Question for those in the know

#26
#26
golfballvol said:
Personally I think we woulda been better off keeping Phil around a year or two longer. Should’ve seen more success once Clawson got the offense going
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Maybe but seems like I saw clawson mention that he didn't feel the o line got anything he was trying to implement. That says way more about Phil's inability to hire good offensive coordinators. Randy Sanders... Love him but that was a bad hire looking back.
 
#29
#29
WaywardVol said:
Hamilton was a big part of the problem. He was a feckless, pencil sharperner, who lacked the command that Dickey had. Trust me, Dickey has his faults, but he could go to Fulmer and say, focus on football, quit privately investigating Bama and hire an OC you can entrust the offense to 100%. Hamilton mishandled the firing and certianly mishandled the next hiring. Still, we’ve seen programs survive much worse and not have the extended cycle of suck we experienced. There was a lot of behind the scenes failures that shipwrecked the program.

Fulmer couldn’t see the forest for the trees. The fact that he never seriously pursued coaching again is all the evidence one needs to see where his heart was. He didn’t try to restore his legacy and show he still had it. He just quietly retired. Well, until he returned to finish the demolition he had started.
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Re: Fulmer. Pretty harsh and some baseless conjecture. There was nothing to restore--he won more games than any Tennessee head coach in our lifetime and was 11-5-1 vs. Bama (the primary reason they hate him so much). He was without question the greatest recruiter in our history. He didn't achieve what he did by being incompetent. Stop the groundless bashing and give the man his due. He is the very epitome of VFL.
 
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#31
#31
From what I have always heard, Haslam and gang put pressure on Hamilton in '07 to make changes.
Hamilton leaned on Fulmer and he hired Clawson.
Then '08 happened and the Haslam/Hamilton regime felt Clawson wasn't the answer...so out the door with Phil.


That is all rumor and speculation and only things I heard at the time...no real facts.
Also, not sure if Haslam was the only big money person behind the dealings...could have been others.
 
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#32
#32
a vol n tears said:
During that time SEC was just in the beginning stages of going all in on football. Tenn still had a good rep as a good program. They messed up not keeping the staff and naming one of them as interim HC. As I remember, some wanted to go that route.
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Or, you know, just let Cut name his staff and price.
 
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#36
#36
bigorangepoppa said:
If I remember correctly, everyone said that Clawson's offense took a year to learn, then in it's second year, you would see the results.
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I heard Dave Clawson make that statement to a group of fans and the coaching staff at an event in Knoxville. it was a along the lines of struggles to get it right in year one... QBs hated it and complained to Fulmer early in the year to take over the offense. He refused.
 
#37
#37
volfan411 said:
This^^^. We should have went with an interim coach for the next season instead of panic hiring Dooley.
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We should have appointed Kippy Brown as interim for the 2010 season and then conducted a proper coaching search after the season. We prioritized holding on to a recruiting class over getting the right coach. Huge mistake.
 
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#38
#38
Brave Volunteer said:
We should have appointed Kippy Brown as interim for the 2010 season and then conducted a proper coaching search. We prioritized holding on to a recruiting class over getting the right coach. Huge mistake.
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Agreed it set the program back at least 10 years by hiring Dooley. Who knows maybe Kippy would have been able to stabilize the program and stay around a few years.
 
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#39
#39
bigorangepoppa said:
If I remember correctly, everyone said that Clawson's offense took a year to learn, then in it's second year, you would see the results.
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P.O.T.S. VOL said:
Hope that's not entirely true of Knowles.
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That’s what I thought also. I would be disgusted if we started rioting after one bad season when we’ve put up with many bad years from others.
 
#40
#40
IndianaVol said:
From what I have always heard, Haslam and gang put pressure on Hamilton in '07 to make changes.
Hamilton leaned on Fulmer and he hired Clawson.
Then '08 happened and the Haslam/Hamilton regime felt Clawson wasn't the answer...so out the door with Phil.


That is all rumor and speculation and only things I heard at the time...no real facts.
Also, not sure if Haslam was the only big money person behind the dealings...could have been others.
Click to expand...
The truth of the matter was, the problem wasnt the offensive system. The problem was Fulmer's recruiting had slipped in the mid 00's and we couldnt just out talent teams like we did in the 90's to the early 00's. He also experienced a lot of roster turnover, due to recruiting players with very questionable character. I mean, Kiffin had to start not one, but TWO walk ons on the O-Line and a former walk on at middle linebacker! That tells you all you need to know regarding Fulmer's recruiting in those last couple of years.
 
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#42
#42
columbia vol said:
Which big donors wanted Fulmer out?
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It wasn’t all the boosters who wanted Fulmer out. It was a smaller but powerful group tied closely to the administration and board at the time, often lumped in with the Haslam donor circle whether that was fair or not. They felt the program had stalled after ’98, didn’t like where recruiting was headed compared to Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, and thought Fulmer had too much control. Meanwhile, plenty of traditional boosters, former players, and fans still supported him, which is why the whole thing turned into a civil war behind the scenes. The move was rushed, there was no real plan, and that’s how we ended up with the Kiffin–Dooley–Jones mess afterward.
 
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#46
#46
WaywardVol said:
Hamilton was a big part of the problem. He was a feckless, pencil sharperner, who lacked the command that Dickey had. Trust me, Dickey has his faults, but he could go to Fulmer and say, focus on football, quit privately investigating Bama and hire an OC you can entrust the offense to 100%. Hamilton mishandled the firing and certianly mishandled the next hiring. Still, we’ve seen programs survive much worse and not have the extended cycle of suck we experienced. There was a lot of behind the scenes failures that shipwrecked the program.

Fulmer couldn’t see the forest for the trees. The fact that he never seriously pursued coaching again is all the evidence one needs to see where his heart was. He didn’t try to restore his legacy and show he still had it. He just quietly retired. Well, until he returned to finish the demolition he had started.
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Hamilton did nothing without Haslam’s approval. Hamilton himself was a disaster in the way he handled Fulmer and Patterson as well in the coaching search.

The idea of Kiffin was a decent one. The contract he was under was terrible. He wasn’t anywhere near the coach he is today and had a lot of personal demons to deal with. He’s still a POS human and no program with a tradition like Tennessee should want him near it. (Although the dance party bs we do ourselves is embarrassing imo)
 
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#48
#48
Brave Volunteer said:
The truth of the matter was, the problem wasnt the offensive system. The problem was Fulmer's recruiting had slipped in the mid 00's and we couldnt just out talent teams like we did in the 90's to the early 00's. He also experienced a lot of roster turnover, due to recruiting players with very questionable character. I mean, Kiffin had to start not one, but TWO walk ons on the O-Line and a former walk on at middle linebacker! That tells you all you need to know regarding Fulmer's recruiting in those last couple of years.
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That makes a ton of sense and yeah, those mid 00s teams were a lot less loaded than prior years.
I wonder if Phil just got tired of the recruiting grind, was Cut that much of a recruiter, who did we lose that recruited so well for us back then?
 
#49
#49
lot of different therories on what was the "reason" for failure of continuing the 90s run. Many of the things mentioned likely played a part in the program falling back, but its just conjecture. No good way to pin it on any one, two or 6 things.

One thing not mentioned, I don't think, was how the SEC as a league was getting stronger. Like with recruiting. The other teams started keeping the better players at home. Is that because UT fell off or that the home schools were getting better?? The other schools improved recruiting, development and coaching..

It was a lot of factors with one major issue that led to the program dropping and moving into a 15 year cycle of poor performance was the horrible leadership of the administration of the university down through the athletic department. An athletic department going through as many ADs, chancellors and Presidents as UT did from 2003 until Boyd brought in Plowman and then Danny White, is setup to fail. and it showed with the majot program in the AD, football.

JMO
 
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#50
#50
LWSVOL said:
lot of different therories on what was the "reason" for failure of continuing the 90s run. Many of the things mentioned likely played a part in the program falling back, but its just conjecture. No good way to pin it on any one, two or 6 things.

One thing not mentioned, I don't think, was how the SEC as a league was getting stronger. Like with recruiting. The other teams started keeping the better players at home. Is that because UT fell off or that the home schools were getting better?? The other schools improved recruiting, development and coaching..

It was a lot of factors with one major issue that led to the program dropping and moving into a 15 year cycle of poor performance was the horrible leadership of the administration of the university down through the athletic department. An athletic department going through as many ADs, chancellors and Presidents as UT did from 2003 until Boyd brought in Plowman and then Danny White, is setup to fail. and it showed with the majot program in the AD, football.

JMO
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Yes, I should have mentioned this to coincide with the fall off in talent. Fulmer was no longer coaching/recruiting against the likes of Mike DuBose, Ron Zook, and Jim Donnan. Mark Richt had essentially shut off the talent spigot in Georgia to Fulmer, which was essential to those talented 90's teams. Not to mention Florida getting Urban Meyer and Alabama getting Saban. The league was getting in younger, hungrier coaches and Fulmer just couldn't keep up.
 
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