In real estate most important
1 Location
2 Location
3 Location
In football
1 Recruits
2 Recruits
3 Recruits
Yep. Although I do think people sell TN short way too often. Tennessee football often brings in more money than everyone except those that have their own network/tv deal. (Texas and Notre Dame) Tennessee has the most loyal and best fans bar none. Tn has plenty of well-heeled boosters, top notch facilities tons of history, unique traditions.
Our biggest detriment, in state recruits, has really picked up and better than it was in the 90's.
So what hurts us now? Two things.
1. Saban and Alabama. Saban has eroded the attractiveness of every SEC coaching job. This is in addition to the well known rigors of an SEC schedule, a conference I and many believe to be the best and the toughest and hardest to compete in. Even people who say we've lost ground to ACC, still fear the SEC, and should.
2. The resurgence of Clemson and the ACC, and Georgia. During our last period of greatness, there existed a college football vacuum in the states of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. We owned those areas and even had a decent amount of fans in the hilly areas of the Carolinas. Tennessee was the place you went if you were from that area, wanted to play for a dominant college team and had NFL aspirations. Now that Clemson is a premier team and piedmont powerhouse, our recruiting ties in those areas are thin, and eroding fast. Perhaps the vacuum has been reversed, just look at Cade Mays for reference. Our recruiting dominance in Georgia was short lived and due primarily to a down UGA program and Rodney Garner. Garner gave us the state of Georgia and then gave it right back to Georgia when we let him get away to the bulldogs, he stayed there till 2012 along the way destroyed any recruiting superhighway linking the peach state to knoxville. Guys like Jamal Lewis wearing Orange just wasnt going to happen very often into the 2000's with Richt and Garner closing their border down.
During the post Garner years Fulmer adjusted smartly by going West, establishing a strong California connection with guys like Clausen, kevin simon, arian foster, kevin burnett donte stallworth etc. He did this cause he had to, and looking back it was genius, and quite remarkable. That kept us relevant for several more years where many coaches (like Dooley) wouldnt have put in that effort. Fulmer built a cali to knoxville pipeline that lasted until the USC resurgence. Basically Fulmer was a salvage specialist, and impressively foumd those vacuums and exploited them. We used to get quality players from Alabama and LSU as well.
Until we find a coach with similar methods of working hard to establish relationships anywhere and everywhere across the USA, finding those voids and building those pipelines...Or we can hire a Rock Star like Gruden, whose name recognition alone gets him into living rooms across the nation. Until then we will be a middle of the pack team.
So it is not an easy button type job, hard work on the recruiting trail is a prerequisite, unless you are a rock star. And that is what pushes Tennessee out of the range of top ten jobs, making it less desirable for the Chip Kelly's of the world.
