No. Fulmer is not capable of reaching the type coaches we will have to attract and then persuade to take the Tennessee job, to become relevant in the SEC East, then in the conference and hopefully on the national stage. Fulmer isn't that relevant or engaged in coaching, Nike, television and business circles. I'm not sure he ever got his degree from Tennessee, he may have finished, beats me.
Fulmer was an anti Haslam appointment from the spooled up public backlash against the Currie hire and an encompassing public backlash against the Haslam driven Schiano hire (yes he signed the memorandum of understanding on Haslam's jet) The anti Haslam movement cost Currie his job and the university $1 million, put Fulmer in the role under the auspices of an interim role and eventually cost Bev "Aunt Edna" Davenport her career as a Chancellor as well. Fulmer did not derail the Schiano hire, the fans and the public did that.
But Fulmer is a divisive figure, not a proven athletics director, with a chip on his shoulder that he was run off campus in 2008, didn't get the athletic director's job on his own and feels he is still owed money for his 1998 national championship and his "equity" in the program. In this context, a head coach that can make a difference at Tennessee will not come, regardless of the amount of money you put in front of them, such that with a Fulmer hire you will get nothing more than potential up and comers, overpriced salaries and insane buyouts.
Ironically, Currie would have done well as an athletic director at Tennessee if he had followed his instincts on the post Butch hire rather than following Haslam's mandate, he had obstacles to overcome from the Frank Martin firing at K State and a difficult reputation as a Doug Dickey like no nonsense, bottom line driven athletic director at K State, but most of those things can be polished over with the right head coach, the right contract and the right amount of money. But to think that Fulmer can restore the football program to a competitive position is the SEC with a head coaching hire is laughable, downright foolish and borderline insanity.
