Majors on 104.5 Nashville

[LadyinOrange]

I'll drink to that.

CHEERS!

:toast:

 

[Volosaurus rex]

It was probably the most boring game in the history of football from a neutral observer's point of view. It was vintage Oklahoma and Nebraska.

Not an accurate comparison. The powerhouse Oklahoma and Nebraska teams scored tons of points. Majors schemed for Alabama in a Neylandesque fashion, even including an occasional quick kick.

 

[Tenacguy50]

from 1977 through 1988 majors teams won only 58 or 59 % of their games. Doug dickey had a heart to heart with majors in the middle of the 88 season and he scraped the 3-4 defense and went to a 4-3 defense and i believe that soon after this fulmer became recruiting coordinator and the oc as well.this is when majors teams started being more competitive.this had more to do with fulmer than majors. Any other coach at a major university that had only won 58% of their games in 12 yrs would have already been fired. Majors was already on thin ice with dickey and pres johnson in 92. Dickey and johnson saw an opportunity to get rid of majors and fulmer took the job. The team that dooley is putting on the field reminds me of those early majors' teams.

fyp

 

[Doyle Hargraves]

Not an accurate comparison. The powerhouse Oklahoma and Nebraska teams scored tons of points. Majors schemed for Alabama in a Neylandesque fashion, even including an occasional quick kick.

Ah, the quick kick.
I can still see my dad getting up from his chair after one of these, if memory serves, on the first drive of the game.
"Well, we are beat!" he said, "Johnny just told bama that he is scared. You can watch this crap if you want, I'm done!"
And out the door he went.
We lost btw.

 

[gasguy98]

Given the opportunity Johnny gave Phillip at UT and then for Phillip to campaign for the HC job at midseason 1992, you can't hardly blame him. It's likely that Phillip would have never been offered an OC slot at a big time school. It's also a fact that Majors handed over a talent laden team with quality depth that he spent years rebuilding.

While Fulmer did make the best of the situation, there is no denying that he inherited a program on the fast rise. All he really needed to do was keep the momentum going and hire solid coordinators. However, when the momentum slowed down I think we saw what kind of HC Fulmer really was. I suspect that is why in his "new job search" he insisted on going somewhere that "had a chance to win championships". To me that suggest he knows he is not a builder but an administrator.

 

[Gramps]

fulmer holds a grudge against Mike Hamilton so turn about is fair play....

Did MH not set Phil up with 6 million buyout?
MH should be Phils best friend.

If Phil had been doing his job, he would still be the coach at UT.

 

[Eddie Vol Halen]

I know when he started. He wasn't given the OC job until 1989, which at the time raised a few eyebrows. My point was that Phillip was unlikely to get an OC position at a peer program.

It did raise a few eyebrows.

The eyebrows of Vol fans everywhere at the record breaking offenses and wealth of new talent the OC and Recruiting Director (Phil) brought in.

 

[Eddie Vol Halen]

Its not often that a 70 something year old man needs to grow up.

Johnny is a character. I love it.

He is totally wrong on this issue, but I kinda like our little in-house feud, its part of the Vol family history now.

I wouldn't want to change Johnny one little bit. He's like Tom Sawyer, Gayle Sayers, and Tennessee Williams all rolled into one.

 

[Eddie Vol Halen]

One final point as there seems to be much confusion (and many 20-something memories) running through this thread:

The idea that Phil inherited a better ship than Dooley needs some clarification. First, the real damage to the program was the way Fulmer was let go, and the Sherman-esque march of Lane Kiffin (who needed to bring his DADDY with him so he could get a coaching job) through our much-loved program. Hamilton and Kiffin are solely to blame for that.

Phil inherited a program he had helped build for a decade. In fact, those of us with living memories of the time know and understand exactly the quantum leap on the field and in recruiting the Vols took when Phil was made OC and recruiting director. Phil was also one of the best O-line coaches in the nation.

Phil made his own bed at Tennessee. End of story.

 

[MoltenOrangeCore]

Majors was a mean drunk hated/feared by half if not more of the players. Firing him and hiring Fulmer was the best thing to happen to Tennessee since the General took the job.

 

[VolinDawgland]

Believe me, I'm not arguing that UT didn't make the right move, at least from a football standpoint. They couldn't let Fulmer leave, and he made it clear that he was ready to go if he didn't get the head job.

I'm just saying that people should try to put themselves in Majors's shoes before prattling about how he ought to be over it by now. Being fired sucks enough as it is, much less being fired after a couple of bad games after your assistant lobbied for your job while you were out recovering from a damn heart attack. He had to have felt like the guy destroyed his life. Saying, "Oh, he's being stupid about it" is easy, simplistic, and pointless.

On top of that in that era coaches weren't being made millionaires like the golden parachute that Fulmer exited with. Fulmer not only took his job he made out like a bandit in the process.

 

[Big_Budha]

If Johnny's drinking it I imagine it has to be 104.5 proof-

 

[Big_Budha]

:whistling:

Majors was a mean drunk hated/feared by half if not more of the players. Firing him and hiring Fulmer was the best thing to happen to Tennessee since the General took the job.

On that note, I remember my dad being glad Bill Battle was gone. He proudly had the orange and white bumper sticker in the back of the pickup window "When Johnny comes marching home":whistling:

 

[Vercingetorix]

One final point as there seems to be much confusion (and many 20-something memories) running through this thread:

The idea that Phil inherited a better ship than Dooley needs some clarification. First, the real damage to the program was the way Fulmer was let go, and the Sherman-esque march of Lane Kiffin (who needed to bring his DADDY with him so he could get a coaching job) through our much-loved program. Hamilton and Kiffin are solely to blame for that.

Phil inherited a program he had helped build for a decade. In fact, those of us with living memories of the time know and understand exactly the quantum leap on the field and in recruiting the Vols took when Phil was made OC and recruiting director. Phil was also one of the best O-line coaches in the nation.

Phil made his own bed at Tennessee. End of story.

Which is funny, because a giant factor in his own demise ended up being years of consistently dreadful OL play.

And to be fair, if you're going to give credit to Fulmer for Majors's most successful teams because of his prowess as recruiting coordinator, then you've got to give Rodney Garner a big slice of the credit for Fulmer's. The talent level was never the same after he left.

 

[FootVolintheFall]

Its not often that a 70 something year old man needs to grow up.

"You're only young once, but you can act immature forever!"

 

[Eddie Vol Halen]

Which is funny, because a giant factor in his own demise ended up being years of consistently dreadful OL play.

And to be fair, if you're going to give credit to Fulmer for Majors's most successful teams because of his prowess as recruiting coordinator, then you've got to give Rodney Garner a big slice of the credit for Fulmer's. The talent level was never the same after he left.

No, the bad years had a common denominator:

dreadful QB play.

It wasn't just his prowess as recruiting coordinator (which cannot be in dispute by any serious commentator), but his prowess as an OC as well.

Kiffin inherited a lot of talent. He even inherited All-SEC walk-ons.

 

[gnm53108]

No, the bad years had a common denominator:

dreadful QB play.

It wasn't just his prowess as recruiting coordinator (which cannot be in dispute by any serious commentator), but his prowess as an OC as well.

Kiffin inherited a lot of talent. He even inherited All-SEC walk-ons.

I agree with most of what you've been saying about the Fulmer years....but our OL went to the crapper. Thats the one thing I'll never understand from 05 on.

 

[LittleDTO]

CJM had a contract in hand that he put in the trash at his office before the heart attack. John was negotiating an extension. When he went down, and after the wins of Fulmer and the majors losses, Doug went to the boosters, did an end around, and signed Fulmer. Word is, John tried to find the contract in the trash after he heard something was going on.

Truth be told though, John pissed off several boosters in the previous years. The drunkin rants didn't help.

 

[2ironVol]

No, the bad years had a common denominator:

dreadful QB play.

It wasn't just his prowess as recruiting coordinator (which cannot be in dispute by any serious commentator), but his prowess as an OC as well.

Kiffin inherited a lot of talent. He even inherited All-SEC walk-ons.

:birgits_giggle:

He took Walt Harris' offense and simplified it. That's a fact. When Phillip was campaigning for the job in 1992, he told Doug Dickey he would win a national championship at UT running only 8 different plays.

 

[albedo33]

CJM had a contract in hand that he put in the trash at his office before the heart attack. John was negotiating an extension. When he went down, and after the wins of Fulmer and the majors losses, Doug went to the boosters, did an end around, and signed Fulmer. Word is, John tried to find the contract in the trash after he heard something was going on.

Truth be told though, John pissed off several boosters in the previous years. The drunkin rants didn't help.

Wasn't 'Johnny Walker Red' one of Coach Majors' nicknames?!! But he wasn't the first UT coach to hit the bottle hard - remember Bowden Wyatt?

Two thoughts on Coach Fulmer: 1) he seemed only as good as his assistant coaches. He achieved glory with a great DC (Chavis), a great OC (Cutcliffe) & superb recruiter (Garner). When 2 of those 3 left, things went downhill. His hires to replace Coach Cut, Sanders & later Clawson, were unmitigated disasters.

2) Great coaches who win championships usually attract up-and-coming assistant coaches who want to learn from them. For whatever reasons, this never happened with Coach Fulmer. He was HC at UT for 17 yrs, yet AFAIK, the only hire he ever made that later became a HC was Clawson, who had been a HC (at Richmond?) before coming to Tennessee. You get the impression that Coach Fulmer was not a football genius, rather a great administrator and father figure to his players. When he had talented assistants, he got the most out of his players through them.

 

[Plano Vol]

I think it has more to do with the ascendancy of one David Cutcliffe than Fulmer or Majors. If Cutcliffe had stuck with UT, we would probably still have Fulmer as HC.

 

[Lexvol]

So in theory...since Dooley is actually a truck driver....we should have the capacity to evaluate him much quicker......Pilot...and what not.

 

[Plano Vol]

and for all you old timers....can't you still see Randy Sanders sailing that ball over Terence Cleveland's head everytime you hear about MSU?

 

[Vercingetorix]

No, the bad years had a common denominator:

dreadful QB play.

It wasn't just his prowess as recruiting coordinator (which cannot be in dispute by any serious commentator), but his prowess as an OC as well.

Kiffin inherited a lot of talent. He even inherited All-SEC walk-ons.

We had several straight years of disappointing QB and RB play. You might want to think about what a common cause for both of those problems might be.

 

[Lexvol]

We had several straight years of disappointing QB and RB play. You might want to think about what a common cause for both of those problems might be.

The OL was the first to go, without question.