Fulmer on his teams in a playoff era

[Buster1972]

If only we didn't play Florida so early in the season back in those days. The year the game got delayed due to a Hurricane showed we were much more prepared to play the Gators later in the season.

You mean 9-11 not a hurricane.

I think the 2002 Florida game was the worst. The great Ron Zook's debut season and he starts off 1-0 against Fulmer. Tennessee fumblin and bumblin in the rain. And at Neyland to boot. Florida in the Fulmer years proved that Neyland Stadium was no home field advantage at all.

 

[alaVOL]

Yea, Fulmer was terrible. Heaven forbid we get a coach that loses games as much as he did.

I didn't say Fulmer was terrible. Fulmer was very good, but he wasn't great. You'd think from all these great memories we'd won 6 SEC titles during his coaching days.

 

[alaVOL]

yea i think biggest loss in tennessee history was to that lsu team.

That 2001 tennessee team was loaded with talent.

Henderson
haynesworth
stallworth
weary
overstreet
stevens
lott
coleman
gaines
stevenson
baker
bartholomew
battle
brunette
clausen
colquitt
davis
fleming
greer
hand
huston
m jones
ofenheusle
parker
washington
wells
witten

yep

 

[JoAllan]

Some fans on here are ignorant.

Sure Fulmer should have called it quits a 2 or 3 years before they let him go

However he still had 3, 10 win seasons in his last 6......and Tennessee hasn't seen more than 9 since.....and only 2 in the 9 years since.

Over his 16 full seasons Fulmer averaged 9.25 - 3.25...... .743

He also had Tennessee finishing in the top 15, 11 times.....and in the top 10, 5 times.

Lol what more do some of you ignorant fans want?

Sure he needed to go, but he was a heck of a coach in his time.

 

[GRN1926]

Oh my god, can this man be any more delusional? He won 2 SEC titles and lost with his best team in 2001 to a heavy underdog missing their QB and best back. Sorry Phil, this revisionist nonsense won't play with UT fans. :good!:

You are clueless son, clueless. He said he would have been in the playoffs. Things change when your team knows it has chance at playoffs. 95 team was 1 loss, 97 team was 1 loss heading into bowl, right there are 2 more that would have been. 96 team would have taken care of memphis with a chance at playoff, there is 4. 01 team.. breaks my heart. Was a NC team, would have beat Miami

 

[GRN1926]

Some fans on here are ignorant.

Sure Fulmer should have called it quits a 2 or 3 years before they let him go

However he still had 3, 10 win seasons in his last 6......and Tennessee hasn't seen more than 9 since.....and only 2 in the 9 years since.

Over his 16 full seasons Fulmer averaged 9.25 - 3.25...... .743

He also had Tennessee finishing in the top 15, 11 times.....and in the top 10, 5 times.

Lol what more do some of you ignorant fans want?

Sure he needed to go, but he was a heck of a coach in his time.

Agree with everything except he needed to go. Half asleep at the wheel he still would have performed better than what we have had the past 10yrs. Bama almost fired bear in the late 60's, they gave him a chance to turn it around. He changed his offense, got a 2nd wind and dominated the 70's. Phil would have dominated this weak east. His class the year he was fired was an SEC championship level class. Phil needed to find the fire again, I am confident he would have made sure he finished his career on a strong note had he been given the opportunity. He went to the seccg the year before he was fired and was competitive with the eventual NC team.

 

[TennTom]

1995 yes
1996 no
1997 yes
1998 yes
1999 no
2000 no
2001 no

3 is more like it. 1995, 1997 and 1998 are the only seasons that Tennessee finished the season with less than 2 losses and/or inside the top 4 prior to the bowl game.

Correct answer.

 

[JoAllan]

Agree with everything except he needed to go. Half asleep at the wheel he still would have performed better than what we have had the past 10yrs. Bama almost fired bear in the late 60's, they gave him a chance to turn it around. He changed his offense, got a 2nd wind and dominated the 70's. Phil would have dominated this weak east. His class the year he was fired was an SEC championship level class. Phil needed to find the fire again, I am confident he would have made sure he finished his career on a strong note had he been given the opportunity. He went to the seccg the year before he was fired and was competitive with the eventual NC team.

I can certainly agree that a coach like that deserves to go out on his own; however not sure he realized his time had come......I would have liked to see the AD and Fulmer come to an agreement back then. Give him one more year to go out on his own terms.......or of they were thinking of firing him.....let him know he had X amount of time.....the year before or after the first losing season.

 

[MyBloodRunnethOrange]

Wrong, Syracuse was a miracle we got that "50/50" call in the last seconds in the Dome. You conveniently forgot about the fumble Al Wilson covered in the end zone and the chip shot Florida missed to give us the OT win. I won't even get into the MSU game or drawing FSU's backup. And no, the Arkansas thing was not created by the defense. Sheez.

Have you ever actually enjoyed Tennessee football?

 

[Carl Pickens]

The 98' team wasn't that great. Minus all the miracles they were 9-3 at best.

Once again you show your level of ignorance...that team practically had an NFL roster

 

[Titan&Volfan4life]

Fulmer was 74.3% WINS over his HC time here.

Some good years and a few great years but he's in the Hall of Fame for solid reasons.

He lost his fire and it was time for him to go but he earned more thanks and respect than many on here give him.

Other than nick saTan at alaBummer, how many other SEC teams coaches Won over 74% of their games?

Also remember that we play alaBubba every year as if we were in the SEC West.

We now have many years of proof that things certainly can get much worse.

I just hope we get a coaching staff that can recruit and WIN at the Fulmer level or better.

VFL...GBO!!!

 

[Roustabout]

Crazy how such a large portion of our fanbase still refuses to acknowledge how good of a coach he was. I hope we can get the program back to this level soon.

Fulmer did some nice things, but the conference was so much different then.

ole Miss, MSU, SC, Vandy and UK are competitive schools. They were hot garbage during Phil's years. Hell, LSU was junk for most of Phil's career. And Bama? Good grief, no comparison. Several down years.

It's just not the same league.
Plus. He never had to build ****. It was stacked with talent when he got hamdrd the keys.

 

[utvols74]

Hopefully they would have played better than most of the bowl games from Fulmer's years. Heck I thought we were gonna lose to Miss St in SEC championship game for 3 quarters after looking like crap against Auburn and barely winning the previous year with Peyton.

I was at both games and couldn't believe it either. UT was heavily favored in both games.

 

[utvols74]

Agree with everything except he needed to go. Half asleep at the wheel he still would have performed better than what we have had the past 10yrs. Bama almost fired bear in the late 60's, they gave him a chance to turn it around. He changed his offense, got a 2nd wind and dominated the 70's. Phil would have dominated this weak east. His class the year he was fired was an SEC championship level class. Phil needed to find the fire again, I am confident he would have made sure he finished his career on a strong note had he been given the opportunity. He went to the seccg the year before he was fired and was competitive with the eventual NC team.

especially the QB Kiffy pushed out the door and to Clemson

 

[KBVol]

Oh my god, can this man be any more delusional? He won 2 SEC titles and lost with his best team in 2001 to a heavy underdog missing their QB and best back. Sorry Phil, this revisionist nonsense won't play with UT fans. :good!:

Not delusional at all. Based on how the playoff system is set up and how his teams during that era played/were ranked, I think he’s right on the money.

 

[KBVol]

especially the QB Kiffy pushed out the door and to Clemson

Not just Boyd, but Petty as well.

 

[utvols74]

Fulmer did some nice things, but the conference was so much different then.

ole Miss, MSU, SC, Vandy and UK are competitive schools. They were hot garbage during Phil's years. Hell, LSU was junk for most of Phil's career. And Bama? Good grief, no comparison. Several down years.

It's just not the same league.
Plus. He never had to build ****. It was stacked with talent when he got hamdrd the keys.

I was having this conversation just the other day. There is NO comparison of the SEC in Phil's day and today. Nearly every team (except for TN, FL and perhaps Ark) is better than they were in the 90s - some exceptionally better.

 

[utvols74]

Wrong, Syracuse was a miracle we got that "50/50" call in the last seconds in the Dome. You conveniently forgot about the fumble Al Wilson covered in the end zone and the chip shot Florida missed to give us the OT win. I won't even get into the MSU game or drawing FSU's backup. And no, the Arkansas thing was not created by the defense. Sheez.

Hoptown-

Most every NC winner has had a game or two that went their way for "miraculous" reasons. Nothing new here.

 

[BenGrimm]

Fulmer did some nice things, but the conference was so much different then.

ole Miss, MSU, SC, Vandy and UK are competitive schools. They were hot garbage during Phil's years. Hell, LSU was junk for most of Phil's career. And Bama? Good grief, no comparison. Several down years.

It's just not the same league.
Plus. He never had to build ****. It was stacked with talent when he got hamdrd the keys.

Fulmer was part of the reason, perhaps the key reason, the team was stacked before he took over. Majors had a few bad years before promoting Fulmer to OC then the roster improved and the team went on a run.


As for the original conversation.... I would agree with 3 playoff appearances without any revisionist removal of losses to Memphis or LSU.

 

[BenGrimm]

I didn't say Fulmer was terrible. Fulmer was very good, but he wasn't great. You'd think from all these great memories we'd won 6 SEC titles during his coaching days.

If not for the structure of the SEC CG we would have shared a few more titles. There was a couple times they beat us but then they would lose to a team we beat.

Spurrier was definitely in Fulmer’s head. After that shut out in 94 he got tight when ever we played FL.

 

[Backwards K]

1995 yes
1996 no
1997 yes
1998 yes
1999 no
2000 no
2001 no

3 is more like it. 1995, 1997 and 1998 are the only seasons that Tennessee finished the season with less than 2 losses and/or inside the top 4 prior to the bowl game.

2001 team ran Spurrier out of the league. Billed as the "Biggest Game in Florida Field History" and the Vols took their hearts. Broke Spurrier's heart so bad, he quit. At least, that time, he waited until the end of the year to quit.

 

[BenGrimm]

Hopefully they would have played better than most of the bowl games from Fulmer's years. Heck I thought we were gonna lose to Miss St in SEC championship game for 3 quarters after looking like crap against Auburn and barely winning the previous year with Peyton.

Fulmer’s bowl record in the first half of his tenure was pretty good. Most of his bowl losses came on the back half. If I’m not mistaken he finished .500 in bowls.

Most would argue Bob Stoops is a great coach. Better than Fulmer. Have you ever looked at his bowl record and how often he has been beat by teams he shouldn’t have? Boise St was part of an 0-5 BCS bowl run for him.

 

[Smokey7]

Could've possibly had 3 titles if there had been a playoff then.

 

[TheManFromTenn]

Hopefully they would have played better than most of the bowl games from Fulmer's years. Heck I thought we were gonna lose to Miss St in SEC championship game for 3 quarters after looking like crap against Auburn and barely winning the previous year with Peyton.

Yeah but we won both! I was there...lol: Great games

 

[Volinleesburg]

Al Wilson was 45-5 in his career, we have 6 losses this year. Those Fulmer teams were great.