This was a post from UT booster on Twitter. Interesting read. Fact or Fiction??
Here's what REALLY happened at UT, not what you saw & heard at the press conference:
Remember that you read this here first:
Ergen, Thornton, & Davis, among others, had enough of Haslam's pick for AD botching the coaching hire & embarrassing our/their alma mater. It was becoming a bad reflection on them as businessmen to be portrayed in such a bad light nationally, since they are known to be prominent donors to UT.
They gave Davenport an ultimatum & she called Currie in off the road. He went anyway on a plane owned by one of his KSU donors at his former school, which is why no one could find him or contact him yesterday.
Peyton had aligned himself with the Haslams, & one rumor is that he has been offered a piece of the Browns to run them when they inevitably clean house for the second time at the end of the season. Other rumors abound that the Haslams have promised the Mannings they will help them be able to acquire another NFL franchise or a piece of one.
Leach is really interested in this job, but probably won't get it now. That's a real shame, because he & Kiffin are the two best coaches we could have hired, & Spurrier said so today on Finebaum. They know how to recruit & build a staff & run offenses that deploy their weapons to the utmost on the field.
Just a few hours ago, it was Haslam & Manning aligned on one side, pitted against Ergen, Thornton, & Davis on the other. They contacted Fulmer, who met them at the airport. Haslam & Manning wanted Sigmon named interim AD. The others wanted Fulmer & said they were ending their donations if he wasn't given the job on some basis.
Ergen was giving $35M annually to UT when Fulmer was here as coach & has only given $10M annually since. He told UT he would make up for any shortfall in what the Haslams may withhold.
You can tell that Davenport is in way over her head in this job & was visibly shaken at the press conference. She didn't know how to answer any of the questions.
The reason Currie didn't use a search firm is that he was given a list of 3 coaches to interview by Haslam that Davenport signed off on. In order, they were 1. Gruden, 2. Kelly, & 3. Schiano. Gruden was already signed & ready to come, as some of these other boosters had already gotten his agreement, but Haslam nixed the hire because Gruden wanted total control of the program like Saban has at Bama & Meyer at OSU, & Haslam was determined not to let go of his control of everything.
By the time Currie got to Kelly, he had already been approached by both Florida & UCLA, & had decided to go to one of those places. Currie went to the Bahamas knowing he was going to offer Schiano when he got back home. It was only when the firestorm hit on Sunday that Currie had to go beyond the original Haslam list, which is when we got started getting turned down by so many others. Currie made a last ditch attempt to save his job by going for Leach, but he wasn't authorized by Haslam or Davenport to be contacted.
Now, the rest of this is speculation, but maybe more educated guess than conjecture:
Cutcliffe, now age 63, & Miles, age 64, will be the two top targets now for HC, with Tee Martin as OC brought in under either of them & groomed to be their successor. That's the plan. Might involve Chavis or Steele as DC. Should have a hire within 48 hours.
Not sure where they will go if this plan doesn't fall through. Only thing that bothers me about Fulmer in this search is that there will probably be no "outside the box" thinking & any new blood other than Tee. Also, he went with Currie to interview Doeren in NC & had signed off on his hire, which would have been a disastrous hire, so it was just fortuitous for us that he turned us down.
