Observation

[Ace]

I'm fine with giving Dave Hart credit for hiring Butch.

I can also acknowledge that Gundy and Strong probaly would have been decent hires while Butch has turned out to be a home run hire.

Not sure what kind of hire Gruden would be...probably better than Gundy/Strong, but not as good as Butch.

Recruiting is where Butch and his staff have blown me away.

After reading SI articles on OKState, I am so glad Gundy is not our coach. I was never excited about Strong. Hart hired the right man, so let's GBO and beat Bama!!

 

[UTMVol76]

I hate to beat an old horse, but when do you guys think we started going down hill? Specifically, like which game was the turning point? Music City Bowl?

Little late to the party, but IMO:

December 8th, 2001 when we lost to LSU in the SEC championship game. Just a slow bleed after that.

Also, everyone know's about the Curse of Rohan Davies' mom, but tell me it isn't Providential that in a couple weeks we face a QB by the name of Matt Mauk....

#EndtheCurse

 

[volinexile17]

It was the year fulmer raked in that 35th ranked recruiting class

Agree. Fulmer's recruiting got lazy in the mid-2000s. The 2006 and 2008 classes were well below what we needed to keep up with a rapidly improving SEC. With the exception of the 2010 class, all the others since have had bad attrition largely because we filled late with guys who were talented but came with question marks.

 

[Stevorino]

Started when Cut left the first time. Sanders came in. That was the beginning. Then when Cut came back it healed the wound but then he left again. At this point a few things should have happened--either Fulmer gets fired or he is forced to hire a stud OC that is a HC in waiting. Neither happened and we got the Clawfense and Fulmer got an extension.

That was strike one.

Then we fired Fulmer and hired Kiffin. That was strike two.

Then we hired "he who shall not be named" and for the love of God that was strike 3,4, and 5.

It was by sheer luck honestly that we ended up getting Butch Jones and many (including myself) had been so hooked on the "soon" hype that when he was hired we got pissed and thought we had Dickhead 2.0. WE were wrong. The man can coach and we got lucky.

But that's how we got here. That and a booger eater took over...but that is a whole other story.

I think Cut's impact is often under appreciated here. Without him, fulmer was not a great HC. Discipline dropped, recruiting dropped, hell - everything was worse when cut was elsewhere.

So to answer the question, I think it was when we lost cut the first time that things started to go downhill. His return put lipstick on the pig.

 

[ajvol01]

It was the year fulmer raked in that 35th ranked recruiting class

A big part of the reason why the 2008 class was so bad because CPF had Cut's guys (Matt Luke & Kurt Roper) so heavily involved in recruiting.

It was poor planning at best and ignorance/negligence at worst. Surely Phil had to have known that Cut wanted another HC gig.

Just my 2 cents

 

[StoVol]

A big part of the reason why the 2008 class was so bad because CPF had Cut's guys (Matt Luke & Kurt Roper) so heavily involved in recruiting.

It was poor planning at best and ignorance/negligence at worst. Surely Phil had to have known that Cut wanted another HC gig.

Just my 2 cents

Could be, but Fulmer's want to went somewhere for a time. He didn't get it back til it was too late. At Tn with our state population the entire coaching staff must wake up in the morning a think recruiting. It's a bigger hill to climb for us over any team save ky, vandy, and miss state. That leadership and motivation falls on Phil. He should have made chavis hit the road harder for elite DT's, and made his priority OL and we would have been fine.

 

[ajvol01]

I think Cut's impact is often under appreciated here. Without him, fulmer was not a great HC. Discipline dropped, recruiting dropped, hell - everything was worse when cut was elsewhere.

So to answer the question, I think it was when we lost cut the first time that things started to go downhill. His return put lipstick on the pig.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but Cut's 2nd stint & subsequent departure did 2 things:

1) raised expectations from improved results of 06 & 07
2) created the opportunity for Phil to make a bad hire like Dave Clawson.

In hindsight Phil would have been better off by hiring a new OC in '05 that would have been the long term solution instead of a quick fix (2 years with Cut)