn and after I saw TN wasn't going to go after a rockstar coach after Dooley I was ready to take Fulmer back! I believe he would be refreshed and ready to do what's best for the program. But I do have faith in Butch. He is bringing in horses. His in game coaching is still questionable at times. But even saban can't win them all

Yah, JBR, I've thought about this a lot over the past seven years, too. With the benefit of hindsight, what I think I would like the AD to have done with Fulmer was this: a 1-year suspension/sabbatical. Ask Chavis to take over as acting coach for a year, and force Fulmer (still on contract) to spend a year thinking about how to reinvigorate the program. Make it extremely clear to both that the moves were only temporary.

I don't know that this has ever been done before in college football, but think it might be effective. I think the year off would have given Phil a chance to think through a lot of things that had him and the program in a slump, as well as being an eye-opening 'shot across the bow.'

We might've had an off year while he was gone (or might've done fairly well, there was still plenty of talent in place). But I think we'd have been even better when Phil came back a year later. Certainly better than the three Dooley years.

Call me old fashioned. I'm one of those guys who believe that a coach who has given your school championships (SEC and national) is coaching for as long as he wants, subject to course corrections like this.

NOTE: This is not a comment about, or in any way against Butch and his coaching staff -- absolutely thrilled to have them leading the program now. Just looking back hypothetically at how we could've handled that particular period in our history better.

 

[Pump Guy]

Now that we are emerging from a dark period in Vols football history, it's worth looking back and asking: was our recent down period the worst we've ever had? Does 2008-2013 qualify as the "Vols Dark Ages"?

So I scanned our record books for other multi-year down periods. Skipped over single bad years, those happen from time to time, only looked at three or more seasons in a row. Here are the five worst eras I could find:

• 1903-1906 - 4 years - 11-21-4 / 36% (all 4 were losing seasons)
• 1909-1912 - 4 years - 11-19-5 / 39% (3 losing seasons)
• 1958-1964 - 7 years - 34-32-4 / 51% (3 losing seasons)
• 1975-1980 - 6 years - 34-33-1 / 51% (2 losing seasons)
• 2008-2013 - 6 years - 33-41-0 / 45% (5 losing seasons)

First thing you notice is that the recent six year stretch wasn't the worst based on winning percentage -- both 1903-1906 and 1909-1912 were lower. Then again, the most recent dark ages lasted half-again as long as those early-20th Century stretches. And you can't combine those two periods into one, because there were two really good years in between: we went 7-2-1 in 1907, and 7-2-0 in 1908.

So I'm thinking that for me personally, 2008-2013 wins the title of Vols Dark Ages. The early 1900s can share the title, too, but the Kiffin-Dooley era 'wins' this prize.
[/SIZE]

I remember the 1906 season like it was yesterday. I thought we had a pretty good defense after puttin a lickin on American U, but then Maryville college came out and unleashed the forward pass on us and we didn't know what to do. Fortunately the mud on the field was about a foot deep after someone let cattle graze on the field earlier in the week, so that slowed the game down.

We were just to exhausted to play in the Alabama game when the buggies did not show up at the train station to take us to the game. The team had to run 7 miles from the station to the stadium and barely made it in time for the game. I still believe an Alabama fan was responsible for cancelling the buggies for the team.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

{a nostalgic look back at 1906}

Nicely done, Pump Guy, I enjoyed that. Those were the days when football looked more like rugby than today's game. When kids died by the handfuls each year just from playing the sport (no kidding). And that Maryville seemed like a real power house at the time.

Nicely done, thanks for it!

 

[vik]

I still believe an Alabama fan was responsible for cancelling the buggies for the team.

It was the great-grandfather of Harvey Updyke.
lol:

 

[Doyle Hargraves]

Some on here will be putting butch jones job on craigslist after the OU game.

Only the completely stupid, clinically insane, or trolls.

 

[Jezebel Rollo]

Tennessee is one of a very small group to have never lost as many as 8 games in a season.

From 1902 until 2007, we had a total of one season where we lost as many as 7 games.

From 2008 until 2014, the Vols lost 7 games in five different seasons.

Therefore, for me, the three years covering 2011-2012-2013 was the worst 3-year stretch we've had in over 100 years.

I still don't know what the fascination is with this "accomplishment." Is losing "only" 7 games that much better? 5-7 or 4-8, who cares? They both stink.

Would you rather have UT's record or Bama's or UF's this century? Most people would take the multiple NC's as people tend to focus on victories, not losses...even though both teams have an 8 loss season (Bama had a 9 loss season). With that said, 2008-2013 was certainly the lowest point this Vol fan can recall.

A losing season is a losing season is a losing season, no question about it. However, a 7 loss season is not as bad as it once was, considering that teams now play more games per year. Much the same way that a 10 win season is not the accomplishment that it was many years ago. Basically, a 10 win season is what an 8 win year used to be and a 5-7 season is about what a 5-6 year used to be.

 

[ochocinco]

This is gonna be a rough season for a lot of people. By the first game expectations are going to hit unreasonable levels.

Only rough if you have emotional issues and cant cope with ups and downs. I understand that but keep in mind 80% of us aren't on mood stabilizers and can get excited without having a devestating letdown if expectations aren't met.

Fandom is fun.