Official Jon Gruden Thread XLVI

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#5,209
#5,209
vol9799 said:
Majors always had strained relationships with his assistants. He hired good coaches, but he was hard on them. That was in part due to how much he knew about virtually every position on the field. Regardless, he was hard to work for.

Majors was, as other have alluded, his own worst enemy especially when inebriated. Majors had the bad habit of taking his filter out before he began speaking.

When the heart problems hit him, Fulmer stepped in with no ambition or intention of anything other than "filling in."

The players and the other assistants responded very favorably to Fulmer and the freedom he gave them. The result were 4 straight victories including a dramatic victory in Athens and a thumping of Florida in a storm where, by the end of the game, we were even cheering the lightning strikes.

Suddenly what was supposed to be an 8-10 week break for coach Majors ended about 2.5 weeks early when Fulmer became the toast of college football and Majors got nervous.

Over the next three games the team tightened up, the assistants grumbled and UT lost games to a bad Arkansas team, the eventual National Champ Alabama team and a really bad USCe team.

By this time the Vol Nation was in an uproar. The more frustrations were expressed, the more coach Majors doubled down. He insulted fans, boosters and even coach Dickey.

Meanwhile there were several schools with potential or actual openings that were looking hard at coach Fulmer. The most realistic threats were Auburn and Clemson if I remember correctly.

With the success, the attention and the adulation of both the team and the boosters who were tired of Majors, coach Fulmer realized he had the leverage. He had not planned to unseat coach Majors, but he didn't want to leave UT either. It's at the point I believe he began suggesting to Charlie Anderson and other boosters that maybe he didn't want to have to go to Clemson or Auburn and he wished there was a way he could stay at UT.

When Majors went on a final indignant tirade, the Andersons and a few other boosters allowed coach Dickey to pull the plug.

Coach Fulmer is not JR Ewing. Neither is he lily white. Once the obvious opportunity presented itself, he stepped in and did what was necessary to get what he wanted. However had coach Majors responded differently, the opportunity would have never materialized. Coach Majors created the opportunity and coach Fulmer took advantage of it.

So all the folks taking one side or the other are misguided or misinformed. I'd venture it was almost 50/50 as far as responsibility.
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I was pretty young then and although a Vol fan, I didn't track it like I do now, this is all interesting and pretty much how I was kinda thinking. Thanks for taking the time to type all of that.
 
#5,222
#5,222
FacelessArya said:
Face down, A$$ up, that’s the way we like to
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