In sixteen years as a head coach of a nationally-contending SEC program, Fulmer hired exactly three assistants who would later become head coaches elsewhere. Those three coaches were on staff at UT for a combined four years.
Lovie Smith - defensive backs coach, 1993 and 1994. Became Chicago Bears head coach in 2004.
Doug Marrone - TE/OT coach, 2001. Became Syracuse head coach in 2009.
Dave Clawson - offensive coordinator, 2008. I'd argue that this doesn't even count, since he'd spent the previous nine years as a head coach between Fordham and Richmond as it was.
For a major program to have such a weak record of generating future head coaches is appalling, and it goes a long way toward explaining why the program began to crumble after 2001. In the case of programs like Penn State, they had numerous assistants who were there for a long time because they were exceptional and were well-compensated. In the case of UT, there were numerous assistants who were there for a long time who were truly awful and yet were not replaced.
UT suffered through eight years of Jimmy Ray Stephens and Greg Adkins coaching the offensive line. In the eight years that those two would have coached to develop, and despite having four- and five-star OL prospects coming in every single year, UT had exactly three OL who was drafted - Fred Weary (3rd round), Scott Wells (7th), Arron Sears (2nd).
Look at someone like Jacques McClendon: played in the All-American Bowl, top overall prospect in the state, played in 49 games at UT, and was a 4th-round pick who ended up starting five games in his NFL career.
Michael Munoz was by far the best OL prospect in the country, a five-star prospect with future NFL legend written all over him. He ended up undrafted.
There were four different five-star OLs recruited during that time: Munoz, Jason Respert, Sean Young, and Brandon Jefferies. They combined to player 0 NFL games.
Four-star guys included Sears, McClendon, and Chris Scott, but also Josh McNeil, Cody Douglas, Darris Sawtelle, Albert Toeiana, Rob Smith, and Eric Young.