Pruitt wouldnt survive a 1-7 record.

[kbear01]

Gundy wasn't an option, and yes, I absolutely believe Fulmer thought Pruitt was a better choice than the other three. Fulmer could very easily have interviewed Miles. He did not. And he would never hire Leach, nor re-hire Kiffin. He detests Kiffin for how he handled the first go around.

Then you favor option one, fire all of them. Gotcha.
So, let's say we do that. Gut the entire program. How long before UT is relevant again? 10-15 years? This, after waiting 15 years, already?

 

[rockydoc]

We're not going 1-7

No, more likely 1-11

 

[BeardedVol]

And how long between PF's hiring until JP's hiring? Why? To shut the media dumpster fire down, that was completely eroding any of the program's leftover credibility. In first responder's terms, he made an attempt to stop the immediate source of the bleeding. The larger internal problem must now be dealt with.
The other options are:
Fire JP and Fulmer, which puts the coaching and AD search in the hands of the administration.
Fire JP and move Fulmer to interim, which put the coaching search in the hands of the administration.
Fire JP, and move Chaney or Tee to interim, and give Fulmer time to get our man. I am sure that he has already used his connections to reach out to some on his list.
Do nothing, and trust the process to eventually work.

Fulmer won't survive hiring Pruitt after year three if his record is 5-7, 3-9, 5-7. Phil will resign at the end of year three, and a new AD will replace Pruitt at the end of year four if that's the case. I can imagine that average attendance in year four will be in the ~70k range by then, and money is the only language the athletic department speaks.

 

[give_him 6]

Pruitt hasn’t stayed in one place longer than 3 years.

View attachment 226426

I overlooked his time at Alabama.

 

[Weezer]

We low-balled Dan Mullen, and Florida ponied up the cash and got him. We had Mike Leach, but Fulmer torpedoed hiring him. Pretending that Pruitt was the only option, and that for some reason we have some sort of coaching pay cap at $4 million/year, is just an excuse to go cheap. UT AD has had the benefit of a decade of fan good will, still coming to games, still buying merch, and now that good will is exhausted. Pruitt was a risk at the very best, and at the moment, it's looking like he was a poor choice.

Game attendance is dropping, there's no national interest in the team except to make fun of us, and there's an entire generation of kids who've grown to adults and never known Tennessee as more than a footnote in the schedules of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. You are right, if we are just going to go cheap again, then let's just keep Pruitt and at least we can avoid another coaching search and have something to laugh about, but let's just stop pretending that there's any pretense of returning UT to a position of success in college football if bargain-basement coaches is the route we've settled on.

That's the problem. It isn't a question, we absolutely settled on the option of bargained priced coaches years ago. Why would that change now? Because fans want it? We wanted it in every single one of the previous coaching searches and it meant squat. It's not going to magically change. So screaming to fire Pruitt is pointless. Honestly, the best we can hope for is he figures this out and turns it around because I believe that more likely than UT ponying up the cash to bring in a big name coach. It's sad, it's frustrating, but that's where we're at.

 

[kbear01]

Fulmer won't survive hiring Pruitt after year three if his record is 5-7, 3-9, 5-7. Phil will resign at the end of year three, and a new AD will replace Pruitt at the end of year four if that's the case. I can imagine that average attendance in year four will be in the ~70k range by then, and money is the only language the athletic department speaks.

So, you would also favor option one? Fire the lot of them?

 

[revjayp]

People can think that because they know how damaging to the program it could be. We can survive 1-7. It would suck, but we can survive it. I'm not sure we can survive firing a second year coach, hiring another google coach, and starting all over again. It's not about defending Pruitt or thinking he's the guy, I just think at this point we're stuck riding this horse for at the very least another year if we have any hope of saving the program.

Unless you can also offer up a rock solid guarantee that we'd be willing to spend top dollar to actually hire a proven coach, and given the current instability, that's gonna take a lot of money.

We’re basically upside down in our car. We can’t keep rolling our negative equity into the next car. We need to drive it a little while to allow the value to catch up to what we owe.

 

[rockydoc]

we have to give pruitt his 3 years. We cant keep hiring a new coach every 2 years- thats how we got here in the first place. Hold yr nose and give the man his 3 years . He has assembled a good recruiting staff and if we get enough good players the wins will come. Build it and they will come!

How is it working out for Auburn firing Chizik two years after winning a Naty? Didn’t they fire Doug Barfield after one year?

 

[Weezer]

And how long between PF's hiring until JP's hiring? Why? To shut the media dumpster fire down, that was completely eroding any of the program's leftover credibility. In first responder's terms, he made an attempt to stop the immediate source of the bleeding. The larger internal problem must now be dealt with.
The other options are:
Fire JP and Fulmer, which puts the coaching and AD search in the hands of the administration.
Fire JP and move Fulmer to interim, which put the coaching search in the hands of the administration.
Fire JP, and move Chaney or Tee to interim, and give Fulmer time to get our man. I am sure that he has already used his connections to reach out to some on his list.
Do nothing, and trust the process to eventually work.

You're presenting a bit of a false narrative. It isn't like Pruitt was the only interview. Fulmer could have interviewed any number of coaches but made his choice. He hired Pruitt. It wasn't about rushing to fill the void. He thought Pruitt was a good choice.

 

[FranklinVFL]

I only know one “connected” person in Knoxville.
He told me that if we lose the next 5, that the money people would pony up the buyout.
We have never started 1-7. That would be too big an embarrassment for our big donors.
Fulmer would be interim and they would go after a “proven power 5 winner”. (I laughed when he said that but he says you don’t know how angry Georgia State made them).

So, can we win one of these next 5:
At Florida
Georgia (after a bye week)
MSU
At Bama
USC

Pruitt has to just win one of those games and then get 2 more out of UAB, UK, MU, Vandy.
But, one of those two wins must be Vandy.
Our donors could, I’m told, live with 4-8 and 2 SEC wins if we don’t finish last in the East and Pruitt can hang onto Bailey and a decent 25-30 ranked recruiting class.

If we can somehow win tomorrow, the only sure losses left are UGA and Bama.
But, if we get our clocks cleaned by UF, we may just fall apart.

*** Many grains of salt needed, of course. This is just one guy. But, he’s not a liar and he’s a wealthy blue blood and travels in circles that I could never get anywhere.near.

That is the funniest part right there....that people at UT would be fine with a #30 ranked recruiting class...and that would save his job. Just tells me your "connected" person likely is not too "connected" to feel that if he can recruit worse than Butch he would be fine.

 

[kbear01]

So, we are just going to burn down the house and the fire the grounds, again? Wow! I do not have 15 more years of this trash in me. If we do this, again, that is what you'll get. 10-15 years of 0-8, 1-7, 2-6, no bowl games, losing to Wyoming, Army, Ga State. But, by all means, light your damn torches, grab your pitchforks, and raise it to the damn ground! Again!

 

[Weezer]

Then you favor option one, fire all of them. Gotcha.
So, let's say we do that. Gut the entire program. How long before UT is relevant again? 10-15 years? This, after waiting 15 years, already?

LOL Who said anything about options? I stated facts. Not my fault you don't like them.

 

[Tennesseefan2019]

So, we are just going to burn down the house and the fire the grounds, again? Wow! I do not have 15 more years of this trash in me. If we do this, again, that is what you'll get. 10-15 years of 0-8, 1-7, 2-6, no bowl games, losing to Wyoming, Army, Ga State. But, by all means, light your damn torches, grab your pitchforks, and raise it to the damn ground! Again!

Jeremy Pruitt may burn it down all by himself

 

[FranklinVFL]

sorry but no proven power 5 winner coach would come here if Pruitt was fired after only 2 years...
what if that coach struggled the first couple years also.. we fire him too...
we have to stop this coaching carousel we have been doing...
we need stability right now....

Agree if we fire him in year 2, we will be looking at the NAIA for a coach--no one will want to come here if we fire a coach who inherited a dumpster fire in 2 years.

Somewhat disagree with the coaching carousel...Dooley and Butch both had time to turn the program around...didn't fire either of them too quickly. Heck, Butch got what, 5 years?!? I feel like we gave both of them sufficient time to prove if they could perform the job or not....minimum 4 years to prove your worth is not a coaching carousel. Except (if your point is) that we keep hiring science experiments instead of proven coaches...THAT carousel we need to get off of and go hire a proven winner (if Pruitt is still not successful in years 4-5).

 

[onevol74]

So, you would also favor option one? Fire the lot of them?

I would not favor firing anyone. The incompetence of our major donors, administration, and athletic director is a generational condition that can only be corrected by another Renaissance. I do not see an Age of Enlightenment until those three factors change.

 

[FranklinVFL]

If Pruitt goes winless in the SEC he should be fired for cause

No....but if he goes winless with Butch's recruits as upperclassmen, we should be able to get out of Butch's buyout 'For Cause'.

 

[Tennesseefan2019]

Agree if we fire him in year 2, we will be looking at the NAIA for a coach--no one will want to come here if we fire a coach who inherited a dumpster fire in 2 years.

Somewhat disagree with the coaching carousel...Dooley and Butch both had time to turn the program around...didn't fire either of them too quickly. Heck, Butch got what, 5 years?!? I feel like we gave both of them sufficient time to prove if they could perform the job or not....minimum 4 years to prove your worth is not a coaching carousel. Except (if your point is) that we keep hiring science experiments instead of proven coaches...THAT carousel we need to get off of and go hire a proven winner (if Pruitt is still not successful in years 4-5).

If Tennessee is just as horrific in 2020 as they are this year he's a goner and wont be around for 2021. If he's still around in 2021 under those circumstances Neyland Stadium will be pretty darn empty.

 

[BeardedVol]

That's the problem. It isn't a question, we absolutely settled on the option of bargained priced coaches years ago. Why would that change now? Because fans want it? We wanted it in every single one of the previous coaching searches and it meant squat. It's not going to magically change. So screaming to fire Pruitt is pointless. Honestly, the best we can hope for is he figures this out and turns it around because I believe that more likely than UT ponying up the cash to bring in a big name coach. It's sad, it's frustrating, but that's where we're at.

Unfortunately, the answer is money. Like I said, UT AD has been skating by on a decade of good will, and that has run out. Neyland is not going to see sold out home games with the product we are fielding, and our value as one of the most profitable college football programs is dropping yearly now. Hiring and retaining poor coaches, is no longer a sustainable practice because the Tennessee fan base is aging, and there are fewer younger fans who aren't putting money into supporting a losing program.

 

[onevol74]

So, we are just going to burn down the house and the fire the grounds, again? Wow! I do not have 15 more years of this trash in me. If we do this, again, that is what you'll get. 10-15 years of 0-8, 1-7, 2-6, no bowl games, losing to Wyoming, Army, Ga State. But, by all means, light your damn torches, grab your pitchforks, and raise it to the damn ground! Again!

Sounds like you sense that you are losing your argument. A shack is not a house and sometimes urban renewal is advantageous for everyone.

 

[BeardedVol]

So, you would also favor option one? Fire the lot of them?

Isn't that usually how it goes when an AD makes a really bad hire? I think Pruitt will get 4 years, regardless of what happens this year or next. That doesn't mean I agree with him getting that time, but I don't think that the UT AD will see the writing on the wall until profits and attendance plummet further.

 

[Weezer]

Unfortunately, the answer is money. Like I said, UT AD has been skating by on a decade of good will, and that has run out. Neyland is not going to see sold out home games with the product we are fielding, and our value as one of the most profitable college football programs is dropping yearly now. Hiring and retaining poor coaches, is no longer a sustainable practice because the Tennessee fan base is aging, and there are fewer younger fans who aren't putting money into supporting a losing program.

As long as we depend on the same, older boosters, I don't see any big changes coming. We may not get sell outs, but the stadium won't be empty either. Until such time as the boosters see fit to pay more for coaches, we will be stuck hiring lower tier coaches.

 

[Volfaninfl2]

We low-balled Dan Mullen, and Florida ponied up the cash and got him. We had Mike Leach, but Fulmer torpedoed hiring him. Pretending that Pruitt was the only option, and that for some reason we have some sort of coaching pay cap at $4 million/year, is just an excuse to go cheap. UT AD has had the benefit of a decade of fan good will, still coming to games, still buying merch, and now that good will is exhausted. Pruitt was a risk at the very best, and at the moment, it's looking like he was a poor choice.

Game attendance is dropping, there's no national interest in the team except to make fun of us, and there's an entire generation of kids who've grown to adults and never known Tennessee as more than a footnote in the schedules of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. You are right, if we are just going to go cheap again, then let's just keep Pruitt and at least we can avoid another coaching search and have something to laugh about, but let's just stop pretending that there's any pretense of returning UT to a position of success in college football if bargain-basement coaches is the route we've settled on.

Interesting you said that about Mullen. Don’t know if someone already mentioned this, but as I remember it, Mullen was considering TN, but as soon as the Schiano name came out, he announced he was going to FL. Thanks, Currie.

 

[Weezer]

Interesting you said that about Mullen. Don’t know if someone already mentioned this, but as I remember it, Mullen was considering TN, but as soon as the Schiano name came out, he announced he was going to FL. Thanks, Currie.

From my understanding, Mullen asked Curry for more time because he had heard the Florida job might be coming open. Mullen always preferred returning to UF over coming to UT.

 

[onevol74]

Interesting you said that about Mullen. Don’t know if someone already mentioned this, but as I remember it, Mullen was considering TN, but as soon as the Schiano name came out, he announced he was going to FL. Thanks, Currie.

I would like to know the back story on John Currie. I have to wonder if he had to sign a confidentiality clause to get his buyout.

 

[BeardedVol]

From my understanding, Mullen asked Curry for more time because he had heard the Florida job might be coming open. Mullen always preferred returning to UF over coming to UT.

Mullen was going to whomever gave him the cash he wanted. Other than the current AD, Mullen has zero ties to the university except for having coached there with Urban.