Lane Kiffin lauds Johnny Majors as 'greatest Tennessee coach ever'

#128
#128
The rub on Fulmer was we would only end up in the top 10 and not win a national xship each year.The Fulmer years were good ones..Be careful what you wish for when you fire coaches.
 
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#129
#129
Who cares what some CUSA coach thinks. If he wants to put Johnny ahead of Fulmer so be it but to put him ahead if Neyland just plain stupid.
 
#130
#130
dduncan4163 said:
She's still fighting. Hoss. Can't say things look all that great right now but there's still hope.
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Think about you and your family every time I get on volnation. I lost my dad and volnation was there for me. I am always grateful for this community. I wish you the same comfort it gave me, but better circumstances. Go Vols
 
#134
#134
Johnny was a better coach than Phil.

Johnny built programs. Phil never had to because he took over the program Johnny built. Look at the roster Fulmer inherited in 1993. That team should have won the national title with the talent it brought back.

Johnny was a recruiting machine. Johnny found and trained great coaches. Johnny won a national title himself. Johnny won more conference titles and more games than Phil. Johnny won more big 4 bowls than Phil. Johnny had as many top 5 finishes in his career as Phil even though he took over 3 different programs at their lowest points.

He did all that with the assistants he hired and trained and the players he recruited, Fulmer inherited a staff that included Cutcliffe and Chavis already on board, along with a litany of NFL players.

As for the person who claim Phil was better than Neyland....wow.
 
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#135
#135
Kiffy knows he screwed up with the way he did UT. He's trying to mend fences and get out of the dog house with UT's fan base by sucking up to Majors. The only way he gets back into Neyland is by way of opposing team.

Kiffy you can: GTFO
 
#137
#137
VolArmy74 said:
Johnny was a better coach than Phil.

Johnny built programs. Phil never had to because he took over the program Johnny built. Look at the roster Fulmer inherited in 1993. That team should have won the national title with the talent it brought back.

Johnny was a recruiting machine. Johnny found and trained great coaches. Johnny won a national title himself. Johnny won more conference titles and more games than Phil. Johnny won more big 4 bowls than Phil. Johnny had as many top 5 finishes in his career as Phil even though he took over 3 different programs at their lowest points.

He did all that with the assistants he hired and trained and the players he recruited, Fulmer inherited a staff that included Cutcliffe and Chavis already on board, along with a litany of NFL players.

As for the person who claim Phil was better than Neyland....wow.
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You do realize that Fulmer was the main UT recruiter, right? Majors career at UT was not all that great, not till the later years and even then it was slightly above average.


I hear people say what you are saying but I grew up with the Battle, to Majors, to Fulmer years and it wasn't exactly that way. Majors teams sucked from 1977-1988 he had (1) 10 win season, and (2) nine win seasons with 1 SEC title and finished with 2 SEC championships. Everyone says a coach gets 4-5 yrs to build a program, well it took much longer than that for Majors to rebuild and it took coach Fulmer to help with that process.

Majors UT coaching career:
1977 4-7 SEC 1-5
1978 5-5-1 SEC 3-3
1979 7-5 SEC 3-3
1980 5-6 SEC 3-3
1981 8-4 SEC 3-3
1982 6-5-1 SEC 3-2-1
1983 9-3 SEC 4-2
1984 7-4-1 SEC 3-3
1985 9-1-2 SEC 5-1
1986 7-5 SEC 3-3
1987 10-2-1 SEC 4-1-1
1988 5-6 SEC 3-4
1989 11-1 SEC 6-1
1990 9-2-2 SEC 5-1-1
1991 9-3 SEC 5-2
1992 5-3 SEC 3-3
1992 season
Johnny Majors was the coach of the Volunteers going into the 1992 season. However, a couple of weeks before the first game, Majors underwent quintuple-bypass heart surgery. Fulmer took over the role as interim head coach with Heath Schuler as his quarterback. Fulmer helped lead the team to a 3–0 start with a 38–3 victory over Southwestern Louisiana, a 34–31 victory over #14 Georgia, and a 31–14 victory over #4 Florida. Majors returned for the Cincinnati game, a 40–0 victory, and the LSU game, a 20–0 victory. However, the Vols dropped their next three games, a 25–24 loss to Arkansas, a 17–10 loss to #4 Alabama, and a 24–23 loss to South Carolina. Among growing dissent among the fanbase, Majors resigned due to his contract being bought out and Fulmer became the 20th head football coach in Tennessee history. Fulmer led the team to four wins, a 26–21 victory over Memphis, a 34–13 victory over Kentucky, a 29–25 victory over Vanderbilt, and a 38–23 victory over #16 Boston College in the Hall of Fame Bowl to close out the season with a 9–3 record and finish #12 in the AP Poll.[15][16][17][18]


Facts don't lie and if Majors took over this year he would've been gone in 3-4 based on what we've experienced the last 10 yrs.
 
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#140
#140
DiderotsGhost said:
It's true, but also true that Phil never has the run of success without Johnny.

There's a good argument to be made that Johnny was the greatest talent evaluator in college football history. It's insane how great he was at selecting assistant coaches. Fulmer's staff in the 90's was loaded with coaches hired by Johnny.

You take Peyton Manning out of the equation and Johnny and Phil have pretty similar runs of success. And don't forget, Johnny was 1 win away from competing for a national title in 1989.

Phil benefited a bit from Alabama being in disarray for most of the time he was there. Albeit, he did have to deal with playing Spurrier in his heyday, but Spurrier was gone from 2002 - 2008, and it didn't stop the decline.

I think the truth of the matter is that Johnny was great at some things Phil was bad at, and Phil was great at some things Johnny struggled with. For a magical period in the 90's we got the "best of both worlds"; Johnny's staff managed by Phil with Phil's top-notch recruiting.
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We took Peyton out of the equation and Phil still won a Natty the next year.
 
#142
#142
Orangeredblooded said:
Always got the impression of him, is that Lane Kiffin IS all about Lane Kiffin, not the players he coach’s. To give him some credit, he certainly knows how to keep his name out in the media and he uses Tennessee to do that.
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Kiffin loves the attention, but he’s also a great “players coach.” There is a reason why guys like Crompton and Montario love the guy.
 
#145
#145
tennesseeduke said:
You do realize that Fulmer was the main UT recruiter, right? Majors career at UT was not all that great, not till the later years and even then it was slightly above average.


I hear people say what you are saying but I grew up with the Battle, to Majors, to Fulmer years and it wasn't exactly that way. Majors teams sucked from 1977-1988 he had (1) 10 win season, and (2) nine win seasons with 1 SEC title and finished with 2 SEC championships. Everyone says a coach gets 4-5 yrs to build a program, well it took much longer than that for Majors to rebuild and it took coach Fulmer to help with that process.

Majors UT coaching career:
1977 4-7 SEC 1-5
1978 5-5-1 SEC 3-3
1979 7-5 SEC 3-3
1980 5-6 SEC 3-3
1981 8-4 SEC 3-3
1982 6-5-1 SEC 3-2-1
1983 9-3 SEC 4-2
1984 7-4-1 SEC 3-3
1985 9-1-2 SEC 5-1
1986 7-5 SEC 3-3
1987 10-2-1 SEC 4-1-1
1988 5-6 SEC 3-4
1989 11-1 SEC 6-1
1990 9-2-2 SEC 5-1-1
1991 9-3 SEC 5-2
1992 5-3 SEC 3-3
1992 season
Johnny Majors was the coach of the Volunteers going into the 1992 season. However, a couple of weeks before the first game, Majors underwent quintuple-bypass heart surgery. Fulmer took over the role as interim head coach with Heath Schuler as his quarterback. Fulmer helped lead the team to a 3–0 start with a 38–3 victory over Southwestern Louisiana, a 34–31 victory over #14 Georgia, and a 31–14 victory over #4 Florida. Majors returned for the Cincinnati game, a 40–0 victory, and the LSU game, a 20–0 victory. However, the Vols dropped their next three games, a 25–24 loss to Arkansas, a 17–10 loss to #4 Alabama, and a 24–23 loss to South Carolina. Among growing dissent among the fanbase, Majors resigned due to his contract being bought out and Fulmer became the 20th head football coach in Tennessee history. Fulmer led the team to four wins, a 26–21 victory over Memphis, a 34–13 victory over Kentucky, a 29–25 victory over Vanderbilt, and a 38–23 victory over #16 Boston College in the Hall of Fame Bowl to close out the season with a 9–3 record and finish #12 in the AP Poll.[15][16][17][18]


Facts don't lie and if Majors took over this year he would've been gone in 3-4 based on what we've experienced the last 10 yrs.
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Johnny Majors was recruiting National Championship players before he ever had Phil working a day under him. You can't discount the man going undefeated at Pitt and the players he brought to that program as well. Also, Johnny did a lot more recruiting at Tennessee than you think. It stretches credibility to say otherwise. Yes, it took Johnny longer to get UT back. We were as bad when he took over as we were when Phil left here.

I know all about his records at Tennessee, But everything I said was a fact too. Johnny won more games as a head coach than Phil. Johnny won conference titles than Phil. Johnny finished in the top 5 as many times as Phil. Johnny won as many national championships as Phil. Johnny rebuilt programs and Phil took over one that was already built and read to compete at the highest level. Those are facts.
 
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#147
#147
Johnny was definitely the greatest hire in our history. To get a successful coach fresh off a national championship to jump to a losing program was HUGE. I remember the waiting while he made a the decision. It was a choice that found no disagreement from the fanbase, in fact begging was involved. They played the song, "when Johnny came marching home all week", couldn't do that today. Big moment in UT history as the "favorite son" came home.
 
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